Hey, guys! *waves* Sorry it's been like...forever since I've updated this story. But fear not! This story is far from over!

I'm back now and ready to write. Please review; I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Bolin figeted where he stood. Or, to be more exact, where his spirit stood.

Since Mako and no one could hear him, how was he supposed to get back to his body? He had touched his body again, and this tiggeling senesation overtook him-like when your leg falls alseep-but over his whole frame.

Then he had watched with wide eyes as his body thrashed and flaled in the bed. Doctors had rushed in to help him, shouting and stabbing him with needles.

"Mako..." he whispered as Mako sat down again with his head in his hands.

He couldn't stay in this room anymore. He couldn't watch his brother crying at his bedside for one more second.

He goes to the door and finds that he can fade through it, almost like a ghost. He supresses a shiver at that thought. This warm feeling washes over him as he goes through the door and Bolin breifly wonders if this is what the dead feel like. As he takes a look around, he sees doctors and healers rushing about in a frantic manner, patients walking around and sitting in the waiting area. Some are yelling in pain, others are crying. Everything is chaos and mayhem, just as any Emergancy Ward would look like.

But he also sees other peeople. They're all dressed in hospital garbs, but different from thre rest of the other paitents. Thier frames are radiating some sort of aura, like the glow of Korra's eyes when she enters the Avatar State. He looks down at his own hands and realises he is giving off the same yellow-white energy. None of the doctors are talking to these people. And that's when it finnaly hits him.

No one can see these people, he thinks to himself, they're like me.

"Help! Somone help me, please!"

Bolin wirls around at the sound of the frantic voice. This man is giving off the same aura, but he's covered in blood and burns and looks like he got run over by a train or something else equally as horrible. If Bolin were in his real body, he probably would have thrown up at how horrid he looks. Bolin knows he is stareing, but he can't look away.

Just as the man and Bolin lock eyes does the man rush over to him.

"You! You can see me, can't you?!"

Bolin nods. "All I know is that I just got here. I'm in a coma and no can hear me or see me."

The man looks around, frantic once more. "My daughter! There was a terrible accident! Our house caught on fire! My daughter, I have to find her!"

Bolin puts a hand on the man's shoulder. "Sir, my name is Bolin, and you need to calm down. If your daughter's not here with us, that's a good sign. Doctors are probaly taking care of her right now."

At that statement, the man takes a deep breath, and wraps his arms around himself. "What's happeneng? What is this place?"

"The inbetween."

Both men turn around at the sound of the voice. Before them stand ten-maybe fifthteen- people all in hospital gowns and pulsing with energy. Some have shaved heads like him, others are covered in blood and bandages, sporting an array of grusome injuries. Bolin spots a little girl who can't be any older than five. A young women with her head wrapped in gauze stands in front of the crowed with perceing amber eyes, and Bolin watches intentely as she steps forward.

"My name is Fina. You're like all the rest of us; in comas, trapped in the vail between the living world and the afterlife."

The man blaches at that revealtion, and Bolin pouts. This is not good at all.

"So...I'm guessing getting back to our bodies isn't going to be easy?" Bolin says nervously. When he had been healthy, he would have tried to ease the tension with optimism and jokes. Since the year that he's been sick, he's learned that optimism is for the nieve, for those who don't see reality for what is it.

Now, Bolin's too tired to see the bright side to many things.

The women- Fina- shakes her head. "Some try and try for months to get back and find that interferaing with thier bodies only causes them harm. Others only need to think about thier loved ones and they fade back into thier bodies. But it's differnt for everyone. Most just need to wait for when the time is right."

After that, there's a silence so peircing that Bolin swears he can hear the energy around them crackelijng.

"So...what now?" He asks.

Fina smiles and motions with her head. "Follow me,"

Korra's become accustomed to the world always being out of balence. Since the time she left the compound at age seventeen, villains had started poppping up one after the other with no rest.

You take one psycho down and another takes his place, Korra thinks bitterly.

Korra loves being the Avatar; she knows she's meant to keep balence and keep Raava safe. But in the back of her mind she thinks that one day off-just one- would be swell.

It's just as she touches down to the ground with her glider does she spot Tenzin and Lin. They're standing in from of the latest crime secene; hazard tape frames the area, with blood staining the pavement. A blanket covers the victim, and Korra can tell that even from here the body is in shambles.

"What's the latest?" Korra asks, assuming the worst.

