Katara looked around desperately, unsure where she was—an endless maze of twisting streets, lined with buildings casting menacing shadows everywhere. She was running away from… someone or something, though she couldn't remember from who or what.

"How could you do this to me?" someone said from behind her, not a single note of emotion present in it.

She whipped around to see her friend standing in the dark void, his pale skin contrasting the shadows, clothes burned just like the way she'd left him in that house. With white eyes and a glare, he gazed into her soul—instead of the combined power of the previous Avatars, however, it was death that gleamed in his eyes.

When he spoke again, his lips didn't move.

"How could you let them kill me?"

Katara tried to take a step toward him, tell him she was sorry, as if that would make a difference, but found herself paralyzed in her place when two sets of hands latched onto her legs, crawling up her shins like spiders. Looking down, she saw the two Dai Li agents she'd killed staring back at her, their eyes white just like her friend's.

Their faces slowly turned purple, swelling and rotting, the elaborate weaving of the muscles underneath their skin surfacing as they decomposed before her. Their eyes began melting, the liquid trapped inside them trickling down their temples, leaving behind empty dark pits in their stead, and blood started dripping down their noses and out of the sides of their gaping mouths.

An endless flow of blood was gushing out of the wounds on their necks, chests, and stomachs—wounds her ice daggers had created punctured in their bodies. They left stains of black on their dark green uniforms and a growing pool of blood spreading on the ground, transforming the stones of the pavement beneath her feet into a crimson bog, pulling at her feet, sucking her under.

Cruel laughter echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once, and sharp pains assailed her, all over, with no apparent source. A Dai Li agent materialized from the shadows right in front of her, one that she'd never seen before. His hands were clasped behind him, head bowed down, face concealed by his wide helmet, yet the blood-curdling smirk on his lips was still visible from underneath. When he slowly raised his head, a pair of golden eyes came to light, one of them contorted by the scar around it into a permanent glare, the other gleaming with malice as he leered at her, his pointy teeth as sharp as knives.

The figure stood before her, enjoying the show as she sank waist-deep into the thick fluid. Then it suddenly lunged forward, too-hot hands spouting red and blue flames, cascading all over her.

Katara wanted to scream, wriggle out of the bruising grasp of the dead men, protect her face from the onslaught of fire, run away, do something, anything, but not a single muscle in her body would obey her commands—she could only stand there and watch the colorful flames whirl around her while her lungs filled with blood. The burning concentrated in her right hand, blinding her in a white, hot agony, and she drowned in the blood of the men whose lives she'd taken.

Her lungs slowly collapsed in on themselves and the inferno within her hand continued its rampage up her fingers. The scream swelling in her throat was smothered by the blood, inaudible in the hellish situation as she suffocated—but it managed to follow her into the waking world, into a freezing, pitch-black room, echoing off the walls.

Her heart was pounding a mile a minute in her ears as she laid there—wherever 'there' was—frozen in place, trembling with terror and with tears running down her cheeks even though she wasn't crying. Cold sweat coated every patch of her skin despite the cool temperature of the room, and she was panting heavily as if to make up for those moments she wasn't able to breathe in her nightmare. She could see, in her periphery, shadows dancing in the darkness of the room, circling her shivering body like runaway spirits from the Spirit World.

Katara waited for everything to pass, not that she had any other choice. This wasn't the first nightmare she'd lived through, but it was, by far, the worst. At least now, though, thanks to her experience with these situations, she knew what to do.

Closing her eyes, she took deep, calming breaths. As her heart rate slowed down to a more reasonable tempo, she gradually became more aware of her surroundings.

The room wasn't entirely pitch-black like she'd previously thought. A whiff of emerald green light spilled inside from the barred windows of the door, casting the room in a dim glow. And although this narrow, metal box of a room didn't have any windows to the world outside, she could tell by the lack of the power of the moon in her veins that it wasn't night-time anymore.

