The Legio Twins Saga: New Day Dawning/Chapter 3

Stephanie

Stephanie

I keep my eyes tightly shut, too afraid of what I might find I opened them. What had just happened? My panicked, confused mind was groggy, as if I had just woken up from a long sleep, and my memory only came to me in flashes of terror: swirling winds, my own desperate cry as my brother's hand slipped from my own and was consumed by fog, and the feeling of falling- how far I didn't know- as I felt a shock of sharp pain in my back just before everything went black...

Was that it? Had I merely blacked out? If so, perhaps I had been unconscious and dreamt the whole thing up; after all, it had seemed too bizarre to be a freak tornado, which is what I had initially suspected. Gradually, my mind cleared and I began to come around, groaning in pain when I realized my head was throbbing. I usually wasn't one to get terrible migraines, so my headache had to have been caused by some blow to the head, which would've also explained blacking out. I wracked my brains, but couldn't manage to explain exactly how I had hit my head.

I sighed and stretched my aching limbs, exploring my surroundings blindly as I struggled to sit up. Cautiously, I opened my eyes, but closed them again a second later against the blinding brightness. I must have been out for quite some time; I was obviously no longer in the dark, musty attic with Mark, so someone must have cared enough to move me, though I had no idea where in Aunt Suzy's house I might be. Whatever I was sitting on felt like cold, hard metal, maybe a kitchen countertop, so I could only guess that whoever had moved my had been my brother, who was the only person in my family that I could think of who might not have cared enough to make sure that his poor, unconscious sister was comfortable. Whatever. I would be pissed at him later.

What really was beginning to confuse me, though, was the fact that I couldn't hear anyone around me asking me how I was. I felt hurt. Why had everyone abandoned me? In my somewhat delirious state, it almost made sense: my father had been the first to abandon me, so why not the rest of my family now, including my own twin? Confused by my sudden anger, I blinked away the tears in my eyes, and received the shock of my life when my vision cleared.

Wherever I was, it was definitely not Aunt Suzy's house, but it was strangely familiar all the same. The room was a tiny, perfect square, with a solid, steel door, no windows, and dull, dark, metallic walls. The bench on which I was sitting appeared to be built right into the walls and made out of the same dull metal. Besides this, there was no other furniture in the tiny space. Despite the dark color of the room, it was brightly lit by blinding white lights in the low ceiling above a framework of metal grating. In reality, it didn't seem like a true room at all; in fact, the closest thing I could compare the space to was a prison cell...

A prison cell! I suddenly realized why the tiny room had felt so familiar; because it had reminded me of Princess Leia's cell on the Death Star. I gasped at the implications of my realization, so startled by it that I leaned back too far and hit my head against the back wall, making it throb even harder.

No, it can't be... I thought, my heart pounding wildly. Looking down, I saw that I was still wearing my white Leia dress, and felt that my ridiculous hairstyle was intact. I could have almost laughed at the irony of the situation- Leia trapped in Leia's cell- but I began to panic again as my weak explanations and assumptions fell apart at the seams.

Logic was telling me that something traumatic must have happened to make me imagine that I was in the setting of a Star Wars movie, but something else- what It was, I didn't know at the time- was telling me that what I felt was real. And I do mean that I felt it; it was more than just seeing the prison cell with my eyes or feeling the cold metal with my hands, it was an actual feeling of living something that was actually happening, like a feeling of absolute conviction in not just my heart and soul but maybe even my physical body, but that was something my brain couldn't yet understand or know to be true, even though it was true. I don't know how else to explain it, but somehow I felt different, like I was finally seeing and understanding not only who I was clearly for the first time, but also the world, despite being separated from it by cold metal walls. And I knew- even without thinking about it- through this seemingly new sense of feeling that I truly was in a different world now, because it was beginning to feel more real to me than the far-away attic in Aunt Suzy's house, or any other place I had ever been. Maybe I really was in the Death Star, I didn't know, but what I did know was that this strange new feeling of absolute certainty had come over me so fast that it left me feeling scared, excited, and more confused than ever.

I sat there, trembling, as I tried to take in all that I had just come to know. Inside, questions tormented me: What made me so certain that I had magically ended up in Star Wars? Why was I here? Where was my brother Mark? And why did I get the feeling that I wasn't alone?

My own thoughts made me jump. The last question had startled me because I had asked it of myself even before I had a chance to feel paranoid, or know why I did feel that way. But sure enough, just as I had begun to ad another question to my mental list, the door retracted into the ceiling to reveal two figures that were a new shock all by themselves. I didn't know why I was surprised at their appearance after all I experienced in the past few minutes, but I suppose the sight of a real-live Stormtrooper carrying a blaster rifle would be enough to catch anyone off-guard. His companion wore the dark uniform that I think most Death Star Troopers (or whatever they're called) wear. At any rate, he was dressed in all black and wore a goofy helmet, but most importantly, he carried a tray of food. He sneered and set the tray at my feet with a contemptuous smirk.

"Eat up, princess," he said leering at me, making me shudder, "Lord Vader wants you to have your strength for your... little interview later."

I shrank back against the wall as he cast a quick look up and down my body, then steeled my nerves and gave him the most piercing glare I could manage. He smirked again, and then left the cell with the trooper in tow, the door coming down again with a bang.

I closed my eyes tight, rubbing my throbbing temples and trying to make sense of it all. Princess? Lord Vader? Little Interview? I was aware that I was ravenously hungry, but the food tray was the last thing on my mind. I knew all to well what the man in the black uniform had meant by the "little interview" with Vader, and the very though of what awaited me made me sick enough to vomit. No, there was no doubt in my mind now that I was in fact a prisoner on the Death Star, but there were even more worrying questions on my mind now.

Had I become Princess Leia?

Was Mark alright?