"Seven killings in three days," Lin bites out. "All witnesses say the murderer was a shape-shifting spirit. It first apeared to them as an old man with a long beared and robes. But then it shifted into a dark spirit with tenticles, and, as one witness reports 'It was like it was sucking their life-force out of them'."

"Taavi," Korra mutters, clenching her fist. "I know it's him,"

"There's also this," Lin says, and she motions Korra over to the body. She lifts up the blanket to reveal the victim in all his bloody glory. Korra swallows and tries not to look. "We've found this symbal branded into the neck of every victim," Korra's eyes widen as she sees it.

There, on the corpe's neck, is a symbol so acient that she doubts even Tenzin knows that it means. It's an intrecate pattern of lines and dots, all blending together and branded on the man like a burn. For a moment, Korra wishes Unalaq were here, if only to ask him the meaing behind the damning symbol. Korra's hand goes almost instinctively to her neck. She closes her eyes, enternally greatful that Taavi's posesstion of her didn't leave her branded as well.

"But if this Spirit thrives off of chi," Tenzin begins, "we have no idea where it's going to strike next, or who."

"How do we find a spirit that can shape-shift into any form he wants?" Lin asks, placeing the blanket back over the body.

"Maybe if I meditate into the Spirit World, he'll follow me there," Korra decides.

Tenzin turns to face her. "Korra, it's too dangerous. You're still recoperating from your last fight with Taavi and if you-"

"-Tenzin, I'm fine. And I can't just sit back while innocent people are being slaughterd! I have to do something,"

Tenzin sighs, and places a hand on her shoulder. "Just be careful,"

"I will,"

Bolin sits down with Fina on bench. They had gone to a more quieter ward, to which Bolin was very greatful. He couldn't watch all that chaos and pain for much longer.

"You've been through a lot," she's tell him, "I can tell,"

Bolin shurgs, not wanting to go to those dark thoughts. "So has everyone else," he replies, gesturing to her injury.

"When I first got here, I was just like you and everyone else. Alone, afraid. It was heartbreaking watching my friends and family being in pain because of me,"

"How long have you been like this?" he asks.

"Two years,"

"What?" He almost yells. His eyes bug out and he can't help but feel the rise of panic growing inside him, "Two years?"

She nods. "I was in one of Kuvira's reeducation camps, the first of the roundups. They treated us worse than slaves; starving us, beating us,"

Bolin swallows. He's always felt emmense guilt over having joined Kuvira's army and the part he had in putting innocent people in the camps. But the guilt washing over him now is almost ubearable. For the second time today feels like he's going to be sick.

"What happened?" he whispers.

"We planned a break out; taking out the gaurds when they switched shifts, digging under the fence. We had a set of spies on the outside. Some of us got out, other who didn't were punshied harshly. A battle started and I took a chuck of metal to the back of my head. Instant inflamation of the brain." Her hand goes up to her head as if she can feel the phantom pain of the metal slincing through.

"Those of us who got out brougt me to the closest hospital in the Earth Kingdom state and I was transfered here to Republic City. I've been in a coma ever since,"

Bolin doesn't know what to say to that. The twist in his gut is like acid and he finds himself blinking back tears. Bolin looks away. "I'm so sorry," is all he can magage to say.

"What about you? What's your story?" She asks, as if his bald head wasn't obvous enough of his condiction. She probaly knew and was just being polite. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a slight flush to her otherwise pale face. Was she...blushing at him?

Since he lost his hair all those months ago, Bolin hadn't thought of himself as anything but ugly. No matter how many times Opal and his friends tried to tell him he wasn't, he knew it was true.

"Bolin?" she asks.

"It doesn't matter," he mutters, "It's not important; it won't change anything,"

"That's not nessasarily true. Talking about how we got here helps us come to terms with it and accept our current state. I've seen people fade away back into thier bodies by talking about what happaned to them,"

Bolin thinks about that. Maybe it would work, or... maybe it would just make things worse. How could he tell her? How could he explain to this women that he met only hours ago and already feels a connection wtih, that him getting sick was his punishment for working with Kuvira and putting innnocent lives at stake?

He knows he deserves thiss Besides, how can he ever hope to compare his pain with her's?

Its when he feels a touch on his hand, does he look back at her. And then when he looks at her, does he really look at her. Her bright amber eyes, smooth skin and dark black hair. She's beautiful.

"It's okay," she finnaly tells him, "You can tell me when you're ready,"

They stare at eachother a moment too long before Bolin clears his throat awkwardly and Fina takes her hands from his.

"Let's go take a walk around the ward," she says, "You've got a lot of people to meet,"

And Bolin gets up and follows her.