I won't sit here and spin you the usual "tale of woe" that you'd usually hear from the usual Slummers. People have it rough just about anywhere in the galaxy, don't they? I'll say this, though - living there? It got me ready. Ready for whatever life had to toss at me.

Or so I'd thought.

It's funny...just when you're pretty sure you're getting a grip on things, someone yanks the floor out from under ya and takes all the handholds away from that point up. Then, you're just left hanging.

That's what it felt like to take on "The Red"...

Of course you'd hit the most densely-populated planet with a bio-weaponized, life-ending virus. Of course you'd do so, fully expecting to have an outrageous body count and a ninety-five percent mortality rate. When it started taking down only humanoids, causing them to go feral and wreck everything, a lot of fingers began to point at a lot of different races. The Hutts didn't last long. All their creds couldn't save them as they were hunted down, interrogated, and killed without mercy. Some of them were just left to The Red, and the ferals tore them apart. Quite a few of us watched that, gleefully. I couldn't stomach it. I had enough to worry about, trying to keep my friends safe. Trying to keep my caretaker, Lekki, alive. He was Verpine, see...they were immune to the Red-Eye. So a lot of folks came knocking, and he sent me and Eiylah running. I still haven't found him yet.

I...wasn't expecting what happened next.

Eiylah...she was...she kept me centered. Even when "The Red" hit, she did her best to keep a smile on her face. Up until then, I didn't know that she had been fighting another battle altogether. She had a rare blood disease, one that didn't allow her to store oxygen as well as other humans. I always knew she had trouble catching her breath, but, I didn't realize it was that bad. And when she finally succumbed to the Red-Eye, it was the final straw.

She didn't suffer like the other ones who went feral...the onset of her disease had already weakened her to the point that she couldn't fight both off at the same time. At least, that's how the kriffing Jedi said it...

They told me they couldn't save her. They didn't even try!

The karking Force-jockeys had set up a clinic during the initial phases of the Red-Eye springing up everywhere. Most of them were races other than human - apparently they'd figured out that the virus hit humanoids the hardest. And I'm still not sure that was truly the end of it, either. Regardless, they were trying - seemingly in vain - to combat the spread of the sickness and offer shelter to those who needed to be kept safe from the ferals. They didn't have room for non-humanoids, though. And seeing as how Lekki was who he was, Eiylah wouldn't leave his side. I wasn't too keen on trusting a bunch of robed space-monks, anyway, so that made my choice just as simple.

Maybe if I had convinced her to stay, she wouldn't have gotten sick. I wouldn't have had to carry her back there. They wouldn't have to lie to me, telling me they couldn't do anything for her as they were packing up their stuff and running-the-hell-away...

She died. Eiylah died, and there was nothing I could do to save her.

I had to bury her - my childhood friend, the one person I cared about more than anybody else in the world. She's six feet under in one of the dingiest, most pestilent-ridden sectors of a dead world; laid to rest in a poorly-marked grave.

Should've been me. Now, instead, I've got to be the one to make it out. For the both of us. If I can survive just a little longer, maybe find my way up top to the spaceports...maybe I can finally get off this rock.