Author's notes: I was in a rather dark mood, so I wrote this. I bet you can tell who the main character is. One-shot. RR please!

He sits in his study, motionless. The room is dark, though not because of lack of sunlight – rather, the darkness is radiating from him, filling the air, piercing all around him. Even the galaxy visible outside the window seems far brighter. It would be brighter even if there were no stars to illuminate it. The grayish, shadowy interior of the chamber only adds more fear to the atmosphere. Each centimeter of the wall is precisely carved, no cracks or scratches visible. Various objects are scattered across the chamber, objects that any creature with the faintest sense of goodness would have destroyed without second thoughts. All reeks of an unidentified power. No one can tell if it all comes from him, or if the objects themselves have their own energies. And no one is there to try.

He is alone, for no one dares intrude his personal chambers without an important reason. And so it should be. The crew, the officers, the soldiers, all of them… they fear him too much to even look him in the eye. But even if any was bold enough to do so, all they would see would be a black void, a visor shaped similarly to the eyes of insectoids, even though he had normal eyesight beneath the mask. He was never seen without it – not in the past twenty years. And whenever the time came to take part of it off in his private quarters, for whatever reason, he wanted it back on as soon as possible. He knows well what lies beneath. The scars he had earned were painful even now. But he learned to live with pain and turn it into a strength few had. Pain is well known to him. It was questionable if he was still human, actually.

The mask was his life. He wouldn't survive two minutes without it. The knowledge that his Master perhaps held secrets of how to kill him by using the very machine he gave him to save his life was agonizing. He hated his Master, his rescuer… and yet he obeyed him. No one would understand, for there was no one left who would remember the dark teachings he followed. The Sith, or those who had the courage to call themselves Sith, were all but wiped out. And so were the Jedi. There were few Force users alive.

His gaze is fixed on the object in front of him, the image bringing him a painful pleasure. It is a weakness to watch this and he knows it. But there was something bittersweet in it as well. The past might be dead, but his memories remained. Sometimes, he wishes that he could just forget everything – all the pain, the psychic pain that those years of servitude brought him. To forget the day when he ceased to be a slave… no. He never ceased to be a slave. He still had a master, as he had had all his life.

But it would feel good to forget the other memories. To forget the people he knew… or at least be rid of all emotion. Even anger, the anger that saved his life when he crumbled into the lava pit, pushed by the man he considered more than a Master – the man he considered a father, a brother, his family. Slain by his hand. And even this vengeance, which he desired for so long, wasn't enough.

Nothing would ever be.

He keeps gazing at the small image, the image so familiar to him he doesn't even need to see it to recognize it. The hologram is motionless, but it matters not. As long as he can see and remember, he is happy. The one memory he considers happy in his life. Her. The day she became his wife… the day she signed her death sentence. No, that day came long before that. Death. Yes, she was dead. Because of him. He caused her death. Because of his ignorance and anger, she was gone forever. Cursing himself wouldn't help… it never did. He knew then and knows now that he must accept the consequences of his actions.

He keeps gazing at the small figure, no longer longingly. He can't. There was little… if any… humanity in him left. Of course whatever heart he has that hasn't been replaced by wires and metal still yearns to at least see his beloved once more. Crushing it, or rather trying to do so wouldn't help. He tried many times, with little success. It had to happen. There was no avoiding it. Regrettable as it might be, there was no way to save her. He tries to convince himself of this… as he did many times before.

The cold blue eyes hidden beneath his helmet are still fixed on the image. His universe came crumbling down when she died. He had to somehow rise from its ashes. And she would understand. She would have to. But he knows her too well. He knows she would have died before she would have accepted the Empire – his solution. Tyranny, she called it. But what was wrong in dictatorship when the rule of peasants and weaklings obviously wasn't working? It had to be done.

The image didn't flicker; the young woman didn't flinch underneath his glare. She was too strong in life to be broken by death. She haunts his dreams even now… and if those are nightmares, they are pleasant. But if she resembled the Republic and his Master is the Empire, the only possible choice is to choose life over death. It is a good choice. The only choice. Inevitable.

He leans forward to get a better view of her face. So young and fair… what would she think of him now? He can't imagine her aging. But he grew old over the years, even if his mask made him seem to be an everlasting, unchanging statue. She would still be the radiant beauty he fell in love with before that beauty even blossomed to its full extent. He had nothing to offer her now. Nothing other than emptiness and darkness. Yes, his soul was empty. And hers was too pure and idealistic to be tainted. If she were alive now, she would most likely be with the Rebels. Yes… she was one of the founders of that petty alliance. The main founder, probably. That was the only decision he hated her for – to go against common sense. To cling to the old and useless ways when a change for the better was not too far away.

He takes the holoprojector into his gloved hand, still watching it. She is dead. As is the Republic. And with the push of a button, the image also dies out, taking another piece of his cold heart with it. A bleeding heart… and the blood froze into another layer of ice.

Finis