26 Luke

I had already changed clothes from PT. I didn't bother washing them. I was sure I would just end up sweating even more tomorrow. It was hot as hell in those tanks and the weather was starting to get warm again. Damn shame too. I liked the cold.

I was supposed to be in my quarters, well, Danev's quarters where I was bunking with him, but he was nowhere around. I had snuck to the library and was going through the journal, jut one last time. Thought maybe it would tell me what to expect.

It seemed every time I read, there were new pages I hadn't seen before. It was weird, but I read them all the same. Just more of the same. Fire Nation war crimes. The most talked about being the Air Nomad Genocide. I've been on the streets for 11 years and I've heard just as many tellings of the event. I've heard of heroic battles between the brave Fire Benders and the anarchist Air Nation army and of horrible massacres. This was just more of the same.

I held the book in my right hand, using my left to create a flame small enough to read and the paper appeared to glow red as though it were bleeding. It provided an eerie aesthetic while I read about how this monk had infiltrated the garrison here. Apparently, it was 10 from the dates he used. I must've been two. He got away with it for over 8 years before he was found.

I read about the people he was made to kill and the atrocities he was forced to commit. For somebody who had seen so much war, this monk Gyani seemed to have no idea what war was like. Must've just been Air Nomad mentality, but I know enough about war to know that things weren't exactly nice.

I found myself wondering what would happen with me. If I would be made to do the same. Kill people I didn't want to. Burn farms, villages, etc. Probably. Maybe not right away, but eventually. Assuming I didn't die, that's sure what my future looked like in the days to come.

I closed the book when I heard a night patrol approaching in the walls. I set the book back in the hollow between metal plates where I found it and pushed the bookshelf back over the hollow. The noise was louder than I had expected, and I heard the pace of the guards quicken. I ran through the other exit and I was away.

Soon enough. I was back in Danev's room, with him nowhere to be found. I wasn't sleeping on the floor tonight. I crawled into his bed and pulled the sheet over me. That night, I didn't dream. And I was glad for it. I would need my energy for tomorrow.