Author's note: Hi guys! Welcome back. It's nice to see you all again. Sorry I didn't manage to get a chapter out last week - essay deadlines are a pain! But we're back with another chapter this week - and then hopefully back to our regular schedule. I've been reading a lot of late-century American writing recently. I really like it. It manages to be somehow both surreal and gritty so you might see some of that coming through in this chapter! This week, we're with the gaang on the road - what awaits them at their destination, we have no idea... And we get a look at something else. Something... strange.

This week's song is 'Glass Eyes' by Radiohead. Enjoy...

The hallway was dark. It stretched into infinity. There were lamps on the walls, but they weren't lit. The floor was cold. Every so often a board would creak, a shivering sound that slid under your skin like a paring knife, slowly peeling it away. He had been walking for hours. Was it hours or days? It was impossible to tell. The hallway didn't end. He looked behind him. There were no footprints to see. The floor was scrubbed clean. There was a black mark on the wall Sometimes, he forgot which way was forwards. He would turn around for a moment and before he knew it he was walking back the way he came. Or… not? He did not know what compelled him to keep walking. All he knew was that he had to. He couldn't stop. If he stopped walking, if he didn't get to the end… It was unknowable. He couldn't risk it. It did not matter what would happen. It only mattered that he kept walking. He had to get to the end. There was no end. Perhaps he had passed it a long time ago. Perhaps this was what existed after the end. This state of endlessness. Motion in perpetuity, lacking all purpose but that which was ultimate and crucial. He had to reach the end. He had to reach the end. He had to reach the end. Why couldn't he just stop? Could he somehow choose to turn? To break out of the hallway? He could smell. It was a frigid, damp smell. Like a cave or cellar or a room deep underground that had been abandoned long ago. He knocked on the wall. There was no sound at all. Incorporeal. He closed his eyes, and searched for the wind. There was none. No draught. Not so much as a whisper. The air was dead.

He couldn't remember how he had got there. He couldn't remember why he had come to this place. Had he come? Had he been taken here? His memory was fuzzy. Faded. He was beginning to forget himself. His face. There was nowhere to find a reflection here. Here… where was here? He didn't know.

There was no purpose to this. No purpose except to reach the end. The end that didn't exist. That paradoxical end. He looked out into the not-quite-blackness. Was he hoping to see something new? Something that was any different to the days of walking already behind him. Days? Weeks? Minutes? Was he searching for someone? Who did he know? Who were those…people? In his memory. He saw faces but couldn't connect them to names or voices or memories. They were simply images, adrift and untethered in his subconscious.

A name formed in his mind. Not a name. A letter. He felt something. A feeling not of dread, not of fear… but as if he had been slugged in the gut with a fifty-pound stone. Wrenching.

He closed his eyes.

'We're almost there.'

Aang grinned at Sokka.

'So, do you even know what exactly we're looking for? A dead guy?'

'He's not dead. At least, I don't think he is. I don't know how else he could have spoken to me.'

'In your dream?'

'More of a vision than a dream. But yeah. In my dream.'

'Aang.'

'Yeah?'

Sokka paused, for effect.

'You are aware of what dreams are, right?'

Aang blew out of his nostrils in disapproval.

'Funny.'

'So, what, you think he's - and let's stress here that this only works if he's even still alive - going to somehow give us some insight into the situation back home? How could he possibly be ab-'

'I don't know. Maybe? I had a dream. Unlike any dream I've had. Or at least, that I've had in a long, long time. It was him. He was so… real. He'd aged. I had to find him. I felt… I felt clear. I knew what I had to do. It's not like we were getting any closer to figuring out what was going on back there on our own.'

'That's true…'

'If my suspicion is anywhere close to being right, then it's something to do with the spirits. I've dealt with them before - we all have, but this is unlike anything I've seen. If I'm honest, I might be a little out of my depth. At least if there's a giant creature to fight, I can fight it. Or calm it down. Talk. At least there I'm working with something I can actually see. This is just… weird. It's new.'

'Well, there seems to be a lot of that about right now. Everyone is changing so much. Sometimes I think back to when we were kids and just wish that we could go back to that. Things were so simple. The world felt so small. It was just us. We had a singular purpose, you know. Get to the end. Defeat Ozai. Save the world. I mean, sure, it wasn't exactly a simple job. But at least we knew what we had to do. The hard part was figuring it out.'

'But you can't figure out an answer to a problem that you know nothing about.'

'Exactly. The truth is I don't know what we're going to find there. It's possible we'll find nothing at all. But I still need to try. It's pretty much the only option we have.'

'We still need to try', said Katara, chiming in from the back of Appa's saddle.

'Right. Yeah.'

She crawled over to the two of them.

'So, what's the plan when we arrive?'

Aang and Sokka exchanged a look.

'Well-'

'Erm-'

'So… we don't have a plan? Great. Just like old times.'

