The Captured Enigma

A/N [ There are some things I want to get out of the way really quick.

Firstly, I'm sorry this is shorter than the other chapters by so much, I just couldn't figure out this chapter for the life of me. If it feels forced, it's probably because it kind of is.

Secondly, sorry if the timing of things seems weird, I'm pretty new to writing stories for others so this is a new kind of challenge for me.

Thirdly, I am sorry for any future delays on chapters. I'm in high school, and I have a lot of honors classes, I have to do band-related things after school sometimes, and I have a job I work at for a decent portion of each week.

So that's it, once again I am sorry this is short and if it feels forced. I hope you all have a wonderful week, and hopefully, I will be on schedule next Sunday as well.]

*3rd Person POV*

Everything happened so fast that Callista could barely believe anything happened at all. As soon as the guards appeared, she could feel something about to go very wrong, and she was right. Once their cell door was opened and she felt her arm harshly grabbed, she couldn't even fight back in time for her to react to anything happening around her, which included her friend yelling something and launching himself at the guard holding onto her, or at least he was until the arm holding her was detached and fell right next to her.

The sight and sound would have been sickening if not for the fact that Callista was mesmerized by the things Aaron was doing right now. With every guard dropping dead, or torn limb thrown around, there was a certain savageness that she had never seen in him. This was something she wasn't prepared for, and something that scared her. Not because it was terrifying, even if it was, but because she was scared of what would happen to him. With every passing second he spent in this crazed state, Callista could see a sort of bloodthirstiness hidden inside him grow, and this was what scared her the most. She felt him slowly slipping away into a state of killing that ran so deep she was afraid it would be permanent, but just as she thought that, her eyes met his, and it was like he was dunked under a cold waterfall.

Callista has been watching Aaron for a while, because he was someone she couldn't figure out. No matter who they were, up until that point she could get a general grasp on who someone was if they spent long enough around her. But Aaron? No matter how much he was around her, Callista couldn't seem to get more than a small reading, as if he was trying his best to stay just far enough away from her to not get hurt. The one thing she always saw was pain, running so deep Callista would often feel pain just from seeing so much pain in another being, let alone someone she has started to care about.

At this moment though, something was different about that pain. Aaron's eyes held a sort of dawning realization that not only greatly deepened his pain, but gave off so much pain that tears unknowingly started falling from Callista's eyes. Before she could process just how vast this pain was, Aaron fell to his knees and collapsed into unconsciousness with hidden tears streaking down his face, mostly hidden by the large amount of blood covering him at this point. With the loss of eye contact, Callista realized the guards slowly encircling Aaron's unconscious body, and without thinking, she started to swiftly get up to go and save him, but not before she was yanked backward by AJ.

"What do you think you're doing?!" AJ seemed tense as he hissed out a whisper just loud enough for Callista to hear.

"We can't just leave him out there alone, what do you think will happen to him?" Callista was angry at AJ for stopping her. This was their friend, they can't just leave him to the fates of whatever monstrous things they would do to him.

"And what makes you think you can do anything about it? What's the point in all of us getting caught and potentially killed?!" The second sentence was just barely a whisper, but hearing AJ's reasoning cooled Callista down just long enough for her to realize that whatever Aaron just did, all three of them couldn't save him if they jumped out there now.

Before Callista could retort to AJ, she felt something from the direction of Aaron, so she quickly looked towards the group of guards slowly inching away from him and what seemed to be a murky oval with a magenta hue surrounded by a ring of red. Out of this came the man from years ago, still covered in his cloak, and seemingly excited from the way he was moving. Soon after his arrival, Aaron's body floated up to him, and as Aaron went through the portal the cloaked man started barking orders about cleaning and being done with bringing useless subjects to him. With those final orders, he swiftly left through the portal and both disappeared as if they were never there in the first place, leaving each of the three in the cell hopeless as they all realized the same thing at once.

'He can use the force!' The force was a very widely known subject, though the only thing that was generally known was they could make things float around, and most often nothing more was known about force users to the general public and below. The one thing they each knew though, was that everything just got a lot more complicated.

