"Come on! Everyone knows how they died!" Lloyd threw his hands up. "Just last week I met a guy who got eaten by a whale because he wanted to feel what it was like inside a whale's mouth like in the movies,"
Funny story actually, I mean to write this for Halloween, but me, being me, decided against it
Based off of Sixth Sense (I love that movie) (Heavily references a whole lot of stuff, good luck figuring them out)
WARNING: Death, death, death...and more death, um, yeah, that's all the context that you'll get for now, so, uh, be warned kiddos (It's just humor and angst mixed into one story, so y'all know the drill)
This is very long, jeez
"Good afternoon, class, I trust that you all had another spooky weekend," The week before Halloween meant that the Middle School teachers would do nothing but share ghost stories. The closer it got, the scarier the stories began to get...well...scary. This particular teacher was the King of Ghost Stories. "Are you ready for another story?
"No…" Nya muttered quietly. After the last one about a thirty-seven-year-old man named Ronin, who owed his soul to the Soul Archer, she didn't think that she could take any more. Beside her, Lloyd tried to keep a straight face, it wasn't like he already knew about Ronin and wasn't already well-acquainted with the dead man. Wait, yes he was.
"What about you Mr. I'm-not-afraid-of-ghosts?" The self-proclaimed King of Ghost Stories asked Lloyd.
"Oh yeah, I'm totally ready," Lloyd mumbled and looked away from the stares he was getting. There was a problem here, he could see ghosts, and no one believed him, except Nya. To add on to that, Lloyd was always afraid of them, no matter what they said.
Their teacher cleared his throat. The marker on the board squeaked as the teacher then wrote down a couple of words: The Destiny's Bounty. Lloyd's head immediately shot up.
"So, tell me Class of 2020, have you ever heard of the ghosts that have haunted the Destiny's Bounty?" He asked them. Lloyd has, and he was friends with all of them. Raising a hand eagerly, Lloyd finally had a chance to say something worth listening too. "Really, Lloyd? You of all people was who I least expected to know,"
"Yeah, but can I tell the story this time? I have something that might be even better!" Lloyd stood up from his seat. Raising an eyebrow, his teacher nodded.
"By all means, go ahead."
Nya gave him a questionable before gesturing him to move on. Lloyd smiled, this story, in particular, he had never told anyone, not even to his father who...Lloyd shook his head and continued forward. Two years ago, Lloyd had stumbled upon a crashed ship (which had been turned into an attraction) and inside, was not what he had expected.
"So, you've heard of ghosts possessing furniture, haunting the woods and broken down buildings, right?" Lloyd faced the class. Murmurs of 'yes' urged him to go on. "Well, what about a group of ghost friends playing Uno?"
That got the class laughing.
"Haha, you think that's funny but it's true!"
"How many times are you gonna pull a wild card on us?"
"As long as I keep getting them, which is most likely just my luck,"
"I thought you weren't superstitious,"
"I'm not?"
Lloyd has been to the Destiny's Bounty many times before and nothing had compared to this, voices whom he'd never heard before. Were they new ghosts that had just died? If so, Lloyd watched the news often, surely he would already know. Never once had he seen ghosts playing cards before.
Around a corner, there was a room that had previously closed down, it was filled with ninja gis and golden weapons. But, none of these guys looked like they were ninjas, so, why were they playing some game in a room that has been closed down as an exhibit for almost five years now? Lloyd almost forgot that his mother would most likely be searching for him, he ran off to 'explore'.
There were four ghosts, color-coded, to be exact. A red ghost, who was shuffling the cards, burn markings across his 'skin', his body supported a hue of a fire. A blue ghost, lightning markings on his back and arms that glowed, little sparks of electricity popped off of him. A white ghost, who, every time he exhaled, let out a smoke of ghosting coldness from his mouth, his fingers were like ice. Then a black but still transparent ghost, protruding rocks stuck out from his back in uneven rows, down his arms, it was almost like lava, a red and orange mixture.
All of these ghosts had no pupils, which made them completely different from the rest.
"Are you gonna just stand there and spy on us, kid? Or are you gonna come and join us?" The red one asked, not looking up from his shuffling once.
"Can I?" Lloyd asked him back. The ghosts froze in their seats.
It was quiet for a few seconds like they hadn't expected it.
"You can see us?" The blue turned around, his eyes were mesmerizing. He literally surged of electricity.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Lloyd thought that everyone knew that he could see them, ghosts at that.
