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Chapter 5 - Humble Beginnings IV

Day 7 of my self-imposed exile in the dark reaches of Earth, surrounded by a cage of metal, hunted by unseen horrors...

Wait, no. That sounded way too dramatic when I said it out loud. And also kind of cringe.

I sighed, rubbing my forehead. A week in this glorified basement, and I was already talking to myself like some kind of tragic space hermit.

At least I'd made some progress.

Micro Sensing—that's what I'd decided to call the weird, hyper-localized Force awareness thing. (Originally, I'd gone with Micro-Cosmic Sensing, but that sounded like something a pretentious Jedi scholar would name their holobook.) It was still unreliable—just those split-second bursts where the world dissolved into raw sensory overload before snapping back. Useful? Maybe. Frustrating? Absolutely.

But if I was gonna be stuck in this kid's body, I wasn't gonna waste time waiting for Kanan to show up and teach me the basics. So, while I kept chipping away at Micro Sensing, I figured I might as well try the real space wizard stuff—the thing every kid who ever held a toy lightsaber dreamed of:

Telekinesis.

Because let's be real, what's the point of being in Star Wars if you can't Force-yeastuff across the room?

Which is how I found myself sitting cross-legged on the cold cellar floor, staring at a loose nail like it owed me credits.

The nail sat there, smug in its complete lack of movement. A tiny, uncooperative piece of metal that had somehow become the bane of my existence.

I cracked my knuckles (which, by the way, felt weird on a kid's hands).

"Alright, you little durasteel bastard," I muttered. "Let's dance."

Closing my eyes, I tried to sink into that weird mental space where the world got fuzzy at the edges. It wasn't meditation so much as aggressively pretending to meditate while my brain helpfully reminded me of every embarrassing thing I'd ever done in my past life.

Breathe in.

The cellar smelled like damp earth and the distinct aroma of kid who hadn't bathed in a week.

Breathe out.

Somewhere above, a pipe groaned like a dying bantha.

I ignored it, focusing instead on that weird hum in my bones—the Force, or whatever this was. It didn't feel mystical. It felt like trying to wiggle a phantom limb I wasn't entirely sure existed.

I imagined it now—an invisible current wrapping around the nail. Not pushing, not pulling, just… connecting.

Nothing happened.

Of course nothing happened. This wasn't some anime where the protagonist gets instant god-tier powers because they had a tragic backstory. (Not that I even had a tragic backstory—just a dead kid's memories and a body that still tripped over its own feet.)

I was a stranger in a stolen life, trying to brute-force my way into space magic with zero instructions. The only thing more pathetic than this attempt was the tiny spark of hope that kept me trying anyway.

But hey.

If a farm boy from Tatooine could pull it off, so could I.

Eventually.

Maybe.

Probably not.

But I wasn't gonna stop trying.

I adjusted my posture, wincing as my tailbone protested the hard floor.

"Okay, new approach."

This time, I went for the age-old trick—visualization!

Believe it's happening, and it might just happen. At least, that's how it worked in all the stories. So I pictured the nail rolling toward me, pouring all my focus into it like a sleep-deprived student trying to psychically drag their phone charger across the floor.

My head throbbed. That strange hum in my bones sharpened into something almost painful.

Then—

I opened my eyes.

The nail had moved.

Not dramatically. Not even noticeably unless you'd been staring at the same patch of dust for twenty minutes. But it wasn't where I'd left it. A centimeter at most, with a faint scrape in the grime marking its tiny journey.

A laugh burst out of me—half triumph, half hysterical relief. "Holy shit. It worked. It actually—"

Then the world tilted.

My vision whirled, black spots exploding across my sight. I barely caught myself before face-planting into the crate beside me, my arms shaking like wet noodles.

Whoa. Okay.

Note to self: Whatever that was, it short-circuited my brain for a second. Like my thoughts had been yanked out and shoved back in upside down. Did this happened with others using it first time too? Who knew, I hadn't seen it in media, but people are different. That thing aside...

It worked.

That changed everything.

…Or maybe not.

Who am I kidding? I couldn't even move a nail without nearly passing out.

Still.

It worked.

___

Time in the cellar became a study in contradictions—both endless and evaporating like morning dew on Lothal's plains. The first week bled into the second, my life settling into a rhythm that would've made a hermit crab look sociable.

By day, I was the galaxy's weirdest shut-in. The datapad became my lifeline, its flickering glow my sun. I scrolled through everything—news feeds, technical manuals, even the mind-numbing bureaucratic reports the Empire loved to publish. It was like mainlining the most depressing Wikipedia binge imaginable.

The tech alone gave me existential whiplash.

