"I don't know if I want to go to Drunksgiving tonight," I said to my roommate, Niyea', as she walked in the door to our townhouse. I was laying on our couch, playing on my phone while listening to music.

"What-giving?" she asked, taking off her shoes and coat.

"It's the theatre department's annual Thanksgiving party," I explained.

"Why don't you want to go?"

"I don't know if I feel like it," I lied. I had my reasons for not wanting to be in attendance, but I didn't want to bother her with my emotions.

"Then don't go," she replied,

"But it's also my last one so maybe I should go."

"Okay, then go."

"But I also don't want to feel awkward if I do go."

"Then don't go."

"But then I will feel shitty all night with fomo—"

"Look, go, don't go, it doesn't matter. It's just a party and y'all have one every other weekend so whether you're there or not really doesn't make a difference."

She had a point. I was a theatre major with a minor in dance. Our department would throw parties quite often. Whether they were cast parties, birthday parties, holiday parties, or just a theme party to give us an excuse to dress up in costume, there would be another party after Thanksgiving break. My dilemma was that I had been growing distant from my theatre family. Ever since I studied abroad I hadn't been as close. I missed Korea and life there more than my tiny college town, and it was obvious. I came home to almost an entire new department. Most of the faculty had left due to budget cuts in the state of Illinois, and our poor school didn't pay teachers enough. Several students had graduated as well, and in their place was a bunch of new students. So there I was, a senior in college, dealing with chronic depression and longing for a sense of purpose.

I decided to go to the party. Even if I feel out of place, I can at least say I went. Besides, fomo would just feed my depression more. I went up to my room to get ready. I sat down at my desk which I used solely as a vanity. I touched up my winged eyeliner and applied a wine colored matte lipstick. The dark color contrasted with my pale skin and made my eyes look brighter. I put on a form-fitting dark green sweater and black leggings, tucking them into a pair of gray wool socks. I pulled my dark hair out of its braid and combed it before pulling half of it up on the top of my head. I secured it with a black scrunchie and pulled out a few loose strands to frame my face. Fuck being a snack, I am the whole Thanksgiving dinner, I thought. My train of thought was interrupted by a knock at my door.

"Come in," I said.

It was Niyea', "Danielle wants to know what to get from the store for dinner."

"I really liked that vegan chicken she got last time so if she's down to make that then that's fine."

"Okay I'll text her back."

"Can you also ask her to pick me up a Barefoot Pink Moscato and I'll pay her back when she gets home?"

"Yeah I'll let her know. I'll take it you decided to go to your party?"

"I might as well. Drinking with friends is healthier than drinking alone," I looked at her and gave her a smug smile.

She laughed in response, "you right, 'cause binge drinking alone is what causes alcoholism but if you do it with others then it's just friendship."

I laughed and replied in my best Jenna Marbles voice, "oh Hell yeah!"

She laughed and rolled her eyes at me while shutting the door. I picked up my phone and looked at the time. Only 5:16 P.M. The party started at 7 P.M. so this gave me more than enough time to relax, eat dinner, and spend some time with my roommates.

My one roommate, Niyea', was a year older than me. We had met my freshman year because we were in the same dance company and had a mutual friend. I found out we were both going to study abroad in Korea. We bonded by seeing concerts together and talking about our common interests in dance, music, and even anime. We were both passionate about the arts. She was majoring in music business and wanted to go into arts administration. Where I was loud and outgoing, she was reserved and introverted. Where I was goofy and childish, she was mature and calm. We decided to become roommates the year following our return to America, and even a year after that. She had become one of my best friends. We were total opposites, yet we complemented each other fully.

There was also Danielle. A girl even shorter than my five foot three stature. We got along well so long as we didn't talk about politics. She had a stoic expression despite the infliction in her voice. We had met at a party a year before. She was friends with someone I knew from my residence hall floor my freshman year. I don't remember how we initially bonded, and that's okay because neither does she. She lived on our floor last year and when we found out she was looking to live off-campus we invited her to be our third roommate. It works out perfectly that she's vegan. Niyea' is allergic to red meat, and both girls are lactose intolerant. I had been a pescetarian since I was twelve years old. Together, we would eat home cooked meals that Danielle made and talk about naming our succulents or how obnoxious it is to live on Adams Street when it's a Friday night and we have an early Saturday morning.

We go to a party school. One which used to be the biggest party school in the state of Illinois. That was until the annual Block Party got shut down forever. It's a small school in the middle of a country town. There's one movie theatre that plays four shows, and only one shows at a time. There are four bars, one of which has a dance floor so everyone calls it a "club". There's nothing to do for fun except drink and do drugs. Living right off of Adams Street means we get to listen to drunk people walking to and from all the fraternity houses that line the street. It's also the most direct path to the bars in the square. We are all aware how trashy our school is, however, it did teach me how to party.

