Chapter 5
When I awoke I was laying down. I opened my eyes and looked around me. My sight blurred and my head ached, I was extremely week.
"Shh…" I heard a voice whisper. "She's come to."
I frowned, I was shaking from head to foot, and I was so tiered. I felt a pair of strong hands on my shoulders and I realized that I had closed my eyes again. When I opened them I was staring into the eyes of a boy in his late teens, a large burn grazed over the side of his left eye, and a raven pony-tail set at the midpoint of his head. The boy shook me softly, but in a firm voice said: "Wake up."
My eyelids flickered threatening to close. The boy shook me harder and I was lifted off the mattress. I gasped and hissed in pain, I looked down at my stomach, and I faintly remembered being stabbed. But it was then that I realized that the only thing covering my body was a pair of puffy work pants and bandages that covered my chest and stomach like a camisole, splotches of red blood seeping its way through.
"So tiered…" I gowned, the boy looked back at me sympathetically and helped me sit up.
A man in white walked his way over to me and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look up at him. As my head spun over to his eyes, visions of the man with the large side burns filled my memory. I gasped and closed my eyes in fear. The man released my chin and I cowered near the wall in dread.
"It's alright." The boy with the scare proclaimed softly. "He's not here to hurt you." I felt him sit on the end of the bed and I slid my feet in closer to me. "…none of us are…." His voice was harsh yet comforting, like a father's coo. I urged my self to trust these people. I remembered being in the spirit world and my thoughts traveled to the old man's words:
"…Remember, if you fail, your spirit will never be put to rest…"
I opened my eyes and looked into the stun face of a man in his late 40's. he was dressed in white and had a headband draped around his forehead. The man grabbed my chin again and looked deep into my eyes.
"What is you name?" the man asked sternly.
"Bea…" I was about to say Beatrix when I caught myself. What was that name Iroh told me to use? X-something, Xula, Xalana, Xamamana… Crap! I had a good heart, but I'd give that up to have better listening skills! Xo- I knew it was Xo- something, Exoskeletons? Sounds right. Xol… XOLA! That was it! "XOLA!" I screamed in happiness. The Man in White raised an eye brow to my overjoyed reaction, but sighed and shook it off.
"What is his name?"
Great, I get raped, and stabbed, and I have to take a "Pop Quiz"? "Umm…" Name's raised through my mind at the speed of lightning. Andrew, John, Ash, Mat, Alex, Bill, Willson, Ben, Russle, Jake, Jack, Peter. But then it hit me like a pound of bricks. What if this was the banished prince Iroh told me about. He told me that he had received a terrible burn from his father when he was 14; this, more then likely, was Zuko. "… Pr-Prince Zuko?" I stuttered, unsure.
The Man in White sighed heavily and motioned for the boy on the end of my bed and the person standing out of my sight range to fallow him out of the door. The boy in front of me got up sadly, wearing a concerned frown.