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It was three standard days later when Barriss Offee woke. She felt like garbage. Worse than garbage, really. Whatever she was injected with gave her a kriffing brutal hangover. She thought of mornings long past, after a night of being dragged along to clubbing in the lower levels by her old friend. Before.
And then she remembered Ahsoka's eyes, corrupted sulfer, and promptly threw up.
It was one standard week later when Barriss Offee was dragged from her cell. She was weak with hunger and terribly dehydrated, an intentional tactic no doubt, so she was barely coherent when two troopers in shiny black armor pulled her down a corridor. She thought she saw natural light, though it flickered as if shining through water.
She learned quite early in her stay not to reach into the Force. This place screamed with painful memory and a suffering that clouded the mind of every being there. She thought of days long past, the monotony of a medic in wartime, patching up soldiers only to send them out to die. So she had shut herself out, and thus didn't sense her impending doom.
She was clamped down to some horrid contraption and left there in the dark. A smokey heat rose from beneath her and kept her sweating, further dehydrating her, until she couldn't sweat any longer. Intellectually, on some level, she realized this was a horrifically dangerous state for her body to be in. But not once in her brief moments of conciousness she kept in spurts between Force knows how many hours did that danger register to her conciously.
When a cup was pressed to her lips full of cold water she didn't question it. She drank it all and shivered at the sensation of it spilling out the edges of her lips and plummeting down her parched throat. She thought of the morning after Geonosis—the first time—when her Master cared for her while she was bedridden with injuries. She recalled the way Luminara held her head as she fed her, and the care she felt from her. The attachment. The love. The guilt.
It took far too long for her to think to open her eyes and see whoever it was that granted her reprieve. And there was Ahsoka, a fresh glass in hand, and a wicked grin plastered on her face. Barriss' eyes quickly misted. She didn't refuse the second glass.
It was some standard weeks later—perhaps a month?—when the rayshield enclosing Barriss' cell shut off. She was hesitant at first, carefully tip-toeing to the entrance to her cell then peeking out into the empty corridor, but soon she was running for her life. It was hardly her first time escaping a high security prison and she knew not to question opportunities when they fell in her lap.
She hadn't had the opportunity to memorize much of the layout yet. They kept her in an isolated wing far from the rest of the facility and deep underground, but she knew which doors the janitor droids left through at the end of their shifts and booked it through them. By some miracle they were unlocked too, perhaps by some power failure? It didn't matter, she needed to get out of here.
She rounded another corridor and came to a control center for the holding cells. The floor was littered with bodies. A half dozen troopers in shiny black armor lay motionless on the floor covered in obvious saber wounds. In the middle of them all, deliberately placed to catch her eye, was her old lightsaber. She froze, eyes locked on the weapon.
"You were such a drama queen," Ahsoka whispered in her ear. She jumped in shock and twisted around to see the inquisitor smiling at her. The togruta's smug smile was a mockery of her old friend's youthful cockiness.
"I was a monster," Barriss responded after a pause to get her bearings.
"Yeah, a bit. But it was so much fun! You had us all running around like headless chickens," Ahsoka giggled, "'Headless chickens'. Ha!"
Barriss stumbled backward as Ahsoka Force-pushed her, and she fell to the found when she tripped on one of the troopers' arms. The inquisitor drew her saber and ignited one end, holding it in a reverse grip as she advanced.
"Pick. It. Up. Pickitup pickitup pickitup! "
Barriss scrambled backward and shuddered with fear as her hand bumped her saber— Ahsoka's blade plunged toward her neck— Barriss gripped her old saber and raised it— her old saber lit up with a crimson blade and she screamed. It retracted and hit the ground like a stone. Ahsoka stopped as it rolled to her feet, smiling cruely down at the mirialan. Barriss' old hilt rose in the air to Ahsoka's free hand and she chuckled.
"Don't worry that's not your crystal," she tossed the old hilt behind her and held up her inquisitor saber, waving it about like she was showing off a new toy, the blood red of her inquisitor blade casting shadows behind her, "It's in this thing."
Barriss felt numb, like she was hardly even present. All she could do was stare blankly at Ahsoka's bloody red blade. It soon became clear that the togruta was expecting more of a response from all this, and the silence was grating on her.
"Speechless? Horrified? Come on girl, give me something, this is just sad."
"What do you want from me, Ahsoka?" Barriss asked quietly, and the inquisitor flinched.
"That's not my name. I'm First Sister, okay? First Sister."
"I'm sorry," Barriss' eyes watered, "I'm so sorry. You deserv— what happened to you, it wasn't right."
Ahsoka retracted her lightsaber and frowned, looking down at her old friend. Barriss forced her gaze up to meet hers and smiled sadly. It was immediately clear in the inquisitor's eyes that that— pity was too much. It wasn't 'fun' anymore.
It was a few standard hours later, long after Ahsoka turned and left and more black-armored guards came to take her back to her cell, that Barriss finally let herself sink into a meditation. She felt the pain of this prison, the memories of torture that plagued every being living and dead in this place, the visceral hatred they had for eachother (and themselves), and she acknowledged it. She thought of the old guided meditations she used to do with her Master early in her training. Luminara would tell her that feelings were windows to truth. She shouldn't let them rule her, but with an open mind she could interpret them and decide for herself how best to act. So she listened. She felt the guards as they patrolled the halls, fanatical in their loyalty. She felt the other prisoners, few though there were, and how close they were to giving in. She felt the inquisitors, those who were once imprisoned here, and their desperation to surive.
And she felt the First Sister. Her old friend, the one she betrayed. And felt her heartbreak.