Chapter Text
I remembered the look in his eyes. The wind was so loud it made my ears hurt as I looked around. I could see Lo’ak. He was saying something I couldn’t hear.
The taste of salt was still on my tongue; it was like sparkles, ready to explore. The floor was slippery.
“Lo’ak! What are you saying, brother?”
He grabbed the gun.
“They’ve got Spider. We’ve gotta get him. Come on.”
I could hear it in his voice. I didn’t want to go, I was scared, I held back the tremble in my bones. We were so close to escaping, and it made my fingertips numb.
They wouldn’t kill Spider. They will kill us. Why should we go back? I thought. My ears probably lowered; they always did when I felt uneasy. I shook my head. How could I risk my baby brother’s life? I’m the eldest—I have to protect them.
The smoke from the burning ship was rising, turning the sky grey.
“Come on, bro.”
Maybe, I thought, if I went, Lo’ak would… I didn’t know exactly. Maybe see me. I still remembered his words about me being the perfect son.
“We can’t leave him.”
He stood up, still slightly shaking from side to side, ready to leap.
I lowered myself onto one knee on the flooring, it felt like concrete, and looked down.
Maybe… just maybe I’ll let Lo’ak slide with this.
That’s what Neteyam thought as he raised his head with a smile, running after Lo’ak, who was already disappearing.
There were so many loud noises in the ship, and so many things happening all at once. Sky people were moving around, going somewhere, wearing masks—the same ones Spider wore. But he was Na’vi inside, even if he was peach-colored. Neteyam knew that.
He was already feeling strange about his own hesitation. For some reason, it felt like dying was impossible in this moment, when Lo’ak ran ahead with a gun slung over his shoulder and Neteyam ran after him.
He was becoming reckless too, and he noticed it. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing for the son of Toruk Makto, but maybe it was normal for kids his age. Maybe he’d finally get along with them now, not that he ever wanted to. He wanted to grow up, that was for sure. His thoughts contradicted one another, looping and tangling, inside and out.
The light was yellow and flickering. An alarm.
We ran through the ship, but there were too many people. Soon, Lo’ak and I climbed some sort of construction upside down. People ran below us, and my heart was pounding like crazy.
If any of them decided to shoot now, I wouldn’t be able to cover Lo’ak. He was in the lead, grunting as we moved forward, but I hesitated for a moment. Lo’ak never did like caution. He cared little about safety, but he was always like that. Like father. Mom would tell us how she knew he had a “strong heart, with no fear.” Lo’ak was just the same.
Neteyam looked up and saw Lo’ak already far ahead. He hurried to catch up, brushing the thoughts away.
When we finally climbed up and could walk again, we heard humans.
They were talking about something, dressed in red shirts. I carefully took the lead, trying to pass without making any noise. That way, I had a better chance of keeping Lo’ak safe. I hoped Kiri and Tuk were already back in safety, preferably with an elder watching over them.
We finally saw Spider when we looked down. I jumped lower to get a better look and figure out what to do, while Lo’ak stayed above. It wasn’t a bad position; he could shoot, and I could jump down and get Spider. But Sky People were all around him, and it would be hard to aim. Lo’ak would probably hesitate to kill people. This was different from shooting animals in the forests of Pandora.
I had my knife. I held it tighter.
One in the lead, one in the back, two i the middle both holding Spider.
When they turned and were right below me, I hesitated, but then quickly jumped. I stabbed the first guy in the neck or the back—I wasn’t sure. Everything happened so fast, but I didn’t think. This was what I had been preparing for my whole life.
After the first guy went down, I shoved one of the men holding Spider, the one on the right. He slammed into the wall and, with a scream, was done. The other one behind Spider had already pulled out his rifle. It was getting dangerous.
Suddenly, I heard Lo’ak jump down and hit him with his own rifle. It wasn’t good, he was down here now. It would’ve been better if he’d stayed above and shot them, but it was okay, I thought. Lo’ak was impulsive, and probably too young to kill.
He quickly turned to the other man holding Spider and took him down as well.
The guy with the rifle started to get back up, so I grabbed him and threw him off the stairs. The other man was also getting up, and Lo’ak hit him again with the rifle. Spider stood frozen, eyes wide like moons, until he finally jumped into the fight too, ripping the mask off a sky person.
I don’t know exactly when it happened. I wasn’t looking, everything around us was moving too fast. I just remember Spider punching someone, then I heard the gunshots. A lot of them, all at once.
