Author's Notes: Welcome everyone, to my new story. The premise of this story is based on an observation I made while watching the episode "Garage Banned," and if you re-watch the episode you might notice what I mean. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that while the story is ostensibly about Lana, the story will focus on the perspectives of other people as well. Just a minor note I wanted to add.
Anyways, enjoy the story.
It was night at the Loud House. What was usually a rather noisy residence, filled with the screams, laughter, crying and shouting of the residents, was silent and noiseless. It was a school night, after all, so the Loud parents were very particular to enforce a curfew. The effectiveness of this curfew varied between members, but by two AM, all members of the family were asleep.
Well, almost all.
The eldest child of Lynn and Rita, Lori, was having a rather pleasant dream. In it, she dreamt that she had managed to conquer the entire world, and ruled the populace with a totalitarian grip, her boyfriend Bobby by her side, wedded to her as king.
"Yes… yes… bow to the queen… it is my decree that Luan be shipped to Antarctica every April…" the girl said in her sleep.
And just when she was getting to the good part, the part where she and Bobby would become the first couple to fly to Venus, she felt a tugging. At first, she assumed it was her beloved Boo-Boo-Bear wanting to fool around, but then she realized that it was coming from the real world.
Lori opened her eyes, and looked to the source of the tugging, and saw her younger sister Lana in her pajamas, whispering over and over "Lori…Lori…Lori…"
Lori sat up a little. "Lana, what do you want?" she said in a very tired inclination.
"I had a bad dream. C…Can I sleep with you?" said Lana. Her voice wasn't her usual energetic and tomboyish, but resembled a scared little girl.
Lori sighed. She patted her bed, indicating to Lana to sit.
"Tell me what happened, if you feel like talking about it."
Lana nodded, took a deep breath in order to prepare herself, and started explaining the events of her nightmare.
"Well… it started normal, with me and all of you in the park… we were having a picnic and everything was great. Then… a wizard came up to us and turned you all into chickens."
When Lori heard that, she almost burst out laughing. But Lana's tone indicated to her that this was something frightening, so she summoned all of her willpower to keep herself from even cracking a smile.
"It's okay, Lana," Lori said reassuringly as she patted her sister's head. "Look at me. Do I look like a bird to you?"
"But that wasn't it. After that, he… he... he took you to a factory, so they could turn you into food. He put you on a conveyor belt, that lead to… an oven. I turned to stop it, but…but…" the young girl trailed off with a quiver.
Lori immediately understood. The silliness of the dream aside, it was a nightmare about losing her siblings. Lana had dreamt, even if in a surreal way, that all of her sisters and only brother had been killed, that they had been taken from her and that she was now alone.
"Come here," Lori said softly as she grabbed Lana and hugged her. "None of us are going anywhere, do you understand? We're all still here for you."
Lana nodded, but still said nothing.
"Alright. Let's try and get some sleep. And if you have another nightmare, wake me up. Don't even hesitate."
Lana nodded again and slipped the blanket over herself. "Thanks, Lori."
'No problem, Lana. Good night."
Luckily for the both of them, Lana did not have another nightmare. Of course, that didn't mean their sleep wasn't disturbed again. Around four thirty in the morning, Lori was awoken by a sharp kick to the face. She turned in anger to see who would dare do that to her, when she saw it was Lana, who had kicked her in her sleep. Remembering the circumstances that had lead Lana to be there, Lori decided to forget it and let the young tomboy sleep.
Of course, it was too late to bother going back to sleep, so Lori descended the stairs to the kitchen, hoping to make herself some coffee. She thought that everyone in the house was still asleep, so she was surprised to see her sister Lisa at the table, reading a colossal textbook.
"Good morning, Lisa. What are you doing up so early?"
Lisa looked up from the mammoth book. "Good morning, senior sibling unit," she responded with her usual lisp. "I was just conducing an experiment on myself. I want to see how long the physical body of the average toddler (AKA me) can remain without going through the important REM cycles."
"You shouldn't do that to yourself. You're literally going to destroy your growing brain cells."
