[SW:TCW] Little One

[1] Her eyelids felt heavy as she tried to lift them. Pain continued to flow through her body, like her blood had become some strange sort of acid. But even if she was on the edge to unconsciousness, nobody came and pulled the needle out of her skin. They just continued watching the screens showing her medical data. She knew that nobody would help her in a place like this. She knew and hoped that she would at least die soon, just wanted the pain to come to an end.

Then she felt the coldness of metal against her left upper arm and shortly after a sudden, sharp burst of pain as the scalpel started cutting her flesh. She wanted to scream, to stop them, to run away. Wasn't even bound to the operating table. But the poison flowing through her veins for – how long? How long had they been experimenting on her today? She didn't know – had weakened her to the point where she couldn't even open her eyes. The girl just wanted to drift off into the eternal darkness that kept surrounding her. But every time she had come close to it, they had injected her with something that kept her just barely conscious. She knew those darkness was just a signal, a messenger, that she was dying. But she didn't mind. Actually, she hoped that they would finally allow her to die . Far away on the edge of her mind she could sense the force and with it the ghosts of so many whom she had known and loved. If it wasn't for the pain that continued to pulsate through her, she would have smiled at the thought of being united with them soon.

She didn't notice that the needle was finally pulled out of the back of her hand, nor did she notice how she was carefully lifted onto a stretcher – the way you lift a precious piece of some expensive artwork that you don't want to get damaged – and then onto a hard bed. To her it felt just like the operating table but less cold due to the rubber-y material protecting her from the bare metal. Even without being anywhere near a conscious state she knew that they just put her back into the blinding white of her cell, her 'home' for the last one or two months.

[2]

He wasn't exactly sure where he was, but one thing was certain: it was some sort of laboratory, he was in some strangely white cell that he shared with....a little girl? His concern only grew as he took a closer look at the small figure and confirmed that, indeed, it was a young girl, seemingly human. He wasn't even sure that the girl was still alive, her presence was merely a small, fading spark surrounded by darkness.

'Great. Whoever runs this place experiments on force-sensitives. On children.' The man knew that he and whoever else was held captive needed to get out of there. Fast. He tried to suppress his imagination of what they had done to the girl as he carefully reached out through the force, gently trying to strengthen what little life force was left in her. Then he noticed that despite all his assumptions the girl was conscious. Not much, she certainly hadn't detected him before, but now as he tried to help her, he felt her mind instinctively opening up to his. He felt her pain.

As he tried to lessen it he winced as he thought about the sheer amount of horrible things that must be done to inflict such pain to one individual. He definitely did not wanted this happening to him or anyone else. But he knew that it was unlikely that he would be found before whatever mad scientist worked here would use him as a test subject. If his men would be able to find him here at all. Again he looked at the girl.

To his surprise, she had opened her eyes and had her clouded gaze resting on him. “...don't...”, she whispered.

“What?”, he answered, confusion showing on his face as well as through the force. “ya strength.....keep it...”, her voice was barely audible.

His concern only grew. “But...please, little one, let me help you.”, he carefully tried to convince the girl, the 'little one', that he just wanted to take some of the pain away from her. But again, she just shook her head slightly, her astonishingly yellow eyes still clouded by the pain and whatever drugs they must have administered her.

He felt that she was afraid of what would come next. That she didn't really want to be kept alive. 'Force, I don't wanna know what they had done to that girl...', he thought, his eyes full of compassion as they met the girls gaze.

[3] She was confused as she for the first time paid what little attention she could give to the stranger's face. Those eyes...they reminded her of her brother. Her big, caring brother who died five years ago.

'He looks just like him...', she thought. But maybe it was just one of those dreams, brought to her by whatever poison was still remaining in her body. Tired she closed her eyes again, there was less pain than before. Whatever the man had done, it took some of it away from her.

Why had he done that? Didn't he know that he'd need his strength soon enough himself? She was surprised as she felt someone carefully place the thin blanket over her skinny body before the strange man carefully – as if she was a porcelain doll that could shatter at any given moment – took her cold little hand into his big, strong and warm one. There was a calmness that surrounded her as she drifted off into sleep.

[4] Dr. Gravewood watched the interaction between the two specimens with growing interest. The experiments on the female alone had been successful and now, with the arrival of the second specimen, her research would progress even faster.

Considering the fact that the human male was a jedi, she were sure that all of the coming tests – the final phase in the development of a new biological weapon – had a high probability to suceed. With a faint smile on her face the blue-skinned Twi'lek female turned away from the transparisteel one-way window that allowed her to watch her specimen and walked back to the main lab. Back there she carefully started to prepare the next steps in her research while she for the most part ignored her quite annoying assistant and the faint sounds that the equipment emitted. This project was commissioned by the CIS, which had not surprised Dr. Gravewood. They wanted a biological weapon which specifically infected jedi or other force-sensitives.

She had taken the opportunity to work on such a thing, because of what they had offered. Not regarding to credits, though. It was the possibilities that separatist-controlled worlds opened, combined with the access to the finest research technology. She didn't do it for the money, but for the science. With all those methods at her disposal, she could finish the assingment and advance in her own studies. Adding the many specimen she could choose her test subjects from, the conditions were on the brim to perfection. The Woman typed some orders on her datapad so that a gaseous drug which was basically a strong sedative was released into the air within the cell containing the jedi and her precious little panthera specimen.

In the time the sedative took effect on the specimen, Dr. Gravewood prepared two syringes, each filled with an exactly calculated dose of the pathogenic agent.