When Danielle came home, she cooked dinner while Niyea' and I sat at the kitchen table talking. She was fangirling over her favorite Kpop idol while I listened idly and occasionally made a comment about how hot he was. Danielle, who was very uninterested in boys at the moment, wanted to know if I had finally worked up the courage to talk to "that cute girl I saw in Browne Lobby that one time last semester".

"Nope," I told her blatantly, "but I occasionally see her tweets on my timeline whenever Kelly likes one of them."

"Don't you like that one guy?" Niyea' cut it.

"No I just wanted his dick for a while that one time but I think our friendship is better left as just sharing a Jimmy John's sandwich at 2 A.M. while being crossfaded as fuck."

"Romantic," she commented.

"That's a solid friendship, my guy," Danielle interjected.

"I don't want to date anyone right now and I'm sick of one night stands with acquaintances."

"That's why I'm just going to wait until marriage," Niyea' said.

"Really? You've never had sex before?" Danielle turned toward Niyea' and looked shocked.

"So? There are lots of people who are still virgins into their twenties."

"Hmm, true. To each their own I guess."

Danielle, like myself, had a repertoire of sexual experiences. However, Niyea's lack of sexual encounters had not been brought up before so Danielle was a bit surprised to say the least. Niyea' was a very attractive girl, with dark flawless skin and beautiful almond shaped eyes. Her lack of partnership was due to her lack of desire to date anyone because she was career driven. Danielle was just learning this for the first time.

The two were not very close. Danielle, for a while, was too anxious to talk to Niyea', and Niyea' was too introverted to want to get super chummy with her. Essentially, I was the mutual glue of friendship holding this household together. Unfortunately, being a theatre major and being on the dance company means I spend all day in classes and working in our department's electrics crew and all night going back to back from dance rehearsals to play rehearsal. Tonight was the exception due to Drunksgiving.

That particular topic died down while we ate. We talked about our days, and Niyea' and I had a conversation about some gossip we heard about a former company member. After dinner, I left for the party. While there, I chatted with my peers and ate pumpkin pie. I finished the bottle of Barefoot before ten and was feeling more sleepy than party-hardy. As I walked back to my home, I felt a sadness creep up in me. Freshman year Drunksgiving filled me with joy, but senior year has left me feeling empty. I laughed and played with people that have shared interests with me, but I didn't feel as connect to them as I used to. I needed to feel something more. I needed a sense of belonging. Both things that I lacked in this small college town.

I was too drunk to want to go home, so I walked past my townhouse and over to the little pond by one of the dormitories. I lived there the previous year, and would sometimes come by this pond when I felt down. I went there the last time I had a mental breakdown. I was crying because an acquaintance I had met at the start of the school year accidently called me the wrong name while incredibly intoxicated. While there was justification to his mistake, he was someone I ate dinner with several times a week for the prior month. It was menial, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It brought to the surface the feelings of longing and disengagement I felt from those around me. Even though we made up afterwards, I still remembered the incident.

There were trees surrounding the small body of water. Benches sat around it on top of a small hill. There was a fountain in the middle of the pond with an LED light that would make the water sparkle in the dark. However, it was not on, and the water was eerily still. I sat on a bench and looked out over the pond. I took my purse off from around my shoulder and set it on the grass below me. I pulled my feet up to sit cross-legged on the bench, resting my chin in my hands and my elbows on my knees. I sighed and looked out over the water and imagined myself under it. I remembered the days as a kid when I would lay down at the bottom of my family's pool and see how long I could hold my breath. I imagined the sound of silence and the pressure of the water in my ears as it washed away the melancholy in the dark murky depths. I took in a deep breath of air. It was crisp from the late autumn breeze, and winter was creeping up fast. The cold was becoming irritating, and I could feel my neck becoming itchy. The alcohol wasn't doing much to numb the cold. I was dumb to neglect bringing my scarf.

Contemplating going home or dealing with the looming hives, I was pulled out of my train of thought when I noticed something strange being to happen in the pond. The water began to fall down like a cone shaped spillway. The rest of the pond remained still and untouched. I'm too drunk for this, I thought. I grabbed my phone from my bag and turned on the flashlight to get a better look. I crept toward the pool of water. I wasn't hallucinating, but everything felt like it was spinning so I couldn't tell if what I was seeing was just a trick of my intoxicated mind. When I turned to walk back up the small incline, I slipped on a patch of frost bitten grass. I dropped my phone and slide down into the sinkhole in the water. In an instant, I crashed into the pond. I let out a scream, hoping someone driving by would hear, but my body was pulled into the depths.

I tried to blow some air out of my nose to prevent the water from filling my nostrils, but I soon found myself depleted of air in my lungs. The force of gravity kept pulling me down. I was going to drown. Everything felt like it was spinning inside of me while the icy water bite away at my outsides. My fingers and toes were numb, and my cheeks stung like needles piercing my skin a thousand times over. I'm going to die. I involuntarily tried to breathe, and my lungs were met with a wall of water. After a short struggle, I felt my conscious slipping.

