Disclaimer! I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender—that honor belongs to Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, and Nickelodeon.

PROLOGUE

When I first woke up, I found myself in darkness so thick that I couldn't see two feet in front of me. It was tight—almost, but not quite, claustrophobically so—but admittedly warm, and quiet, and almost comforting, if not extremely disconcerting. And such a stark contrast to the pellucid, sterile world I had grown accustomed to in the past few months, that at first I thought my current location was nothing more than a product of an incredibly lucid dream.

But, as the time I spent in the place dragged on longer and longer, I consider that—perhaps—the surgery the doctor had suggested had failed and I had slipped into a coma as a result. I mean, even if he was the best of the best, he was still human, and therefore bound to make mistakes. No amount of money I paid him could change that.

Besides, my disease was in the late stages, and any operation the man had given me had been a gamble at best.

Still, the longer I stayed here, the more skeptical I grew of the 'I was in a coma' theory. According to a friend who had experienced one first hand, being in a coma was like being in absolute nothingness. It was like some sort of deep, dreamless sleep. I knew I wasn't supposed to be experiencing what I was experiencing—the warmth, the security...the feelings—sensations—I felt; like something was being put together inside of me...

Or perhaps my friend was wrong, and you did dream when you were in a coma—maybe it's just that one did not always have the mental capacity to remember what happened in the dream. Or maybe some just dreamed of nothingness, while others...not so much.

Still, I had to wonder: of all the things I could have dreamed of...why was my mind projecting a fetus?

(I had put two and two after feeling the extra appendage directly attached to my navel. Everything just started falling into place from there.)

Am I really going to be forced to relive my own birth?

A shiver ran down my spine, and my legs struck the rubbery walls encasing me harder than they normally did.

Please, oh please, don't let this be real. Just let this be a dream, o-or some massive, cosmic joke! Just—no matter what—don't let this be real!

But no matter how much I pleaded and begged, I never left my penitentiary—sorry: Freudian slip. I meant the womb—though I did find myself drifting in and out of clarity, if only to pass the time.

And the longer I remained, the more frustrated I became. The more frustrated I became...the harder I kicked and punched the rubbery walls surrounding me. Usually, after a bit, I'd calm down after soothing voices spoke to me, and then I'd feel a thick, blanket-like sensation of being completely—utterly—safe, and then my entire body would relax as I listened to my mother's heartbeat.

The day my birth took place, it wasn't completely unexpected. I felt the subtle tightening—painful constricting—of the walls surrounding me, and I heard my mother's erratic heartbeat, and the frantic voices outside as my dream came closer and closer to its climax.

And then I was unceremoniously shoved, headfirst, down a bloody tube—more commonly known as the "birth canal"—screeching, wailing to the loudest capacity my tiny, newly formed lungs were capable of; completely disgusted and indignant of what I'd just been forced to endure as I coughed up a thick—unidentifiable—viscous substance, completely enveloped in blood and afterbirth and God only knows what else.

The entire world was a blur to me. I could see nothing but vague outlines of huge figures that were both bigger, and stronger than I. The easiest distinctions I could make were the stark contrasts between light and dark. I could still see barest shapes and edges and colors, yes, but nothing looked familiar.

Another thing I could recall was that I could no longer understand the language being spoken. At first I wasn't completely bothered by this; I mean, it could've just meant my ears weren't fully developed. No big deal.

It was a big deal, however, when my ears did fully develop, and I realized that the language being spoken really wasn't English. Which was a problem because, as far as I knew, I had been born in a hospital in Queens—a place where the language would have been, without a doubt: English.

When my vision fully developed...it was even worse—

—because there is no way my mother had always looked like Fire Princess Ursa.

edit: 9/22/14

Edit: 8/14/14

A/N: This fic was deleted for...personal reasons. Um, is a mission of self-discovery a good enough reason? Probably not, but...whatever. Anyway, sorry it took me this long to re-post. I kept redoing the chapter, and when I was finally finished...I accidentally deleted an entire freaking section—even worse: I deleted the end. Boy...that was way more trouble than its worth.

Er, what else...? Ah, yeah. I'll be putting a question at the end of every chapter—just to give you something to put in your review, in case you can't think of anything.

QUESTION: If you could be reborn as anyone in the Avatar-verse, who would it be?

Thank you for reading. Please leave a review on your way out.