The red one was the one to speak again next, placing his cards down to each of the other ghosts face down.
"You're not dead...unless you're a different kind of ghost," He shrugged uncaringly. "Guess we gotta get with the times now, 2013 really is going by fast,"
"I'm human, I think, and I see dead people and evil ghosts," Lloyd whispered quietly, shuddering to himself. And here he wanted to talk to ghosts who would most likely hurt him, just as a few of them did to him a few weeks back. He decided against telling them his name.
"A mortal with the ability to see spirits? That is certainly interesting," The white ghost said, puffing out his icy breath. When Lloyd finally stepped out from his hiding place, he noticed that each ghost wore different types of clothing. Probably from different time periods.
"We have cards ready for you if you want, come on," The rock-impaled ghost gestured to seven cards and an empty seat. Lloyd stepped back.
"Nevermind, I'll just go,"
"Why? You just got here," The blue one spoke again. "If you think that we're going to hurt you, you're way off course, buddy,"
Lloyd had to let out a forced laugh. Right, because that was exactly what Morro said, Harumi said, Master Chen said, and even evil spirits like Pythor and the Overlord had said. They weren't nice ghosts.
"I'm sorry, please don't hurt me," Lloyd muttered. The ghosts shared looks of concern as he turned around to leave. Lloyd shivered away the cold.
"Hold on," The King of Ghost Stories stopped him. "So you 'met'" He said in parentheses. "These ghosts playing Uno and then you left, did you ever go back?"
Lloyd smirked.
"I'm not done yet," Lloyd began to use different colored markers to draw the ghosts and what they looked like, surprisingly enough, they looked pretty good. "This is their visual by the way,"
Lloyd turned back to talk.
"So, you came back again?" The red ghost asked him once more. It was true, sometimes Lloyd would come to see them and they were still there, playing Uno. His mother, Misako, didn't mind, she did work at the Bounty.
"Do any of you know how you died?" Lloyd stepped out from his hiding spot and leaned against the far end of the room.
"Uno!" The blue ghost shouted and threw his last card down. "Here's the thing, none of us remember who we were before this. I don't even remember who my parents were!"
"Come on! Everyone knows how they died!" Lloyd threw his hands up. "Just last week I met a guy who got eaten by a whale because he wanted to feel what it was like inside a whale's mouth like in the movies,"
"As funny as that sounds, it's true, none of us remember, all I know is that my name is Kai and I'm a teenager." The red ghost started shuffling and put down a red card with a skip sign, the black ghost groaned. "And honestly, I don't want to know how I died, probably from doing something stupid."
"The only thing we know is of our markings, which indicates our deaths in theory," The ice ghost said.
"Right, what Zane said, speaking, of, we also know our death years," The electric ghost nodded. "Zane's the oldest, he died around the 1800's-"
"1888,"
"Then Cole, in the late 1960s, then me, Jay, 1989," The blue ghost, Jay, pointed to Kai. "Then Kai, the new one, 2010,"
"2010?" Lloyd questioned softly. Kai looked away, his flames burning brighter and higher. "That was three years ago,"
"We don't like to talk about it," He said.
Lloyd nodded and respected that.
He sat down and played with them.
Kai threw down a yellow seven and Lloyd put down a 'Draw Two' card. Kai took two cards from the middle deck. Lloyd then played a wild card.
"I call red!"
"You're being mean today," Kai huffed and stuck his tongue out, seeing as he has none of them.
"I'm just being lucky," Lloyd laughed. "Nya and I worked on a school project together, and we got an A!"
"You talk about Nya a lot, how is she?" Kai put down a red zero. Lloyd hummed.
"She says that she missed her brother," Lloyd replied, a slid down a skip and went again.
"What happened to him?"
"I dunno, she won't-"
Lloyd dropped his card to the floor, he and Kai reached for it. Their hands touched and Lloyd smelled smoke. There was a fire.
Inhaling of the fumes burned his throat and squeezed his lungs, he couldn't pass out now, she needed him. Moving past the burning objects that fell from above, they hurried past a couple who were already dead, he heard her gasp. Picking her up, he ran.
"Kai! What if we don't make it out on time!" His sister squealed as the fire grew, it crawled up the walls to the ceiling.
"Listen, I promise you, we will get out of this together!" Kai shouted at his sister. He could see the stairs where the firemen were guiding people out, the haze was thick enough for them not to spotted. Nya screamed as a piece of the ceiling fell on him.
