I have never understood until recently the desires to commit ones hopes, dreams, secrets and feelings onto paper. After all, if you want to keep these things private, why put them in a place that can be found and read? It kind of defeats the whole point. However, as I mentioned, that was my thoughts until recently.

For the past week, I have been lost in the wilderness. Both my food and my water supplies are running dangerously low. I have been wandering around with no idea where I am going, nor any clue if I am close to civilisation. I find myself, despite my philosophy, becoming frustrated at my lack of progress. However, I must continue to keep moving on. If I linger, I will doubtless be accosted by the creatures that inhabit this place. I reluctantly recall last night, when they came to take me in my sleep.

I had foolishly not built my camp-fire properly and it burned out too quickly. The beasts became bold when the light died, sneaking forward to capture their meal. When they tried to drag my by my clothes I thankfully awoke and fought them off, but I get the feeling that they follow me still, watching, waiting for me to succumb to my hunger and collapse so that they might get a second chance. I still do not know what they look like. The darkness concealed their appearance well. I know that they have powerful jaws and that they walk on all fours but that is the extent of my observations. There are times when I think I hear them chattering to each other, laughing at my vain attempts to leave this place.

I swear I heard one of them calling my name.

Tonight I will make an earth tent with my Earthbending along with a fire, so that they might be discouraged to try again. Normally such an act of my skill would be something I would not consider, but the Fire Nation are far more concerned with conquering the towns and villages than taming the Wilds. I highly doubt they will stumble across me here.

I hope my confidence does not provoke the universe into proving me wrong.

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I woke this morning from a nightmare, in which I was locked in a dark space with the sound of the Beasts scratching at the door. I yelled and screamed at them to go away, only to receive a chattering, animalistic laughter in return. I noted, when I exited my shelter, the large gouge marks in the earth tent I had erected for protection and the massive paw-prints in the ground of the clearing I had set my camp. I am no tracker but if the evidence here is anything to go by, there are at least two of them, possibly more. And they are the size of ostrich-horses.

At least now I know that I had not imagined them.

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This is my second week lost in the Wilds. I ran out of food several days ago (I have been surviving on nuts and berries I have foraged) and I fear that I may be going insane. I feel the Beasts' eyes upon everywhere I go in this accursed place yet every time I turn to fight them there is nothing there to confront except the darkness of the trees' canopy. I do not know if it is the hunger or the lack of sleep making me think this, but the Wilds does not seem to want to let me leave. Whenever I feel that the trees are thinning, I walk straight into another clump of impassible foliage or swampland.

It does not help that I hear the Beasts talking to me now.

They whisper to me, taunting me with things in my past that they could not possibly know. They whisper of my Uncle Shing, how he would still be free if it was not for my thoughtless actions. They whisper of my mother, how by giving birth to me weakened her beyond help. They whisper of my father, how I am not worthy of carrying his name. They whisper of the village, how without the free food my uncle provided it fell completely under the Fire Nations yolk, its people broken and enslaved. They whisper, they whisper, they whisper, they whisper, they whisper, they whisper, they whisper, they whisper...

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They will come for me tonight. They whispered as much to me. Let them come.

I am ready.

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They never came.

The sun seems brighter today than it has been for the last three weeks. The trees thinner. The air less stuffy. I do not know why the Beasts never came for me. Perhaps because I had stopped waiting for them to take me and was prepared to fight them. How animals would know this is beyond me. But I still cannot shake the feeling that they were not earthly beasts. Just as I am starting to think these Wilds are not an earthly place. My uncle told me many tales of the Spirit World that he had heard on his extensive travels. The strange occurrences here seem to fit with the stories he told me, but it could just as likely be a result of hunger and tiredness.

I suppose I will never know which it was.

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I have finally escaped the Wilds!

I can see a small village on the horizon. I look forward greatly to the upcoming meal I will soon enjoy. Soup and bread... the simple things are truly the best.