Blinded

Coruscant.
Like an animal hive, the planet is alive – Individuals, creatures of the dark, foliage surrounding broken buildings in the lower regions far below the market zone. Yet Coruscant feels strangely cold, like an icy wind piercing through bare skin. The planet is loud in his mind, a cacophony of voices and screams, shouts and laughter. He feels emotions that are not his own; love, hatred, fear, joy, pain.

Lassiter stands among the creatures that walk the surface. They ignore him for he is ordinary. To their untrained eyes, he is human. However, in reality, he is far from ever being human – from ever being humane.

Born as an unwanted soul, Lassiter changed into his enemy. He changed into the race of beings that had come to his planet and used his people for their own good, experimenting on their bodies to create soldiers bending to their will.

The experiments had not worked but left Lassiter and his brothers with powers no one had ever foreseen. Neither had anyone foreseen the scars. Running along his skin, running into his body, crossing his soul and penetrating his very being. Lassiter will never forget what humans have done to him.

In fact, Lassiter has left his home, has left everything he has ever known to seek out humans. However, to do so, he had to become one of them. Taut, pale skin with a touch of gold; silver hair shimmering in the sun; large, slightly slanted eyes the color of a vast ocean – an alien race condemned by a single act of violence by an institution called the Empire. Lassiter has given up his natural appearance to fit in – now, he is an attractive young man. Already he can feel women eying him curiously.

Depending on where they were, he can hear their thoughts. They sicken him. How dare they ogle him when it was their fault he was in this position in the first place? Lassiter closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He composes himself, forcing rage back into the dark pit within his soul. When the time was right, he would know and then he would strike.

He has no one particular in mind. The Empire is long gone, the men who had done this to him long dead. No one would ever notice but Lassiter is almost one hundred standard years old. Throughout all this time, the anger against the human race simmered until the need to break out was too great to be ignored.

Lassiter turns around and smiles at his reflection in a shop window. An inconspicuous blond man with a warming smile and laughing eyes. He still feels a woman watching him, intent on every move he makes.

If only she knew that soon she would be his reason for laughing.