"Kai? Kai!" Slowly, Kai could see someone approaching the door. Getting up, he carried her again, they needed to get out, they had to.
The apartment building trembled and roared.
The stairs were burning, but Nya was small enough to get through.
"Nya, go, I'll catch up!" He ushered to go leave. Nya cried and shook her head.
"No! I can't leave you!"
"Nya, please!"
The door handle burned his hands but he didn't care, his sister needed him.
Something fell from behind him. He inhaled another helping of smoke and embers. Kai looked up, it was too cramped for the both of them. There was no way past.
"Nya, no matter what, remember me, okay? I'll find you, I promise."
"Kai!"
Before she could even say his name once more, Kai opened the door and pushed Nya inside. Nya pounded from behind it, he was too exhausted to keep going. Kai could hear Nya's cries and eventually, it stopped. She must have left. It was too late to go after her anyway.
The fire engulfed him and the building collapsed, it hurt, it burned, it stung, it-
It what?
He felt nothing.
The air tasted salty and bitter today.
Sucking in a breath, Lloyd looked up. Kai's eyes were bright, instead of being devoid of pupils, two auburn orbs met his red ones, Kai was crying. Lloyd didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say.
"I saved her so that she didn't have to die," Kai sighed and wiped a tear from his face. "Nya's my sister! Lloyd, I remember it all now!"
"I'm sor-" Lloyd gasped as he was pulled into a hug.
"Don't be, kid," Kai gave him a small smile. "Man, if the guys were here, they'd make fun of me for sure," He chuckled to himself. Releasing Lloyd, he sat down again and pulled out a wild card. "C'mon, let's finish this game, I call blue,"
"Where are you going after this?" Lloyd asked him. Kai grinned.
"I'm going to see my little sister, I made a promise,"
This week, he and Jay weren't playing Uno, they were discussing the old Fritz Donnegan movies. The man was old as old could get, but he was still kicking. Speaking of old-
"In Episode Five, remember when Fritz went to face his father, Maximus, the living planet!?" Jay hovered over the bunk that lay close to the edge of the room. To be honest, Lloyd wasn't really listening, he was too busy thinking of the incident he and Kai went through a few days ago. Lloyd wanted to try again. "And then Yudu, the leader of the Raiders, busted a ship to his face, it was so sick!"
"Gimme your hand, Jay," Lloyd said. Jay stopped talking and made his way back down.
"Why?"
"Um, I wanna try something," Lloyd lied. Jay hesitantly gave him his hand. Surges of electricity made him shudder, the room exploded in a bright light.
An experiment went wrong, his father was working with a reactor, seemingly to test certain molecules and how they reacted when brought together with electricity. The reactor hummed and buzzed, sparks popped, making his ears hurt. Something flew off the tower of the reactor, it hit the switch, which sparked violently.
"Jay, we have to go!" His father shouted. Jay rapidly blinked, searching for something. "The lab will combust if we don't hurry!"
Jay quickly typed on the computer, imputing codes and a final-
"I got it! I know what we did wrong!" Jay shouted from over the noise. An explosion and Jay fell. Coughing, he stood up slowly, steadying himself on the desk. "We have-" A spark. "We have to turn it off, it'll explode if we don't!"
"Jay, we have to get out of here, it's too-" Jay didn't hear the last part. He knew that he could save them both if he could just reach it. Yes, it was dangerous and risky, but he had to, or...or it'll level the city. It was a nuclear bomb. "I can't lose you as I did to your mother!"
Jay adjusted his goggles. He lost his mother when he was a child, she was involved in a lab accident. Jay put on a brave face, to save himself, he could care less. He cared more about the people.
"Dad, go, I got this!" The lights flickered and bolts of energy spun like a tornado
"No, Jay, it just isn't fair-"
Jay stopped him.
"Fair? Fair isn't a word where I come from!" Jay ran towards the switch and made the motion for his father to leave. Tears were leaving his eyes, Jay already knew of the possibilities, he was going to die. And he was all for it.
He pulled it.
And he screamed.
He couldn't tear his hands away, his hands were stuck like glue.
Screaming as electricity coursed through his veins.
He couldn't see, it was dark.
At least he died knowing that nobody except him went with their head exploding.
That was an understatement.
Lloyd could see the disturbance in Jay's now blue eyes. Actually, he looked disappointed than impressed. Lloyd felt like asking why.
