The Archer [Zuko]

➳ 15 ➳

The ship bounces up and down upon the crashing waves. A storm has arrived, matching the storm in my heart. Thunder crashes in the sky, and lightning crackles around me. I can't see any of this, though. No, I'm trapped in the jail in the belly of the ship, going somewhere I don't know to live a life of hatred and solitude. I'd rather die than go to prison.

It's a good thing that I plan on escaping from this awful ship. I know it's going to be pretty easy; there aren't that many guards here. I can easily get away from any of the guards since they're all older. The chains around my wrists, on the other hand, are a different story. There's no way I can get them off by myself. But I have to because I'm planning on jumping off of the ship, and I need my hands to swim.

The door to the jails slams open, and one of the guards saunters forward, holding a tray of food. I'm the only one in the jail, so he stops right in front of me, shoving the tray into my cell. He wraps his fingers around the metal bars of the cell, laughter bubbling out of his lips. 

"What are you laughing at?"

"The monster in the belly of the ship," the guard says. He cocks a gray eyebrow at me like I should be laughing, too. I'm obviously not. "Oh, wait. There's no monster down here. It's just you."

I clench my jaw but don't say anything to him. Instead, I focus on scooping all of the food into my mouth with the help of the metal spoon without spilling anything onto the ground. I need to eat everything because I have no idea when they're going to feed me again. 

The guard exits the jail as I finish up my meal. I don't know why he left so quickly when I was nearly done with my food. Doesn't he want to take the tray away from me so that I don't find a way to escape?

Wait, escaping. My eyes look down at the spoon in front of me. If I can bend the spoon to my will, I can escape from this wretched ship. I try to bend the spoon, but the chains on my wrist prevent me from doing this. I sigh angrily. Why is nothing working out for me?

I pick the spoon back up and try to shove it into the keyhole. That doesn't work either. I keep jabbing the spoon onto the chains, trying my hardest to break it or something, but nothing is working out the way I want it to. The last thing I try is hitting the chains with the tray. Nothing works until the last blow.

A loud crack echoes in the small jail down here as the chains fall to the ground. My hands are free. I'm free. Well, free from this prison, not free from my mind. But that could wait for another day. Escaping from this prison will be step one; taking care of myself will be the last step in this plan of getting away from everyone I cared about.

The jail door isn't even locked as I try to push it open. It swings open so easily that I don't really believe it at first. However, I don't spend a lot of time not believing it because I need to get out of here before I lose my mind. 

I sprint up the stairs toward the moonlight. It looks so good to me that my face breaks out into a wide smile. I'm almost free from this wretched place. 

So far, there's no guards up here on the top deck. They're all probably in their rooms because of the storm that's raging on in the sky above us. That's good for me. I sprint over to the side of the ship and stare down into the blue water that crashes against the ship. Do I really want to jump into that?

"Hey! The prisoner is escaping!"

I glance back to see a guard racing toward me. That helps me make up my mind. I jump the rail and start falling down to the water far below us. This feeling of falling is the same as when I was falling out of the tree back at the palace. However, this time I know that no one will catch me.

Plunging into the water, the breath is knocked out of my lungs. The cool water surrounds my body, trying to suck me under. I fight my way back up to the surface of the water and suck in as many breaths as I can. My vision is very spotty right now, but I can see a small log floating near me.

I latch onto the small log before it floats away from me. The waves crash against my body, pushing and pulling me apart. I welcome the pain from the waves. It's the first thing I have felt since I went numb back at the palace. It's the last thing I feel before my vision goes dark.

➳➳➳

I wake up on an island. The last thing I remember was falling asleep while resting on the log that I found. I was so exhausted from staying above that I just fell asleep in desperation, hoping that I would die. I didn't die, though. I'm alive.

I lay on the sand for as long as I can. The sun beats down on me, but I don't care right now. My mind is still very slow, so I'm not really sure what's going on around me. All I know is that I've never hated myself more. I hurt everyone I have ever cared about, and that has hurt me more than I realized. That's why I never had friends; I didn't want to get hurt. And now I have.

The sound of someone walking wakes me up fully from my coma-state of sleeping. Someone else is here on the island with me. All my senses flash back to me. The sun is so blinding right now; it smells so much like seaweed out here that I gag slightly; the sand is coarse on my bare skin; I can taste the salt in the sea on my lips; I can hear the waves crash against the side of the island. 

I scramble up to standing and glance around. There isn't much on this island; it's just a sea of sand and blue water. There's not even trees or any types of vegetation that I could eat. The one thing that doesn't match up is the person standing in the center of the tiny island with his back to me. I know who it is, though. 

"Xalen?" He turns around slowly. I gasp when I see the jeweled bow and arrows in his hands. "How'd you find me here?"

He shrugs. While he's thinking about what he wants to say, I take the bow and arrows out of his hands to keep them safe. "I knew the route you were taking, and this was the only island along the way."

"You knew I was going to escape?"

"Yes, I did."

"And you stole those for me?"

"Yes, I did."

"You're also the one who alerted the other guards that I was going to steal them."

"Yes, I did." Xalen swallows hard. He looks a little nervous to be around me, probably because I look absolutely awful from swimming forever. I probably also have a crazy look in my eyes. "I didn't think we could do it, so I told someone to be on the lookout. I actually enjoyed being a guard there, more than anything else I have done with my life so far. I didn't want you to ruin my job for me."

"Then, why did you steal them again?"

His eyes softens as he gazes at me. I did not expect him to do that, especially because I'm very mad at him for telling someone about me stealing the jeweled bow and arrows. "I missed you, Heiza."

"You did?"

"Yeah."

Before I can talk myself out of it, I take one of the jeweled arrows and stab it through Xalen's chest. He sputters in pain and surprise as he falls down to the yellow sand. Dark red liquid spills out of his chest onto the sand. "Heiza?" he whispers. I can barely hear his voice over the pounding of my heart in my ears.

"It has to be this way, Xalen. I'm sorry."

I have to turn away before he dies in front of me. I did care about him, but that was a long time ago. I don't want to have any more loose ties, and it is better to have Xalen dead then have him out in the world, on the brink of telling my secrets to everyone else. I can't have any of that anymore.

With the jeweled bow and arrows on my back, I set off toward the boat that Xalen took here floating in the clear blue water. My back is as straight as an arrow. Of course it is. Recently, I've been struggling with my identity; I didn't know who I was and what I wanted to be. But now I do know. I am an archer. It's as simple as that. I am an archer who is going to make her own happiness with the money she is about to gain. Yes, I am going to do it alone because I have no one else to help me with this. But maybe in the end of all this, I am meant to be alone. 

THE END