* Aaron POV*

"-n… a-on… Aaron" As I slowly gained consciousness, I heard a distant voice calling out to me. It was a voice I had never heard before, but it felt familiar to me. Once I started stirring, I heard another voice, but this one was much less familiar.

"So, you're finally awake, huh?" Calling out in a raspy and old, yet powerful and clear voice, a man hidden in the shadows seemed to be speaking to me, prompting me to open my eyes in panic as the last thing I remember was fighting. Mistake number one was opening my eyes so fast, as a harsh light was pointing directly onto me, causing my eyes to sting and immediately shut again. Mistake number two was jolting to survey my surroundings, as a sharp pain flew through my whole body and almost made me scream from how bad it was.

With my body screaming at me from the pain of the light and my body, I could only lay still as my eyes slowly adjusted to the bright light assaulting my eyes. Once my eyes could finally stop throbbing and I got used to the immense pain my body was under, I was finally able to slightly look around, which provided me with nothing more than a brightly illuminated area around me, and a greatly shaded area surrounding that. I seemed to be on top of a table of sorts, or at the very least it seemed very solid, and from the little movements I made, I could only assume I wasn't tied down to it, but as I was in too much pain to move more than a little I didn't try to get up.

"You did quite a number on those guards earlier, it's rare to see someone naturally use that power." His words started to clear my foggy mind, bringing back vivid images of what I did during the fight with the guards. I didn't mind; in fact, I found it kind of intriguing that I could do such massive shows of strength. That intrigue didn't last for very long though, as I started to finish the memory. The moment I saw Caroline's face match up to Callista's, I remembered the realization that hit me, and the thoughts I just had made it even worse. To think nothing of me doing such horrific actions just reinforced my ideas of being unworthy of redemption. Even the thoughts of escaping were drowned by a sea of horror at the realization. I was only brought out of my growing existential crisis from a sudden spike in pain in my leg.

"AHH!" Unintentionally screaming, I looked down to my leg and saw it slowly splitting open on its own, but instead of blood spilling everywhere, it was contained as if nothing was going on. Even though the pain wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the void, it was still painful enough for me to momentarily blank out as I could do nothing but scream, until I felt my mouth forcefully close and get covered with something that wasn't even there.

"I would suggest you suck it the hell up boy because this is just the beginning for you. I don't know how you did what you did so naturally, or why it seemed that you increasingly got more powerful the more you did it, but I am going to find out one way or another, no matter how long it takes."

As this sentence was being said, I felt my leg closing again, as if it was never split in the first place. With the pain leaving but still fresh in my mind, I watched as the old man approached slowly until I finally saw a man in a cloak, and once he fully stepped into the light I realized who it was. It was the man I had seen all those years ago, and he still had the same piercing gaze as before, and even though he was in such harsh light while being right in front of me, I still couldn't see anything but his eyes underneath his cloak.

"Strange, even now that you're awake I can't seem to feel anything from you. It's as if you were no different from any other normal mortal, which from what I've seen is the exact opposite of what you are. Fascinating, simply fascinating." The old man's gaze slowly adopted a light different from the normal investigative gaze, a light that held a sort of sick fascination that made my body shiver. Knowing he had a lightsaber gave me the impression that he is most likely a force user, and the actions he just took made that impression become a fact as I felt the force leaving my mouth, allowing me to speak.

"Who are you?" I didn't have much hope for getting out of here alive, and I could tell he wouldn't let me go freely, so I decided to try to find out the most information that I could to hopefully make some form of connection to the characters or factions I remember from Star Wars media I had seen.

He seemed slightly amused that this was the question I chose to ask him as he answered my question, "13, you can just refer to me as 13. Though you'll probably end up calling me a monster, bastard, or something similar once we really get started. I hope you're ready for some fun because I'm about to get to know you REALLY well." With more shivers running through my body at that sentence, he slowly faded into the blackness of my surroundings with nothing but his gleaming red eyes left before he completely disappeared, and along with him went the light shining on me, leaving me in complete desolation with nothing but my own broken thoughts to keep me company until he comes to do the same thing he did to my leg to the rest of me.