Hello everyone! This is my first story for „Avatar" and I hope you´ll like it.
Please review and tell me what you think, but don´t be mad at me for bad spelling and grammar. I hope my english isn´t THAT bad! Oh, and please don´t think I quit the story because I take my time to update. It´s a bad habit of mine but I like to check my story so I don´t deliver a bad chapter. XD
Well, this is the summary:
When Tommy´s shot dead and Jake shall take his place, he cannot leave his younger sister Anna behind. Her eldest brothers death affected the fifteen-year-old emotionally and Jakes hopes come true when they arrive at Pandora.
For the first time she´s happy again and Jake begins to worry a second later:
She may be a genius with animals, but a fifteen-years-old girl with an own Avatar employs Pandora?
„It´s about your brother."
I looked up at the guys face. He stepped into the room, followed by another one, both dressed in expensive suits.
They wore a businesslike expression on their faces and I turned my wheelchair around to face them. The wheels squeaked softly and I felt the second man muster me up and down. Well, I was used to people stare at me, but this time I needed to hold myself back from glaring at him.
The room was nothing but a stokehold, a prolate cardboard box lay on the floor and I knew what was in there.
I tried to look away but the paper casket seemed to call me with small soundless voices.
It really was a casket. My six-minutes-older twin brothers casket.
The first guy reached out his hand to me and I shook it. Then the second one guided me over to the cardboard box and I followed his steps in my wheelschair, stopping next to it.
A man in an overall appeared, removed the cover and reavealed my brothers face.
My dead brothers face.
That we looked completely alike was no secret and so I looked at my own face.
And couldn´t feel anything. But something about him, maybe his peaceful expression, made me remember how different we really were.
As children, as adults.
My father died because of cancer when Tommy and I were twelve and my mother carried my sister. She raised us three all alone and was most of the time worried.
I´ve always been the rebel somehow, always in trouble and nonsense in my head. Everything changed when I became marine and went to all the dangerous places in the world. Actually I liked it. I was far away from home and didn´t hear my mothers complaints and fears. Then I came to Venezuela and lost my youthul enthusiasm together with my legs.
I looked down onto them and felt that the workman mustered them too.
They were still there but absolutely useless. Not much better than losing them completely but luckily I still looked human this way. I´ve often seen soldiers without their legs and to me it was a picture from a nightmare. Tommy didn´t mind those pictures.
He was the talented one who wanted to study biology and make something of his life. After I had been injured, the army sent me back home. Nobody needed a useless marine at the army, but when I returned to my family, I noticed how much I was needed at home.
The first thing I was told, was, that my mother was dead.
These few words from my brothers mouth pulled the rug out from under my feet. She was shot dead by a bunch of small-time ciminals when she was out to do the grocery shopping and the most shocking thing was, that all this happened when I was at Venezuela and nobody informed me.
Luckily there was no time to think about it and I welcomed the problems my brother and I needed to face. My sister was only eleven years old and our mothers death hurted her the most. Now my brother and me were responsible for her and we tried our best. We became a thing like a family, my brother, my sister and me.
They eased the pain and a year after my return, Tommy decided to attend this „Avatar"-program. He studied three years and reached his doctor degree.
Now he lay infront of me. Skin as white as moonlight, closed eyes, I could see where the bullet stroke him.
So a week before Tommy´s gonna ship out, a guy with a gun ends his journey for the paper in his wallet.
One of the guys stepped beside me and looked down onto my brother. I didn´t look up, I knew he wanted to say something.
„Your brother represented a significant investment. We´d like to talk to you about taking over his contract."
This finally made me look up at him. He really looked like a businessman in his suit. He ignored my brothers corpse completely and looked at me as if his annoying glance could ease my decision.
I stared at him, then I looked away and back to my brother. Millions of thoughts moved in circles in my head.
Moving to Pandora?
Avatar-program?
Tommy was the scientist, not me.
