Suki stood in the center of a small clearing, edgily examining the forest around her. The hulking silhouettes of trees and boulders stood silently surrounding her. To her anxious eyes they looked like the forms of lethal monsters come to devour her. She heard it again. A skittering noise cut through the silence of the night, roaring in her ears. She whipped around, just in time to catch a shadow slip behind a boulder. She stifled a gasp of horror.
In the all-consuming night around her, she couldn't be sure what she was seeing. Was it a hallucination? An innocent creature of the forest? A prison guard come to take her back to the fire nation, or an ally? She sucked in a deep, shaky breath. She hadn't believed it when she was able to break out of the Fire Nation prison, and now she wondered if she even had at all. Was this just Azula playing mind games on her?
She resolved that it would be best to spend the night in the clearing, because not having to cross the threshold of the clearing into the gloomy forest meant she would not have to face the ominous creature that may be lurking there.
Gradually, she lowered her tremulous body down to the blanket of pine needles below. Every muscle in her body was quivering with icy fear and adrenaline. As she put her arms around herself, finally a breath of warmth came over her, soothing her. It came again, a hot breath of air that slithered down her back and made her skin tingle. The creature behind her let out a soft chuckle, blowing little winds on the skin of the neck, and sending a shiver through every frozen nerve in her body. A spidery limb snaked over her shoulder, softly wrapping itself around her screaming throat. She turned around to face the creature behind her, and…
Black.