The Girl He Won't Remember

Chapter 7

"So, how far are we from the tunnel?" I asked, still flicking flakes of ash from my hair and arms.

"Actually," Chung explained, "it's not just one tunnel. The lovers didn't want anyone to find out about their love, so they built a whole labyrinth."

Sokka stopped, which was unfortunate for me since he was walking directly in front of me. "Labyrinth?!" He squawked. 

Calmly, Chung replied, "I'm sure we'll figure it out." And we continued to walk.

"All you need to do is trust in love," Lily said, then proceeded to add, "according to the curse."

Once again, Sokka froze in front of me, and this time I was knocked onto my butt. "Sokka, could you do us both a favor and stop trying to make us into human dominoes?" As I stood up, I looked over at him. He didn't seem to notice what I'd said, or that I'd said anything in the first place, or even that we were being left behind. "Are you okay?"

"There's a curse?!" He blurted. "Of course there's a curse! This would've been way too easy without one!"

"Everything is going to be fine,"I said, hooking my arm with his. "And if it isn't, then you get to say 'I told you so'. Sound fair?" He nodded, and we ran to catch up with the others.

"Hey, we're here!" Chung's voice echoed as we entered the tunnel's opening. There was a carving alongside the entrance.

"What exactly is this curse?" Sokka asked. 

"The curse says that only those that trust in love can make it through the caves," Chung explained. "Otherwise, you'll be trapped in them forever."

"And die," Lily added matter-of-factly.

"O-Oh, yeah," Chung slightly stuttered. "And die." He smiled for a moment before saying, "Hey, I just remembered the rest of that song!" He commenced to strum a single chord on his instrument and sang "and die" in a deep, foreboding voice.

"That's it!" Sokka shouted. "There is no way we're going through some cursed hole!"

"Sokka," I said, pulling on his arm. "It's just a legend. It can't get   — " I stopped as a smell caught my attention. I turned my head to find smoke streaming into the sky from the top of the canyon, not far behind us. " — any worse than that..."

Chung's pudgy friend pointed up at the smoke. "Look, someone made a campfire."

"That's no campfire, Moku," Katara frowned. When had he been introduced? Was I not paying attention? Was I too busy blocking out their spontaneous musical numbers? Probably.

"It's the Fire Nation," I said. Sokka added, "they're tracking us. It's like we can't escape them!"

"So... all you need is to trust in love to get through these caves?" Aang asked nervously.

"That is correct, Master Arrowhead," Chung nodded, grinning.

Aang smiled. "We can make it."

"We're actually doing this?" Sokka asked. "What about the curse?"

I squeezed his arm, frowning. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, Sokka," I said. "We don't have time to worry about some ridiculous story that might not even be true."

With a nod of his head, he commanded everyone into the cave. I looked back as Appa growled. "It'll be okay, buddy," the Avatar reassured his bison. 

However, that didn't prove to be true. The ground began quaking as boulders came tumbling into the exit. We all whirled around to discover that we'd been closed in. One by one, the rocks began to seal our exit and envelope us in darkness. Appa began to panic, clawing at the new wall in a desperate attempt to escape. Katara and Aang eventually calmed him down (to an extent), and I had made a torch with flint and pyrite stones that Sokka kept in their belongings and firewood that they had collected over time. 

"We'll be fine," he declared. "All we need is a plan." He turned to me and asked, "Saki, how long will those torches last?"

"Only about two hours each," I shrugged, handing the torch to Katara.

Lily grabbed the rest of the firewood from under my arm and  began to light them. "We have five torches, so that means ten hours!"

"It doesn't work that way if they're all lit at the same time!" Sokka snatched them back and handed the wood back to me, stomping away to Appa and climbing into the saddle. "I'm going to make a map," he said as he foraged for paper and something to write with. "To keep track of exactly where we've been. Then we should be able to solve it like a maze and get through." He climbed back down, leading the way. 

After what I believe to have been an hour of dead ends, I had ended up in the very back of the group. I was already tired of walking. How were the others able to do this so often? "Are you alright?" A voice whispered next to me. I looked over to see a dimly-lit Aang tilting his head. 

"I'm fine," I nodded. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you were just leading us with Sokka, but now you're trailing." He was silent for a moment. "Have you told them that you're leaving yet?" Silence. "Well, don't you think you should?" Silence again. "Saki, you have to tell them eventually."

"Come on, you two," Sokka called back to us. "Keep up!" 

"I'll tell them," I finally said. "Not now... but I will."

"And what are you going to do once you leave?" Aang asked. "Are you going to live with Zuko again?"

I gave a bitter laugh. "Monkeyfeathers!" Realizing that I had said that too loudly and caught the attention of the others, I looked down and lowered my voice into a hush. "That isn't an option anymore."

"Then what's the plan?" 

The group's steady pace had come to a halt, leading me right into Appa's tail.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Sokka shouted. "We already came through this way."

"We don't need a map," Chung commented. "We just need love. Little Guy knows it." He looked back at Aang for agreement.

"Yeah," he replied with a shrug, "but I wouldn't mind a map also."

Katara helped me back to my feet, brushing Appa's fur from me as I spat out the hair that had gotten into my mouth. 

"There's something strange here," Sokka said as he paced. "There's only one explanation: the tunnels are changing." On cue, the tunnels began quaking violently.

"The tunnels," Chung whined, grabbing his head quite dramatically as if to make the ground stop shaking, "they're a-changin'! It must be the curse! I knew we shouldn't have come down here!"

"Right — if only we'd listened to you!" Sokka snarled sarcastically. 

"Everyone be quiet," Katara snapped. "Listen." We all fell silent trying to hear whatever she heard. A whistling was coming from the tunnel to our right, gradually growing to a crescendo. Sokka lifted up the torch to light the tunnel. Suddenly, a hideous wolfbat darted out of the darkness. 

"Giant flying thing with teeth!" Chung shouted as he ducked for cover.

It soared in circles, snarling as it flew past each of us. Sokka swung the torch at the wolfbat, who, in return, knocked the torch out of his hand. It landed on one of Appa's feet, triggering him into a panic. Appa seemed to be having a panic attack as he slammed his body against the cave walls numerous times. The cave shook again and forced debris to rain down. Just above us, boulders came down in a shower. There was a sudden force of wind tossing us back as the rocks crashed to the ground.