The next two weeks consisted of Awa being awoken at the crack of dawn to begin her training and going to sleep well into the night. While the woman was used to controlling a body in a simulator it was very different from being inside the real body. The feelings she had while in simulation only grew when she finally got to spend time inside the Avatar body, the feeling of her finally being in her real body. While her overall control of the body was above average her movements were still a bit clumsy and unsure, something that Grace quite literally beat out of her by the end of the the first week. The second week it was Awa beating the shit out of herself when she started doing more advanced and real things that were outside of the base perimeter.
During her training she used every piece of equipment provided by the base and when that grew boring for her she started going into the actual jungle with Grace's approval of course. That was when things started getting interesting. She would sometimes catch small glimpses of cyan and blues lurking in the jungle but she wrote it down to her own imagination. She doubted the Na'vi would have any interest in her or whatever she was doing. The Omaticaya wanted nothing to do with the sky people she came with.
After about 2 and a half weeks Grace was feeling confident enough in Awa's abilities that she authorized them to go on a little tour all alone in the jungle a little bit away from the immediate Hell's Gate area. The two were making small talk as they ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, the footprint of humans slowly disappearing and the true nature of Pandora showing its glory.
"Where are we going?" Awa asked her mentor while tugging at the uncomfortable clothes they had forced her to wear for the trip. She didn't like the constricting feeling of the cloths against her skin, she knew she was acting like a spoilt child but she thought she would at least have some say over her outfits. Not only that but it was getting hot and she would rather walk naked than wear those worthless pieces of clothing. They've been walking for quite some time now and she could see the barest hints of a trail far up ahead.
"You'll see" Was Grace's cryptic response as she trudgen on ahead of her student, not wanting to be around the area longer than she had to. Too many bad memories, she thought to herself, so much pain. The jungle hadn't recovered from the old trauma yet, if you knew where to look you could still see the marks from the heavy suits the soldiers wore, the discarded arrows that belonged to a child's bow and bullet holes in trees and thick plants. The jungle hadn't forgotten and neither had Grace. She doubted she ever would, she felt so guilty and so responsible for what happened and she would never forgive herself. "We're almost there"
Awa didn't reply, knowing that Grace expected none, and instead focused on her surroundings. Grace had given her a short lecture on always staying alert and the importance of constant vigilance. She hadn't had a lot of practical training on it yet but she trusted her instincts, they had never failed her before. Except for that one time playing tags that she ended up losing. She couldn't see anything potentially dangerous lurking in the shadows but she knew that if she let down her guard she would be surprised, foolishness was not allowed on Pandora. Especially not foolishness from the dreamwalkers that didn't have those neat instincts, training or embedded knowledge that the Na'vi had.
After a few more minutes of careful walking the two reached an abandoned wooden building that was surrounded by overgrown plants and trees. At one point a tree had actually grown straight through one of the walls of the small building. Awa wondered what it used to be for, it didn't look like it belonged there. The wooden structures stood out like a sore thumb, no, no Na'vi did this. That meant that a human did and the only human she knew that would do something like this was Grace.
"Did you build this?" She asks, cursing herself for her slow thinking. Of course Grace brought her here because she built the place, her mentor wouldn't drag her into the unknown and just stumble upon a building that just happened to have been made by humans. No, this trip was planned, she only wondered why.
"Yes, I suppose you could say that" Grace muttered, stroking a hand down an old wooden pole that Awa guessed used to be used as a flag pole or something like that. "There's a lot of bad memories here, watch your steps"
Memories huh, the younger woman mused to herself. The place looked daunting, the walls had large holes in them, the door had been knocked off the hinges and was covered in bullet holes. Was this a school? Why would someone do this to a school?!, she cried in her head. Abandoned toys lied on the floor, some with the stuffing partially ripped out and some intact and whole.
Awa picked one of the impact toys up, spinning the small rabbit in her hands. The toy looked big in her hands, the ends flowing over them. This was no toy that would ever be given to a human child, that must mean that this was a school for Na'vi children. She threw the stuffed animal to the ground like it burnt her, she didn't want to see it before but now she did. It was as if this whole place was painted in blood, the bullet holes, the broken down building, it all made sense now. The sheer cruelty of the humans she walked amongst surprised her, why would they attack innocent children? Especially in a place like this.
