#look i agree that to some degree vader is the consequence of anakin's wrong choices

[cienie-isengardu]

Episode I: Journal of Anakin Skywalker by Todd Stasser

I also had a secret. But mine was private. It had to do with the dreams I had. My dreams were different from the dreams of other kids I knew. Take my friends Kitster and Seek, for instance. They both wanted to be pilots like me. But they dreamed of leaving Tatooine forever and never coming back. I dreamed about leaving, too. But I would come back. As a Jedi Knight. I dreamed about leading a slave rebellion here on Tatooine. I dreamed of holding a lightsaber, and of driving every last Hutt, criminal, and bounty hunter off this planet. But I had another secret as well. A dark secret. It was about the way my dreams always ended. It was a secret that frightened me, one I could never tell.

Star Wars Episode I Adventures #5: The Ghostling Children by Dave Wolverton

He stopped at a pile where an old Jawa silently leaned on a crooked stick. Its gloves were wrapped around the staff.

At its feet was an odd assortment of items - shiny blue stones from the edge of the Dune Sea, polished bones of Krayt dragons, a rope woven from bark. Among some pieces from old blasters Anakin noticed a very strange cube that looked to be far, far older than any piece of equipment that Anakin had ever seen.

He picked it up. The cube was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, like a large dice. Intricate designs showed on its face, but the designs were so worn that they could hardly be recognized.

On one side of the cube, it looked like a picture of two Jedi Knights, fighting with lightsabers.

Another side of the cube showed a volcano. A third side was so worn that he couldn't tell if it had ever had a picture. A fourth side revealed a star map, with instructions on how to land on a certain moon. The fifth side was also worn smooth. A last side showed a lamp with a knife blade through it, the symbol of forbidden knowledge. All along every corner of the cube was writing in some language that he couldn't decipher.

Anakin imagined that tens of thousands of people must have touched this cube over hundreds or thousands of years.

He hefted the cube, thinking that it was some sort of storage container. But it was so light that it had to be empty.

Yet, when he squinted, he could feel… well, there was something inside. Something … evil.

The cube had no latches on the outside, no locks or hinges that he could see. Anakin could almost imagine that the cube wasn't a box at all, but some component to a machine whose purpose was forgotten ages and ages past.

"For you, very cheap," the old Jawa said to Anakin.

"What?" Anakin asked haltingly. The Jawan language was very hard to understand.

"Very cheap."

"But I don't want it," Anakin said. "I was just looking." He glanced toward home. It was getting late.

"Three wupiupi," the Jawa offered, twisting the knob of his cane. It was exactly the amount that Anakin had in his pocket.

"No," Anakin said. "I don't even know what it is."

"Three wupiupi is a small price to pay for knowledge," the old Jawa said. Under his gray-black hood, the Jawa's eyes gleamed.

"No," Anakin said. He started to put the cube down, but couldn't. What if it really was evil? What if it was dangerous - like a bomb or something? By just leaving it, he could be setting a trap for some unsuspecting person. It really was better to take the thing. Maybe Watto would know what it was.

In the deepening shadows, he took out his last three credits and handed them over to the Jawa.

Star Wars Episode I Adventures #6: The Hunt for Anakin Skywalker by Dave Wolverton

Anakin rolled over on his bed and felt the strange cube in his pocket. He took it out and laid it in the cubbyhole above his headboard.

He fell asleep with his clothes on.

In a dream, he was in a huge room, shouting for help. He banged on the walls, trying to get out. He thought it might be Gardulla's fortress, but the high walls were square, and the roof had no transparent dome overhead. He wasn't at Gardulla's. He was inside the cube!

He could see no doors or windows, no way to escape his prison. "Help me!" he cried. "Help me get free!" He pounded on walls of cool gray metal.

"No one can help you," an evil voice whispered. "No one can help you. You must open the cube!"

"How?" he shouted. "How do I open it?"

"From the inside," the mysterious voice whispered.

Anakin started, found himself awake on his bed. It was late at night. The mysterious voice was ringing in his ears, and his heart was pounding.

He'd heard the voice, he felt sure. It wasn't a dream. It had been too real to be a dream.

But in the darkness he couldn't detect any movement nearby. No one was in the room with him, hovering above his bed.

From memory, Anakin tried to recall where the sound had come from.

The voice had spoken to him from above his bed, he was sure. It had come from the cubbyhole.

He reached up, felt for the strange cube that lay there. He grasped it in the dark and felt its square edges. Somehow, he was disappointed. He'd thought that maybe it would have opened itself, like a flower blooming. But it was still closed.