I turned as fast as I could. Spider was okay. Then I looked at Lo’ak. He was fine too, thankfully. I thanked Eywa in my mind, until I realized.
It was him. He was the one who had shot.
He looked terrified. I didn’t know what to say. So many thoughts crowded my mind, and now that I’d heard gunshots, I knew we could die. I stepped closer and carefully took his arm.
“Bro, come on,” Spider said. He was far more practical than me.
I let go.
“Let’s go.”
I hoped we could brush it off for now and talk about it later, at home. Neteyam would tell Dad how brave Lo’ak was, how he saved their lives by shooting. Dying was just another form of life—Neteyam had always understood that. He’d try to explain it to Lo’ak too. Maybe to Spider, if he wanted.
But now it didn’t matter.
I jumped down the stairs, adrenaline pumping. My hands were slightly shaking.
We have to get out of here. Now.
The thought repeated in my head, growing louder each time. I knew something horrible was about to happen if we didn’t hurry.
“Thanks, guys,” Spider said.
I couldn’t see him. I was scanning the area, trying to figure out where we could jump next, when suddenly he screamed.
“Go!”
Gunshots rang out again, it was Lo’ak.
“No!”
I rushed to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him to run, as far as we could. What was he doing?!
This was all just wasting time. Time, time, time. We were going to die. That thought kept pounding in the back of my head.
“Go, go, go!” I screamed, pushing Lo’ak in front of me as we ran past Spider. I nearly tripped myself. The world was getting blurry, faster and faster with every second. I heard terrifying gunshots—they were everywhere.
They mixed with Spider’s screams.
“Go, go, go…”
We didn’t know where we were running. We just ran across the metal floor full of holes, through flickering yellow lights, forward, forward, forward. So fast the ground felt like it was shaking. The gunshots wouldn’t stop.
We stopped near a corner. Lo’ak stood next to me. My heart was pounding, and again I felt immortal. I yanked the gun out of his hands.
“Give me that!”
I closed one eye and aimed at two sky people who looked like us, then started shooting. These gunshots didn’t scare me. They made me feel better. Finally, they stopped shooting at us.
Then I remembered Lo’ak and Spider.
They stood there, just as shocked as I was, watching.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted at them, as if they were idiots. There was no time to think.
I waved my hand in front of them to get their attention and show them where to go. Before the sky people could start firing again, I leaned out and kept shooting.
“This way!” I heard Spider yell. I hoped he knew the ship, knew where to go. He and Lo’ak ran. Even when I couldn’t see them anymore, I kept trying to cover them. I didn’t look, even though I wanted to.
Then I heard splashes.
I knew they were away.
I still couldn’t turn toward them. The men were getting more confident now, firing again, moving closer. I knew I was done soon, my bullets were running out, and I had to get out.
I wasn’t brave like Dad or reckless like Lo’ak. But I gathered everything I had, tightened my grip for one last moment, then dropped the gun and leaped.
I jumped over the railings into the water. Everything slowed down. It felt like gravity no longer worked on me, like I was falling for an eternity while bullets rained down.
Finally, I hit the water.
It went dark instantly. When I opened my eyes, Spider and Lo’ak were there. If I could’ve sighed in relief, I would have but I couldn’t breathe.
At first, I didn’t feel it. After a second of swimming, I thought something itched. But when I finally surfaced for air, under some part of the ship’s structure that looked like a wing—I felt it clearly.
I was bleeding.
It hurt badly, and the weight of it was pulling me down. I wasn’t sure I could stay afloat much longer.
The water still tasted salty. The wind was cold, so was the sea. But I couldn’t focus on any of it, or even on the wound. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe death.
Tsireya pulled me from the water. She was riding an ilu. I wanted to cough, but it hurt too much. I hated the salt in my mouth, the water, the blue sky and clouds, the beaches and sand, the animals. For a moment, I hated it all.
I wanted to be back in the forest. Back in the place where I would someday become a leader. Back where I had friends and elders to sit with. Back where I could fly.
I tried to imagine how life would have been if we’d stayed—flying with Dad and Lo’ak, hunting with Mom. I tried, but I couldn’t picture anything at all.
“Get on!” I heard Tsireya shout.
“Come on, bro,” Lo’ak said.
I wasn’t sure who he was talking to—me or Spider. It felt like anyone could be his brother except me, even an outcast tulkun. He didn’t even notice me there, trying to swim in the shadows.
Neteyam didn’t know why he felt all this at once; hatred, pity, sadness, regret. Was he actually dying? He didn’t want to think about it. Or maybe he was trying to distract himself from the thought.
