CHAPTER 3

The school day went by normally. I listened to lectures in science, enjoyed lunch with my friends, nearly fell asleep in social studies, and so on, but throughout the day, I couldn't take my eyes off the new kid. There was something about him. . . I can't put it into words. . . but he just almost. . . called out to me, in a way. And it wasn't just because he was handsome.

Though, he really was. He had these silvery grey eyes that shone like diamonds, and shaggy black hair that really framed his face well.

But that wasn't it.

There was just. . . something. . .

Before I knew it, the 4 o' clock bell rang, indicating that is was time for dismissal.

"Katara, lets go!" Sokka called out to me from outside my classroom door. I grabbed my things and went off with him in the hallway.

I walked with Sokka to the buses, and h began telling me a story about what happened at school that day, but I was only partially listening to it. ". . . And so Zuko just gets up in the middle of class, glares at the teacher, then walks out during a lecture! Gosh, you should have seen professor Zhao, he looked like he was about to blow a circuit! But anyways-" Sokka rambled, but at this point I wasn't really paying attention anymore. Instead I was focused on the new kid. . .

". . . I swear Katara, I almost died laughing, I- Katara?"

I jumped from hearing my name. "Oh, yeah?"

"Were you even listening?" he inquired.

"No, sorry. I was distracted."

"By what? I was telling a really good story!" he whined.

"I was distracted by that new kid over there," I explained, turning my gaze to him so Sokka would see who I was referring to.

"Oh, him. I think his name is Aang. . ."

"Aang?" I asked, surprised by the unusual name. "How do you know that? Did you talk to him or something?"

"No, I heard on of the teachers call out his name in the hallway."

"That's an odd name." I noted. I looked back to him. He was walking towards the buses too, but alone. He seemed sort of lonely, and I felt guilty that I hadn't gone and tried to befriend him earlier.

Sokka continued babbling while I just sort of tuned him out, when Toph and Suki came up to us.

"Hey Sugarqueen!" Toph waved to me, using the nickname she gave to me the previous year. "Hey, I'm not going to go on the bus this afternoon." she said, while nonchalantly playing with her fingernails.

"Really? Why?" I asked.

"My parents are picking me up right away to go to the stupid dentist. I don't know why I have to go. I don't have any cavities, or anything. I brush twice a day!"

"I'm sorry. Well, I'll see you tomorrow," I said, coming up close to my bus.

"Yeah, okay. See ya, Sugarqueen." She walked off in the opposite direction towards the pick-up line. I laughed at her irritability, then jumped into my bus.

As I took a seat, I gasped when I saw the next person who walked onto the bus.

It was the new kid. Aang.

I watched as he shuffled to the back of the bus, taking the only vacant seat left, and sat alone, wearing a bored and somewhat sad expression. I wondered if he had made any friends.

He probably didn't.

The bus began to whirr gently, then rose off the ground in one swift, smooth motion, and drove down the bus lane. It was still going slow enough that I might have been able to get up and sit next to him. Should I go, I thought. If I don't, I might miss out on making friends with him. If I do, I might not know what to say and will end up putting myself in an awkward situation, or we just might not get along. But something was telling me to go and sit next to him, and if I didn't, I would end up regretting it forever. He's just some average student on the bus who looks lonely. I doubt that if I don't go, I would be missing out on something, but deep down inside, I knew that was wrong.

I made up my mind.

I stood up from my seat, and walked down the bus aisle, biting my lip hoping and I wouldn't make a total fool of myself. I sat down at his seat and smiled at him.

"Hi."

OoOoO

I was a little shocked, I have to admit. That day was probably one of the worst school days I had ever had; I felt awkward and out of place, the teachers dumped a huge workload on me so I could catch up with the other students, and I didn't make any friends. That was kind of my fault, though. I wasn't very social. . . which is kind of weird for me, speaking for the fact that my friends used to tell me that I never stopped talking. But here I was sitting on the bus. . . feeling, to be honest, kind of lonely, when who was probably one of the prettiest girls I had ever seen randomly sat next to me. I couldn't help but blush.

"H-hi." I said, hoping that she didn't notice my red cheeks.

"Um. . . your name is Aang, right?" she asked.

"How did you know?" I couldn't help but notice that she smelled like flowers. . .

"I heard a teacher say your name in the hallway. My name is Katara. It's nice to meet you." She said.

After the initial shock of having an extremely beautiful girl sit next to me, I felt my cheeks cool down and my brain start working again. "It's nice to meet you too."

We sat in an awkward silence for a few moments, while I tried to rack my brain for anything to say that might start up a conversation, when she spoke up.

"So, Aang, what brings you to Lang-hao high school?" She asked.

"I moved here."

"Oh, where did you come from?"

"Um. . . I came from a small earth kingdom town called. . . uh. . . Tayoyan De yu." I said, hoping that she didn't speak the traditional Terra language, since Tayoyan De Yu means 'annoying fish.'

"Huh. I never heard of it. Where is it?"

"Um. . . It's on the eastern coast of Terra by the. . . Pang Nuren gulf." I tried not to laugh; Pang Nuren means 'fat lady.'

"Cool!" She said, oblivious to the meanings of the words. "Why did you move here?"

"My guardian. He got a job here," I said, thinking that was the most truthful answer.

"Oh, that's cool! I moved here five years ago with my brother to live with my grandmother," she said.

"Why are you living with your grandmother?"

"Well. . . my dad went out to war five years ago, and my mother died seven years ago, so me and my brother had to live with her," she explained sadly. I instantly wished I hadn't asked. It was obviously a painful subject for her and I just made her talk about it.

"Oh, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"It's okay. I don't mind." Katara smiled at me kindly, then looked down to her hands and began to play with her fingers.

