13 Luke

It was hard finding time to come to the school library yesterday. Now that I was a firebender, training took up the better part of my day. Training would go from 6 in the morning to 6 in the evening. Now, it was already dark by then so that cut out any other recreation, not that I would partake as I would have been covered in sweat by then from the exercise and the fire. Especially the fire. Maybe the fact it was starting to feel hotter was a good sign. Show of progress of some sort, I don't know, but point was, I was here now, and I had no idea what I was looking for.

I couldn't outright go to a teacher or doctor and say I was hearing weird voices in my head, no. That was a good way to sign myself up for vivisection or institutionalization. I had to do this on my own. Maybe I could have asked Zaydi. I had the feeling she would keep it between us, but I couldn't know for sure. It was safer this way.

I didn't bother asking the librarian anything. I doubted he knew what I was looking for and he seemed rather comfortable where he was sleeping at the front desk. I let myself in and decided first to check anything medical related. The section wasn't too updated as I imagined it might have been in a military academy that gave two shits about its medical program. The only used books were in the infirmary, but I doubt they had anything for "voices in the noggin."

I checked a few of the issues, looking at what my symptoms could be of, but there were no matches between any of the symptoms I had. I knew it wasn't fever as aside from the voices and "hallucination," I guess you could call them, I felt fine. I decided to stick around the medicine section, looking for whatever I could. I found some chapters in a few books here and there related to hallucinations and the like, but the pages that came after were ripped out. It wasn't the best of signs on how the rest of the evening would go for me.

I knelt down, getting ready to check the books on the lowest shelf when everything around me went silent. I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the lack of noise created when a book from above me that I must have poorly replaced, fell onto the ground.

For some reason, I looked around me as though I were expecting to find some physical source of the lack of noise. When I saw nothing, I decided to test this newfound anomaly and snapped my fingers in front of my face to make sure my fingers were moving. They made no noise. Not the first time, not the second, not the third, or any of the times I tried after.

Then there was finally noise, but not the kind of noise I was expecting to return at any moment. It was a soft voice, that of a man saying, "You won't find what you're looking for here." The voice was enough to send me tumbling backwards into the shelf behind me, knocking even more books onto the ground, this time with noise attributed to them.

This was the first-time voices had called to me during the day. Before, it had always been during the night, in that room. "You're not supposed to be talking to me." I dared say. To think I just started believing I knew what was going on.

"There is a lot you don't know."

"So, you can read my thoughts now?"

"No. Look for anything that talks of the world beyond this one."

With that, the voice was gone. So far, I was liking this voice a lot more than the others. This one was actually direct, told me something rather than beating around the bushes. And thank the spirits for that. Wait. The spirits.

I got off from where I had fallen on the ground and pushed myself up to my feet, moving around to find any sort of religious section. I looked around the entire library thrice over until I realized there wasn't one here.

Instead, there were empty shelves against the wall, dust lining them as though they'd been empty for years. But who would keep shelves intentionally empty for years? No. What I'm looking for once was here, but now it isn't. So where is it?

"There's nothing here." I whispered to myself, as though I were hoping for some off worldly response to guide me.

"There is."

Somehow, it scared the hell out of me once again despite the fact I was practically asking for it. "Where?" This time I got no answer.

I looked on each of the shelves, looking for something as small as a piece of paper, but found nothing. That's when I tried looking on the lowest shelf and saw empty space between the shelf and where the floor should have been. I looked to where the shelf should have been bolted down. The screws were missing. I tried recalling which floor I was on before deciding to try to jump through it and realized I was on the 2nd. Below this floor, well, there wasn't a room there. I remembered the layout. If anything, there would be an arrow of pipes and steam generators. What would I fine there?

I looked around me, half making sure I wasn't being watched and half looking for somebody who would talk me out of the dumb shit I was about to do. There was nobody there to do either. I pried my fingers between this shelf and the next, pushing it away from the empty space in the floor until there was enough room for me to slip through. I kept my hands clutching the shelves as I made my way down, ready to close it behind me, leaving enough space for me to get leverage to push it back away so I could get out again, but instead, I was forced to let go as It closed just as I made my way into the pitch-black space below.

"Really?!" I practically yelled into the black space in front of me. I was waiting for something to come on to light my way, but nothing came. So, it finally comes in handy, I told myself as I created a small flame in my hand, providing enough light to illuminate the 10-foot area around me. Pretty good considering how new I am to this, I told myself.

The light finally revealed where I was. As I expected, plumbing pipes, steam pipes, some electric lines here and there, that sort of thing. Luckily, I had landed on a small catwalk that allowed for engineers and plumbers and electricians to move about the area with ease. I would have to watch out for those same people.

As I moved through the pipes and electrical lines and the like, I felt like my head had suddenly cleared up. What the hell am I doing here? I realized that I had been on some sort of auto-pilot this whole time, not really thinking about what I was doing, but there was no going back. My exit had closed behind me. Fuck it, I thought to myself as I decided to continue on ahead of me.