This was a civilization that could fold space like a napkin, yet their datapads had UI design that made Windows 95 look sleek. I squinted at blocky Aurebesh text on a screen that probably had a lower resolution than my old Tamagotchi. The HoloNet videos buffered like they were being transmitted via carrier porg. And don't get me started on the lack of a decent search function—finding information was less "Hey Google" and more "screaming into the void and hoping something useful echoed back."

Yet they had droids. Oh, they had droids. Sentient enough to develop anxiety disorders, loyal enough to walk into lava for you, all packed into a chassis the size of a toaster. The cognitive dissonance was staggering. You could have a philosophical debate with your coffee machine, but the concept of predictive text was apparently too radical for this universe.

I itched to start sketching schematics—better interfaces, more efficient power systems, a damn search algorithm—but that required resources. And not being a seven-year-old fugitive.

Nighttime was when I became a ghost in my own home.

When the twin moons cast their pale light through the shattered upstairs windows, I'd ease the trapdoor open and slither into the ruins of the Bridgers' life. The first few trips were pure adrenaline, every creak of the floorboards sounding like a stormtrooper's boot. But the Imperials had moved on, leaving behind only the carcass of a home turned inside out.

The fresher was my first victory. Using a bucket in the cellar had all the charm of a medieval dungeon. Standing under the weak spray of the sonic shower—the water heater was kriffed, obviously—felt like the height of luxury, even if the temperature hovered somewhere between "arctic glacier" and "disappointed parent."

The kitchen became my personal scavenger hunt. The Imps had smashed anything that looked fun, but they'd ignored the truly important things: food. Sealed grain packets, jars of pickled vegetables, even a stash of synth-meat jerky hidden behind a loose panel (Ephraim's doing, probably). Each trip upstairs became a supply run, my arms laden with contraband snacks ferried down to the cellar like a very small, very paranoid smuggler.

I ate better than I had any right to, considering. The jerky tasted like salted cardboard, but after two weeks of space-potatoes, I'd have fought a gundark for it.

——

The moment of truth came when the glowrod flickered its last.

One second it was casting its sickly blue light over my makeshift bedroll, the next it sputtered like a drowning tooka before dying entirely. The darkness rushed back in, thicker somehow, like it had been waiting patiently this whole time.

That was the first sign. The second was the hollow slosh of the water canisters—now more air than liquid. The third was my stomach, which had begun staging increasingly violent protests against my dwindling rations.

The last synth-jerky stick was gone.

I sat there in the dim pre-dawn light filtering through the floorboards, staring at the empty wrapper like it might magically refill itself if I glared hard enough. No such luck. Outside, the first pale streaks of morning were just starting to bleed through the cracks, painting the cellar in weak shades of gray. The perfect time to move—early enough that most of the city would still be asleep, late enough that I wouldn't be stumbling around blind.

The water canisters gurgled pitifully when I shook them, their hollow sloshing driving home the point: I was officially out of time.

"Right," I muttered, scrubbing a hand over my face. "No food, no water, no glowrod. Just me and my incredible talent for bad decisions."

The house above me was silent. No creaking floorboards, no muffled voices—just the distant hum of a city slowly waking up. Good. The Imps hadn't come back, which meant they probably wouldn't. At least not today.

I crept up through the trapdoor, wincing at every tiny groan of the hinges. The kitchen was a wreck, same as always—overturned chairs, shattered dishes, the lingering smell of spilled caf gone stale. Morning light seeped through the broken window, casting long, jagged shadows across the floor.

Clothes first. I couldn't exactly wander around looking like I'd just crawled out of a hole (even if I had). The Bridgers' bedroom was worse off than the kitchen—drawers yanked out, mattresses slashed open, like the Imps had been convinced they'd hidden a rebel armory in the pillows. But they'd missed the good stuff.

A dark blue tunic, slightly too big, but it would do. A belt to keep it from swallowing me whole. A pair of boots Mira must've been saving for when Ezra grew into them. I hesitated, running my thumb over the worn leather.

She bought these for him. For when he got bigger.

I shoved the thought down. Not now.

The Imps had taken anything that looked valuable, but they'd missed the actually useful things. A canteen, a frayed backpack, a handful of credit chips stuffed behind a loose wall panel. Emergency fund, probably.

I paused, eyeing the datapad on the counter. Risky to take it, but riskier to leave it. I stuffed it into the backpack.

The knife came next—tucked inside a hollowed-out book on the shelf. Classic.

I held out my hand, focusing.

Move. Just a little.

My head throbbed. The knife twitched.

Then nothing.

I exhaled sharply. "Yeah, that tracks."

Outside, the city was starting to stir. Distant speeder engines, the occasional muffled voice drifting through the streets. Time to go.

I took one last look around the wrecked house—the shattered dishes, the overturned furniture, the faint outline of where a family had lived before the Empire decided otherwise.

Then I slipped out the back door, into the pale morning light.

Capital City waited.

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