The next thing that her mind registered was the scratchy texture of the rough mat she was lying on and the thin, threadbare blanket that had been tossed over her, making her bare arms and legs itch to the point where she could have clawed her skin off to relieve it. When she recoiled and threw the cover off of herself as a reflex, the soreness in her limbs made itself known, pulsing out through her body with each breath she took.

Wincing from the unpleasant sensation, Katara inhaled sharply through her nose, which sent another stab of pain through her skull. The pain receded fairly quickly, but it lasted long enough for her to notice how odd it felt, like having a broken but partially healed nose.

Gradually, the aches and pains and stiffness on other parts of her face began surfacing in her nightmare-fogged mind—on her lips and left cheek, mainly. They stung and itched as if they too had been injured and partly healed.

How it was possible for a wound to be healed halfway, or why she'd be healed in the first place, she had no idea. She didn't even know how she'd gotten those wounds. The last vivid memory she had was of her getting caught by that agent that had chased her around the streets of Ba Sing Se. The events ensuing it were chopped up into bits and pieces, and the things she did remember were but a frenzied flash of visions. She wasn't entirely sure if they were even real or a product of her imagination.

The first memory she had taking place after getting knocked out was a brief sequence of her being dragged by her hair through… somewhere with a curved, metal ceiling and the man dragging her telling her to shut up. Judging by the throbbing at her scalp, she presumed that this really had happened. And then there was another flash of memory—a giant man in a black outfit standing by a fireplace, holding a long, lean piece of metal above green flames, demanding the location of the Avatar.

Katara didn't remember what had happened after that, but, as the memory played in her mind, a twinge of pain in her vocal cords and a similar one in her right hand shot up to her brain. It didn't hurt as much as her nose or lips, but it wasn't the best feeling in the world either, and the fact that she could feel just how far the stinging went up her fingers didn't help.

Grunting in pain, she clutched the stinging hand to her chest, still shaking with the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Once she was feeling less like she might pass out again, she sat up to inspect whatever was going on with her hand.

Her eyes widened in horror at the sight.

Somewhat hardened flesh had replaced three of her nails. On top of that, her palm was swollen and a strip of bruising was encircling her wrist. Three tiny, oval-shaped patches of scar tissue stood out at the very tips of her fingers, right under where the nails were supposed to be, as if something had been removed from inside them and then the skin around them had stitched back together. And the longer she gazed at her hand, the more intense the pain became.

Turning away from the grisly sight, Katara examined her other hand. It had the same bruising, but it wasn't swollen, nor was it missing any nails.

Why not? It didn't take a genius to figure out what the Dai Li had done to her to get to Aang, so why stop at only three fingers? Why not finish what they'd started? What, did they see that she wouldn't spill anything and just… give up? But these were the Dai Li—they never gave up. Why hadn't they continued doing whatever they were doing to her to the end? Also, perhaps the most important of all, if they had inserted something into her fingertips, how come those wounds didn't hurt as much as the ones her face did?

As she kept examining her hands and puzzled over what had taken place, something else drew her attention. She was wearing a dress—a brown prisoner's dress with fraying, unhemmed edges that stopped right above her knees. A dress she wasn't wearing last night. And she didn't have her underwear on.

Her heart began pounding in her chest once again. Someone had to have taken her clothes off. She prayed to all the spirits out there that it was her who'd done that. It wasn't impossible for her to have forgotten this, right? She didn't have big chunks of memory from the night before—this could just be yet another detail her brain had chosen to discard. Besides, the Dai Li might've been horrible people, but they were just that—people. No one with a beating heart would strip a girl naked while she was unconscious. That was just… No. They wouldn't do that.

As her eyes continued moving down her body, checking for any other injuries or marks she couldn't explain, she noticed half-healed scrapes on her knees, more stripe-like bruises around her shins, and a dark stain on the brown fabric of her dress right where her legs met. She took a closer look at the stain, her brows furrowing. The lingering coppery smell coming from the blackish stain made comprehension dawn—blood. And her suspicions were confirmed when she lifted the skirt and saw rivers of blood that'd leaked from between her legs and then dried on the insides of her thighs, also staining the coarse mat she was sitting on.