“You skxawng,” I remembered saying, as water went in my mouth. I wanted to be mean so everyone could feel what I felt. I never really talked about how I felt with anyone. But now, for no reason at all, I wanted to.
“I’m shot.”
It wasn’t the right way to say it, I knew that, but everything was mixing together in my head, and it hurt so much that I didn’t care. I remembered holding the place where I’d been shot. It was just below my ribs and above my hip, on the right side, not the center.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the water, the sky, anything. It all reminded me of where I was, of how I was.
“Shit!” Lo’ak swam up to me. Maybe I wanted to scold him, but it hurt too much.
“Gimme a hand!” Lo’ak said.
The wound kept pulling me down.
Lo’ak grabbed me from one side and Spider from the other. They were saying something, but I couldn’t hear them. There was a ringing in my ears, and through it I thought I heard my mom’s voice.
They pulled me onto the ilu, halfway out of the water, but it only made the pain worse.
I was lying with my back raised, and Spider held me from behind.
“Holy shit,” he said.
He and Lo’ak were similar—always throwing curses around—but now I knew this was actually serious shit.
They pulled me up more. Lo’ak held me from the front, Spider from the back. Tsireya stayed beside us in water, and we started swimming. Lo’ak tried to cheer me up with random words. I tried to hear them, but the world was going blurry.
And dark.
“They have Kiri and Tuk,” Tsireya said, with tears in her eyes.
I have to go back, I thought. But I couldn’t. I was useless. I couldn’t hear anything anymore.
I tried to press my hand against the wound. It felt soft there. My hand came away red, the same red the sky people bled. It was flowing fast, not sticky, more like pomegranate juice.
I stopped thinking at some point. I don’t know when. Nor do I know how long they were swimming like that, through the ocean. Maybe forever. Or maybe just five minutes. The world shifted from slow to fast to something almost normal.
What I remember is staring at the water and how it reflected colors; yellow, grey, dark blue, black, like fish scales. The same way the sky looked in the forest.
The trance ended when I heard:
“Dad!” Lo’ak shouted.
He was still holding me by the arm, and I held on too. He was warm. I could feel his heartbeat—and Spider’s too, behind me. For a second, I stopped being scared. I felt warm, almost as if Eywa wrapped her hands around me.
“Dad, help! It’s Neteyam!”
They pulled me off the ilu, and the cold sea embraced me again. It reminded me of Eywa. Of death. Of Mom and Dad. Of Kiri and Tuk, who were still out there—not safe. And of all these people around me, fussing over me, when they should have been going to save Kiri and Tuk.
But I’m selfish.
A selfish eldest son of Toruk Makto’s line, who just wants to see his family again. And Tsireya too.
He liked Tsireya. She was kind. Beautiful. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. That’s what the Metkayina people were—beautiful.
They were shouting things. My back scraped against the rocks again. Finally, they pulled me out and laid me down somewhere.
From here, I could see the sky.
It was black and yellow, burned by the sun.
“It’s okay, bro. We got you.”
I think his voice is shaking.
Dad turns me onto my side to look at my back. My shoulder is bleeding, and so is my stomach. I’d only noticed the stomach at first, but now my shoulder hurts too.
“He’s been shot in the shoulder and the lower abdomen,” Dad says, his eyes darting around.
My eyes are full of water, maybe tears, but I like to think it's just sea water. Makes me feel less scared. I can’t see clearly, but I want to. I want to see my dad. And Mom. And Lo’ak, and Spider, and Kiri and Tuk. And Grandma, and my friends, and Tsireya—and the forest.
“Put pressure,” Dad says.
Then again, louder, screaming, “Put pressure on it!”
I know he isn’t angry. He’s scared.
As soon as he shouts, I feel Lo’ak’s hands on my shoulder and Dad’s hands pressing hard against my stomach.
“Dad, I—”
I try to speak. I don’t know why. Maybe I want him to say he loves me. Or that he’s proud of me. But right now, it isn’t about him.
“No, no, no, no, no…”
It’s Mom.
I thank Eywa in my head. If only Tuk and Kiri were here too.
“Son, I’m here. It’s okay. Stay with me. Look at me.”
Dad cradles my head while pressing against the wound.
I should say I’m sorry. Or that it’s my fault.
But instead, I say,
“I want to go home.”
At the same time, I’m selfish echoes in my head as I imagine trees growing from the cliffs, flowers blooming, and the smell of moss filling the air.
Home—where we were all happy. And together.
