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Chapter 12 Katrina lay panting in the darkness, tortured once again by a nightmare of her father’s cruelty. Xenritha and Cha-Lee hadn’t touched minds with her in days and the nightmares seemed to plague her constantly. Even while awake Katrina could see Palpatine’s face scowling or sneering at her, sending shivers up and down her spine until all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and hide from the galaxy. “You’re scared again,” Tabi said, worried for her friend but unsure of how to help the girl. “It’s not good for you to be frightened all the time. You’ve stopped eating.” “No I haven’t,” Katrina responded weakly. “Forcing down a few bites of the garbage they feed you in the mess hall isn’t eating.” “I’m not hungry.” “Because you’re so scared, I know. I don’t like it.” “I haven’t been sleeping very well lately.” “Because of Ker?” “No. Just nightmares about the past, before I came here.” “The Empire come to get me in my dreams too,” Tabi confided. “But in my dream I can do what I like and they can not hurt me. You must control your dreams, young Katrina. Do not let them control you.” “I wish it was that easy. I’m not even sure that it is just memories or fears visiting me in my dreams. I can’t help thinking it may be more…” “You’ll drive yourself mad with this,” Tabi warned. “Too late,” Katrina grumbled to herself. That night, as she lay in bed after yet another nightmare, wondering where the other two Zanespots were and what they were doing she began to wonder if she had been right. She jumped at every little noise, real and imagined, and scared herself with the sound of her own breathing. Was she truly going mad? She couldn’t help but wonder. Her head jerked up and her eyes searched the dark room for movement. She could have sworn something had moved along the wall opposite her. She looked but could find nothing. She lay back down but was again startled by the feeling that something within her room had just moved. She sat up, and crawled to the foot of the bed, looking harder and longer into the blackness but seeing nothing that would explain the feeling or the goosebumps appearing all over her skin. Scared to the point of shaking Katrina crawled backwards back up the bed and sat atop her pillow, with her back against the hard stone wall, and wrapped her blanket around herself. She could not see anything out there, but she knew something was wrong and saw no reason to turn her back to it. Exhaustion took hold of the girl and her head soon tipped forward slightly. She was laying on her sleep couch listening to the breathing of several of her half-sisters and cousins. She lay back with a sigh, thinking that her time at the boarding school, not to mention the deaths of her father and Vader, had just been a dream. She turned restlessly, disturbed by the knowledge that she would never truly be free of Palpatine and looked at her older sister and best friend, Cassidy. She gasped suddenly as her eyes met not her sister but what appeared to be a long dead skeleton. “You knew you would be punished. Did you think I would wait until you returned to fulfill your punishment? You were a bad girl, Katrina, punishment was necessary, extreme punishment.” Palpatine’s pale face and bent figure stepped out of the darkness, so close that she instinctively backed away in her bed. She held the thin blanket before herself, as though the flimsy, battered fabric could some how shield her from the Emperor’s wrath. He cackled at her and raised one hand. Katrina squeezed her eyes shut, knowing all too well what was coming. But it never came. The lightning bolts that she expected to sear her skin and cause all sorts of horrible, awful pain never came. Katrina waited and waited until she had no choice but to let out the breath she had been holding. She dared not open her eyes for fear of seeing him again. Instead a voice touched her ear that was almost worse than the offered punishment. “I will find you,” it whispered menacingly. “You are mine and I will find you.” Katrina did open her eyes and saw only darkness. The gold ringed gray eyes searched the black until they could focus on the room, dimly shown in a silvery moonlight. She was at the school. In a few hours the morning meal would be served then she would go to spend the day with Tabi. She was safe, she told herself, then she heard the voice again, it was laughing at her. |