Lisa narrowed her eyes. "And why do you care?"
Lori sighed. She knew there was no point in arguing with the little scientist. "You're right. I don't care," she answered. Of course, she was already planning to tell the parents about Lisa's little field study.
Lisa looked suspiciously at her older sister. "And why are you awake so early? I had assumed you would want as much sleep as possible, to look adequate for your fellow adolescents."
"Lana had a nightmare, so she came into my room to sleep. And I woke up when she introduced her foot to my face."
Lisa looked somewhat intrigued. "This isn't the first time this has happened, if I recall correctly. How many times has this happened?"
Lori thought about, and then she realized that this wasn't an uncommon event.
"Oh my God. This is literally the third time this week."
Lisa nodded. "So what you're saying is that the Squamata-lover has repeatedly come to you in the early hours of the morning, complaining of night terrors and horrific visions from her neurons?"
Lori shrugged. "I… I guess so."
Lisa thought about it. She was a scientist, and if there is one thing good scientists don't do, it's jump to conclusions with no data to analyze. Still, even she had to admit that there was something fundamentally wrong with having this large quantity of nightmares. At best, there was simply something wrong with Lana's sleep habits. At worst, it could be…
Lisa shook her head, not wanting to think about it. She was still a four year old girl, so the thought of her older sibling having such a medical issue was a thought she didn't want to have.
"I suggest you take this up with our maternal and fraternal units later today," she said after a while. "Regardless of what's causing these repeated nightmares, it would do our sister good if the parentals knew about it. Wouldn't you agree, Lori?"
No response.
"Lori?"
She looked over at Lori, was slouched over, her eyes closed and coffee cup about to slip right out of her hand.
"LORI!"
"Huh, wha…" Lori slurred as she opened her eyes and regained consciousness.
"Lori, tell our parents about Lana's condition," said Lisa, with just a hint of annoyance.
Lori nodded and took a sip out of her cup. "I'll try and talk to them about it later today."
"Good. And Lori?"
"Yes, Lisa?"
"Drink stronger coffee."
While the informing her parents of Lana's nighttime activities was on Lori's mind during the morning, by the time school had ended, she had completely forgotten about it. To be fair, Lori's day had consisted of getting ten younger siblings into the car to take them to their associated schools, having to turn around and tell them to shut up repeatedly, showing up late to first block, studying for an English test in other classes because she had forgotten she had an English test, stressing over her results for said exam, cutting the cheese in Math class and finally, praying that everyone in her class believed her when she said it was her shoe.
After such a stressful day, most people would be rather forgetful.
"Alright everyone, just buckle up and please be quiet. I've literally had the worst day."
"Yeah, come on guys, she's had a rough day. I bet she texted Bobby and he responded after a long twenty seconds. I mean, how dare he."
Laughter erupted from the back of the car.
"Luan, I swear I'll leave you behind..."
Over all the commotion, she didn't notice that Lana was unusually quiet. The tomboy was just staring out of the window, looking very thoughtful and unhappy.
She had nightmares before, and she tried to not let them interfere with her day life. After all, what happened in Dream Land should stay in Dream Land. Nothing from those nightmares could hurt her in real life. There were no man-eating Martians with green tentacles and yellow teeth, no vampire-werewolf hybrids hunting for human meat, no evil wizards that turned people into poultry...
But still... something was wrong. Even she knew that. No one should be having nightmares like she was. Not at this frequency.
What is wrong with me? she thought to herself.
Should I tell someone?
No. I already told Lori. She'll tell Mom and Dad. I don't want to tell them myself.
She looked at her eldest sister, who was barking at Lynn and Luan to stop playing keep-away with Lincoln's action figures.
No. Lori will take care of it.
Lola looked over to her twin, and saw that she was deep in thought, looking like she was debating with herself.
"Lana."
The tomboy looked at the pageant princess. "What?"
"Is something wrong?"
Lana gave her a smile, trying to keep her twin from worrying. "No, Lola. Nothing is wrong. Everything is going to be OK."