"Okay, so I said the best cheesiest last words I have ever heard and then I literally blew out my brains," Jay pulled away from Lloyd. "What the heck man,"
"Wow Jay, I always knew that you were a nerd, but I didn't know that you were almost a genius!" Lloyd stared at him. Jay rubbed his neck nervously.
"Yeah, too bad my old man's not around to see me now talking to a four-year-old!"
Lloyd nudged him playfully.
"I'm twelve! And besides, I think he'd be glad to see you now. Luckily for you, I happen to know where the Walker family graves are,"
"You do?" Jay raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I visit the graveyard a lot, my dad was buried there, sometimes we go there to visit," Lloyd nodded. Jay ruffled his hair.
"Well then, Mr. Medium, let's go,"
"First of all, Lloyd, you can't just throw a Reverse on me and immediately go back on yourself, that's not how Uno works," Cole glanced up from his two cards in his hands. Lloyd had his tongue hanging out. Behind him, Jay and Kai were looking over his shoulders and holding up several fingers. Zane was outside meditating. "You're confusing the audience,"
Lloyd spun around just as Jay and Kai put their hands down, looking away like they weren't guilty.
"They're just dirty cheaters," Lloyd said and pulled a skip card.
"Funny, because you pulled the exact same thing when you made me remember my past-" Kai had his hands over his mouth faster than Jay could talk. Cole opened his mouth.
"Didn't catch that, you saw what-"
Lloyd grabbed his arms. The ground shook, cracks traveled up the ceilings.
Of course the summer of '67 was one of the worst years to go through with an earthquake in Ninjago, and of course, Cole and his father, Lou, were caught in the middle of it. It had to be the worst one yet, every five minutes, a wave of disturbance interrupted the shifting ground a caused several buildings to collapse. Just like this one.
Lou was currently being put into his wheelchair (as he had broken his foot earlier in the year), and Cole was pushing him out the door. The Marty Oppenheimer School of Performing Arts was a large school, and finding an exit was just as hard as finding the ballet class, Lou had taught chorus and Cole had just happened to find him at the right time. The students had already left hours earlier before the scale had spiked. He insisted that he'd stay behind 'just in case nothing happened'.
He knew now to know better than that.
Both of them had made a big mistake.
The earthquake had gotten worse and they were high up on the balcony of the building and that was already just as unstable. Cole swerved a corner just as he was cut off from the top exits.
"Is there any other exits here besides that one, pops? 'Cause that exit ain't letting us split any time soon!" Cole's eyes darted to the door in the back, the one where the stairs went down. Behind him, a window shattered and a pillar collapsed.
"On this floor, zilch, except for the one far ahead-" Lou didn't even get to finish his sentence when Cole pushed him faster, making the older man hold onto the sides. Trophies lay broken on the floor.
"Cole! Over here, man!" One of Cole's friends, a fellow dancer, called them over just as he was helping stragglers of employees out. The ground swayed again, earning a few screams from those who were trying to get out. Cole could see the ceiling cracking itself and pushed his father's wheelchair forward, leaving him behind.
Cole only caught a glimpse of his face before the ceiling fell in front of him.
"Cole!" His father called out.
"It's all good, pops! I'll meet you outside, 'kay?" Cole called back. No response. Turning around, Cole had to find a way out, his exit was lost and he was trapped. His only other option was to jump off the building and hoped that something would be there to catch him. It was stupid but it might just work.
Cole stood over the edge of the balcony on the inside of the building, the support failing to hold it up. Taking a breath, Cole spotted a couch, hoping that it would soften his fall, Cole took a step forward. The ground quaked again and Cole fell over the sides, holding onto the railings, it tilted slightly. Cole was a good climber but this wouldn't do.
One bad slip and he fell.
Impaled in some broken supports.
He never met up with his father outside.
"I'm sorry, Cole! I panicked!" Lloyd tried to justify himself. It was the tenth time that he'd use this power and he still hadn't gotten used to it. It scared him.
Cole's eyes were an earthy brown, and usually, Cole was strong, but he was pained and terrified as of now. Lloyd let go and stood up. Cole looked at himself and then back at Lloyd.
"What was that?" He whispered, almost in a hiss. Lloyd sucked in his teeth when he felt another hand leave his body. This one was cold.
