The corridor felt less like a hallway and more like a throat, narrow and suffocating. Ahsoka Tano kept her eyes locked on the silhouette ahead—the shifting, ink-black shadow that wore the shape of Anakin Skywalker. It didn’t walk; it glided, a void of light against the oppressive gloom.
On the walls, the portraits were alive. Their eyes followed her, and their voices, cracked and layered with centuries of decay, hissed from the frames.
“Feed the madness, and the madness feeds unto you…” one whispered, followed by a rhythmic, rhythmic clucking that sounded like a dying bird. “Feed the madness, and thy madness feeds unto you!”
Ahsoka shivered, her hand instinctively hovering near where her lightsabers should have been. “You’re not taking me seriously, Master,” she said, her voice echoing thin and fragile. “I told you, I’m feeling… an anxiety. A weight. Like the Force is curdling around us.”
The shadow stopped. It didn’t turn, but its laughter—sharp and cold as a winter wind—sliced through the air. “Oh, knock it off, Snips! I’ve never heard such nonsense. Anxiety? Fear?”
“But it’s real,” she insisted.
“Snap out of it!” the shadow snapped, the air around him rippling with sudden heat. “Let it go. I will have no such talk in this place!”
Ahsoka recoiled, her breath catching. The harshness in his voice wasn’t just authority; it was a jagged edge of something much darker.
The shadow whirled around, rising several inches off the floor. Its face was a blur of smoke, save for two piercing, sulfur-yellow eyes that burned into her own. “If you want my help getting out of here,” he hissed, looming over her, “you will keep your mouth shut.”
“No!” it was almost an shout, be he didn’t listen to her.
“You will do exactly as I say,” the shadow added, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. “Unless you want to end up like the others in these frames? Doomed to an eternity of rot, babbling until your mind turns to dust?”
Ahsoka glanced at a nearby portrait of a Jedi she didn’t recognize, whose face was frozen in a silent, eternal scream. “What… what happened to them?”
“You don’t want to know,” the shadow replied, turning back toward the darkness. “Just follow me.”
Meanwhile, under the blood-red sky of Dathomir, the air tasted of sulfur and ancient spite. Zilla stood trembling before the towering, cybernetic figure of Darth Maul. The Sith Lord’s yellow-and-red tattoos seemed to pulse in the twilight, his mechanical legs clicking against the jagged stone.
“Show us the altar,” Zilla pleaded, her voice breaking. “If you help me find my sister… if you bring us back together… I’ll return. I’ll be your apprentice again. Anything.”
Maul let out a low, guttural growl that vibrated in Zilla’s chest. “You have always been my apprentice, girl,” he sneered, his eyes narrowed in contempt. “Kenobi was the pawn, but you? You are the failure. You were meant to bring him to me. You were meant to be the lure.”
“I will!” Zilla bowed her head, her knees hitting the mud. “I will bring him to you, I swear. But first, the altar—”
“There are no second chances!” Maul roared, the sound like a wild beast’s cry. He stepped forward, the sheer pressure of his hatred forcing her further into the dirt. “How dare you stand before me empty-handed?”
“He’s coming!” Zilla cried out, desperate. “He’s searching for me even now. He will follow the trail, and then—”
“My patience is a dead thing, Padawan!” Maul slammed his hand down, telekinetically ripping the ancient tome from Zilla’s grasp and hurling it into the muck. With a brutal shove of the Force, he sent her sprawling into the dirt. “You are nothing but scum!”
He turned his back on her, his cape billowing like a shroud.
Nearby, Amanda saw her opening. While Maul was blinded by his own rage, she lunged into the mud and scooped up the heavy, leather-bound book. Clutching it to her chest like a shield, she didn’t look back. She sprinted toward the treeline, her heart hammering against her ribs. The altar had to be close. It had to be. If she could just reach it before the Sith Lord realized the prize had vanished, they might still have a chance to survive the nightmare of Dathomir.
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