Her vision goes black and then suddenly light burst from every direction. She placed a hand over her eyes to shield them from the bright light that seemingly came from nowhere. "What's happening?" She asked but received no answer. She turned around but the white light covered it all, she couldn't see anything except for it.
Several giggles grew out of the light and she desperately turned in every direction while trying to find it but it was in vain, she couldn't see anything. The giggles continued and small splotches of brown grew out of the light. A feminine chuckle joined in with the childish giggle and with it the room returned. Only it wasn't the same room, or it was but it was whole again. The toys were neatly packed in a container, the tables were stacked up in rows and the building was whole. There were no overgrown plants reaching through holes in the ceiling and walls, no bullet holes in the door or walls. Hurried footsteps reached her ears and with that the figures within the room suddenly appeared. Several Na'vi children of different ages all sat in different spots in the small room, all doing different things but having a good time.
The steps came closer and Awa turned towards the door, her body tensed and crouched into a defensive pose. Whatever came through that door would not get her without a fight. The door flew upon and a few older children rushed inside. They were panicking, their eyes wide with fear and their bodies shaking with anxiety. What was happening?
The seemingly oldest one tried to shut the door but was met with bullets, bullets that flew right through her. The world seemed to stop for a minute while the shot Na'vi fell to the ground, desperately gurgling for air as she was slowly drowning. Then when the gurgling stopped the world started again, screams pierced her ears, both grown ones and child ones. Awa watched the scene stunned as two armed humans walked inside the room, their guns already pulled and ready to shoot.
She rushed forward when she saw the leader slowly pull the trigger, Awa wouldn't let them hurt the children. She stopped in front of the gun but the man looked right through her, it was as if she wasn't there. The gun fired and all other sounds drowned away as all Awa could hear was the deafening boom the gun gave away as it fired the bullets that would kill her. She shut her eyes with a small smile on her face, at least the children would get out alive.
As soon as she shut her eyes it all went white again, the scene faded into nothingness and the last thing she could see was the men firing upon small groups of children that huddled together in corners. The last thing that left her was the sound, the dying sounds of the children and the terrified screams of those that saw it. She watch stunned, frozen in shock.
She blinked again and she was back in the abandoned building with Grace, it all looked the same except this version was much more horrifying. Here she could see the evidence of what had happened to the children, she wondered how long it took until the worried parents found the dead bodies of their children. She imagined how loud their sorrows were and how burning the hate inside of them was.
"Why did they do it?" Awa mustered up the courage to ask her mentor, her eyes brimming with tears she prayed would not fall and shaking hands that vibrated with every heartbeat. She was pulsing with shame and repulsion, it was no wonder that the Na'vi hated the humans. "Grace answer me! Why did they do it!" She screamed, her emotions overflowing. Her tail was deathly still and her ears flattened against her skull. In her emotional suffering her body instinctively curled into herself, making her slightly hunched over as she cradled her stomach.
Grace who had previously been lost in her bittersweet memories as she walked among the hall she used to teach in, envisioning the children she used to educate, turned around swiftly. Her tail knocking over a vase on the only standing table in the room. "I don't want to talk about it"
Awa wouldn't accept that for an answer and grabbed the older woman by the arms, frantically shaking her as her emotions got the better of her. The bad memories of this place affected her even if she wasn't there to experience it. Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks and small sobs was bubbling in her throat. "Grace tell me! I need to know what happened here"
Grace turned her head away from the younger dreamwalker with a sigh, her own eyes filled with tears. No, she would never forget and neither would Awa after she found out what happened. She would never forgive and never forget, the suffering the RDA caused the Omaticaya would never be forgotten by Awa. "It was a school, a school a couple of other dreamwalkers and I ran" She began, preparing herself for the emotional toll the story would take on her. "The kids learnt faster than we could teach but that didn't stop us. One day a couple of the kids ran here to seek cover from the RDA. They had set a bulldozer on fire, they killed them over a goddam bulldozer! They shot some of the kids but I managed to get most of them out, the kids never returned after that day. Today is the anniversary of it" By the end of the story she too was crying with Awa, the tears couldn't stop coming as both women felt waves of shame overcome them. Shame for allowing it to happen, shame for not stopping it and shame for belonging to the same race as those that massacred the pure souls that used to view this as a safe place. They had trusted her and she let them down.