I want to go home, where Tuk and Kiri are with us, where I’m not shot. Where I can fly and do my duties as the eldest son of Toruk Makto.
Maybe he should also tell Tsireya how she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. How she’s kind and caring. How he likes her wavy hair and blue eyes, so different from the Omaticaya’s yellow. Maybe he wants to feel reckless, childish, and stupid. Free of responsibility and expectation. Just an ikran cutting through the wind.
But he can’t.
He’s Neteyam. Son of Jake Sully the sixth Toruk Makto, chief of the Omaticaya clan.
Besides, he noticed the way Lo’ak looked at her. It would be too cruel to take that from him too. He knew how Lo’ak had always felt; belittled, living in his shadow. Neteyam never fully understood what it was like for Lo’ak to live under his shadow. Was it same way he felt living under Jake’s shadow? But that didn’t matter now.
All that mattered was his baby brother being in love. Being happy.
Nothing else mattered.
Not anymore.
He closed his eyes and heard Jake’s voice. It was so loud and desperate.
“Nateyam. Nateyam. Keep your eyes open. Stay with us, son.”
It rang in his ears again; the distant gunshots, the smell of smoke, their shaking voices. Everything mixed together in his head. His mind fixated on random things now: the way dust floated past him, the way his mother looked at him from the side, Spider’s voice cutting through the noise.
“I… I have bandages…” Spider said. His voice echoed.
Everyone turned toward him. Dad’s hands were shaking as he spoke—“It’s okay, son. It’s okay.”
And Lo’ak: “Bro, stay.”
Neteyam couldn’t hear them very well anymore. He couldn’t see them clearly either. Everything was too bright. Too yellow. Dad kept asking him to look at him, and he tried—but the light hurt.
The last thing he remembered clearly was them lifting him up, Dad saying something like, “Move. Now.”
Spider and Lo’ak carried him somewhere. Dad held his face.
And then flying.
The ground was far, far below him, and he was above it. He heard his mother’s voice. She was saying something he couldn’t understand. She was crying.
Then it went dark.
Not all at once. It was just blurred. Black and not black. In the world and not in it. The wind against his skin made him feel like he was back in the forest.
Back home.
He felt his mother carrying him on her back as she leapt onto her ikran, Sa’ata. He knew its colors; blue with black and white markings, patterned like the sky. For some reason, the thought made him laugh, even as his mother cried, saying something like:
“Nateyam… we’re almost there. We’re almost there, son.”
Here, finally, things aren’t burning. It doesn’t smell like ash or fire. It’s dark, and there are Metkayina people around him. They take him gently by his sides, but his mother doesn’t want to let go. Neteyam is surprised he’s still conscious at this point.
He feels hands on his body. He’s placed on some sort of woven mat, and then they do something that hurts. They don’t pull out all the bandages Jake packed into his abdomen, and feeling them still inside him is disgusting.
“How is he? Will he be okay?” his mother asks. She’s standing close, watching him.
“He will live—if it is Eywa’s will,” a voice answers.
They wrap him in fresh bandages and press cold plants—maybe seaweed—against the wounds. He isn’t sure how much it helps. He’s always been a little skeptical about things like that.
When it’s finally over, he feels his mother’s hands on his face and then in his hand.
“Nateyam…”
“Mom,” he says, smiling faintly as he looks at her face lit by the fire.
She’s crying.
Suddenly, he thinks of Dad. Of Tuk and Kiri. Of Spider and Lo’ak, all still out there. Of Dad, who probably went to rescue Tuk and Kiri. Of Lo’ak and Spider, who probably didn’t listen and went anyway.
He blinks, grounding himself. He’s here. Even if it hurts.
“Mom,” he says again. “Where is Dad and everyone?”
Her expression changes slightly.
“Don’t worry, Nateyam. I’m here with you.”
“Mom… we have to go back. For Tuk and Kiri,” he whispers.
“No, Nateyam. You have to stay.” Her voice is firmer now.
“Mom, please. Don’t worry about me. They need you. Please—go.”
She looks at him, tears spilling down her face. She looks for a long time before finally standing up, letting go of his hand.
“You’re right,” she whispers, and turns away.
“Mom!” he calls as loudly as he can, lifting his hand—and his head.
She turns back quickly.
“I see you,” he says, trying to force a small smile.
“I see you, Neteyam,” she nods. She looks at him for a long moment, taking a few small steps backward before finally turning and running away.
Neteyam leans back.
Eywa, please. Keep them all safe.
He thinks it just before the world finally goes black; without flashes, without noise. Just black.