Book 3: Darkness

Episode 1: Evil Within

Hungry. Tired. Mistake. Mom. Dad. Bolin. Sorry.

The words danced through the young boy's head, but reconciling their meanings had become impossible long ago.

Mako could make out a soft, feminine voice urging him to move, to watch out for his brother.

"Mom?" Mako said in his mind. He thought his lips may have moved as he did, but wasn't sure. If so, there was certainly no voice attached to them.

The child's mother came into vision now. She neither moved, nor spoke. Just a still picture in his mind. "I'm sorry," the boy said, "I thought I could protect him. She said that we'd be split up and I made him run." Mako wasn't sure if his explanation was making any sense to the mirage, but he no longer cared. Talking to her made him feel safer, somehow, as if everything was going to be okay, even when he knew it wasn't. Even when he knew he was dying.

The image stayed with him for a while, still and unmoving, like a statue. He continued to talk to the phantom until it eventually flickered away, leaving him alone in his mind, once more.

. . . . .

"Hey, Boss. There's two boys over here." Mako heard the voice, but his shut eyelids refused to reveal its owner. At first, Mako thought it another delusion, but this sounded different in a way he couldn't quite understand. Mako tried to call out, but his voice swelled in his throat, and he decided it wasn't worth the effort before drifting away again.

Through his semi-consciousness, he was occasionally aware of hands grabbing him at his sides, of changes in sound and smell, and of changes in the light that managed to make it through the thin layer of skin that covered his eyes. Once, it even crossed his mind that he was being moved, but the thought was lost to him as quickly as it came.

Soon, the light and smells became constant. Over the next stretch of time, he noticed footsteps coming and going. A few times, he could feel hands lifting his head, as a liquid was put to his tips and voices advised him to swallow. He didn't need much encouragement, and swallowed instinctively. The voices would say they were giving him water, but it tasted far better than any he had ever drank, though Mako never exerted any effort in pin-pointing the distinction. After drinking, he would drift off again. Later, they began bringing broth as well. Like with the water, he would swallow instinctively as it entered through his lips, before once again isolating his mind from the world around him.

"The younger one just woke, boss. He said his name's Bolin." Bolin. The name sounded familiar. It took a few moments to place his brother's name in his mind. He woke? Had he been sleeping? If anyone replied to the speaker, Mako couldn't make it out.

Mako, in his dreamstate, began to measure time in terms of how many times the broth was brought to him. For example, between his fourth and fifth feeding, he began to remember him and Bolin being out on the streets, with no food and little water for over a week, finally laying down in an old alleyway, where they went to sleep. A man came in during the sixth feeding, talking about how much Bolin wanted to see him. Between the sixth and seventh feeding, he heard Bolin sobbing nearby and felt a hand holding his own. When he was semi-lucid for the seventh feeding, a single thought glided through his subconscious. That he couldn't leave Bolin alone. Why would Bolin be alone? He still had mom and dad. They could take care of him. Mako saw the image of his mother, once more. So beautiful, with crimson hair and amber eyes. He wanted nothing more than to go to her, and hug her, to be wrapped in her loving embrace once again. He tried to move forward, but his incorporeal form in this dream denied him that. Then, blue light flashed across his vision. The image switched to his mother laying on the ground, her clothes singed where the bolt had pierced her gut. Her husband was beside her, and had suffered much worse burns in the struggle, his face unrecognizable from the burns. Mako tried to scream out, but only managed to choke on the broth that filled his mouth.

Following the choking incident, Mako lost count of his feedings, assuming his count was ever accurate to begin with. His lucid moments became fewer and fewer as the days went by. He occasionally heard others speaking, but translating their words took too much effort on his part. When he awoke from his slumber, he would remember the voices saying that they didn't expect him to make it, even though it didn't register to his brain at the time.

"Why did you not wake?" came a deep, guttural voice from within Mako's mind.

The intrusion took Mako by surprise. The voice sounded somehow familiar, but he was incapable of placing it. "I… I couldn't. I was too weak", Mako mentally replied at the creature.

"That is false. You were improving. Your slumber was your own doing. What I do not understand is why."

Mako realized that something was wrong. The coma, it wasn't happening now. It was a memory, or a dream. The eight-year-old who laid in bed, dying, that wasn't him; not anymore, at least. It hadn't been for a decade.

"I didn't want to face Bolin." Mako said after some thought. "Chief Beifong said that with no living relatives, she would have to find us new families. There were a few foster homes we could stay in, but none were willing to take both of us at the same time. It was my idea to run. I was supposed to be his protector, but my choice almost got him killed. I stopped fighting to stay alive, because I was afraid he would hate me, and I would have lost everyone I loved."

Mako had never told anyone this, not even Bolin or Korra, and Mako felt like he definitely shouldn't be trusting this information with the creature that now communicated with him. Still, there was something disarming about being within his own mind that made him willing to reveal all of his secrets. The invader didn't respond, although Mako could feel him dissecting the information. Come to think of it, why shouldn't he trust the creature? Maybe it was an ally, or maybe just a delusion or dream of some sort. No. Mako realized neither of those were true the moment they crossed his mind. Whoever this intruder was, he was deadly real and absolutely not a friend. There was something he felt like he should remember, as if it were a shape in the distance that he could make out if he was only a few steps closer.

Mako tried to remember how he gotten here. His life after the coma came to him almost instantaneously. He remembered his training with Zolt, him leaving the Triple Threats for Toza, pro-bending, meeting the avatar, the Equalist rebellion, becoming a police officer, visiting the Southern Water Tribe, the civil war, Varrick, going through the spirit portal… Mako realized exactly his situation, the mystery of the invader solved.

The word slipped from his tongue unconsciously. "Vaatu."

Mako awoke.

Author's Note: Warning, the next chapter gets darker, much darker. Continue at your own peril.

Also, if you like this story, review. Actually, review if you don't like it, as well. Some constructive criticism is important to allowing me to improve my writing. Basically, review, please.