The rest of the day went on as it normally should have. The Louds did their homework, played their games, ate their dinners and, when it started to get late, they all brushed their teeth in the single, small bathroom and departed to their rooms with their roommates (except Lincoln, who took the dog).
The time that Lana dreaded had come. Nightfall. She was terrified to consider what might happen to her tonight in her sleep. What if she had another nightmare? What if it was just as bad as the last one? What if it worse? Lana shook her head, trying to dispel the negative thoughts.
As she put herself to sleep, she noticed her small lizard, whom she had named Izzy, staring at her. She scooped up the small reptile and held it affectionately in her palm.
"Awww. Are you worried about me, boy?" Lana smiled lightly at Izzy. "How about you sleep with me tonight? Maybe you can protect me from bad dreams," she said with a small laugh. The lizard blinked at her, but Lana liked to think that he got the message. She placed the lizard on top of her blanket, and left her hands on top of the blanket so she could play with the little creature.
"Good night, Lola," she said to her roommate.
"Good night, Lana," responded Lola, before covering her eyes with her sleep mask. "Sweet dreams,"
The choice of words could not have been more ironic.
Lana played her pet Izzy until she drifted off into what she hoped would be pleasant dreams, or even just nothing.
Unfortunately for poor Lana, that's not how things played out.
The dream started simply enough. All of the Loud kids, in a park. Lana was running on all fours, like a dog, which she found pretty fun. She rolled around in the mud, wrestled with other dogs and played Frisbee with her older siblings.
But then, it took a turn. As Lana retrieved the Frisbee with her mouth, she turned to face her family...
...Only to find them vanished.
The girl got up on her legs and looked around, desperately trying to find her missing family members.
"Guys... where are you?" she yelled.
The entire park was now empty, and began to fill with a foggy mist. The bright greens and blues she had seen earlier where now replaced with more drab colors like black, brown and a very dark, unnerving shade purple. Lana was now scared out of her wits.
"Lola... Lincoln... Lori..." she called out the names of some of her siblings.
No response.
Now she was running, desperately crying out for her siblings. "LUNA! LYNN! LISA! LUCY!"
She felt herself fall steeply, but picked herself back up and kept begging for one of them to hear her.
"LUAN! LILY! MOM! DAD! PLEASE SOMEONE!"
She kept running, now feeling tears run down her face. She didn't want to be alone.
"SOMEONE!"
"LANA!" Lana heard her mother scream in the most terrified tone imaginable, before she turned to a loud honking noise and saw bright lights flying towards her.
Lori sat in her bed, trying as hard as she could to go to sleep. She turned from side to side, she flipped over her pillow time and time again, she even tried that lame technique where you count sheep. Why would that even work? she asked herself. So the young adult just sat there and thought about things, hoping that she would just naturally drift off to sleep. She couldn't help but feel like she was forgetting something. She thought back to all of her classes; no homework assignments that she hadn't already done, and she had completed most of her tests. Maybe it something with Bobby; that couldn't be right, she remembered clearly that it was their anniversary of the first time they went sunglasses shopping together.
You know, that literally sounds like the stupidest thing ever, now that I say it to myself. Maybe a lot of these anniversaries don't need to be.
So if it wasn't anything for school, and it wasn't tied to her romantic life, what was it? It was something important. She smacked herself in the head. If it was important, why couldn't she recall? She looked over to the clock. It was almost midnight. She sighed. Looks like she would be denied the healthy amount of sleep.
Suddenly she heard a knock at the door.
"Who could that be? Oh, its probably Lana..."
She smacked herself again. Lana. She had completely forgotten to tell her parents about Lana.
But then again, Lana almost never knocked...
Lori went over to the door and saw not Lana, but her twin Lola, who was standing there looking quite nervous.
"Lola, what do you w..."
"Its Lana," Lola quickly interjected. "I think she's having a nightmare."
Lori immediately ran over to the twins' room, Lola by her side. When they entered, they could see Lana, thrashing about in her bed, crying out her sibling's names. Though the two would never admit it, it broke their hearts to see Lana like that.