I coughed. Hard. So hard that the force made me gag, and the alcohol that was sitting in my stomach decided it was a good time to reappear. I turned over on my hands and knees and spilled out the Pink Moscato and pumpkin pie right onto the metal floor. I continued coughing and gasping for breath, when I felt someone hitting my back. I turned to look at them with tears blurring my vision. The person was wearing what looked like suit of armor. The breast plates were a dark red and the shoulder pads were black. The helmet had a white face plate that reminded me of a skull, and the design around it was red and curved upwards to a point on each side of the face. I'm in Hell, I thought.

I heard footsteps coming towards me and the person who had been smacking my back, shot to his feet. He stood rigid like a soldier.

The voice from the footsteps spoke, "report soldier."

The soldier in question spoke in a deep voice that echoed within his helmet, "Sir, some of the crew stationed on deck saw something odd in the water. We fished her out of the ocean."

"You caught quite a big fish haven't you Chen?"

I looked at the man through my glossed over eyes. From my angle on the floor, he appeared to be average height. He had dark brown hair with bits of gray in it. His mustache was long and fell down the sides of his mouth. He sported a short goatee which was also graying. He looked like he could be in a biker gang in a movie.

"Sir," another masked soldier spoke up, "before we pulled her out, the water was doing something strange."

"Oh?"

"Yes, it was like there was a hole and the water was falling into it. Then she kind of just… popped out," the first soldier added.

"'Popped out'?"

"Yes sir, I've never seen anything like it."

The captain looked down at me once more and for a moment he seemed perplexed before he spoke, "you look very exotic for a waterbender."

My tongue felt heavy in my mouth and I was trying to swallow the nasty taste that lingered in the back of my throat. What is this guy talking about? Before I could pluck up the courage to speak, he spoke again.

"All of the waterbenders of the Southern Water Tribe were eradicated. So tell me, how did you manage to elude everyone?"

I was even more confused. Is this guy casually talking about genocide? "N-no..." I stuttered out.

"What was that?"

"W-where am-am I?" I was shaking uncontrollably from the cold. I sat back on my knees and clasped my hands together, blowing warm breath into them.

"You're on a Fire Nation ship near the South Pole. How did you manage to get in the middle of the ocean?"

Middle of the ocean near the South Pole? How the Hell did I get here? I can't tell him that I fell through some sort of whirlpool can I? Fuck fuck fuck. "My b-b-boat sank," I lied through my teeth. I could hardly focus on his face, everything looked blurry. I squinted my eyes in an attempt to see more clearly.

"How unfortunate," the man said with mock sympathy, "no matter, I will send a hawk to Commander Zhao to inform him of the situation. Guards, place her in a holding cell and make sure she can't bend. Also get someone out here to clean up this… mess." He turned and walked inside while the guards grabbed me roughly by the arms and I was half dragged down a flight of stairs in the middle of the deck. They cuffed my hands together behind my back before throwing me onto the floor of an empty cell. Then turned away from me, guarding the bars.

I laid there shaking. I tried flexing my fingers and toes to make sure I could still fell them. Thank fucking God, I let out a sigh of relief. Both guards immediately turned towards me with their fists raised in front of them. The sudden movement made my hairs stand on end. I sucked in a breath and froze for what was to come.When they saw that I wasn't doing anything, they went back to their positons. My body was still tense. My mind was racing and I could hear my heart beating in my ears.

Okay, think. There's got to be some way out of here. But If I try to escape, I'll have nowhere to go since I'm in the middle of the ocean. Fuck. Wait! This ship will have to dock somewhere at some point, then I can escape then. But how I'll be able to prepare myself to escape, I don't know how I'll manage that. Maybe if I'm good they'll let me go on parole? Well that's a fucking stupid thought.

I needed to calm down. The tension and fear weren't helping me. I slowly took in a deep breath and released it, as to not alarm the guards again. I sorted through information in my head. Okay, what do I know? I'm on a ship. I'm in the middle of the ocean. I'm close to the fucking South Pole. This ship belongs to another country—wait, what country did that guy say it was? Some nation I hadn't heard of. I looked at the guards standing in front of my cell. Their armor was strange. I couldn't recognize it as any country I knew. Maybe they're a small country? Maybe they have an agenda against Americans? No, that guy called me something I had never heard of. What was it? Shit. This couldn't have happened more than ten minutes ago and I can't remember. Drinking that whole bottle of Barefoot was a mistake.

My face felt hot and wet, and my nose became stuffy. I sniffed loudly and often, however, this time the guards remained facing forward steadfast. I continued crying until I ended up crying myself asleep.