This wasn't just sensing. This wasn't just the Force giving a little nudge or a tingle. This was… annihilation. Followed by violent reconstruction.
I forced myself to sit up slowly, leaning back against the cold tal crate, breathing through the nausea and the lingering terror. My mind raced, trying to categorize the impossible.
Force Sense? Was this what Jedi felt? This all-consuming, self-destroying imrsion? This terrifying loss of individuality?
The sheer intensity, the dissolution… no. This wasn't just Force Sense. It couldn't be right? It was like using a lightsaber to butter toast – ludicrously overpowered for the basic task, and this was supposed to be what padawans are learning in kindergarden? Bullshit.
Okay, Alex, think. What did you know about the Force? Beyond the movies, the shows, the gas… anything. Jedi 101: Force Sense was basic. Padawan stuff. Feeling the living things around you, getting a vibe for danger, maybe sensing hidden stuff through walls. Obi-Wan feeling Alderaan's destruction? Big scale, but still feeling. Kanan using it to "see" when blinded? Yeah, sensing spatial relationships, obstacles, living presences.
But this? This was beyond that, like becoming the concrete itself. Feeling the dust motes. Knowing the temperature gradient in the air. Sensing the vibration of the datapad's through the air itself? That wasn't sensing your environnt. That was being your environnt, down to the molecular buzz.
It wasn't just perceiving the Force; it was violently rging with the physical world it flowed through, dissolving the barrier between "" and "not-" in a way that felt less like enlightennt and more like existential deletion.
No Jedi tutorial ever ntioned screaming internally as you beca one with the floor gri. No Sith holocron boasted about the sheer, pants-wetting terror of nearly vanishing into the background hum of a basent. Forget detecting hidden enemies – with this, I could probably tell you the exact mineral composition of the wall, or count the individual threads in a burlap sack from across the room.Okay, maybe not the forr one, that was still quite a bit more than my ability.
Like even if I can feel things, things didn't co with a label of what they were. A tal composite didn't knew it was made of what constituents. Maybe if I if tried feeling and rembering the feel of every elent, maybe then I could do that, but h, I had better jobs to do than that. A spectroter could do the job better anyways.
The main thing was, It was a sensory organ I didn't know I had suddenly ripped open and exposed to raw reality, cranked up to eleven. Broken? Maybe. Stupidly overpowered? Absolutely. But what was it?
I racked my brain but to no avail. Without a holocron, a ghostly Qui-Gon, or even a grumpy old hermit to ask, I was stuck theorizing in the dark. Literally.
Frustration gnawed at . Okay, maybe the first ti was a fluke, a weird surge. Gotta try again. Control it. Channel it. Be the Zen master, not the screaming dust mote.
For the next… however long (days blurred), I sat. And sat. And sat. Cross-legged on the cold floor, back against a crate of space-potatoes (which, let tell you, is not a comfortable ditation cushion), eyes closed, breathing like I was trying to win a "Most Serene Basent Dweller" contest.
"Empty mind… feel the Force… be one with the… ugh, my butt's asleep."
I'd chase that fleeting feeling. Sotis, for a split second, the world would shift. The boundaries would soften. I'd get a flash of the crate's coolness against my back, the rough texture of the floor beneath , the air currents shifting – all simultaneously, internally mapped. Then poof. Gone. Like trying to catch smoke with my bare hands.
Other tis? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Just the familiar chorus of hunger pangs, cold toes, and the profound boredom of being trapped in a hole with only your own (confused) thoughts and a dwindling stash of chalky food.
The montary bursts were maddening. Teases. Proof the ability was there, lurking under the surface like a scared loth-cat, but utterly refusing to co out and play nicely. Each failed attempt cranked the frustration dial higher. My tiny fists would clench.
I'd grit my teeth (which felt weird in a kid's mouth). ditation wasn't calming down; it was turning into a tiny, irritable pressure cooker.
"Okay, screw this," I muttered aloud on what felt like the tenth failed-sit of the day. My voice echoed slightly in the cramped space. "Sitting on my ass in the dark isn't working. I'm just getting more pissed off and probably developing a permanent dent in my tailbone from this damn floor."
Hyperfocusing wasn't the solution. It was making things worse. I needed… air. Movent. A change of scenery. Even if that "scenery" was just the ransacked ruins of Ezra's forr ho, one floor up. It was ti. Adventure ti. Sort of. More like "Desperately Need To Not Go Stir-Crazy In This Hole" ti.
