Avatar Zuko

Chapter 24

Zuko ran through the Palace halls, desperately trying to get away from something, he just didn't know what. He kept going, leaping over spikes that grew from the floor and threatened to skewer him, but eventually tripping over as the carpet dragged his left foot down, unbalancing the Prince. He lay on the blood red floor, raising his hand to his face to brush away some of the hair that had fallen in his face but being terrified to find that the carpet truly was blood, or at least looked like it, and was now sticking to his forearms.

Zuko gasped and tried to scratch it off, but something hit him from the side and suddenly he was on his old ship, in his chambers as the boat was tossed around during that violent storm from when he was thirteen and had only just been banished. The firebender attempted to steady himself, gripping uselessly at the metal wall for support, until another large wave threw him across the room, landing facing a cracked mirror. The boy in the reflection was almost identical to him, except he didn't have a scar.

Suddenly the world swerved around once again and he was in the reflection, but now he was kneeling in front of his yelling father, surrounded by cackling nobles and a few silent sympathisers. Zuko looked up at the Firelord, already crying heavily, and screamed as he placed a fiery palm to his face, even smelling the burning flesh as it was seared.

The surroundings twisted again, throwing him next to his sister as she spoke of how their father was going to kill him. He clutched the blankets on the bed in fear, only for them to wrap around his wrists and trap him, pulling him down into a suffocating reality where he screamed out for help but nobody came. Until, after a few moments of dark terror, a single spotlight lit up and there stood his mother, looking at him sadly as he begged for her to save him, to help him- but she just pulled up her hood and walked away.

He screamed even more, sobbing and yelling until his throat felt raw, before his uncle slipped in from the shadows and untied him. Zuko hugged the general, so thankful to him, but then felt a dampness across his waist and pulled away from the embrace, to see that his uncle, who was still smiling kindly, had been stabbed through the middle with one of the prince's own dao swords, by Zuko. Only the other Zuko had glowing blue eyes and a blank expression.

The firebender attacked him furiously, blasting as much fire as he could muster, even spiralling out tornadoes at his clone, until several people- past avatars, pulled him back. They angrily shouted about how he was a failure, a problem, and everyone he cares for would die.

Zuko turned around and swung at them too but was met with the sight of his fire burning through the forms of Sokka, Aang and Katara, all of which cried out and pleaded for him to stop.

The Prince collapsed to the ground , watching as his only friends faded away and he was left on the floor of a great expanse of nothing, that was quickly replaced by a metal cell building itself around him and trapping him within, the iron tearing at his flesh everytime he attempted to escape. Laying, bleeding, on the metal floor, Zuko looked up at the entrance to see his father, who was sporting an identical expression to the one he'd had all those years ago at the Prince’s first, and so far only, agni kai. Zuko begged for him to free him, to help him, to heal him- but his father only sneered and shut him in, alone and in pain for the rest of eternity.

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Sokka sat peacefully on watch as the others slept. Usually at night it would be Katara or Zuko guarding them, sometimes both, but tonight he had been stubborn in his decision to stay up all night and watch over them. This was for several reasons: the first being that he was in desperate need of some alone thinking time; ever since the swamp and his vision of Yue the night before he'd been in dire need of contemplating over his feelings regarding Zuko, and that was difficult in the day time when he was helping out Aang and looking over maps.