A breeze.

He opened his eyes.

The corridor was gone. He was stood on a rocky outcrop, overlooking a vast desert. For hundreds, thousands of miles even, he saw nothing but wind, and sand. This felt a little more familiar, at least. The light was oppressive. His eyes still hadn't quite adjusted from the dark of the corridor. He wondered how he had got here. It didn't matter, he felt. Something told him it wasn't relevant how. Only that he had. He sat down, legs crossed. He raised his head to the sky and took another breath. He tried to remember. He couldn't. Just faces. No names, no real, whole, humans. Just faces. And the letter. He couldn't remember why he was trying to remember. Before this. Where had he been before this? He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything.

'Hey.'

'Hey.'

Several hours had passed. They had spent their time talking and sitting and watching the sky. Trying to plan and realising there was no real point in doing that. They had no idea what they were looking for, much less what they might find. Katara had come to join him up front.

'Are you scared?'

'Of what?'

'I don't know… going back? It's been so long.'

Aang paused a moment. It had been a long time. His mind flashed to the last time he had returned to the temple after an absence of length, years ago, soon after the two of them had first met. He had been so happy. So blissfully unaware. It hadn't taken long for him to discover what had happened.

'No. I don't think so. Not scared.'

'What then?'

'I'm not sure how to put it.'

'I think I get it. It's always strange, returning somewhere after being away for so long…'

Aang felt a sudden pang of guilt. She didn't mean anything at all by what he had said. But he still felt bad for leaving. He couldn't help himself.

He turned to her.

'When I first came back - just after we'd met. Why did you try to hide it from me?'

'What?'

'The fact that they were all… gone. That they were all dead. Killed. Why?'

Katara paused for a moment, thinking how best to respond. She wasn't sure where he was going with this.

'I'm not sure. I don't think I really tried to hide it, even. Just to… make it easier? Does that make sense? I guess I felt like I had some responsibility to protect you… I don't know. I've always felt that with people, you know that. We were all so young. And you were so happy. You seemed it, at least. I didn't want to bring you back down to earth like that. So quickly, I mean. Why do you ask?'

'Like you said. It's weird to go back. The last time I did… I guess there's a part of me that's nervous I might find something I don't want to see. Again.'

Silence, for a moment.

'I'm sure it'll be ok.'

Aang looked away for a moment. Things were very rarely that simple. But he appreciated the sentiment, even if he wasn't sure Katara meant it.

'Maybe.'

'Maybe.'

'What about you?'

'Hmm?'

'Are you… scared?'

'Oh. No. No I don't think so. If you were, then I might have something to worry about. But I think we're gonna be ok.'

She smiled. Aang smiled back.

'Good. Not too long to go now…'

He had lied. He was scared. Well, more of a half-truth. He wasn't really scared about returning to the temple. That much was true. He was reticent, in a way, yes. But not scared. He had no idea what he would find, but nothing could be as bad as the last time he had returned there. But he was scared about them. About the two of them. He had hoped that coming back after so long might have put him in a slightly more… reasonable mindset. He was, after all, one of those 'absence makes the heart fonder' people. He thought - hoped - that coming back might remind him that it was the right thing that had happened after all. That by seeing her again, he could finally let her go. Move on. Perhaps that would have been easier had he had a hand in ending things the first time around. But he hadn't. He had had something he loved taken away. Getting back had only made it worse. He had wondered what would happen if he never got over it. Over her. It wasn't a prospect he enjoyed entertaining. It was odd. While he desperately just wanted to get over himself, to feel normal and comfortable around her again, there was a part of him - a not insignificant part - that enjoyed feeling like this. That enjoyed the pain. The unrequited longing. It was something he knew. It was about the only thing that felt exactly like it did when they were kids. Though the last time, at least, he could have done something about it. He did. Look where that got you. He just had to keep quiet. Hope it went away. He knew it wouldn't.

The sand was almost entirely drained of colour. The sky white, not blue. There was a strong wind and it blew relentlessly. It wasn't hot, per se. There was light but no source to be seen. Just a blank, white, sky that stretched on forever. No clouds. No rain. No sun. Just light, and wind, and sand. There was no sound, save for the scentless air rushing past, scattering grains in swirling patterns all around.

As he sat, trying to make sense of it, he thought he heard a voice call out from behind him. Startled, he turned. Nothing. Nobody.

He stood, compelled to begin walking somewhere. Where, he did not know. Only that he had to keep walking. He jumped down off the rocky outcrop to the desert floor. There was a structure in the distance, its top just peeking out over the horizon. He felt he had to find it.

'THERE IT IS!'

'Finally.'

'What, you starting to get bored of us?'

'Ha. No. I'm just saying we've been on the go for AGES.'

'Maybe you've forgotten what it used to be like. When was the last time you actually traveled somewhere?'

