Eli Kaen awoke to silence.
It wasn't the comfortable silence of a lazy morning. It was heavy, expectant—like the stillness before a storm. He blinked slowly, staring up at a ceiling carved in gentle swirls and ancient patterns, its stone kissed orange by Coruscant's evening light.
He sat up with a sharp breath.
Everything around him was unfamiliar. The bedroll, the clothes, the sounds of distant footsteps on polished marble. His hands were too small—child-sized. He pressed them to his face, his chest. The panic built slowly, like rising steam.
He stood shakily. Around him, children his age shuffled about in muted voices, preparing for the next lesson. They wore simple brown tunics. Initiates. Younglings.
He crossed to the window and looked out.
The Jedi Temple loomed in full, impossible majesty. Spires knifed the sunset sky, surrounded by shimmering traffic lanes and glowing skylines.
It wasn't a dream.
It wasn't a simulation.
He was here.
---
He moved through the Temple in a daze. The stone was cool beneath his feet. The walls vibrated faintly with power. Artworks depicting long-dead Jedi lined the corridors, interspersed with towering statues and softly humming lights.
He didn't belong here.
He wasn't supposed to exist in this world—certainly not like this. His last memory from Earth was blurry. A bus? A late night? Cold rain. And now—this.
Why here? Why me?
The weight of it hit him hard in the quiet meditation chamber, where he sat cross-legged in a circle of other younglings. Master Ryven Tallis moved among them like water, correcting posture, adjusting breath.
Eli tried to center himself. Tried to meditate.
But all he could hear was the faint, echoing memory of blaster fire in the dark.
---
"Center your breath, Kaen," Tallis said softly, pausing beside him. "The Force is always speaking. You must learn to listen."
Eli opened his eyes. "It's… loud," he admitted.
The Jedi Master smiled faintly. "At first, yes. Then it's quiet. Then… it's you."
The words made his skin prickle.
Later, while the others trained in saber katas, Eli slipped away under the pretense of needing water. He wandered alone through the Temple Library, overwhelmed by rows of ancient holobooks and Force-rich relics. The archivists paid him little attention.
One title caught his eye:
"Visions and Cycles: An Inquiry into Force-Linked Repetition."
He didn't understand most of it. But one phrase lingered in his mind like an itch:
> "There are echoes in time, repeating until they are resolved."
What does that mean?
---
As night fell, the Temple shifted into stillness. The corridors dimmed. Training droids powered down. The glow of the skyline took on a softer hue, like candlelight beneath water.
Eli wandered into the garden before bed.
The sky above was vast and empty. Stars blinked faintly above Coruscant's thick atmosphere. He stood beneath the ancient tree near the fountain, eyes lifted toward the dark.
Something felt wrong.
He couldn't explain it. The Temple seemed calm, even peaceful. But under that calm was pressure, like a cracked dam ready to burst.
He looked at the clones patrolling the outer halls. He recognized their armor from a dozen stories—but here, in person, it felt less heroic. Less human.
One of them turned his helmet toward Eli and gave a curt nod.
Eli didn't nod back.
---
That night in the dormitory, Eli couldn't sleep.
He lay awake while the others whispered and joked, staring at the ceiling, counting heartbeats. He kept seeing flashes behind his eyes—blaster bolts in red, lightsabers flaring, screams swallowed by marble walls.
His body was young. But his mind was old. Too old to forget what was coming.
Order 66.
The Temple massacre.
Anakin Skywalker.
He'd seen it before—in film, in stories, always from a distance.
But now, he was in it.
No lightsaber. No allies. No idea how to use the Force beyond vague instinct and fear.
He sat up suddenly, heart pounding.
I can't stop it. Not yet. But I can try to survive it.
---
He looked out the window one last time.
Coruscant shimmered quietly, unaware of the blood that would soon stain the heart of the Jedi Order. Somewhere out there, ships were already moving. Somewhere, a Chancellor was about to give a command.
Eli clenched his hands into fists.
"I'll remember," he whispered. "I won't die easy."
Outside, thunder rumbled low across the sky—not from weather.
From war.