"I'm. . . really sorry. I know what it's like. I lost my parents when I was really young, so now I'm living with my new guardian, Gyatso."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said somewhat sadly.

"It's okay, Gyatso is practically a father to me." I looked to her again and saw that she was looking down thoughtfully, obviously feeling glum. "Let's talk about something else. This is kind of depressing."

She chuckled lightly before smiling at me again. Maybe this day wasn't so bad after all.

OoOoO

I was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a sizzle-pop, while my brother was riffling through the fridge, picking out all the meat products and holding them in his arms until he looked like me might just drop it all. ". . .So anyways, he's into religious studies and technological studies, like me! Isn't that great? I don't think I have met a guy like him before. He's so. . . unlike other guys. He's really smart and nice and into interesting things and-"

"Katara," Sokka interrupted, while closing the fridge door with his feet, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I couldn't care less about your new boyfriend and his oh so charming personality."

"He's not my boyfriend. I just met him!"

"Whatever." Just then the food he was carrying dropped out of his hands and crashed onto the floor. I tried to hold back my laughter as he groaned loudly and bent down to pick up the food, only to lose his balance and fall face down, his stomach landing in the meat.

"Karma," I teased.

"Shut up. . ." he grumbled. I laughed quietly and walked out of the kitchen, sizzle-pop in hand, and went into my bedroom and shut the door behind me. I smiled contentedly as I took in my room, as I always do everyday when I walk into it. My room was very enviable. My walls were painted white and had a thin layer of plexiglas glass over it to create a reflective surface. There were a chrome moldings at the bottom of the walls, which had small blue lights coming out of them, which shone on the plexiglass, making the whole room glow with a blue luminance.

My bed was made of a glossy, white plastic, and was square in shape and small in height. Like the moldings on my wall, my bed was also inlaid with blue lights of the same color and brightness. The sheets were white and the blanket was a solid teal-blue, with no stitches or patterns running through it. The end table, which was made of the same white plastic as my bed, was covered with my alarm clock and a polished teal vase, also free of patterns and designs. It was my little safe-haven.

I flopped down onto the bed, Aang still in my mind. I sunk down deeper and deeper into my cushiony mattress, until my room around me began to float away into a black void.

My mind was empty and my thoughts were non-existent, but I was unaware of that. My whole body was overcome with a strange paralyzed sensation, and everything was extremely warm, but I didn't notice that either. I looked around me and saw I was in a white room with a blue orb in the middle. I knew I was supposed to walk up to the orb, but before I was able to think about it, I was already next to it and was staring down into it's misty depths, a feeling of unexplainable panic consumes me. An image of a dirty black room, which looked much like a prison cell, appeared in the blue mist.

I looked around me and realized I was in the prison cell. The prisons blue electrical shield-bars were blocking the exit. In the corner was a boy, about my age, who was sitting on the ground with his head in his lap and his arms around his knees. I watched him, terror-stricken, as he raised his head. I tried to scream, but my voice did not come out. I was overtaken with absolute fear, as I watched him. . .crying. He said, "Why did I choose here? Why did I let you go? Why can't I save them?"

Suddenly, the boys eyes began to glow, and the room was filled with red blood. I tried to scream, but I couldn't. Eventually, the blood had risen to the ceiling, and my body became as heavy as lead. I tried to take in a breath, but the blood prevented me from it. I was going to drown.

In the moment of the blink of an eye, I was out of the flooded prison cell, but instead I was in a burning classroom. I looked around and realized the classroom was my homeroom, and that my classmates were all in it, on the ground, burning up in the flames. Some of them were still alive, writhing in the flames with their mouths open wide as if trying to scream, while others were already dead. A young girl of a crude beauty walked in the room, with a dark and menacing face which made her resemble a raven, somehow. She let out a spine-tingling laugh, and for a moment I thought I was looking at some evil spirit of chaos or the underworld.

I found myself in another place. This time, I was on what used to be a battlefield. Soldiers and arms were scattered on the ground everywhere, and yet again, I was swept back by complete fear. I began to cry, but the tears that ran down my cheeks were warm and numb. The boy I saw in the prison cell was standing in the middle of the empty battlefield. He spoke again. "I can't do it. . .I can't protect them. . . I shouldn't be alive. . .I can't stop it from happening." Suddenly, he turned to me.

"They're all going to die. You will die."

I shot up in my beat, my heart beating vigorously in my chest until I was absolutely sure it was going to burst out any moment. I looked around, and saw I was in my room, where I truly belong. I sighed.

"That dream was terrifying. . ." I said to myself. I was thinking back to my nightmare, and felt an odd feeling of foreboding.

I shrugged it off and walked into my bathroom to clean myself up, when I realized something.

The boy in my dream. . . was Aang.

OoOoO

YAY done with chapter 3. Thank you for all of your wonderful and kind reviews. You all really helped motivate me on writing this chapter. I'm sorry it took longer than expected. I ended up having to finish this science project which is like a HUGE portion of my grade, so I couldn't write. Anyways, how was this chapter? I think the dream part was a little. . . lengthy. I am not so sure I did a good part on that, but whatever. If there are any spelling and grammar issues, sorry. That just means I didn't do a good enough job of editing. Sorry if my writing style is kinda crappy, but I haven't really written that much in my life. This is probably the. . . 6th multi-chapter story that I have written that I have taken seriously. That's also partially why my grammar is iffy.

Um. . . what else. . . I probably won't write next month since I am moving, and I will be too preoccupied with moving stuff. I accidentally packed my story board for this into a box, so I have to stop at a certain chapter since I won't know what to write, unless I dig through my boxes and try to find it. Chapter 4 will probably be my last chapter for a while.

But anyways, have a good day/night, my little avatards! Xp