He lay broken on the blackened shore, the air itself aflame around him. The river of lava spat and roared, its heat searing what little flesh the duel had spared. Limbs severed, cloak burning away to ash, he could do nothing but scream—at the fire, at his former master, at a galaxy that seemed to recoil from him. The ground trembled beneath him, mirroring the fracture within his soul. Once the Chosen One, he now felt only the cold clarity of betrayal and the hollow echo of his own choices. The dark side, which had promised power enough to defy death, offered no relief from this agony. As the flames licked closer, pain became everything—body and spirit fused in torment. On that molten shore, Anakin Skywalker burned away, and something far darker waited to rise from the ashes.