Chapter One

Alayna stepped on patches of popcorn. The crunch hardly deterred her from hearing RaSasha whining about the death they'd just witnessed in the theater. Ben Solo-RaSasha's favorite character-sacrificed his life for his lovers. A typical Shakespearian tragedy for a predictable space opera. She wasn't complaining, of course, Alayna was just being bitter with Sarah.

"I knew it," Sarah sobbed. "I knew it from Force Awakens that my little Ben would die a sacrificial death."

Isaac snorted, tossing his empty soda cup into the bin as they walked through the theater doors. "Kylo Ren was a whiny excuse for a villain. Wish they had Palpatine through the whole Saga. Now that would make up for the lack of a strong villain."

"Not all villains have to be strong and completely consumed with darkness," Alayna retorted.

"I don't care. Ben isn't dead, and I refuse to believe it. Abrams gone and messed up the whole ending by doing that." Sarah shoved a handful of Junior Mints in her mouth. Her puffy eyes were rimmed red.

"It's a possibility he isn't really dead. Maybe they could make a new trilogy of Rey trying to find him in the World Between World or whatever that place is called," Alayna said.

The three of them hopped into Isaac's single cab pickup. Alayna sat in the middle with RaSasha squeezing herself next to her on the passenger side. She spilled a few kernels closing the door shut.

"All I have to say is that girls are freaking weird being obsessed over that actor. Especially you, RaSasha. You're ridiculous."

Alayna smirked, and RaSasha rolled her eyes.

"If it were Scarlett Johannsson, you would be obsessing too."

Isaac took the exit onto the highway and they were off to RaSasha's dorm room. She was smart enough to register for the single suit which left plenty of room for her friends to stay the night and do whatever they pleased without worrying about an outsider lurking.

The building was eleven stories high and didn't house as many students as one would think. The bottom floor had the cafeteria and lounge where residents played pool, ate food, and watched sports on the giant projector. Movie night was every Thursday and yesterday they all watched Chicken Run. It was a mystery how that was voted on, but apparently twenty-something year olds would rather watch chickens run away from butchers.

Once Isaac pulled into the parking lot, they took the stairs all the way up to the ninth floor.

RaSasha's loft bed was made neatly and her desk was shoved underneath it. The rest of the room lacked furniture which made it easy to place air mattresses for sleepovers. The walls, however, were covered with Star Wars posters, Three Days Grace band photos, and streamers of stars and hearts for added decoration.

Her dorm room was much more bland than hers, believe it or not. Alayna didn't have anything but her clothes and her laptop to bring to the university. Her roommate was more than happy to try and liven the place up with cutout elephants from patterned paper. It was quirky, but it did help the ugly yellow walls look less ugly.

They rummaged through to find clean sheets, exhaustion washing over them suddenly as it was nearing two in the morning. Their adrenaline during the movie completely wiped them of their energy.

As soon as Isaac and Alayna's beds were made, they plopped on their respective air mattresses while RaSasha climbed up to her bed. With one long yawn, RaSasha bid goodnight to the two of them.

"And goodnight, Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren," she said to the Star Wars poster right above her bed. "You both will be in my dreams."

"Oh my god," Isaac said, slamming a pillow over his face.

Alayna smiled, closing her eyes and finally fell asleep.

Everything was warm.

That was the first thing she felt before her eyes opened to bright sunrays and the graininess of sand beneath her slender body.

Sand?

Alayna darted up, a cloud of dust swarming around her as she moved frantically to her feet. The panic in her rose as she turned around and around finding nothing but rolling sand hills. In the distance she saw a figure walking an animal, but she wasn't sure that she would be able to catch up with them before passing out of exhaustion.

Where was she?

She scrambled for an explanation but she had none. Surely she wasn't drugged and pranked. Isaac and RaSasha didn't have the capacity for that. And imagining them finding some godforsaken desert was an outrageous idea.

Alayna closed her eyes, steadying her breath. The heat beamed down, causing a slight headache. She still wore her pineapple pajamas with her matching buttoned up fuzzy shirt. It wouldn't be long before she fried to a crisp under this sun. She had to find something else to wear-and fast.

She picked one direction and dragged her feet through the sand slowly as to not exert too much energy. Tears streamed down her face quietly as she thought about how little she knew of where she was and where anyone familiar might have gone to.

Would she be able to make it to civilization before giving out?

The horrible thought of passing out from heat exhaustion took over. She was a privileged university woman who spent her whole life in air-conditioned shelter. It was doubtful she would last very long without it.

RaSasha had been right there in her lofted bed, Alayna remembered. And Isaac was right next to her trying to sleep. How did she wind up so far away from them?

"Hey! Hey! Excuse me!" a voice called from some distance behind her.

She turned around, spots already forming in her vision from lack of cool air and water. "Huh?"

The figure was walk-running, clearly just as exhausted as she was feeling. His dark skin stood out among the beige grains of sand and his jacket was a strange kind of familiar.

Alayna narrowed her brows, trying to figure out the symbol threaded into his jacket.

"Hey, can you show me where the nearest thing of water is. I'm dying of thirst," he panted, falling to his knees to rest and catch his breath.

"John Boyega?" she said in utter shock.

"What? No, my name is Finn. Nice to meet you." He wiped his sweaty forehead, leaning his head back to make eye contact. "What's your name?"

"Alayna… What's going on?"

He paused for a second. "I take it your not from this planet. So that means you don't know where any sources of water are either. We might both die here. Aw man, I can't die here. This can't be the end. I just got out of the Empire, my life is already traumatic having lost my first friend. I can't go out like this!"

She couldn't find any words to respond. She saw that the jacket was, in fact, the same one Poe Dameron wore in the films with the Resistance symbol on the shoulder. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Clutching her head, she tried looking around them as if a sudden explanation would appear.

"Are you alright?" he asked, rising to his feet.

Alayna stopped to look at him, tears flooding her eyes again. "I don't know where I am."

Finn's shoulders sank. He placed his hands on her arms firmly, looking directly at her. "Don't worry. Everything will be okay. We just got to find a water source first and find you something that doesn't look so…..warm. Come on, I won't let either of us give up so quickly."

There was nothing she could do but nod.

They trudged their way in the same direction she had been going. He talked about his adventure from the First Order down to Jakku a lot of the time which she was fairly familiar with. She stayed quiet, letting him ramble while she struggled to process whether any of it was real.

"I miss Poe," he said sadly, flexing his jaw.

"He's alright," Alayna found herself saying.

"I watched him and the TIE be eaten up-"

"There was an ejector seat. He's okay. I'm sure he's at the Resistance base as we speak."

He furrowed his brows. "How do you know this? Did you see Poe before he left?"

"Uh yea. I ran into him on my tread here."

Finn didn't question further. Alayna felt relieved. It was hard enough explaining all this to herself.

But on the bright side, she didn't have to take that math exam she had on Monday.