His Hands. || 𝘼𝙤'𝙣𝙪𝙣𝙜

seventeen

Italics = thoughts or flashbacks
Bold = Metkayina sign language

A few days had passed and we no longer took lessons with the Metkayina teens anymore. We were now being taught how to do other things around the village so we wouldn't suffer the shame of being useless, like Tonowari had said.

Apparently the tulkun would be arriving soon. I was more than excited to see them, me and Lo'ak haven't stopped talking about them to Tsireya who was just as excited.

Night would be falling soon, all of us were in the pod already. As I was weaving a basket I couldn't help but think about how Ao'nung felt about me.

It was kinda weird but I just hoped we weren't left on any bad terms that I wasn't aware of.

Nightmares have became more frequent to me now after I told dad about what happened. I have a feeling he told Neytiri because she keeps asking me about how I'm doing, more than usual at that.

The nightmares were all somehow connected. We were at war against the sky people once again, and I kept getting different parts of the whole thing happening.

My first nightmare was of Neteyam dying at the hands of a demon, the way his lifeless eyes stated at me were engraved into my brain. The second one was leading up to that moment, the moment of my twin brother's death.

We were on our ilu's together discarding a tracker off of Payakan. We swam far out before letting it sink into the ocean, as I looked back I noticed the demon ship had came closer and our siblings along the Metkayina teens were gone.

Weird sky people creations were dropped into the water and I dived in to see what was happening, they were chasing them.

I alerted Neteyam and we both swam faster. We saw Tuk, Lo'ak, and Tsireya being lifted up out the water by a net. We communicated through our eyes and wasted no time rescuing our siblings.

I don't remember everything, it was like a blur. I remember bits of my nightmare where I was killing some sky people before climbing onto the ship with Neteyam after Payakan helped with the killing.

We quickly cut off the restraints on their wrists and I had ordered Tsireya to get Tuk out of there. Next thing I know Lo'ak was reaching for a gun and telling us we had to go back for spider.

We both tried to tell Lo'ak it wasn't a good idea but we knew he was too stubborn for his own good, so we couldn't leave him.

We reluctantly followed through with the plan of his and thankfully rescued spider, but at what cost? Right. The cost of Neteyam's life.

Because after we had jumped off the ship and into the water, I immediately noticed something was off with Neteyam. I noticed he was under water for a lot longer than the rest of us, Lo'ak didn't notice as he was too busy cheering with spider about how they saved him.

I swam to Neteyam once he finally lifted his head up, making weird noises with a hand over his chest. I noticed the water beginning to cloud around him as he managed to say he was shot.

I woke up after that, I basically just got the backstory to my first nightmare. When I woke up after my second nightmare I was a bit creeped out about how the two nightmares seemed to align with each other, but once I had the third nightmare I was terrified.

Once I was placed into my nightmare, I was staring at Neteyam as he heaved harshly while looking at all of us that were around him. He looked at me as his hand gripped mine tightly, he couldn't even properly say the words he wanted to say to me before he took his last breath and all the life was sucked out of him.

Mom lost it, she called his name over and over again before screaming out in agony as her hands remained gripping his shoulders. I felt numb, just staring at my lifeless twin in front of me who's lifeless eyes stared back.