It wasn't supposed to be like this. I'd been overwhelmed by these same sensations before: hunger, heat, thirst; only, this time, the context was much changed. The setting was no longer an arid desert planet with scarce water and even scarcer sources of food. Inside the gleaming black First Order base, solid beneath my feet - which were more accustomed to shifting sands - it was almost cold.

A slight shiver ran up my back as I glared down at the impossibly smooth floor. The clothes that served me well in my default environment would not serve me well now. I took in a deep breath of the mechanically altered air - air that didn't suffocate - and finally forced my gaze up to the eyes of my captor.

There was heat in that gaze; there was hunger, and there was thirst as well. I could see it all. I could sense it in a way that I had never sensed such things before. The problem was that I couldn't tell if it was me or him projecting these feelings. Physically, I was clamped to what I could only imagine was a torture device. I couldn't move. I could only feel the strange cold air around me and in my lungs, and I could feel him. Those eyes blazed like smoldering black coals, and everywhere they touched, I felt scorched. The hunger? The thirst? I didn't want to examine where they were coming from too closely.

His face was a stark white beacon amidst all black. Black clothes, black room, even his hair, tumbling in soft waves about his head, was darker than a starless night. I trembled as sweat beaded impossibly on my temples while I continued to stare. The only color besides black and white flesh was the flushed pink of his lush lips. There was much I could have dreamed up about what the creature behind the mask would look like before he revealed himself, but to my utter shock, he wasn't even close to the monster he should have resembled.

He was a man, and he was . . .

The clouds of my preconceptions momentarily cleared when I first beheld his face. Prepared for an instant recoiling, I was caught completely off guard. An initial evaluation, surprise, cataloging his features, finding them not altogether repulsive. And then just as quickly, finding him not altogether unpleasant at all. Seconds passed. Guard still down. Irrevocably, my opinion had been shaped for all eternity.

He was a man, and he was beautiful.

I knew nothing of human beauty. Perhaps that was the reason I had no better way to describe him. The sky when sun sets amid swirling hues of pink and purple, a definite tribute to true beauty in my mind's eye. The night, when far off stars glow bright in clusters with unknown heavenly entities beyond them, a sight to behold.

Just as suddenly as I had drawn such an unfitting description of this man, I remembered everything else. Smelled the hint of ash in the air. Then there was pain.

I hunted her. Nothing mattered but taking the information I sought. Nothing mattered but the next mission, to find my old Master and to kill.

And she was nothing. She was the next step on the ladder to climb; and never climbing up to the light, always down, into darkness.

Look at her. Weak. Ragged. At my mercy. Right where I want her. Ready to give up everything she has and is and will ever be.

She stands no chance against my power. I see the sparkle of tears, and I look away, caught for a moment in a sudden internal halt. I feel it again. Light. I ferociously cast that feeling aside and locked it away. Grasping hold of her distress, a tangible cord, I feed off it, tell her what I want. I tell her I can take whatever I want from her.

She will give me everything I want.

I press into her mind. Sift through her thoughts, her memories, her simple life. A hard life; the war of hunger and heat and thirst. So much loneliness. I drop my head, caught in another momentary affinity. I am lonely too. But I swallow hard and press harder. And now she has a wall in place, erected haphazardly, only letting me see what she wants me to see. What a weak attempt at shutting me out. But the attempt was made, and she had success. I paused at the wall. It was a clumsy barrier but only because she had no skill. But there was potential. I pondered over her potential. The Force had gifted her. But she knew nothing.

Someone else showed up in her thoughts, just outside the barrier. Surprising. Han Solo, like a father? Pathetic.

"Get out of my head."

I slowly back away. "I know you've seen the map. It's in there. And now you'll give it to me."

Touching her mind again, I saw the wall had formed into a corridor. A way-space between her and me. Her guard had dropped and there were emotions along the path. The map momentarily forgotten, I saw more. More of her. She was a traitor to all that I held in esteem. A traitor to the dark. Doesn't that make me a traitor to the light?

Fear. It was there, but she wasn't afraid of me. It was something else. It was this, so tenuous, the cord between us, forged only moments ago, but it had taken root. We were both altered because of it. Her in her growing awareness of the Force, me in my growing awareness of her. A rival? No, she was something else. Thirst. Something much different. Hunger. A match. Heat.

I sensed what could possibly be in store for us. Could she be swayed from the light?

"Don't be afraid. I feel it too."

Her walls snapped back into place at my declaration. A foolish declaration. Her defenses strengthened. Her will was ironclad, and the Force was with her.

"I'm not giving you anything."

Challenge. I saw it in her eyes, her mind. Her intriguing psyche.

And then I remembered everything else. Smelled the hint of ash in the air. Then there was pain.