'Well, you never stopped travelling. Some of us prefer a slightly slower pace of life now. Especially with kids. I'm telling you, I needed this as a break from them more than anything else. And no, I haven't forgotten what it was like. I was only saying that I'm not as young as I once was.'

'Sokka, you're not even thirty yet.'

'Oh, don't please! I can feel the years just slipping away.'

They laughed. A moment of calm before the storm, Aang thought. Though what shape exactly the storm would take, he had no idea.

Rising rapidly into view over the horizon was the temple. Silhouetted against the deep red evening sky, the sight of it sent a chill down Aang's spine. Something about seeing each of the temples woke something in him, a long dormant sense of self that could only really return in places like this. It was something about being the last true vestige of an all but dead civilisation. That weighed on him. Sure, the Air Acolytes were nice to have to preserve the culture. To make sure that at least the knowledge of his people would be passed on. Remembered. But he was different. Not because he was the Avatar. Because he was an airbender. The only airbender. He alone carried that responsibility on his shoulders. And this building, this place so inexorably tied to who he was, his past, his present, his future, was filling him with a confusing blend of awe and memory and fear. He felt the generations of people, his people, within the walls of this place. He could feel them even here, from miles away. All it took was for that place to slowly rise into view, and he felt connected.

He hoped that he would feel the same one day about the temple he was building back home. That maybe he could transplant the essence of this place. Tend it. Resurrect the past somehow. He thought he might have been able to do that with her one day. He had hoped, at least.

As they approached, quicker now as Appa sensed their journey coming to an end, the three of them peered out towards the building. They scoured windows, balconies and courtyards for something, anything that could tell them what they were here to find. Occasionally, one of them would exclaim something unintelligible, only to sink back down in disappointment when they realised there was nothing there. No smoke rising from chimneys. No lights inside the temple.

'Here we go…'

Sokka sounded reticent. Something about how empty this place was was making them uncomfortable.

Appa touched down in the main courtyard in front of the temple. This place looked as if it hadn't been touched in years. Hardly surprising, really. The only people who would ever come through would be the occasional band of Air Acolytes looking for relics to bring to one of the other temples, or bands of thieves trying to make a quick buck off selling 'genuine Air Nomad treasures'.

It was silent. There was a light rustle of leaves whenever the wind picked up, and the occasional sound from an old set of wooden wind chimes that hung at one end of the courtyard.

The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon.

'Maybe we should wait. Camp out here and start properly looking tomorrow.'

'Sounds good to me. The last thing I want to be doing is exploring abandoned temples in the dark.'

'What do you say Aang?'

Aang said nothing. He was staring up at the temple, transfixed. He could feel something inside it. An energy. He couldn't tell what it was, but he knew that that was what he was here to find.

'Aang?'

'Huh? Oh. Yeah, sure. We'll start fresh in the morning. It has been a long day. I'll get a fire going.'

He felt off, for just a moment. Something about firebending here just felt… wrong. He had felt it years ago, when he was first learning from Zuko, and he felt it now. It was as though the very stone beneath his feet remembered what had happened all those years ago, and the mere suggestion of firebending was enough to make it recoil. He could have sworn he felt it shudder slightly beneath his feet. He set a fire and went to find some of the food they had packed.

That night, long after dark, Aang lay awake. There was a sound - not a sound - an aura of sorts. A feeling. An ineffable pull that drew him to the temple. He sat up. Looked around. The others were asleep. At least, they looked it. He wasn't going to get his head down anytime soon. He stood, silently so as not to wake them, thankful that he was so light on his feet, and padded towards the entrance to the temple. He stood there for a moment, just listening to the wind. He wasn't going crazy. Something was drawing him in. Not a voice. Nothing real. But he couldn't do anything but slowly walk, trancelike, towards the temple. The old wooden door was ajar - just enough to allow him to slip through. Without so much as a look back, he was gone. The wind in the courtyard settled for a moment as he entered.

The hallway was dark. There were lamps on the walls, but they weren't lit. The floor was cold underfoot. Aang felt that call from the other end of the corridor, in the central hall of the temple. He began walking down the hallway, though he couldn't see its end. He felt a presence - a warmth - that drew him ever further into the darkness of the hallway. It was familiar. He hadn't felt it in years. As he reached the end of the corridor, he came to another large wooden door, ajar, much like the first. He softly pushed it open, hearing the wood settle as he did, before peering into the space ahead of him. The moonlight streamed down from the windows above, shafts of silver painting the floor in delicate light. A beam cut across a shape in the centre of the room. Aang couldn't quite make it out, but he had a feeling he knew what it was. So as not to disturb the peace of the temple, he whispered.

'Hello…?'

Silence. Then, after a moment, he heard an old voice ring out around the room. He couldn't help but smile.

'Hello, Aang. It's good to see you.'