Heavy panting and thuds on the concrete signaled the frenzied sprint of Senator Makari de Nolay of Alsakan across Coruscant. Fearfully, he turned his head over shoulder periodically, ducking through signs and weaving through alleys until he flat ran out of breath. Pausing near the largest dumpster he could hide behind, he took stock of himself and his settings. He wasn't being followed any more. A positive. He had been separated from his security detail. A negative. But this was a problem that could be solved. They had a rendezvous point back on his ship, only a few levels up. He could figure out a way to get home out of here.
First step was to manage this horrid anxiety he felt. His breath still ragged, he took stock of himself. He wiggled his toes and his fingers, taking shaky breaths as he did so. In his mind, he counted each haggard breath.
10...9...8...
An image forced itself into his mind. A creature, seemingly cobbled together from crude oil and sinew. The gnashing of hideous, putrid teeth. Its breath so close to his face it stank. And inside its mouth, a bloody, bloated hand far too small to be an adult's. His security officer, trying to save him, but just becoming more prey. He didn't stay to see what remained. The worst part was the eyes. Giant, empty saucers of pitch. The gaze was piercing, horrifying, and almost hypnotic. They were wet, leaking whatever black ooze made up its flesh, with a look that conveyed not hatred, not anger, but mindless, ravenous, hunger.
7...6...5...
He had come as part of a Core Relief Mission - a token fleet meant to help protect and evacuate refugees. This was meant to be a grand adventure and a little PR for the Alsakani.
But where he found himself now was different. Distantly, an explosion loud as a crack of thunder shuddered the ground beneath him. The light posts above flickered out - and all the advertisements, lights from home, and any sign of sentient occupation went with it. He was just a boy, alone in the dark, in a strange and unfamiliar place. And like any boy in the dark, he started to see things. Imaginings. Already pursued, he imagined whatever fanged predator had annihilated his team was in every corner.
Shadows stretched now past their natural height, dwarfing Makari in a blanket of darkness that he could not pierce. He took a few deep breaths, calming his nerves before he ran. Only a few levels.
4...3...2...
As he moved, images from his life flashed involuntarily into his mind. His time in the Navy - the first time seeing one's sputtering, pitiful last words as the life drained from his body. As a boy, in the woods of Alaskan's game preserve, watching the terrified, pained gaze of a young doe caught in his father's trap, frantically gnawing at its own leg to get free. The doe's black eyes stared at him - begging - as blood seeped from its trapped leg.
Makari returned himself to the present, needing concentration to sprint through the darkened, empty halls of a Coruscant level. He would make it. Only a few levels.
1.
@Sreeya