This didn't make any sense… It'd only been a week since she'd last gotten her period, and her moon cycle was usually pretty regular. But what else could this be? It'd explain her cramps as well. Well, now that she thought about it, she actually wouldn't classify what she felt as cramps, for they were considerably more painful—like a fire searing her from the inside instead of a simple throb—and a lot lower on her abdomen—all the way down at the opening between her legs, in fact.

And there was also this strange tenderness on her inner thighs. Squinting in the dim green light, she could just make out bruises on either leg. They were a strange shape, splayed and spider-like, sort of like hands, the same on each leg, but her dazed and pain-wracked mind couldn't grasp what they were, only that they were familiar, and that she should have known what they were.

Out of nowhere, an anguished scream echoed in her mind, a tearful plea of a girl begging for someone to stop, and a mental image of a Dai Li agent, the same one from her nightmare, flashed before her eyes. The imposing figure was standing in the doorway of the room she was in, staring at her where she laid on the mat, a malicious smirk gleaming from under his helmet.

Katara's stomach turned over at the vision. Bile rose in her throat, and it was all she could do to swallow it back down.

Suddenly, a loud bang came from the metal door in front of her, clamoring thunderously in the empty room, effectively putting an end to her thoughts before they could even fully form. She flinched at the sudden sound and immediately covered up her exposed ladyparts.

Looking up, she saw an agent, a different one from the one in her visions, staring back at her from behind the barred window on the door. She couldn't wrap her head around the reason, but the sight of a man in a Dai Li uniform sent ice-cold shivers down her spine, raw terror making her stomach churn.

"I'll only say this once, so listen carefully," the man said, and as he continued, an invisible weight pressed down on Katara's chest, getting heavier by the second. "On Princess Azula's orders, you'll be given food and water every two days. You will finish your food within 5 minutes and then slide the tray under the door. When we're holding out the water to you, you will grab the bars on the door and drink it between them—try to let go of the bars, and all of your fingers will be broken one by one. You will sleep on your back with your hands outside the cover, palms open and facing the ceiling. You will not lay down during the day. You will not speak to yourself or sing or make any sort of noise. When you need to use the bathroom, you will knock on the door twice. If you don't comply with anything we say, you'll be punished severely. Understood?"

By the time he'd finished, the weight atop Katara's chest felt as heavy as an arctic hippo, cutting off the air supply from her lungs. It was only after she'd managed to let out the shaky breath that had clogged up her windpipe that she was able to breathe again.

Another thunderous bang on the door, and she flinched again, a small yelp escaping her lips.

"I asked you a question," the agent spat out.

Katara wasn't stupid, she knew he wasn't joking or exaggerating in any way—if she didn't do the things he'd said, she really would be punished severely.

Without looking up, she shook her head in a small nod, then, realizing he wanted a vocal answer, managed to rasp out a soft, "Yes."

"Good." The man stepped away from the door. "Your first meal will be served tomorrow."

Katara listened as his footsteps gradually faded away until a door not too far away clanged shut, and silence once again took the reins in her lonely prison cell.

Leaning back on the wall beside her, she brought her stinging legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, the burning at the pit of her navel seeming much less important now. She settled her forehead on the scraped skin of her knees with a heavy sigh.

Katara didn't know where she was, or how many guards there were outside. And it wasn't like she could gather water from the air, either—it was cold in the room, and cold temperatures didn't hold as much moisture in the air as warmer ones.

Even if she somehow did manage to gather enough water, what was she going to do then? She couldn't just take on a hoard of master earthbenders as powerful and dangerous as the Dai Li. Not when she had only a bubble of water to defend herself.

Say, the spirits were gracious that day and everything went perfectly according to plan and she got out of the prison, there were still the Inner and Outer walls of the city she had to get past before she was completely free—and this was assuming she was in the Lower Ring and didn't have to get past the additional walls of the Middle and Upper rings.

