Mike sat in bed with his hands curled tightly into his red locks, his knees pulled to his chest causing the covers to bunch and coil around him. These near nightly experiences that were on the verge of driving him mad. The cruise coming up wasn't just about avoiding the Empire. Well, a lot of it was, but he needed the time off, the time to recover. Some rest and relaxation without the worries on his mind that seemed to drive him to a poor night's rest every night now, they were so frequent he had wondered why he hadn't become numb to them yet. Not that this particular dream would have been anything less than horrific.

This had been a new one. Normally he dreamt of his surrendering to his anger, or of being hunted down and dragged away by the Empire. Very real fears that were made worse with the cocktail of rage and shame that seemed to be constantly boiling inside him lately. Tonight, though, tonight he had relived in vivid detail the events of nearly a decade ago.

Tonight he'd gotten to walk back into his childhood home and find his family. To see their bodies broken and bloodied, to see them stacked like kindling for a fireplace with their blood streaking the floor from where they had been dragged from room to room. He saw his reaction, his horror, his terror, all the nightmarish and overwhelming sensations that had first caused him to flee into the waiting arms of the darkside,

He pulled his hands from his hair and buried his face in his palms, warm moisture staining his skin as he choked out a few ragged sobs. He couldn't keep going on like this.