Breathe Deep And Move

            His father and the other men had been gone a little over six months when he saw the flash of red on his way home from an unsuccessful hunting trip. A blizzard had been brewing, and he knew everyone else was likely already sheltered in the village. He crept toward the snowbank where the red has disappeared to, keeping his steps light and his ears poised for sound. There is a silence unlike any other that only ground smothered by snow can cause, and it was because of that that he managed to hear the voices of two men long before he could see them.

            “I don’t see a waterbender. Yon Rha must’ve been right about wiping out the last one.”

            “So, we came all the way down here for nothing?”

            “Well not for nothing. Look, no men.”

            “So?”

            “So, none of these women have had anyone to warm their beds. It’d be ungentlemanly to leave them to their lonely solitude.”

            Sokka had stood stock still listening, fingers gripping his spear until they began to grow numb from the tension. He listened for several minutes as the two uniformed men discussed the pros and cons of each woman, creeping closer as he did until their backs finally came into view. He was trying to think of a plan to drive them off, but before he could he heard the first man speak again.

            “Oh, would you look at that? The little one’s mine.”

            Sokka’s heart had dropped so quickly he felt lightheaded. The little one. The only young girl older than an infant at the time had been his eleven-year-old sister. 

            Fuck the plan.

            The first man was easy. Sneaking up on those who didn’t know how to hunt in the snow was easy. The spear pierced the back of his neck and stuck out the front below his chin. It was dishonourable to attack from behind, but desperate times had called for desperate measures, and Sokka had a job to do.

            The first man had fallen quickly, choking, but not for long. The second man had been harder. Sokka’s spear had gotten lodged somewhere in the first man’s throat and would not come loose, and the second man was quickly getting over his shock as adrenaline took over. He lunged and Sokka had rolled awkwardly out of the way. To this day he doesn’t remember much of the near silent skirmish that followed. He doesn’t remember how the man had pressed the flat of his left hand to Sokka’s side and burned a hand shaped scar into the tender flesh over his ribs. He doesn’t remember the warm furs of his parka melting into skin and making a home there. He doesn’t remember pain. He doesn’t remember how he managed to get on top of him, the man belly down on the snow and Sokka with his knee dug into the centre of his back to hold him steady. 

            He remembers what came next. His spear was still stuck through the throat of the first man, and if he released a hand to grab the knife tucked into his boot there was a high likelihood that the much larger man he was pinning would break out of his hold. He had no plan; his body moved on instinct.

            He found one hand gripping the man’s hair, and the other reaching inside his mouth, holding tight to his upper jaw. Normally Sokka would have never had the strength to do what he did next, but adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

            With both arms he pulled, keeping his knee pressed hard into the man’s back. He vaguely registered his shoulder slipping out of the socket, but pain was a distant dream to him as he continued to yank the man’s jaws apart.

            The sound it made. That he will never forget. A horrible choking noise, and then the feeling of something ripping, and then wet heat. The man’s eyes went cold as his head was pulled from his lower jaw, dangling lifelessly as spurting more blood than Sokka had even known a person could house.

            He could see the white bone of the man’s spine sticking out from what had at one point been throat and mouth, and when he dropped the body next to this first one it landed with a dull thud that still rings in his ears from time to time.

            He sat silently, he doesn’t know how long. Before finally rolling over and heaving whatever he had eaten in the last twelve hours into the red-stained snow at his feet. His furs were covered, and his hands coloured a deep crimson that seemed to hold a sentience all their own. 

            He looked over the bodies once more. He went through their pockets; found some knives and some papers in a language he couldn’t read. He took them anyway. He couldn’t bring himself to pull the spear from the first dead man’s throat, so instead he dragged man and spear both to the edge of the water and threw him in. He did the same for the second man. 

            A bloody trail marked his path, but the blizzard was picking up, and in an hour, the evidence would be long gone. The leopard-seals would handle the bodies, nobody needed to know. Nobody needed to worry. 

            He scrubbed his hands raw in the icy water, continuing long after his fingers had lost all dexterity and gone white and numb. His fingernails were still tinted red, and eventually he gave up the effort. He tugged off his bloodied furs, throwing them in the water with the dead men, and only then noticed the dislocation of his right shoulder. 

            He put it back to the best of his ability, wrapped the knives and papers up and stuck them into his shirt, and went back to the village. When asked what happened he made up a story about a hunt gone wrong, and a broken spear. Nobody asked too many questions.

            By the time he crawled into bed that night, he was the calmest he’d ever been. It scared him how calm he was. But what scared him the most was how excellently he slept after his bloody deed.