I waited. Patiently. Ish. Until the faint sliver of light bleeding through the floorboards above dimd, then vanished completely. Night. Or at least, deep dusk on Lothal. The safest ti to peek.
Heart suddenly thumping against my ribs like a scared bird, I crept to the hidden panel – the one Mira and Ephraim had slamd shut over Ezra. My small fingers found the cleverly disguised release catch Ezra's mory supplied. It took a bit of fumbling – coordination in a seven-year-old body was still a work in progress – but finally, with a soft snick, the catch released.
I pushed upwards, slowly, milliter by milliter. The panel was heavy. Dust rained down, making want to sneeze. I held it. Just a crack. Just enough to see.
One green eye pressed to the narrow opening.
The sight was a scene to behold.
The room above was frozen in a mont of violent chaos. Overturned furniture lay like slain beasts. Cushions had been slashed open, their fluffy guts spilling onto the dusty floor. Shattered datapads and broken crockery littered the space like morbid confetti.
A table leg was snapped clean off. The Empire hadn't just searched this place. They'd gutted it. Raged through it. Taken their fury at not finding Ezra out on everything his parents owned.
But the thick layer of undisturbed dust blanketing the wreckage… that told a different story. It shimred faintly in the starlight filtering through a cracked window. No boot prints disturbed its smooth surface. No hand had touched anything in here for days. Maybe weeks. They hadn't been back. The trap was cold.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. It misted slightly in the cool air drifting down from above. Safe. For now. The ruined room wasn't welcoming, but it was a space bigger than the cellar. A space with stale air that wasn't my stale air. A change.
Ti to explore my new, incredibly depressing, front yard. Carefully.
Yeah, so turns out there wasn't much left upstairs worth taking. The Imps had done a pretty thorough job looting the place, but hey, I managed to snag a few things they'd missed—so boxes of cookies (score!), salt, spices (because let's be real, space-potatoes taste like wet cardboard without them), and a couple of ratty blankets. Oh, and a bar of soap, because wow did I sll like a bantha's armpit after days in that cellar.
I was this close to risking a quick sponge bath when—thud. Footsteps. Heavy. Imperial-issue boot heavy.
Nope. Nope nope nope.
I booked it back to the trapdoor so fast I nearly face-planted into the floor. The panel clicked shut behind , sealing back into my glorified storage closet. The Bridgers had prepped this place good—rations, water, tools, even a tiny portable fresher unit cramd in the corner. Prepper paradise. Too bad their whole "hide our kid here if things go bad" plan didn't account for said kid being body-snatched by so random dude from another universe.
I let out a dry laugh. "Sorry, Ezra," I muttered. "Guess you got screwed twice, huh?"
The guilt hit then. Not just "oh no, I survived and they didn't" guilt. More like… I'd straight-up stolen this kid's life. His body, his mories, his parents. And yeah, it wasn't like I asked for this, but here I was, squatting in his existence like so kind of cosmic freeloader.
And the worst part? I wasn't even so badass protagonist. I was just Alex—so guy who used to yell at video gas and eat cold pizza for breakfast. Now I was supposed to… what? Be a Jedi? Save the galaxy? All while stuck in the body of a seven-year-old who couldn't even reach the top shelf?
I flicked through the datapad again, scrolling past Imperial propaganda like "Mining Quotas: Good, Actually!" and "Curfews Keep You Safe!" Still no ntion of the Bridgers. Nothing. Like they'd just… vanished.
But one na kept popping up—Governor Ryder Azadi. The forums were split on him. So called him a rebel sympathizer, others said he was just playing nice with the Empire to keep Lothal from getting glassed. Either way, the Imps were clearly keeping an eye on him.
A thought started forming. In the show, Azadi had helped the Bridgers. If he was still around, still on their side… maybe he was my way out of this ss. My ticket to finding Mira and Ephraim.
If they're even alive.
I shoved that thought down hard. They had to be alive.
The datapad's glow made the shadows in the cellar stretch weirdly. Eight years. That's how long I had to wait before the Ghost crew showed up in canon. Eight years of hiding in basents and eating sad potato paste while the galaxy moved on without .
Yeah… no.
I wasn't gonna be that kid—the one who cowers in the dark until the plot decides to rescue him. If I was stuck being Ezra Bridger now? Fine. But I wasn't waiting around for Kanan to show up and play hero.
I'd get strong. I'd learn the Force—even if it tried to dissolve into the floor every ti I used it. And when the ti ca?
I'd save myself.
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