Between the spirited

The awoken

Natali hummed quietly to herself, waking from her slumber. Slowly opening her sleep crusted eyes, she looked around slowly taking in her surroundings. 

Huh?

As Natali's eyes adjusted, she took notice of things she hadn't right when she woke up, such as the burn marks that littered every corner, and the pieces of tattered cloth that were rustling around the room-- disturbed by the wind.

Where am I? Where are the others?

Natali quickly sat up and began to frantically twist her head around, looking for a reason for the disturbance in the usually peaceful room. Finally getting tired of the silence, she reared back and shouted across the empty room, "Hello? Gyatso? Anyone? This isn't funny! Tell me what's going on!"

The only thing she heard in return was a soft echo and the quiet scraping of fabric being pushed and pulled by the wind. 

The wind!

Quickly realizing that air must have been getting in through a small crack in the wall, she began to crawl along the edges of the room to see if she could find the hole, or maybe even an exit. Feeling against the wall, she carefully began to trace every line, bump, and indent  with her hand until her thumb got caught on a crevice a tad larger than the rest. Making sure not to cut her hand on any sharp rocks, Natali began to feel around outside the crack, making sure that there was nothing else she was missing that could be of use to her. 

She breathed quietly through her mouth and muttered to herself, "It's ok, just feel around outside using the air. No biggie. You've done stuff harder than this. Just breathe"

Taking in a sharp breath, she began to prod the air with her bending, willing it to push outside and help her find something that could help her get out. The air listened, slowly beginning to move its way across the wall outside of the building she was in. Natali willed it to push further and further, until it reached something of interest to her. 

Bingo.

Pushing more air up from under her, she forced it to trickle into three, long,  spiraling tubes that were keeping the door shut and locked, away from prying eyes. After a while, she began to hear the comforting sound of a horn, coming from the tubes she was opening.  When the last lock began to hum its tune, she could hear the doors unlocking from somewhere deeper into the sanctuary. 

"Holy fruit cakes that was hard. Note to self: work on sightless control." Natali moaned to herself, silently cursing for not doing this sooner.

Getting to her feet, Natali began to wobble, catching herself on the wall she started to take tentative steps towards the exit. When she finally regained her balance, she took the chance to look around. In a spiraling circle going up as far as she could see, there were statues of people from all the nations. Looking more closely, she began noticing a distinct patter.

Water...Earth...Fire...Air...

"The avatar cycle," she breathed out, finally realizing why they all seemed familiar to her.

As she turned to get a better look at a particularly small statue, she heard the sound of footsteps. Panicking, she hid behind one of the earth bender statues and listened. The constant sound told her that someone else was here.

But who?

Plucking up her courage, she took a deep breath, jumped out from behind the statue, and ran out the door.