The sound of machines marching into a screaming mass did not cause him to turn. The sound of children crying for their mothers would not pull his gaze from the far edge of the city. The sound that finally caused him to pause long enough to look back on the burning city was the voices raised over the din, chanting almost in unison:
We are the dead.
We are the dead.
We are the dead.
i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. I AM SO FUCKING SORRY. it should have been me. i know it should have been me.
Obi-Wan looked down at the simple, child-like symbols carved into it, and felt from it in the Force soaring echoes of transcendent love, and the bleak, black despair of unendurable heartbreak.