Little Miss Perfect | Neteyam¹

Chapter 27: Tragedy Strikes

Lo'ak shoots Neteyam a worried look but quickly obeys Neteyam as he follows closely behind Spider. Neteyam uses the gun as a distraction as he shoots at the one Avatar targeting his brother and his friend. Once the teen sees Lo'ak and Spider are safe, he throws the gun down and quickly runs to escape as well.

As he jumps into the pool, Marali's vision changes once again.

She's no longer on the ship. Now she's on some rocks and sees the Sully family surrounding someone.

When her dream first started, she was watching from above, but now it's like she was in her body watching the scene before her. The girl slowly walks towards the family and freezes when she sees who they have gathered around.

Neytiri was pleading with Great Mother as Jake sat there and looked at his son, who was no longer breathing.

Neteyam was dead.

Marali's eyes shot open, and she quickly sat up as she looked around, pleading for it to only be a dream. When her eyes settled on the sleeping boy from across the pod, she felt like she could finally breathe again.

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes when the images of Neteyam being dead flooded her mind. She looked outside to see that the Sun wouldn't come up for another few hours, and she silently groaned in frustration. The girl knew she wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, but she didn't want to leave the pod either.

So, she got up as quietly as she could and walked over to Neteyam.

"Neteyam," She whispered, not receiving a reaction from him. "Neteyam," She murmured as she pushed his shoulder slightly.

"What?" The boy mumbled as he kept his eyes closed.

"Can I sleep with you?" Marali asked, and the boy's eyes snapped open as he looked at the girl's face. "What?" He said as his voice cracked.

"Can I sleep with you? You know, lay down beside you?" She says frustrated. The boy visibly relaxed when she only meant that she wanted to sleep beside him. "Yeah, of course. Come here." Neteyam said as he rolled over onto his back and opened his arms for the girl to lay on his chest.

Marali quickly laid down beside him and placed her head on his chest. As she felt her breathing calm down, she closed her eyes and focused on Neteyam's heartbeat. It was strong and healthy. Neteyam was alive. He was here. It was just a dream.

At the realization of it only being a dream, Marali felt her eyelids grow heavy as she listened to Neteyam's slow and steady heartbeat, signaling that he had already drifted back asleep. After a couple more minutes of listening to his heartbeat, Marali drifted back asleep.

~~~~

Out of everyone in the pod, Jake was the first one awake. It wasn't unusual for him to be up first. Neytiri and he always took turns of who was the first to wake up. When Jake heard Neytiri sigh, he knew that she was also awake.

"Morning." He whispered as Neytiri hummed in agreement.

The two parents silently lay with each other before they decide to sit up and wake up their children. Neytiri looks over to her two daughters and notices that Marali isn't there. "Where's Marali?" Neytiri whispers, and Jake's head snaps in the direction of Kiri and Tuk.

Please don't tell me those two snuck out again. Jake thought to himself.

However, his eyebrows knitted in confusion when he saw Neteyam still in the pod silently asleep. "I don't know. We'll look for her after we wake the kids up." Jake said, and Neytiri nodded her head as she went over to wake up the girls.