All That Was Left: Book I: Survival

1 Prologue

Water, Earth, Fire, Air

These are the elements of the world we live in.

If the Fire Nation had it their way, the list would be 3 short.

94 years ago, the Fire Nation was invaded by the Air Nation Army on a conquest to spread their cultish religion to all corners of the world, but the Fire Nation intervened hoping to spare the world from another civil war, but it was too late. The Air Nation had convinced the Water and Earth Nations to take up arms against their peaceful neighbor plunging the war in a nearly century long war. In a decisive victory, Fire Lord Sozin crushed the armies of the war-mongering Air Nation and took the first step to bring peace and prosperity to the world.

These are only one of the thousands of lies the Fire Nation drives into the minds of their citizens, soldiers, prisoners, and even children.

I know what the Fire Nation is. I've known for the last 40 years of my life, but I finally have proof. Military records, diaries, journals, maps, everything I needed to piece together the hundreds of thousands of war crimes committed by those who claim to protect us. The annexation of the Earth Kingdom West Coast, the burning of towns, killings of prisoners, and the genocide of the Air Nomads. Everything I needed to expose them. Years spent undercover in the Fire Nation as a soldier, I rose in the ranks. I did things I'll regret until my last day. Followed their orders. Killed people who didn't deserve it, who had done nothing wrong, but I kept telling myself it was for the greater good. I made allies. Killers, murderers, rapists, sadists, you get the idea. I earned their trust however necessary. As I've said, I'm not proud of it. All these years of making myself one of them and it still wasn't enough. I've been caught. The person I was closest to, thought I could trust, has exposed me. I can hear them pounding on my door. I'll turn myself in, but not this.

This journal is a collection of evidence of the Fire Nation's many war crimes and a journal of my journeys to uncover them which I hope can be of use. If my family ever recovers this, I want them to know that I'm sorry. For everything. I made mistakes. I hurt people. But I did it all to make a difference that will hopefully mean something. The Air Nation has fallen, but not all Air Nomads are dead. I have seen to that. If somebody finds this journal, it must not fall into the hands of the Fire Nation. The fate of the world truly depends on it.

I have done all I could.

This is monk Gyani, of the last of the Air Nomads,

Saying farewell.