A New Cycle

A New Beginning *Edited*

  For hundreds of years, the Avatar helped maintain the balance of the world. They stopped wars, ended famine, kept the peace. But when the Avatar was absent, the world began to grow greedy. Mankind advanced technology, spread pollution, speeding up the end of an already dying world. They were driven by wealth, always wanting more of it, so much that it blinded them to the folly of their actions.

  They ignored the sky blackening, slowly beginning to choke them. They looked away from the blackening waters, killing the sea life and those who consumed it. They pretended not to see the green slowly fading, turning brown and sick while they continued to bleed the ground dry. They burned the trees, polluted the seas and the skies, until they could deny it no more. Earth was dead.

  The Order of the White Lotus, the people who spoke out, who tried to turn them away from this path, saw this and prayed for the Avatar's return, but to no avail. It was common for the children being born to die in infancy, not enough food, too expensive to raise, a multitude of birth defects caused by over processed food. They knew the Avatar wasn't able to survive long enough to fulfill their destiny. So they decided to change that.

  They sent as many scouts as they could to numerous hospitals, trying to find the next Avatar as soon as possible. They knew that the Avatar had passed into myth at this point, a fairytale told to children to give them hope for a better world. No one would recognize the signs unless they knew what they were looking for. For years, they saw no signs, no unexplained wind gust, no random shakings of the earth, not a small fire, no shifts in the water. They had begun to lose hope of ever finding them.

  Until something changed

  One night, an elder received a vision, a dream sent from a god. She told him that, after killing the Earth, the rich had turned their sights to a newly discovered planet, Pandora. She had seen their plans for her people, and she had known there was only one person who could possibly stop them. She allowed him to see the birth of the next Avatar, so that they could finally locate them and raise them to fulfill their destiny. 

  At once, a delegation of 3 elders went as quickly as possible, determined to stop human greed from destroying another world. They pleaded with the parents to allow them to take the child. They refused initially, wishing to raise their child themselves, but after thinking of the dismal future that would await her if she remained on Earth, with heavy hearts, they allowed their daughter to be taken.

  Safe within the safe zone, hope finally blossomed within the small community. It may have been too late to save their world, but they would not doom another planet to their fate. This child would finally be able to master the elements and fulfill the destiny they were meant to.

  And her name was Atalanta Voldari.