(no subject)
Atton has seven messages when he gets back to the tiny, laigrek infested motel he’s staying at. Each one just a burst of static, with the occasional flicker of the Disciple’s face. He ignores them.
Sleeping doesn’t work. Nightmares of battles from the wars rise up to the top of his mind as soon as he closes his eyes, and he can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching him, even though he knows that if anyone was, he would’ve detected them by now.
Walking doesn’t clear his head. It helps even less when the gibbering Rodian comes over to him, thrusting the head of a protocol droid into his hands and running off. Atton doesn’t care enough to run after him.
It’s not until he reaches the motel again that he sets the head on a table, fiddling around with it’s control panel until he finds switches for three holo-recordings.
The first is just audio, just laughter. Deep, soft laughter that eventually becomes shrill and maniacal, and at some point, becomes over-the-top acting, clearly farcical, until it suddenly shuts off.
The second is just visual. A revolving, three-dimensional model of Atton, from the chest up. Atton recognises it from his wanted posters, it’s hardly difficult to find.
His left eye is blanked out. It’s just black, all over. Atton snorts, switching it off and turning to the next one.
The third one, he sees, is going to be the longest. Atton recognises the screaming as soon as it starts - The people in the factory. The image is mostly obscured by smoke, and the glare of flames, but the screaming, quickly giving way to choking, tells him enough.
The metal of the factory is scorched, disintegrated in some places, melted in others. Occasionally, he catches a glimpse of the people. They’re all unharmed. It immediately clicks as wrong in Atton’s head, even as they start to choke, and choke, and not die.
It lasts almost an hour. Almost an hour of screams, turning to chokes, to eventual silence as they finally, finally die.
Atton just pushes the droid’s head to one side, and looks for a door.
Sleeping doesn’t work. Nightmares of battles from the wars rise up to the top of his mind as soon as he closes his eyes, and he can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching him, even though he knows that if anyone was, he would’ve detected them by now.
Walking doesn’t clear his head. It helps even less when the gibbering Rodian comes over to him, thrusting the head of a protocol droid into his hands and running off. Atton doesn’t care enough to run after him.
It’s not until he reaches the motel again that he sets the head on a table, fiddling around with it’s control panel until he finds switches for three holo-recordings.
The first is just audio, just laughter. Deep, soft laughter that eventually becomes shrill and maniacal, and at some point, becomes over-the-top acting, clearly farcical, until it suddenly shuts off.
The second is just visual. A revolving, three-dimensional model of Atton, from the chest up. Atton recognises it from his wanted posters, it’s hardly difficult to find.
His left eye is blanked out. It’s just black, all over. Atton snorts, switching it off and turning to the next one.
The third one, he sees, is going to be the longest. Atton recognises the screaming as soon as it starts - The people in the factory. The image is mostly obscured by smoke, and the glare of flames, but the screaming, quickly giving way to choking, tells him enough.
The metal of the factory is scorched, disintegrated in some places, melted in others. Occasionally, he catches a glimpse of the people. They’re all unharmed. It immediately clicks as wrong in Atton’s head, even as they start to choke, and choke, and not die.
It lasts almost an hour. Almost an hour of screams, turning to chokes, to eventual silence as they finally, finally die.
Atton just pushes the droid’s head to one side, and looks for a door.