The Girl He Won't Remember

Chapter 12

As usual, we flew for a long period of time, and everyone was growing bored and restless. Katara took to her waterbending scrolls, Sokka took to polishing his weapons, and I was once again working on my goodbye letter. It only seemed to get more difficult as I wrote and rewrote. I'd eventually given up, deciding that I needed a break. Maybe it'll come to me later, I thought,  after a nap. I tucked the letter away and rested my head on a rolled up sleeping bag. A nap was all I needed. I fell asleep seconds later, but my mind refused to allow me to sleep peacefully...

"Why do you keep running?" A  distorted bland of voices echoed in my head. I stood in an empty room, everything around me was a blinding white. "You always run from the people who care about you." Wind swirled around me, whipping me in the face with my own hair. I pushed the hair from in front of my eyes and found myself face to face with my mother. "Is it because of me?" She asked. Before I could respond, the wind blew again, revealing my father. "Or maybe it was me." It blew again, revealing Ursa. "Or was it me? Is it because I left you?" Suddenly, the wind blew again and the voices continued to taunt me, more violently this time, taking the air from my lungs with it and knocking me to my hands and knees. 

Choking for air, I looked up, finding Zuko standing in front of me. He was scowling, with nothing but hatred in his eyes. "You're selfish," he spat. The wind grew more furious, pinning me down as I watched Zuko turn and walk away with clenched fists. 

My eyes shot open, but the wind never stopped. I looked around, as the clouds seemed to get farther and farther away, and noticed that I was no longer in the saddle. "Why are we falling?" I asked, panicked. When I wasn't given anything more than their screaming, my voice rose. "Why are we falling?!" Still, I was given no response other than screaming. I twisted to see below me, and instantly wished that I hadn't. My stomach smacked against the waist-deep swamp water before I even had the opportunity to react. I pulled myself up onto a tree root, coughing out the water that had found its way into my throat and lungs. "Now does someone want explain to me why we fell?" I asked. Aang ignored my request and climbed one of the trees, calling for Appa and Momo. It was then that I noticed that they hadn't landed with us.

"We were knocked out of the sky by some random tornado." Katara asked me. "How were you able to sleep through that?" I only shrugged. It didn't seem like a good time to tell her about my dream. "Sokka," she said, pointing, "you have an elbow leech."

Expectantly, he panicked. "Where?!"

"Where do you think?" She replied sarcastically.

He looked at the large, black leech on his elbow and began yanking on it. "Why do things keep attaching to me?!"

Aang swung down on a vine, landed gracefully in the water. 

"You couldn't find them?" I asked. 

He shook his head. "And the tornado... It just disappeared." We all looked around the swamp. Something about this place made me feel uneasy, though I couldn't quite figure out why. Although, it may have had something to do with a mysteriously appearing, then disappearing, tornado that tried to kill me in my sleep.

Sokka took out his machete and began swinging at vines. "We need to speed this up," he declared. 

"Maybe we should be a little nicer to the swamp," Aang said. 

"Yeah," I agreed. "I'd like to not have random forces of nature trying to annihilate me."

"These are just plants!" Sokka said. "Would you like me to say please and thank you as I swing my machete back and forth?"

"Maybe you should listen to Aang," his sister suggested. "Something about this place feels... alive."

"I'm sure there are a lot of things that are alive here," he retorted, "and I don't want to get eaten by them. We need to find Momo and Appa as soon as possible, and get out of here."

We trod through the swamp until nightfall, and even that didn't stop us. There was no way that Appa and Momo would be able to hear us calling for them, nor would we be able to see them. The swamp seemed endless, and only became more dense the farther we went. Sokka suggested that we set up camp for the night. The thought of that made my skin crawl. I was not a fan of the outdoors, especially not these outdoors. A mist burst into the air, clouding around us. "It's just swamp gas," Sokka reassured us, but the smell was horrendous and gag-worthy. He swung his machete at part of a tree root. 

Aang frowned. "Sokka, the longer we're here, the more I think you shouldn't be doing that."

"No, I asked the swamp," Sokka said. "It said it was okay, right, Swamp?" He grabbed a branch and shook it a a bit, doing what I could only guess was his impression of the swamp, "No problem, Sokka!" 

Aang was not in the least bit amused.

As we sat around the fire, no one was eager to spark conversation. That is, until Katara asked, "Does anyone else get the feeling that we're being watched?"

"Please, we're all alone out here," Sokka said. A firefly began buzzing around Sokka, triggering him to swing his machete in attempts to either kill it or shoo it away. Suddenly, the firefly was a giant orb of white light, exposing the numerous pairs of eyes gazing down at us.

"Except for them," I said. 

"Right," Sokka's voice cracked. "Except for them."

When the eyes finally disappeared, the others opted to get some rest. I, for one, was not at all yearning to sleep again, so I volunteered to keep watch. I began thinking about my plans for after I leave the group — or, shall I say, the lack thereof. I had no idea what I was going to do, where I was going to go. There was one thing I knew for sure: I needed to be rid of these Fire Nation clothes if I wanted to live or travel in peace. I suppose that was to be my first objective. 

Movement in the shadows interrupted my thoughts. I tensed as I looked to my left, then to my right as I saw more movement. "U-Uh... G-Guys...." I tried to nudge Sokka awake, but my hand was swatted away as he mumbled something in his sleep. Whatever was moving was now slithering towards us,coiling around each of our legs. "Guys!" I nudged Katara this time, which got me nowhere. "G—" We were all suddenly jerked in different directions, each of the others disappearing into the darkness.