Awa broke the embrace and turned her back on the hurting woman, she needed to think. Alone. This was making her head spin in a bad way , she needed to get away from all the bad energies. "I-uh I'll be back soon. I need to think" She rushed out while sprinting out of the small building. Even thinking about it made her want to puke, to murder innocent children because they were defending their home was beyond sick. And to get no punishment for it is even worse. She couldn't believe this was the kind of people she was working for.
She didn't run for long untill she collapsed on the ground in a fit of sorrow. She had never experienced feelings as strong as these, maybe it came with the body. She's heard that some races felt feelings more strongly than humans, could the Na'vi be one of them? She couldn't understand how someone could do this, how could someone just slaughter innocent people, how could someone slaughter defenseless kids.
Oh god, the scene was ingrained into her mind, everytime she blinked she saw the bullet holes in the door, the turned tables and discarded toys. She couldn't forget the old bloodstains that painted the building red. How could they live with all that blood on their hands? She could barely cope and she had only stepped inside of it for minutes. She usually wasn't this emotional but she had never been able to handle things like this. Back on earth she would sob uncontrollably every time someone mentioned child abuse or any other kind of 'unjustified' violence. Awa had always been a very empathic being and the deep connection she had to the planet and the inhabitants only made it worse. She vowed to never step foot in that dreaded place again.
"Why are you crying, young one?" A soothing voice asked, it placed a frail hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a strong chest. Awa didn't resist and let herself be cuddled, she needed the physical reassurance that it would all be okay.
"I saw a bad thing and I couldn't stop it" She sobbed, a combination of her salty tears and snot wet the kind creature's chest. "I can't believe they did something like that to them!" The pure pain inside of her was breaking her down, it was eating her alive. The scene was so horrifying and Grace confirming it was even worse. She didn't know how she could live with having seen that.
"What did you see, child?" The creature mumbled, stroking a hand down her hair. " Tell me what causes you sorrow and I will help you"
Stunned by the kindness of the stranger she forced her eyes up from the comforting cyan chest and up to the Na'vi's face. He looked old, the roots of his hair was colored with white and gray but his eyes looked young and yet so full of wisdom. "I was in the school and I could sense something was wrong before setting a foot inside there" She confessed with tears still flowing steadily down her cheeks. Already the burden seemed to get lighter as she confided in the kind stranger. "Then something strange happened, I got some kind of vision. Oh it was terrible!" She burst back into heavy sobs, the mere thoughts of it eliminating any progress they had made.
"You had a vision? What kind of vision?" The Na'vi urged, lifting her cheek so that she would look him into his wise eyes, "I can't help you if you won't tell me what's wrong."
"It was some kind of vision of the past, I could see the children playing with their toys and then it all changed. Children no older than 11 came rushing through the door, they were terrified of something, I could see it in their eyes, they were filled with pure fear. I wanted to help them but I was stuck in my place, I couldn't save them." The more she spoke to him the lighter her heart felt, it was unfair of her to dump it all on the stranger but she needed the support he was offering. She wouldn't be able to handle it all on her own. He gestured for her to continue and she did so after taking a deep breath and wiping some of the tears off her cheeks. "The oldest one got shot and after that chaos broke out, everyone was screaming and running around. Except for me, I couldn't do anything. I remember feeling so trapped, so helpless. I was drowning in my emotions and no matter how much I tried I couldn't cry out, I couldn't do anything. Then the men rushed in, the humans that shot the child. They had their guns drawn and-and" Awa stuttered, not being able to tell the story through the tears that had now started falling again. It was like she was reliving it all over again. The confusion over the vision didn't help, it only added to the overload of feelings, some of which she suspected wasn't her own.
"And then you woke up?" He connected the dots, nodding his head slightly as he thought. "The past can not be changed Awa. You couldn't have helped them, there was nothing you could do. You're strong, you'll get through it" He assured her while rocking her back and forth while murmuring small words of reassurement and soothing.
It took awhile but she finally calmed down, her tears had dried and her chest no longer hurt from all the sobs her body forced her through. She finally felt like she could breathe again, like the heavy burden of the memories weren't suffocating her anymore. It was only when she looked up at the sky again that she noticed how dark it had gotten and she rushed to her feet. "I'm so sorry but I have to go. Grace is gonna kill me for this! Thank you so much for this, I'll never forget it"
"I'll see you soon Awa" He whispered after she had left the clearing.