Rainbow's Gift (Avatar The Last Airbender Fanfic)

Chapter 63: The Puppetmaster

The air was cold. The more the wind blew, the more it got colder. We were all surrounding the fire, trying to get warm even though our backs were probably freezing. As Sokka told his story, no one moved an inch. We could hear the night animals awake, making different sounds as if they were warning us to get out of the forest. Toph had said earlier that she had a bad feeling about the forest. We still decided to stay and now I was regretting why we didn't look for another campsite. Maybe it was just the ghost stories that we had been telling each other since the sun went down, I repeatedly told myself in my head.

"They suddenly heard something down the hall, in the dark." Sokka said creepily. But when he started making his silly sound effects, the story wasn't scary at all. " It came into the torchlight.....and they knew the blade of Wing-fun was haunted!" He placed his sword in the fire and make this ugly, ugly scream or whatever it was. I almost laughed. Everyone else now looked bored. This was Sokka's third horror story.

"I think I liked "The man with a sword for a hand" better." Aang said as he changed his sitting position to lay down on the ground.

"Taliya's yamamba story was better than this. Water tribe slumber parties must stink." Toph said in a bored tone and I smirked at Sokka.

"No, wait. I've got one and this is a true Southern Water tribe story." Katara said and I sat up.

"Ooh, are going to manage to scare us Katara?" I asked and she nodded.

Sokka sat down. "Is this one of those 'A friend of my cousin knew some guy that happened to' story?' He asked.

"No, it happened to mom." She answered. None of us knew much about Katara's mom except that she was murdered by the Fire Nation. I watched as Sokka's silly mood went away and we all paid attention to her. Then she started. "One winter, when mom was a girl, a snowstorm buried the whole village for weeks. A month later, mom realized she hadn't seen her friend Nini since the storm. so mom and some others went to check on Nini's family. When they got there, no one was home, just a fire flickering in the fireplace. While the men went out to search, mom stayed in the house. When she was alone, she heard a voice. ' It's so cold and I can't get warm.' " Katara said that in this creepy voice that scared me. I was officially scared by this story. Aang at this point was gripping the sleeves of my clothes. " Mom turned and saw Nini standing by the fire. She was blue, like she was frozen. Mom ran outside for help but when everyone came back, Nini was gone."

We all gasped but Aang pulled my sleeves again. "Aang, you're going to tear my clothes off at this point." I said.

"Sorry. "he whispered. He let go of my sleeves but sat very very close to me.

"Where'd she go?" Sokka asked.

"No one knows. Nini's house stands empty to this day. But sometimes, people see smoke coming up from her chimney like little Nini is still trying to get warm." We sat there in silence till Toph scared us more by saying,

"Wait!" She put her hand on the ground. "Guys, did you hear that? I hear people under the mountain, and they're screaming." She stood up but the rest of us huddled together.

"Pft, nice try." Sokka said as he latched himself off me.

"No, I'm serious. I hear something." Toph said. She really looked like she heard something terrifying.

"You're probably just jumpy from the ghost stories." Katara said.

"It just stopped." She said.

"Alright, now I'm getting scared. " Aang said.

"I don't know about you guys but I believe Toph and I think we should get out of this forest as fast as possible. I'm not waiting for some monster to come and eat me." I told them. I really didn't believe in ghost stories but I didn't care. I was ready to run.