Aang walked down the corridor, noticing how the floor and walls rippled slightly as he walked. He found himself in a large, round room. There was a chair in the middle, although it was unlike any he'd ever seen. It had a high back, narrow arms, and instead of legs it sat on a single pole. It was shiny black. Aang decided to ignore the chair and focused instead on the walls. They were covered with constantly changing images. He recognized some of the people in the images and looked closer. Some of the pictures had him. And Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Iroh, Zhao, even those girls who had been chasing them before they arrived in Ba Sing Se. He looked closer at the other pictures and realized that he recognized most of the people in those images, too. They featured him and his friends, too. He realized that the pictures stayed when he focused on them.
He studied one. It took him a moment to realize that the Airbender girl was him, and that the guy she was kissing was Zuko. Startled, he switched his attention to another picture. He was older, and in chains at Ozai's feet. Zuko stood on one side of Ozai, smirking. A girl, Zuko's sister?, was on Ozai's other side. In that picture, he had failed. He switched his attention to other pictures. In this one, Sokka was a girl. In that one, he and Katara were older, and seemed to be getting married. Aang liked that one. He transferred his attention to another picture. Sokka was kissing Zuko, while Katara watched.
He walked around the perimeter of the room, studying the pictures. This one had a female Zuko. This one had a male Toph. In the next one he looked at, he was dressed similar to the one he had been when marrying Katara. He was kissing Zuko, taking off his clothes. In others he was kissing Sokka. Or Toph. Or that bounty hunter Zuko had sent after them. In some the world was in chaos, and he was dead or in chains. In others, Katara was kissing Toph, or Sokka, or Zuko. There was even one where she was kissing Iroh.
"What is this place?" His voice echoed hollowly off the walls. He almost jumped out of his skin when someone answered him. The voice was flat, with no inflection at all. Aang couldn't tell if the speaker was male or female.
"It's a reality hub, Aang. The images are from different realities where you and your friends and enemies exist. Each represents a world where a different choice was made, or where something-such as gender-is different. All these worlds exist separately, yet they are all connected. There is no way to travel between them, and all are dependent on your reality. Your reality is the prime reality, the reality that all the others formed from."
"Why am I here?" He couldn't see the speaker, but he got the impression that it had shrugged.
"You are here because it is a dream. There is no greater meaning to it. Even a fully realized Avatar would not have the power or the ability to influence the other realities."
"Can I see what happens in my reality? How the war turns out? If I end up with Katara?"
"No." The images were starting to break up. The ones he could still make out were…disturbing at best. There was one where he and his friends were on a stage in front of a large crowd, chained. Aang was horrified to realize the crowd was bidding on them. In another picture he was being executed by the Fire Lord. Another image showed him being given to Zuko as a reward. Then these broke apart as well, and the walls were blank.
"It is time for you to wake up now, Avatar Aang."
Aang jerked bolt upright, breathing hard. He looked around, relieved to find that it had just been a dream. He was still in Ba Sing Se. Today was the day he had to go see the guru about mastering his Avatar state today. He thought about mentioning his dream to one of the others, possibly Katara, but the details were already fading. He shrugged it off as a result of drinking to much tea right before bed and went to see if there what was for breakfast.