"Did you say something?" he whispered to the cube. "Did you talk to me? Are you trapped in there?"

He listened hard, and this time he thought maybe he could hear the voice answer. Or maybe it was more of a feeling that there was an answer. Yes. I called to you.

"How can I let you out?" Anakin whispered.

From the inside, the voice seemed to whisper.

Anakin held the box up and squinted at it. He wasn't sure if he really felt an answer. Was it possible that he could open the box, that he could find a way to open it from the inside?

And if so, what would the box contain? A tiny alien perhaps, some creature so small that it could live for a thousand years trapped in that box, trying to get out.

It seemed only barely possible.

I'm going crazy, Anakin thought. That is what's giving me these dreams. I'm caught in a trap, and Pala and all my friends with me. No wonder I'm dreaming about being trapped inside of boxes.

Yet even as he considered these doubts, he noticed that the cube was warmer than the night air, as if it generated a tiny amount of heat.

Live creatures give off heat, he realized.

Rogue Planet by Greg Bear

Anakin dreaded sleep. It seemed, in his dreams, that something inside was testing him, something very strong, and it did not care whether it was loved or feared.

***

"I seek to escape pain," Anakin said. "My mother-"

Mace lifted his hand, and Anakin instantly fell silent. "Pain can be our greatest teacher," Mace said, barely above a whisper. "Why turn away from pain?"

"It… it is my strength. This I see."

"That is not correct," Obi-Wan said, placing his hand on Anakin's shoulder. The boy looked between them, confused.

"How is it wrong, teacher?" Mace asked Obi-Wan.

"Lean upon pain like a crutch and you create anger and a dark fear of truth," Obi-Wan said. "Pain guides, but it does not support."

Anakin cocked his head to one side. He seemed slight and even insubstantial among these Jedi Knights, all this overwhelming experience. His face collapsed in misery. "My most useful talents are not those of a Jedi."

"Indeed, you throw your spirit and your anguish into ma chines and useless competitions, rather than directly confronting your feelings," Mace said. "You have cluttered our Temple halls with droids. I stumble over them. But we are away from the crux of our present matter. Try again to explain your error."

Anakin shook his head, caught between stubbornness and tears. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Mace took a shallow breath and closed his eyes. "Look inward, Anakin."

"I don't want to," Anakin said breathlessly, his voice jerking. "I don't like what I see."

"Is it possible you see nothing more than the tensions of approaching adulthood?" Mace asked.

"No!" Anakin cried. "I see … too much, too much."

"Too much what?"

"I burn like a sun inside!" The boy's voice rang out in the chamber like a bell.

***

Anakin felt as if he were inside a gigantic colony of myrmins.

Then he felt the voices of the seeds. They are afraid. The heat is baking them. Their shells are crisping.

Most of the heat rose in rippling sheets of air, but as the fuel blazed and embers settled out, the seeds were being roasted like sugar hulls in a campfire.

Perversely, Anakin shivered as if with cold.

Obi-Wan put an arm around his shoulders. Anakin saw that his master's face was beaded with sweat. He, too, could feel the seeds in the fire.

"Something wrong?" Vagno asked, his face glinting and flowing in the yellow light from fire, as if he were part of the blaze, a stray ember given human shape. He walked around them critically.

"We're fine," Obi-Wan said.

But Anakin did not feel fine. He wanted to curl up and hide, or run, but he knew the seeds no longer had legs, no way of escaping, even if they wanted to.

"I've never lost a client. No fear, no fear," Vagno said.

The seeds were afraid but did not move under their burden of embers and flame. Theirs was courage, and also an awareness of fate or destiny.

The seeds were not nearly as intelligent as a human-they did not really think for themselves-but inside of each was the potential for awareness and intelligence. The fire was bringing that awareness to the fore.

This will happen to you.

Anakin gasped. He was not dreaming.

This is your destiny, your fate.

Obi-Wan had said nothing. Anakin knew where the voice was coming from, whom it belonged to, but could not believe what he knew.

There will be heat and death and resurrection. A seed will quicken. Will it burn or shine'? Will it think and create or be ruled by fear and destroy?

And then the voice fell silent.

Obi-Wan's arm tightened around Anakin, as if he would protect the boy. "The wave is not what we expected," he said.

Anakin stared into the flames, his inmost self suddenly calm. The seeds were changing. They were no longer afraid.

Clone Wars (2003)

Anakin's Vision on Nelvaan

The Clone Wars (2008)

Anakin's Vision on Mortis