But just as Lori was about to go over to her nightmare-stricken sister to calm her down, Lana jumped out of bed and started running. This sudden burst of movement startled the other two girls, causing Lori to pause for a second.
Over the upcoming days, Lori would look back to this one moment, and wonder what things would have been like if she had not hesitated, if she had grabbed her sister in time. She would regret her inaction dearly, but accept that there was nothing she could have done. Didn't make her feel any better though.
Another problem here was that Lana was fast. She had experience running with dogs, both on all fours and on her two feet. Add to that her lifestyle of working with tools, and that gave her an "exercise" regiment that ensured top physical prowess and agility. So when she ran out of her room, still yelling the names of her siblings, Lori knew time was of the essence before her younger sister went and hurt herself. She quickly turned to Lola.
"Lola, wake up Mom and Dad, and everyone else. NOW!"
Lola nodded and started knocking on doors.
As for Lori, she chased after the young plumber. Unfortunately, she couldn't make it to her before Lana fell down the stairs.
"LANA!" she screamed.
Lana fell to the bottom, but quickly got back up. Perhaps the fact that she was sleeping prevented her from feeling the pain she should have.
Whatever dream she's having, it must be intense for her not to feel that pain, Lori thought as she bounded down the stairs, four or five steps at a time.
By this point, most of the residents were awoken by both Lola and the noises. The Loud siblings came out of their rooms, and, after a brief explanation of what was happening from Lola, the rest of them ran down the stairs as well, to join Lori.
Lori had hoped that the sleep-walking Lana wouldn't be able to unlock the front door, so she moved to the side of the door, hoping to catch Lana. Imagine her surprise as she saw Lana effortlessly fling the door open.
"Dang it! We forgot to lock the door again."
Lana continued sleep-running outside, still crying out the names of her family members in a despondent tone.
"Oh no. She's running into the street," said Lincoln in horror.
"Someone grab her," Lori ordered, panicked beyond belief.
The most agile of the Louds, Lynn, quickly chased after Lana, hoping to catch up to her, but Lana had too much of a head-start. The small girl ran across the front yard and into the road. Unfortunately for all of them, the worst case scenario was occurring; a large car was driving towards Lana, the driver desperately trying to swerve around them and alert the blonde girl, but there was only so much he could do.
By this point, both Lynn Sr. and Rita had shown up. No one told them what was happening, but when they saw Lana standing in the road, Rita let out a loud scream for her daughter. "LANAAAAAAAA!"
The scream from her mother awoke the girl. Lana found herself, confused and standing in the road, as a car flew towards her at high speed.
She braced herself for impact...
Luckily, Lynn had finally caught up to Lana. With no time to lose, she grabbed her younger sister and threw both of them, with all of her strength, onto the sidewalk. She injured herself doing so, but she wasn't about to complain.
The driver swerved onto the other side of the street, and quickly exited his vehicle to make sure no one was hurt. He and the members of the Loud family all ran over to Lana.
"Oh my God. Lana," Her mother quickly embraced her and started crying. "It's going to be alright, Lana. It's going to be alright," she repeated over and over.
By this point, the noise had awoken many of their neighbors. Lights were turned on, dogs started barking, doors were opened as the residents of the neighborhood looked to see what was causing the major commotion.
But Rita didn't care. She just kept hugging and stroking her daughter. "It's going to be alright... It's going to be alright... It's going to be alright..." she continued repeating like a mantra, trying to reassure her poor daughter and, perhaps, herself.
So yeah, Lana has a sleeping disorder in this story. I made the observation while watching her return to Lori's room, night after night, complaining of nightmares, in the aforementioned episode. I wrote out a really rough outline while I was at college, which I plan to follow for the most part, though details will change.
And from here, we go on to a story of recovery, as we see how the Louds deal with Lana's disorder, and whether it will be cured or not.
Oh yeah, this story is definitely not going to be as comedic as my usual 'Live to Lynn,' though I do hope it will have a similar amount of heartwarm.
Hope you enjoyed. And stay tuned for more.