[ Unable to recognize the gesture for what it is, confusion tilts Rey’s head to the side just before the tunnel folds in on itself—quite nearly onto her, for she begins to crouch, arms lifting over her head to suffer the brunt of it but for the yank of her belt by Kylo Ren. The strength of the pull whiplashes her body, leaving a welt in her abdomen that she’ll spend time feeling grateful for later when the subsuming collapse stops chasing them down the shaft of the mine.
Her heels pivot and she takes a series of skittered steps after him towards the mouth of the mine, only for him to shove her past his form on the way out. Rey uses the connection—blown open like splintered wooden doors under a concussive blast—to search him out in the haze of dust and debris without using her eyes, one hand closing around his where it clutches her belt, pulling him along with her back the way they came.
The Force and their shared senses—however hindered they presently are—help her to see through the blinding chaos and tumult, the echo of fallen rocks cuing her to the edges of the tunnel where the upheaval rumbles more quietly. She can feel the air where it wisps upward and outward, a gasping clamor for the open space of the basin carved in the mountain for the mine’s operations. They reach the messy and derelict ramp that winds up a steep cliff that Rey had, in her panic, taken at a dive on the way in, and only then does she stop to squint against the dust, all but unflinching as tiny grains of powder buffet against her eyes.
She searches for some sign of Ji, a green flicker, a shadow, a whisper of breath, a cry of pain through the Force, but hollow silence echoes back at her. It shakes Rey in a surprising way. She’d killed herself, hoping so desperately to take the two of them down with her; that kind of blind devotion goes against everything she could imagine, and makes Snoke more dangerous than she’d imagined.
The dust chokes the last of the oxygen out of the tunnel and Rey wheezes, hacks, as the deprival catches up with her. She doubles over, ushering Kylo Ren up the ramp with her in scrambled, haphazard movements; one foot slides off the ramp, and her opposite ankle gives with the effort of trying to recover her weight. She stumbles into Ren, recovers, and shoves him the rest of the way out of the tunnel in time to flatten herself on the ground, lightsaber dimming all at once, to sprawl out and catch her breath, skin and clothes and hair blackened by the plumes of minerals. A groan echoes out of her as she rolls onto her side, one hand flattening against the blackened slice in her ribs, but she can’t moan over the ache for long because a single thought pierces through her awareness, sudden and sharp: the sniper.
Casting a glance over at Kylo Ren does not hearten her to their chances. If the wound in her side aches, the wound in his leg is worse still, screaming for relief from supporting his weight on shredded muscle. She moves her hand up to grab his shoulder and push him to the ground with her, using the cover of the billowing dust that evacuates the mine with all their same urgency to keep fire off their backs. ]
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Her heels pivot and she takes a series of skittered steps after him towards the mouth of the mine, only for him to shove her past his form on the way out. Rey uses the connection—blown open like splintered wooden doors under a concussive blast—to search him out in the haze of dust and debris without using her eyes, one hand closing around his where it clutches her belt, pulling him along with her back the way they came.
The Force and their shared senses—however hindered they presently are—help her to see through the blinding chaos and tumult, the echo of fallen rocks cuing her to the edges of the tunnel where the upheaval rumbles more quietly. She can feel the air where it wisps upward and outward, a gasping clamor for the open space of the basin carved in the mountain for the mine’s operations. They reach the messy and derelict ramp that winds up a steep cliff that Rey had, in her panic, taken at a dive on the way in, and only then does she stop to squint against the dust, all but unflinching as tiny grains of powder buffet against her eyes.
She searches for some sign of Ji, a green flicker, a shadow, a whisper of breath, a cry of pain through the Force, but hollow silence echoes back at her. It shakes Rey in a surprising way. She’d killed herself, hoping so desperately to take the two of them down with her; that kind of blind devotion goes against everything she could imagine, and makes Snoke more dangerous than she’d imagined.
The dust chokes the last of the oxygen out of the tunnel and Rey wheezes, hacks, as the deprival catches up with her. She doubles over, ushering Kylo Ren up the ramp with her in scrambled, haphazard movements; one foot slides off the ramp, and her opposite ankle gives with the effort of trying to recover her weight. She stumbles into Ren, recovers, and shoves him the rest of the way out of the tunnel in time to flatten herself on the ground, lightsaber dimming all at once, to sprawl out and catch her breath, skin and clothes and hair blackened by the plumes of minerals. A groan echoes out of her as she rolls onto her side, one hand flattening against the blackened slice in her ribs, but she can’t moan over the ache for long because a single thought pierces through her awareness, sudden and sharp: the sniper.
Casting a glance over at Kylo Ren does not hearten her to their chances. If the wound in her side aches, the wound in his leg is worse still, screaming for relief from supporting his weight on shredded muscle. She moves her hand up to grab his shoulder and push him to the ground with her, using the cover of the billowing dust that evacuates the mine with all their same urgency to keep fire off their backs. ]