Her only chance to escape the city had been with Appa, with her family. And it was too late for that now.

She was stuck here.

Tears burned behind her eyelids and oozed down her nose, dripping onto the fabric of her dress where it laid bunched up between her hips and bent legs.

Aang was her only hope for rescue, and he was dead.

No, he wasn't dead. She'd healed him. He was okay. Sokka and Toph had saved him. They were on Appa right now, roaming the skies, having fun and joking around like the old times… But they wouldn't be joking around, would they? They didn't know what had happened to her or where she was.

Oh, spirits… What if they thought she was dead? What would Sokka do? Would he stop eating again? After Mom had died and Dad had gone away for war, it'd taken Katara and Gran Gran an entire week to get him back on track with his usual diet.

Well, he wasn't on his own, at least. Toph was with him. She'd force-feed him if need be. And Aang was there too. He'd tell him that starving himself because of Katara wasn't what she wanted—that what she really wanted was for them to go to the Fire Nation and wipe the floor with the Fire Lord, not mourn after her.

For what could have been minutes or hours, the thoughts of her friends and family kept circling in her mind, making her feel forgotten and alone as she sat huddled in her empty prison cell, tears pouring down her face and her shoulders shaking with her sobs. The invisible weight from before returned in the shape of a hand, wrapping around her heart and squeezing it until it turned to dust.

Katara lifted shaking fingers up to her neck and thought of her beautiful mother, taking comfort in knowing that she was always there with her, no matter what.

But, instead of the engraved surface of the necklace she was expecting, her fingers grazed her bare throat.

Katara's eyes snapped open. She jerked upright and searched frantically with her hands for the necklace that was no longer there. Feeling nothing but her skin, she rocked forward onto her knees onto the metal floor beside the mat, not caring how her knees throbbed as she put her entire weight on them or how her intimate regions stung more than ever with her sharp movements. Her hands scrabbled over the mat, then rifled through the covers she'd thrown aside like a madwoman, panic growing in her heart and washing away any other feeling she might've otherwise had. When nothing came of her search, she lifted and shook the mat and the covers in the air, hoping desperately for the pendant to fall to the floor, but all of her efforts ended in vain.

Knotting her fingers in her hair in agitation, Katara gazed around the empty room, as if she could make the pendant appear out of thin air just by looking—but all she saw was the metal of the floors, walls, and ceiling, illuminated by the reflection of the green light coming from outside the door.

It was gone. The last piece of her mother was gone. Just like that. There was nothing left of her now.

As the realization set in, gravity itself became too strong of a foe, and Katara fell on her side, too overwhelmed with grief and despair to care about the cold metal floor pressing against her cheek.

They'd killed her again. The Fire Nation had killed her mother again.

Curling into a fetal position, Katara squeezed her eyes shut and keened in sorrow, her tears flowing down her cheeks more forcefully than before. Her sobs shook her whole body, her tears pooled on the ground beside her, and the quiet whimpers spilling from her lips got lost in the smothering silence of her prison cell.

A/N

Idk if I should start this off on a happy note, so... um... hi.

I hope you liked this chapter—it sure wasn't easy for me to write. Also, I'm aware I merely glossed over what happened to her the night before, but know that this won't be the last we hear of this.

With that out of the way, let me apologize for updating so slowly. As I said before, this is my first ever fanfic (like, it's literally my first attempt at spending time and effort on writing something outside of school), so I'm learning things as I go and constantly trying to improve myself, and slows down my writing speed. Also, I was a bit busy during my idle period—I had my finals, and then wrote down all my ideas for the future on a detailed outline (which, it turns out, takes a while to do), co-wrote 2 other ATLA fics with Ilya_Boltagon, and am almost finished with a 10k+ word Zutara smut (which will be uploaded before the next chapter is posted).

As always, thank you for reading and I'll see you soon!