I know what you’re thinking: that this is just another story about some melodramatic kid who thinks the whole world is out to get him because daddy didn’t give him enough attention. Well I can tell you one thing; it’s nothing like that at all. Well, not completely. The whole world is out to get me but that’s a whole ‘nother story right there. I think we should start this story where most stories tend to start: the beginning.
I was born on Coreilla to two parents like anybody else’s. They were average, normal people that lived average, normal lives. Nothing really shocking or mind blowing about my childhood at all, that is until I met Keera. I think I was around eleven or twelve the time. Right at the point where I was figuring out that girls really didn’t have cooties but before I was a crazed horny teenager; truly a golden year for any boy really. But if there was any one moment in my life that really hammered home the fact that I loved girls, well, not all girls, just one girl, it was the day I met her; the day I met the love of my life. I know that it sounds stupid saying that I loved someone, actually truly loved someone when I was only twelve but trust me, I knew as soon as I saw her. I was milling around one of the stores in my home town when I saw her walk in. Her chestnut-brown hair still glowing from the Coreillian sun, her pale skin just getting that little tint of a tan, it was just magic. If you don’t believe at love at first sight, take my word for it. It’s real. Despite knowing that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this girl, yeah that’s right, I knew all of this at the tender age of twelve; I didn’t have the balls to talk to her. That day didn’t come until much later, about four years later to be exact. We ended up being in the same class at school by some miraculous twist of fate. So one day towards the end of the term I asked her out on a date. It took all the courage I had in my body to even talk to her. Don’t get me wrong here; I wasn’t some sort of tiny little pussy kid either. Even at sixteen I towered about all the other dudes I knew. I was about six foot four, two forty. Yeah, I’m a big ass mother****er; pardon my language if you will. Anyway, back to the story. When I finally did ask her out, and when she said yes, my life was complete. I and Keera dated four about six years before I asked her to marry me. She said yes without hesitation, than the gods, and we were wed in the fall; her favorite time of year. Life was good until a couple years later. That’s when my entire life changed forever.
I got into some shit with some bad people. I have a little gambling problem I guess. So to work off my debt they had me doing odds and ends job for their operation: namely stealing shit from small town stores around the galaxy. I don’t know what they wanted it for, maybe just to see how much I could steal before I got caught, wouldn’t surprise me. It was nearing a year, my debt nearly paid off, before I actually did get caught. And unfortunately for me I got caught on Coruscant and they don’t take too kindly to thieves. I got sentenced to five years in prison. Five years locked up in some ****ing little box, five years away from my beloved Keera. But it’s what I deserved. I was going to get caught sometime, might as well be while I was still young so I could have a life to live when I got out. If there’s one good thing about prison it’s this: at least you have the knowledge that you can’t go any lower, you’ve hit rock-****ing-bottom or maybe a little deeper. You don’t have to keep looking over your shoulder just waiting for the man to get you; the man has already gotten you. Luckily for me I look big enough and don’t-****-with-me enough that my only real problem was passing time. So I worked out and read a lot of books. I found this one book that really grabbed my interest; it was a book about coin tricks. My only problem was that coins weren’t allowed in prison, they were heavily monitored contraband. A coin was easily able to be bent and sharpened into a point for a shiv. But I got one eventually, you can get anything in prison eventually; all it takes is patience and good contacts and maybe a little bribery. So I sat in my cell, day in and day out, learning coin tricks and counting the days until I was going to be a free man; until I could see my wife again. It wasn’t until three years in that I got news from the Warden that made me the happiest I had been since I married Keera: they were going to let me out early for good behavior. That’s the thing about prison oddly enough. If you follow the one cardinal rule you’ll be a set man. That rule being that you don’t serve anybody’s sentence but your own; you keep your head down and stay out of all the prison shit that goes on around you, and trust me, there’s a lot of prison shit. Three days before my early dismissal I got a knock on my cell door. The guard didn’t look angry, which was good and I checked my conscience, it was clean, which in prison generally meant that you hadn’t done anything wrong.. lately. So I got up from my cot and went over to the door, the guard opened it and told me to follow him. The warden wanted to speak to me. Those simple words made my stomach drop ten feet into the floor. What was going on? Was he going to renege on his promise to let me out early? Tack on a few extra years on my sentence? I don’t think my mind could handle any more time incarcerated in this hellhole. Not when freedom was so close, not when I was going to be able to see my darling Keera again. The warden gave me a holocron of our last meeting, some sort of sick reminder of my time in prison. I’ll play it so you can see the sole reason that I am who I am today.
