A Moment, Please.

Chapter 24

"...And then it's GONE!"

I yawned, and rolled my eyes as I leaned back onto my hands. Sokka’s ghost story was so boring. It made me want to fall asleep instead of stay up all night in fear.

"Sokka that was the worst ghost story, ever, in the history of time. Let someone with talent try next...Katara?"

Katara straightened herself a bit, clearing her throat before she began her story. 

"....But to this day smoke still rises in the air from her home."

I sat, my arms wrapped tightly to Toph's own arm, my eyes wide. I did my best to hide how much I was shaking, but I think I was failing. Toph gave me a small nudge, and I loosened my grip on her slightly.

"Ka-Katara, tha-that-that's not a real story is it?"

Before she could answer Toph spoke, her voice startling me so much I jumped in my spot. As I jumped, I released her arm, and fell; landing on my back.

"I'm hearing screams from the mountain."

As I slowly sat up, I tipped my head to listen.

Nothing.

I took my foot from my shoe and planted it on the ground, closing my eyes, as I tried to ‘see’ as Toph taught me.

 
But still felt nothing, minus my still shaking body. Opening my eyes, I wiped my foot off before placing it back into my shoe.

"Toph, I can't feel anything."

 
"I'm telling you-"

 
"You're just freaked out from the story-"

 
"Hello"

With a small yelp, I jumped from Toph's side and into Sokka's lap. As I landed in his lap, I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling his head to my chest. The sound, which had startled me, was a woman's voice, but I didn't know where she was. From the shadows, an old woman emerged, as I still clung onto Sokka.

~~~

Hama's inn was nice, being warm and cozy; it was something that seemed inviting. But as we entered the inn, and I looked around, something didn't feel right to me. It wasn’t so much the inn as it was Hama; she gave off this strange aurora to me.

Sitting us down at a table, she gave us each a cup of tea. I took mine and held it up to my nose. I took a deep whiff of the spiced tea, before taking a nice drawn out sip. 
I closed my eyes at the warmth and taste, smiling. Such delicious tea, something Iroh would enjoy for sure.

Yeah.

All worries of Hama left me as I enjoyed my tea. That was until; Hama started talking about the forest we had been staying in. She told us that people, who had gone into the forest at night, had been mysteriously disappearing on full moons recently. 

Swallowing the tea in my mouth, I then bit down hard on my bottom lip. I glanced around at everyone else, and could tell that this too made them uneasy. Glad to see I wasn't the only one.

"But you are safe here, do not worry."

She gave a nice warm smile, but the biting on my lip didn't loosen up. 

~~~

That night my dreams were filled with horrible images, they were so horrible that I realized that they weren’t dreams but nightmares.

In the dark abbess, I looked around. Despite the lack of light, I saw perfectly what was happening. Crowds of people crowded me and were being controlled by something other than themselves. I watched in horror, a scream threatening to escape my lips, until it then start to happened to me. My body moved against its own will, and I fought off whatever it was to no avail. It was painful to fight it off, to get whatever controlled me away, but I couldn't. The longer I fought the weaker I got. Then suddenly, I realized I wasn’t in some abbess but on the tip of a large mountain. The full moon shined its light on me, and Yue entered my mind. Soon, despite my weakening fighting efforts, I found myself sinking into the mountain. As I sunk, I realized it was filled with millions upon millions of souls floating, screaming, and moaning out in pain. They surrounded me, and with one last ditch effort, I let out my most blood curling scream I could muster.


The next morning, I ate nothing. My stomach was still turning from the night before. Pushing my food away, I claimed I just wasn’t feeling good. Though that was an understatement. I wanted nothing more than to tear out my stomach, and it only got worse as the day went on.