„You are his twin and since your genome is identical to his, you could step into his shoes...so to speak."
The other one stepped behind me and I felt a second annoying glance drill into the back of my head.
They really want me to decide here and now?, I thought and watched the workman close Tommy´s casket and laden the incinerator with it. The window closed and locked and I pushed my wheelchair closer to the glass and watched flames burst out of the tubes.
„It´d be a fresh start on a new world."
„And the pay is good."
„Very good."
I tried to hold back a bitter grin. Pencil pushers!, I thought but didn´t answer. All they ever thought of was money and when they looked at me, they saw a possibility to save money they´ve invested.
Little did they know that there was something more important. I wasn´t alone anymore, I had to bear responsibility for someone.
I turned the wheelchair around until I could look at them and they knew that I´ve made a decision.
„Anna comes with me.", was all I said and a second later I heard the unbelieving gasp I expected.
„This is absolutely inadequate, Sully! You speak about amounts you have no idea of! Transportation of a civilian to Pandora, six years! Billet, rations! We won´t throw millions of dollars down the drain for a person which is absolutely useless for us!"
They got even more excited about my scandalous demand but I sat there-well, what else should I do?-and watched them gesture wildly. I waited until they stopped babbling and sat up a little more.
„You said: Throwing millions of dollars down the drain. What will be more expensive, gentlemen: Anna comes with me to Pandora and I´ll take on business? Or my sister and I stay at home and you take it from there?"
Their expressions froze and I had a hard time not to laugh. Their faces were hilarious and worth to take a picture of.
I knew, yet one of those Avatars was fucking expensive, the extra costs for Anna were nothing next to the wasted money for a not used Avatar.
I keep you on a short leash, buddies!, I thought and didn´t even bother to wait for their reaction.
„Think about it! When you reach a decision, let me know!", I said and moved over to the door. One last glance at Tommys burning grave and I left. The doors sound of opening and closing was everything that could be heard.
The hallways were nearly empty. Some people still worked though it was 9 p.m.
The wheels squeaked again, I hated those linoleum floors.
I turned the corner, still thinking of what´ve happened behind one of these doors. I breathed in air and prepared myself to explain the situation to her.
I looked up and saw her, she was still sitting on the same chair and gazed into spaze. Then her hand went up to her face and she wiped instinktively something from her cheek. She wanted to see Tommy, but then we arrived and she just couldn´t. Her legs began to shake, she sobbed hysterically and I nearly commanded her to stay outside.
I sighed and moved over to her, stopped next to her and waited.
She seemed to notice that someone was next to her but instead of recognizing me, she cringed.
„My gosh!" Anna pressed her right hand on hr heart and sighed. „Do you have to sneak up on me everytime and scare me like that?", she complained, shaking her head in disbelief. I noticed the tears in her eyes.
„I´m ready, can we go?", was all I said and she nodded.
She lifted her bag from the floor and walked next to me along the hallways, opened the countless doors for me and tightened her jacket around her body when we opened the main entrance door.
It was cold outside, artificial light in every single colour lightened the night and for one moment we stopped and stood.
I noticed how pretty she looked in that black dress. Her hair shimmered in an indefinable colour, but I knew it was a warm chocolate brown, my mothers haircolour and the colour she inherited to all of us.
Her blue-green eyes filled with tears and I stopped to examine her like a doc.
„How did he look?", she muttered and looked down to the floor. She acted like a stepped dog.
I wiped my eyes with my hands, I was so tired.
„He looked like Tommy." She countered my answer with a bugged snort and rolled her eyes.
„I know that he looks like Tommy, dumbass! Did he look peaceful or horror-movie-like?", she asked and I sighed. Such rare moments overhelmed me sometimes. She was the child and I was the adult, but sometimes we seemed to switch parts and suddenly I was the child and she the adult woman.
„He looked pretty calm."
Anna nodded and her long hair nodded together with her head. I took her hand in mine and she looked at me.