“Take a seat Belikov.” He said motioning towards a chair. I obliged him. "You cold?"
"Yes sir."
"That's unfortunate." The warden ran his finger down a sheet of paper. "You thirty four years old Belikov?"
"Yes sir."
"You look younger."
"Clean living."
"Says here that you've been a model inmate."
"I learned my lesson sir."
"Oh did you now?" The warden's bald spot shone in the florescent light of his office. "Says here you've got a wife."
"Yes sir. Her name is Keira."
"I see, and how's that working out for you?"
"Fine enough I guess. She comes down to see me as much as she can. It's a long way to travel."
"Oh? Where are you originally from Belikov?"
"Coreilla sir."
"I've got something to tell you Rylan." He called me by my first name. There was something wrong. My stomach felt like it was in ten thousand knots. "Your wife.. she died last night. Car wreck." I heard the words but they didn't register. The warden paused for a moment. "Nothing to say Belikov?"
"When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same."
The warden nodded. "We've decided to let you out a few days early. I only think it's appropriate."
"Thank you sir." I stood up but did not offer the warden my hand for a shake as he did not offer his, not like I expected him to anyway.
After they let me out I had nowhere to go. I took a shuttle back to Coreillia, back to my home but there was no one there for me anymore. The funeral for Keera was two days after I got out so I sat in cantinas drinking until the day. I went to the funeral even though I know no one there wanted to see me. I only got dirty looks and half glances from people who only knew me as a convict, a criminal. The thing I remember most about Keera’s funeral is when her best friend Lara walked up to the casket while I was standing there. She wasn’t crying which surprised me; then she did something that surprised me even more. She spit on Keera’s dead face and just turned and walked out. I didn’t know why she did that and I didn’t care. After that I left the funeral and started walking to another bar, they were the only homes I had left now. I remember it was raining, and Lara pulled up next to me in a speeder. She asked me if I wanted a ride and I said no. She kept following me for awhile before I turned towards her and asked why she spit on Keera’s face. She told me it was because of how they found her and Markos, Lara’s husband when they died. Keera died with Markos’ dick in her mouth. They were having an affair. If my insides weren’t already numb from pain and the cold outside I probably would have been angry but I just couldn’t find the will to feel anger. When I didn’t say anything Lara sped off, leaving me to continue walking in the rain. I finally got to another dingy cantina and that’s where I met the man that would change my life forever. My life seems to get changed forever a lot, doesn’t it?
Beware of the fury of the patient man.
I was sitting in the cantina for a few hours, all of the people and the dim light slowly melding together into one drunken blur. That's when he walked in, the man I would soon come to know as Master. He sat next to me at the bar, his pale skin and bald head mixing into the pallet of my vision like dirty water in a clear stream. I said something I don't remember but whatever it was it made me go with him. The next morning I awoke in a strange room barely lit by the upcoming sun. I got out of the cot I was in and started to walk around the strange complex. I soon found a room with a man sitting in it. He told me today was the day I was going to get a reason to exist again. He said that he could feel vast untapped power in me and he wanted to teach me the ways of the Force. I had heard of the Force before but only in fleeting tales about magicians being able to lift things with their mind and conjure bolts of lightning from their fingers. Nothing but children's tales I thought. But I would soon find out that they were anything but. We started off small, me lifting small things like rocks and whatnot with the Force. But I quickly mastered the trivial things and moved on to more advanced techniques. My Master even taught me the ways of the lightsaber, which I too quickly learned and mastered. After twenty years under his tutelage my master finally passed away leaving me once again alone in the world. But this time was different before. At least now I had a purpose, to go and teach others what my Master had taught me. And that's all I needed.