"We saw our pasts," Zane said quietly. "Lloyd has been gifted with something special,"
"Woah-oh-oh, double opposite premonitions! Cool!" Jay laughed. Getting looks from both Zane and Cole, he stopped. "I mean, no pun intended,"
"Well, what did you guys see?" Kai said after a minute of silence.
"I fell off a balcony during an earthquake and got impaled," Cole said glumly. "What 'bout you, Zane?"
Zane looked down at Lloyd and gave him a smile.
"I was on my own after my father had died, so I roamed the known streets alone. An orphan if you will. During that time, there was a terrible blizzard and I saved a young woman by the name of Pixal from falling into a frozen lake when we walked across it. I remember grabbing her arm and pushing her in front of myself. I drowned shortly after that," Zane chuckled. Lloyd didn't know if he was fond of the memory or not. " The last thing I had said was 'Go on, I'd rather change someone's life for the better than mine', It wasn't anything special, just a simple act of kindness,"
Zane's eyes were an icy blue.
"Yeah, an act of kindness that got you killed, Mr. Gentleman," Cole teased. "'Sides, we gotta owe it all to Lloyd, he's the one that helped us realize that we're all heroes,"
"So, you're not mad?" Lloyd mumbled under his breath.
"Mad!? You've got to be kidding me!" Kai grabbed his shoulders. "Lloyd, we're ecstatic that you did this to us, we finally know who we are! And that's like, the greatest thing ever!"
Lloyd fumbled with his fingers.
"If you're really not mad at me, then, can we play another of round of Uno?"
"Sure, only of if you play nice and don't try any funny business, y'know, playing those evil cards of yours,"
Kai was shuffling cards, Cole re-reading the rules, Jay and Zane were mesmerized by Kai's card skills.
"I can't make any promises," Lloyd said as Kai put down another seven cards in front of the others.
Letting Lloyd go first since he was the 'youngest' was a big mistake amongst the four older ghosts because Lloyd pulled out a wild card again.
"Green!"
They groaned.
"I asked if them if they would come and visit here, but I don't think they're coming," Lloyd finished his story.
"Wait, that's it!?" Lloyd heard someone say. "Why would you leave us on a cliffhanger, Lloyd!?"
"Yeah, I wanna hear more!"
"What happened after Uno?"
"I like Kai, he sounds awesome!"
"No way, Jay is the way to go, the guy blows out his brains, how cool is that!?"
In the back, Nya was quiet.
"That sounds like you made it up," Nya said. Lloyd felt hurt, she was still grieving over her brother. Nya buried her head in her hands.
"Nya-" Lloyd started to say when the room had gotten colder, four ghosts phased through the back wall.
They did make it!
Jay held up a finger to shush him before walking over to a small girl's desk and blew on her desk. Then pencil rolled and she stared wide-eyed.
"Guys, my pencil just moved!" She gasped.
"Are you sure that you didn't touch it?" Lloyd played along with her, even though he knew what happened.
"No, my hands weren't even on my desk!"
"That was Jay, he likes messing with people," Lloyd answered. Beside him, a blue marker had floated above its perch and started to write. The King of Ghost Stories screamed, Lloyd laughed harder than he should have.
"Thanks for ratting me out, Lloyd," The board said with an angry face at the end. Lloyd stuck his tongue out.
"You deserved it, Jay,"
Soon enough, other students started to complain about someone 'messing with them' like Jay was doing now, or better yet, their homework that they hadn't done was finished and correct by their standards from Zane. Random drawings were drawn of Uno cards and Cole lifting the other three ghosts like they were nothing. The entire class was chaos and still, Nya kept her head down.
Kai put his hand to his ear and whispered.
Lloyd nodded.
Tapping Nya's desk, Nya sighed and looked at him, puffy eyes red from crying. Kai gave him a nod.
"Nya, Kai says hi and that he misses you,"
"No, he doesn't," Nya decided. "He's dead,"
"In the flesh, yeah, but," Kai put a hand to her cheek. "I'm always here, sis,"
"I wish you would've come with me instead of being so selfless,"
"I know, I do too, all the time,"
"I miss you,"
Lloyd backed up a little, to leave them to themselves.
"I miss you too,"
Afterschool, Lloyd met up with his teacher.
"Can we play Uno from now on?" Lloyd suggested.
"No, now go home, " He replied with a smirk.
In the distance, Lloyd was sure that Kai, Zane, Jay, and Cole were laughing at him.
Later, Lloyd had won Uno once more.
Up Next:
Kids Make Terrible Villains