You may wonder why you should be reading this. Well, you don't have to, but if you don't you'll sure miss out on a lot. It may not seem very important at first, but the story of my life will show you how I changed the world… literally.
It all started on a normal Friday night, at about 8:25, as I waited for the dumb commercials to end in my room.
"Common!" I shouted at the TV.
"Please! They won't stop, even if you scream your head off!" My annoying older sister Hana added as she chatted on her computer.
Well, you may be wondering why the hell my sister is in my room. That's because it's hers too. Sadly. So, I can't really call it "My Room" without calling it "My Annoying Older Sister's Room". Oh, and you may also be wondering what I was watching that made me so eager for commercials to be over. The answer is Avatar: The Last Airbender, my favorite show. I always dreamed of being able to bend… any element. Any… but, if I had a choice…it would be water.
If you have no clue what bending is, or have never heard of Avatar, I'll quickly explain, because these two things changed my life forever.
If you already know about bending and Avatar, you can skip ahead to the next paragraph, but if you have no clue about any of this, I highly suggest you continue reading. I'll start with a quick explanation of what bending is. It's real simple… bending an element means controlling that element at your own will. There are four types of benders, or people who can bend the elements: Waterbenders, Earthbenders, Firebenders, and Airbenders, each bending their native element. Now, not everyone in the Avatar world can bend. Some are normal people, just like you, who don't have any powers. Now that you have an idea of what bending is, I'll start explaining whom the Avatar is. The Avatar is the only person who can bend all elements, and there is only one Avatar alive at one time. When the Avatar dies, he, or she, is reincarnated into the next nation in the cycle. If, by now, you are utterly confused, don't worry, all of this will be further explained over time. If you don't know the cycle of the four elements, it is water, earth, fire, and air. These four elements, and the benders that can control them, each have their own nations. The Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. The Avatar must help maintain peace between these four nations… this is the Avatar's duty. In the show, a young Avatar, Aang, who was shut off from the world for 100 years by being frozen in an iceberg, wakes up to see that a war has been going on for all these years between the Fire Nation and everyone else. Aang is only 12, but he has the fait of the whole world in his hands. He teams up with Katara, a Waterbender, and Sokka, her brother, who doesn't have the power to control his native element, water. The Avatar must master all elements in the order of the cycle, because he begins with knowledge of only his own native element. Aang is an Airbender, and finds out that he is the last of the Air Nomads because the Fire Nation killed everyone else off. Katara, Sokka, and Aang, along with some animal friends, including Aang's companion flying bison Appa, head off on an adventure to help Aang gain mastery over all elements, and to stop the Fire Nation.
This is what you need to know to understand what I'm talking about later on, but what I'm going to tell you isn't something about a cartoon… it's real. As real as the seas and lakes and oceans, the earth and soil we're standing on, the fire that burns to heat, and power everything in our lives, and as real as the air we breathe. I am about to tell you something that changed my life… and everyone else's.