Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or any of its creations!

I have no idea where this one came from! But enjoy and thanks for reading!

-Ardala91

Aang grunted as he rolled over onto his side in a restless sleep. Appa blinked his wide eyes as he watched him from only several feet away. The fire had burned down to barely living embers by Aang and the forest around him was dark with anticipation. Clouds smothered any silver light, making the night appear to be eternal.

"Why did you leave us, Aang?" an elderly male voice asked.

"We need you, Aang!"

"Aang! No!" a young women cried.

"Twinkle toes, watch out!" another voice shrieked.

"Look what you've done!" a fierce male's voice howled, "You let her die!"

Multitudes of voices rang in his mind, becoming an unpleasant mixture that sounded like metal grinding together. They continued to grow louder and louder and more distorted until it was a whiny pitch throbbing his ear drums.

Then it stopped.

Aang rose slowly to his feet and opened his eyes to see a broiling sky above him and a vast landscape continuing on till it became a dark violet on its horizon. The ground was perfectly flat but the cragged horizon promised hills. Tainted rust met his view as he looked at the dirt that swirled around his feet from a low wind. It reminded him of blood and unpleasant memories he instantly pushed aside. The storm above him rumbled with impatient ferocity, but with no extending fingers of light. Only the dark light at the blurred edge provided any light, casting the land into a shaded twilight.

Aang turned sharply when he heard the light footsteps of someone approaching. The outline of a person of smaller build then himself stood only feet away from him, stopping when he or she had realized they'd been detected. Yet it wasn't truly a person, Aang realized, it was more of a shadow that wavered in the dark, for he could see through it! The faces, any clothes, were not apparent. It was only a shadow, a phantom! The silent shadow remained away from him till Aang broke the burdened silence. "What is this?" As soon as he spoke the shadow took several feet towards him.

The shadow's head tilted as its form looked around the landscape slowly. "I don't know," it replied with a voice that whispered a light voice that sounded like wind rustling through withered leaves.

"I'm dreaming."

The shadow's head snapped up and Aang could feel its glare, but he held his position firmly and stared back. He was the Avatar after all and no dream, or even if this was something from the spirit world would frighten him!

"Perhaps you are the one who is in my dream," the shadow hissed.

"Hey, I'm the one who's human and the Avatar!" Aang protested, "What are you? Can you even sleep?"

Somehow the air around the shadow turned even blacker and quivered making the air shimmer like an ebony mirage. Aang resisted the instinct to take a step back. In the barest audible voice that stank with horrible outrage, "YOU are the Avatar? How dare you intrude here! This is mine! LEAVE NOW!"

Aang flinched as the shadow's roar filled the empty air between them. The shadow stayed where it was, but waves of enmity rolled over to Aang like a tidal wave. Perhaps he'd better be going…he started to quietly back away unnoticed, but before he'd gotten five feet away the shadow suddenly commanded. "WAIT...Don't go!" Aang stopped surprised. Had there been longing in that voice…? He turned his grey eyes carefully at the shadow. "I-" the shadow began, "What's your name?"

"My name?" Aang repeated. What was with the sudden change of heart with this thing?

"Yes, your name!" the shadow snapped, making the air tremble slightly, "Surely you have another title other then Avatar?"

"Aang," he answered immediately, hoping to keep this thing calm. "What's yours?"

The shadow turned away from his eyes. "I…I can't remember."

"Oh, that's horrible!" Aang replied truthfully, "Do you know…what you are?"

"No." the shadow stated bitterly. "Why are you here?"

Aang paused, hesitant to make this creature angry again. "I was asleep and then I was here."

"The only reason you'd be here is because of Pain," the shadow remarked, gesturing around with wavering arms. "You are in terrible Pain!" it cried, "Always Pain, only the Pain is remembered, with the Regret, the WISH! I CAN'T REMEMBER! Oohhhh, but it drives you even further, always darker, YES, the Pain!

Aang watched with fascinated horror as the shadow muttered and wailed. Pity along with curiosity melded into his thoughts. What was pathetic existence did this creature lead? Or had led? "Excuse me, but can't you recall anything else?"

The shadow was silenced as if its throat had been slit. It rasped for a few moments before it answered him with labored breaths. "There was a face…smiling! Beautiful! HOPE!" the shadow cackled, sending shivers down Aang's spine. "There was HOPE" it shrieked, making Aang clamp his hands over his ears. "Can't you SEE?" it bellowed with animosity and grief combined, "It was going to be so beautiful…so perfect…then it all came CRASHING down! CRASH! Do YOU know? SEE! KNOW! REMEMBER?!"

"I don't understand!" Aang yelled, attempting to silence the shadow, to stop its clamoring which made his ears pound. "What are you talking about?"

The shadow wailed like a mother lamenting over her child's grave, the sound making Aang's heart stop beating for a moment. "IT WAS YOU!" the shadow stormed, "I know now! MEMORY! It was YOU!" The darkness around the shadow collapsed in on itself, and a rip seemed to be made in the very center of it from which a brilliant light glimmered. Aang stared transfixed as the light swallowed the darkness, leaving… nothing.

Aang woke with a gasp and sweat dripping down his neck as he realized that he was awake. The fire was dead, leaving him in a beautiful, bliss darkness. He was dreaming…had been dreaming, he reassured himself. That dream though had been very real and depressingly bleak. What was that shadow? He didn't understand!

The loud snap of branches breaking made Aang stand to his feet battle ready, till he realized after a few minutes that it was nothing more than the wind. He started to relax until a flash of color caught his eyes. Standing across the fireplace was…her…how was that possible? Aang choked and fell to his knees with bitter hope and shock. This wasn't possible! She was dead!

She gazed at him with the most sympathetic eyes and forlorn smile he'd ever seen. "Thank you, Aang," she said quietly, "I didn't know what I was or what I had been. You saved me at last."

"But-you died-I saw…I failed!" Aang stuttered, looking at her with depressed eyes. "Are you here…at last?"

"No, my love," she whispered, her form starting to fade as light entered the heavens, "I am saying goodbye at last."