„Now it´s just the two of us.", I said and knew that this black dress of hers was nothing but one last proof of love for Tommy.
The streets were full of life and I cleared my throat. There was something in the air and Anna felt it. „What´s wrong?", she asked and looked pretty suspicious.
Tom and I were the older brothers and we got along pretty good though more than ten years seperated us. Tommy and Anna were a good team after Moms death and I often wondered how similar they were, just as if they were the twins and not Tommy and me. Anna was blessed with her interest in everything and everyone, loved nature and especially animals. There was no animal in the world she was afraid of.
Her eyes hardened. „Jake Sully, I feel there´s something cooking and I want to know what it is!", she said and again I was overhelmed by the realization that she was fifteen yet.
„Well, I talked with those morons of businessmen and they made a really tampting offer, but I wanted your approval before I agree."
That was it. This secret-mongering of mine woke her suspicion even more. Neither Tommy nor me were famous for restraint and most of the time we diclosed everything to everyone immediately. My um and err was the worst thinkable strategy to tell her about Tommys contract.
That moment I really wished he would show up and clear up this shit.
Tommy was the scientist. He was the one who wanted problems and riddles as job, not me. I sighed and told her everything.
Anna lay the flowers down onto the grave. She wore her black dress again and she looked pale and sad. I sat next to her and watched her.
„Do you think he will miss us both?", she asked and sounded like a child. But I was the last one to make fun of her and thought about it.
„I guess he will be with us.", I said and poked her softly. I knew it was hard for her, much harder than for me.
Sometimes I wondered if she really saw the world through her eyes or if she felt everything. My sensitive, little sister!
In her company I felt both, younger and older.
I send one last glance at Tommys simple grave. Bye, brother!, I thought and knew he could hear me.
Then we both left the cemetary. Tommys ashes would rest in this last piece of green earth.
We went back home and took our packed bags. It wasn´t much, all we had for life was my injured person´s pension and that was enough to starve.
Our three rooms were sold and we walked along the streets as homeless.
Anna didn´t say anything and I didn´t disturb her. I got used to her silence, because I knew that silence would help her heal.
Two days after my little visit at Tommys fomer boss` place, they send a colleague to inform us about our journey. I knew they would play along. They needed me and I would never leave Anna.
I mustered the young woman that walked next to me. Though I could not walk anymore and though I had left her for many years, she never eliminated from me. Now she was about to accompany me into the unknown and accepted everything without complaints.
When I first told her about my plans, I expected her to pelt me with dishes.
But surprisingly she stayed scray calm and I believed in silence before the storm. Then she asked me everything about Pandora and the Avatars and the few information sI had about the natives. We talked until late at night, I could tell from her alarm clock that it was nearly 4 a.m. in the morning.
Anna fell into her bad and she smiled with closed eyes, when I kissed her goodnight.
This became our own little ritual. Every night I would say goodnight.
Pretty hockey!, was all I thought when it started but now...
Now it´s just the two of us. That were my words and I wondered if I wasn´t a lovesick idiot.
I loved my sister that much, I was selfish enough to take that fragile creature with me to one of the most dangerous planets ever, a planet we would need six years to reach. I knew that she coul have a life on earth, but that would mean I would never see her again. I lost my father, I lost my mother and I lost my brother. She was everything that remained.
Six years of sleep. No feelings, no nature, no...nothing.
That was her only worry, but I told her what Cryo was and she swallowed the bitter pill without further comments.
Anna took my hand and ripped me out of my thoughts. Her eyes sparkled and she didn´t seem pretty worried or scared anymore. She was curious for the nature and the animals and of course the natives. She loved everything that waited for her to be discovered.
And increasingly I knew that there would be something new, six years far away.
One life ends, two begin.
Well, this is the prolog. I hope you like it and review! ^^ And if you do, please tell me what you liked and what wasn´t good, k? Sorry again for bad english. Sackclothes and ashes! XD
Love, LR!