Enter: The World of Aang

Chapter 5: Near Death by seconds

After the paralysis finally wearing off, I slowly got up and stretched. No one had answered my question yet, so I decided to ask again. "Why isn't Sokka here now?"

"Well, you see, he… err… left," Katara said.

"He… did what?" I couldn't register that. "Do you know why?"

"When you fell, he thought you were dead."

"But I--" Closing my eyes, I shook my head and fought back tears. "Why didn't he just stay and find out for himself? Why did he just leave me like that…?" Not waiting for an answer, I pushed my way through the two benders and out the door, in hopes of running into Sokka somewhere near the site. He's gotta be here somewhere… I thought to myself. He just has to. I know he's close by. A single tear rolled down my cheek as thoughts of abandoning Sokka ran through my head. Wanting them to stop, I started to run. Where I was going, I wasn't quite sure, but I just needed to get away for a bit. And I was going to, until I came to the edge of a cliff.

It was a dead end. I was tired, out of breath, and there was no where left to run. Plopping down on the edge, I sighed and caught my breath once more and thought things over. Well, I was going to, before I looked down and saw Sokka. A wave of relief waved over me and I was about to call out to him, until I noticed his state.

Sokka was lying on the ground in an awkward position, with what looked to be blood coming from his head. His boomerang was also out, and it seemed to have a little red on the tip. Wh-what the heck… What is this?!

From what I could tell, there was no way to get down there without turning back and going all the way around and having to climb down a bunch of rocks and such to reach him. What am I going to do… There's no way to get to him! It would take a while to get back to Aang and Katara to get help and back, and possibly even longer to get to Sokka. By impulse, I decided to jump. On the way down I closed my eyes and shouted, "Sokka… I'm coming, Sokka! Don't worry!"

Only half way down the long fall I realized what I did was completely stupid, and that I was most likely going to die from impact. Preparing for the worst, I braced for the quick and painless experience. As I fell, I had one of those 'my-life-was-flashing-before-my-eyes' things, and concluded that my life was pretty well lived.

Just before the gruesome moment happened, I was suddenly falling UP instead of down.

"What the…" I looked up to see Aang trying to keep hold of me and steer his glider to safety at the same time. "Here, let me help you," I tried to make it a little easier for him by moving my hands to hang on to his waist, but that threw the weight balance off entirely and sent him off-track, resulting in us being sent back down towards the ground. We landed with a loud crash, followed by cries of pain and groaning.

I looked over at Aang, who was holding and running his arm. "You okay?" I breathed out.

"Y-yeah…" He winced as he spoke. He must be pretty badly hurt. I crawled over to him and took hold of his arm. "Hey, that hurts--ow!" Biting my lip, I gave him an apologetic look and let it go. He went back to holding it and I turned away, feeling bad. ".. What were you thinking?"

"Huh?" I looked at him again. He looked angry. He repeated himself.

"What were you thinking? Jumping off that cliff like that? You were lucky you yelled, otherwise we wouldn't have heard and you'd be dead!" I sniffed and glanced down at the ground. That must have softened him up. "Look… Why did you do it?" Aang asked in a lower tone.

"I-I just saw Sokka and…! Oh, no! Sokka!" Worriedly, I quickly glanced around to find where he was. He was in a different spot, sitting up and looking over at us. He looked slightly angry as well. I wailed and made my way over to him, pulling him into a hug. "So-Sokka… What happened to you? Are you okay?" I placed my hand on his face with a concerned look. He sighed and moved my hand away.

"I came back to reality when you screamed, and as I saw you falling…" He shook his head, fighting back tears. "What's wrong with you? I thought I lost you again." My lip quivered. "In the split second you were back, you were about to go again…"

As I opened my mouth to speak, everything went black and I collapsed on top of Sokka.