Part 5
Wake up.
The voice reverberated
throughout Tom’s mind, breaking through his dreams. Groggily, he put his head
up, trying to find its source.
Wake up,
go out.
Tom rolled out of bed and
stumbled to his door. Who was calling him? It couldn’t be Nathan, could it? He
wouldn’t be up this late.
Tom fumbled with the door in an attempt to open it. It was
so heavy. It wasn’t usually this heavy, and his sleep fogged mind couldn’t
comprehend why that would change. The doorknob rattled in his hand, and he took
a break to gasp. The air felt thin as it entered his lungs, not fully filling
them, and it made his head swim.
After
wrenching the door open, the metal sliding in his hand, he stepped out of the
door to his room. Immediately he shivered. The planks of the ship felt like ice
on his bare feet. That was odd, considering he was well below deck, but for
some reason his mind could not wrap itself around the myriad problems his
senses were presenting him with.
Go out. Tom had to obey, the voice both
dizzying and commanding. The ship bucked under him, and he seemed to have lost
his sense of balance, but he managed to lurch to a staircase that would take
him up. A cold draft of air hit him, and almost knocked him down the stairs
with its strength, but Tom could see that the door was not open.
Was he
dreaming? He must be. He stopped and leaned against the wall, horribly dizzy.
He could feel every movement of the ship under him. He thought he had heard the
navigator speak of the Fire Lords not being accustomed to the movement of ships
after living on their islands for a long time, but that had never happened to
Tom before. He was dreaming, or ill, he thought. He should go back to bed.
Come on, go out. Almost there. Tom groaned, but staggered up the steps
once more, stopping at the door that led to the lower decks. Cold air leeched
from outside. Fear suddenly chilled him. If this was a nightmare, it was a good
one.
A
draft of wind blew the door open, and Tom almost fell outside. A strong pair of
hands grabbed him and dragged him out of the doorway. Tom could only see
shadows, and noticed that it was raining. The storm still raged, wind and rain
lashing him, and he was soaked in seconds.
He
tried to fight, but whoever was holding him would not let him go. “Sssh, boy,
it’s alright. No one’s going to hurt you.” Tom had never heard that voice
before, but for some reason the fight went out of him. His knees buckled, and
he fell into a chair that was hastily placed behind him. The dizziness would
not go away, and he thought people flitted around him. He thought they were
talking to one another, but the howling of the storm took away their words. When
he blinked, they were gone, like shadows.
Tom
stared into space, blinking at the rain that fell into his eyes. He felt
incredibly dazed, but was almost positive that this was a dream. He would wake
soon. His body shivered, and he couldn’t focus on anything but the cold and the
rain until the shadows-were they people?-placed something in front of him. It radiated
heat.
“Look
here, boy.” It was a book. Strange, curling symbols wound around the spine and
over the pages. Tom was suddenly intrigued, and as he gazed at it, the shadows
and the storm faded around him. It felt so warm. It seemed to float, and the
goosebumps on his hands faded as he brought his hand closer, flipping the
pages, not sure what he was looking for but following the symbols he saw. They
weren’t words, but they circled the pages, as if spiraling to the center of the
book. He flicked over one page that was marked with a dark stone, and around
him the shadows seemed to breathe.
He kept turning the pages. It chased away the cold and the
wind from around him, and for a moment Tom expected to open his eyes and be
safe and warm in his bed, the book and all of this a dream.
Tom flipped one more page, and for a moment he caught the
shadows moving in the corner of his eye, and the warmth retreated. That was no
good. Tom’s hand wavered, and the book did as well. There was a stone there in the
center of the book. It gave off light, steadily, but the light did not reveal
anything, the symbols still unreadable. Tom suddenly darted his hand forward,
as though by instinct, and his fingers touched the stone.
It burned, and Tom saw himself screaming.
The shadows whirled around him, their voices humming or yelling or screaming
with him. Tom even thought he heard Nathan’s voice, echoing with his pain. He
saw flames in front of him, dancing a bright orange, and he was incredibly
happy, smiling through the burning. This was flame magic, what he wanted!
Then the flame turned blue, and he was hit
with waves of ice. His screaming stopped, and everything was deathly silent.
The book was no longer warm. The ship stopped moving, and he could no longer
feel the rain or wind. Fear filled him. The shadows had stopped as well, and
suddenly Tom felt horribly sick. He felt himself falling, and then everything
was gone.
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