In time, I reached where the corridor ended judging by the steel door ahead of me. Well. I thought to myself. This has been a waste of time. I switched the flame to my left hand as I used my right to open the door and just as the door opened, a small slip of paper waiting at the top of the door fell right onto the floor in front of me.

I looked out the door into the empty corridor. I was clear. I grabbed the small slip of paper off the ground and read it:

Trust Raava.

Watch out for Vaatu.

I wasn't waiting for them to contact me this time around. I sat on the steel bed frame in that burned out abandoned room. It was finally night. I went from wall to wall, looking for whatever made this room special. I was done waiting for them to choose when the time was right. I wanted to think I was having some effect, pacing back in forth in this apparently "sacred" room.

I looked up to the ceiling and outstretched my arms as though questioning the gods. In a way, I was. "So?!" I asked. "Are we doing this?"

There was no answer. Son of a bitch. I went to the far wall, banging on the walls, ruining the sleep of whoever may have sleeping in the room next door to the left.

"Hello!?" I called out as I banged on that steep plating wall. "I know I'm not insane. You've been eager enough to chat me up this last week, but what? Now that I want to talk, you're suddenly shy?!"

There was still no answer. "Fuck this." I murmured to myself. "This better get your attention."

I created a small flame in my hand, providing some light in the room at first. I focused every inch of my being on it, using my free left hand to nurture the flame as best as I could. I remember what I had been learning in my lessons with the same instructor who still refused to provide a name.

The flame grew. And grew. And grew to the point that it was then larger than my palm. Then my hand. Then a few sizes smaller than my head. The temperature in the room was rising significantly and I could feel the sweat begin to trickle down my face. Good. I turned to the wall that had appeared so important last time I was contacted in the middle of the night. The wall that had become stone, with the light shining through it.

This was the hard part. I focused on the flame in my right hand that had grown to a significant size. I focused on the wall in front of me. I took a step back until my back was against the wall. Drawing the energy from the flame, I created a continuous stream of fire towards the wall. It began small, but I focused more on it, allowing more flames to leave the ball I had created. As the flames left, I focused energy on restoring some of that fire that was being lost to the steel wall. It worked. The stream of fire grew as did the area of effect.

The sparks were flying further, some even reaching me. I didn't slow down. This had to work. If it didn't, I would have made an ass of myself in front of the spirits who were apparently constantly watching. I recognized those names the moment I saw them. I think everybody knew those names. The light and dark. Never before seeing those names would I have put 2 and 2 together and assumed I was talking with the 2 most important spirits in the world. Hell, never would I have guessed I was talking with spirits at all.

The flames were growing, more than I had expected. To the point that it was surprising even me. I had been practicing, yes, but not this. This was more than I was used to handling, but the stream of fire kept growing as though without my contribution, but I refused to stop. I had to keep this up. And in time, it did.

That recognizable white light appeared in the room, but this time, there was a definite source. I ended the stream of fire and turned towards the light. There was a shape in the room. A shape of light, but it was a blur, but nonetheless, this time around, there was an actual something for me to talk to.

"So, this is what you look like, Raava? I always imagined something a bit more, I don't know, romantic."

I don't know what made me think joking with the spirits was a good idea, but I chose my path, and I had no regrets, though she apparently did for being the one to contact me in the first place.

"You've spoken to Wan, haven't you?"

Who the hell is Wan?

"I asked you a question."

She went back to my original question. "This isn't my true form. As time goes by, you can see more and more of me."

"And why's that?"

"Because the Winter Solstice approaches." She said, apparently annoyed.

I sighed, pissed at myself for having forgotten. I put my hand to my forehead, "And the gap between the spirit world and physical world narrows. Common knowledge."

"So common that you've entirely forgotten." She spat in response, clearly upset.

"I'm sorry, but why exactly are you pissed at me?"

"I am not angry with you, merely disappointed." She spoke as her figure moved across the room.

"And when exactly did you develop standards for what you were expecting from me?"

"That is none of your concern at the moment."

"I disagree. I think it's very much my concern."

"No. It is not!"

I backed down. I wasn't yet willing to die but getting killed by a spirit would definitely be an interesting experience."

I needed to get information here. I needed to get my questions answered and I couldn't do that if she was pissed. "I'm sorry for pushing." I said. "I'm just curious. I'm not exactly used to this sort of thing. Everything has been very strange and confusing lately."

"The solstices will have this effect, especially during that of winter. Us spirits are not known to your world and the effect we have on the physical world can understandably be frightening to your kind.

My kind. That's rich. "So, the bending?"

"The bending, your friend leaving his coma, your contact with us, that among much else, some of which is yet to come."

"Like what?"

"I cannot…answer that at this time."

"Then can you at least tell me why you've contacted me?"

"Your time in this city is limited, quickly running out and you yet to complete your objective here."

"What objective?"

"There. There was- "

Her image began flickering, fading into the dark.

"Something wrong?"

"I must go. Quickly."

And before I could ask why, she was gone. The night went silent once more. So then this wasn't the end of it. Well shit.