Chapter 21: The Last Message to the Stars
Words floated over Anne's head. She could not quite open her eyes. Although every part of her body were immobile like mountains, Anne desperately wanted to make sense of what she was hearing. The voice was calm and caring. The voice died out and another came in. Anne recognized the voice. The sound was calm and monotone.
Her vision was blurry. The kind of blurry seen underwater. Yet instead of her vision being saturated with blue, it was saturated in white. She felt someone hold her hand.
What happened, she wondered. Perplexed, her thoughts attempted to jumble together what was happening in a dizzy mess. Small chunks like spilt cereal of memories raced around.
It felt like hours in the confusion, she assumed it had been.
The blurs around her eventually formed rough pictures. The voices around her eventually formed rough words.
As she looked up, she could not move her head, she began to see a face. The eyes of the visage were ice blue. The skin was pale. Zane. She remembered the face's name.
Did someone ask her if she remembered her name? Anne. Yes, her name was Anne. What was her last name?
Anne was waking up from the coma. Zane sat beside her, the person who could get to the hospital the soonest. Laura and Lloyd were coming tomorrow. Zane questioned why it was taking Cece and Kai so long.
Anne woke up at about nine o'clock at night. While it was a process, Anne was recovering wonderfully. Hopefully, Zane will be able to explain to her what she missed.
Late at night, the phone rang. Cece had brought Emmanuel to bed an hour ago. She was in bed, next to Kai. Despite her tiredness, she still had yet to fall asleep. Cranky, she picked up the phone.
Right when the call ended, she woke up Kai.
"Anne is waking up!"
"…huh…?"
Cece shoved him again. "Get up!"
"Five more minutes…"
Cece eventually woke Kai up. She gathered the family together. Kai's hair, free from jell, laid comically all over his head. Emmanuel was clueless. Cece was alive and sharp despite the needed rest. She assumed that Zane would already be at the hospital, but Cece wanted to see Anne for herself. It's been so long…
Cece picked up her child, and her small family left the house. After buckling the child in the back seat, Cece sat in shotgun. Kai would have argued to come tomorrow, but he knew it was pointless. Cece and Anne were best friends. Kai knew Cece missed her friend. She missed her almost every day of the six years since that fateful day.
Leaving the driveway, the trees were illuminated by the streetlights. The night air was quiet. The ride was slow and dark. Kai was driving through the area of town filled with people in the daytime. Now the only people awake were the ones in in pubs or clubs.
Headlights sped towards them. Neither had any time to react. Cece heard tire screeches and an earsplitting horn. After the impact with the airbag, her vision was filled with white and black spots.
She felt glass shards bury themselves in her skin. The sting was unbearable.
She looked away from the airbag. Kai was unconscious. Using up her valuable strength, she turned around to see Emmanuel. A wave of pain met her but she could hardly feel it now.
She needed to save him. He was covered in blood and glass. His gentle eyes were closed. Reaching her arm out, she could not touch his soft cheek. She could not touch his soft black hair. She could only touch his small hand.
Oh look, Kai accidently gave him mismatched shoes again… His hair was a mess under that hat.
She wanted him to live. He would have a happy life. She would make sure of it if it was the last thing she would do. Her son will live.
Without much thought, but with much love, she healed him. She felt the Cosmic Master breathing against her neck. A mere rasp whispered, 'if you let Kai die, you could have lived…'
'Well, Cosmic Master,' Cece thought, 'he and my son was worth my life.'
'No, only your son is worth your life. You cannot save them both'
Appalled, she stared out at her son. While his breathing gave her relief, the lack of her and her husband's breathing killed her.
Anne listened to what Zane said.
Emma 'died'.
Kai and Cece got married. They had a child named Emmanuel. He had black hair like his aunt. His eyes were blue. Nobody was sure why though. It was extremely unlikely. Cece did have blue eyes in her family, but Kai's did not. Cece throught it was the Cosmic Master teasing them and reminding them of who they lost. Zane was concerned for their child. Nevertheless, his adorable face looked both like his father and mother. Zane watched him when they were on date nights sometimes. He was charming and witty. But he was a handful. If he got mad, he got mad. Zane rambled on and Anne may have forgotten more details about her dear friend's life in the six years she was sleeping.
On other news, Laura and Lloyd were married and expecting a child of their own. Laura went to college and became a nurse. It took a long time for her to marry Lloyd however. But after becoming a nurse, she had a graduation party with Lloyd as her date. At dinner, he proposed and she screamed yes.
Zane choked on some details. For example, he had to explian Cole was on his honeymoon. He moved on. Cece was furious, but she could not fight for long.
After telling Anne her mother was doing fine, Zane said he had to leave the room. The waiting felt like forever. Lonely, she sighed. 'I bet when I get better, I'll be the greatest 'aunt' ever. I can take Emmanuel out for ice-cream and other fun aunt stuff. She will be able see Cece again. From what she heard from Zane, she had become a strong person.'
Zane reentered the hospital room pale and speechless.
He spoke in a careful whisper. "Cece and Kai were on their way to the hospital. A drunk driver hit them. Cece and Kai died before help arrived… At least their son is alive."
In the country, but not very far from the closest city, a small house stood. Around it were plains and plants. The front of the house was decorated with various kinds of flowers. They sky was colorful. It was early morning. While the sun had already risen, the sky was still drinking coffee. The few different colors in the sky were like bags on a sleep deprived human. The wind yawned as the clouds plodded through the sky.
Inside the house, Laura was on a love-seat. Grateful for the pleasant morning, she sipped the tea that was her saving grace. While her pregnancy gave her various complications, she was happy. Laura felt comfortable. Glancing upwards, she found her eyes resting on one of her shelves in the kitchen connected to the living room. Specifically, she perused a teapot. A beautiful navy blue teapot painted with white snowflakes, a deep blizzard inside tempestuous winds. Like lightning, a crack slithered on the front of the design. Doomed to be unused, Laura was sad to not be able to brew tea in it again. Laura remembered the day she broke it.
Lloyd and she had just bought the house. The car was just parked in the driveway. She was leaving the car when a bag fell out of the car. An audible smash erupted from the bag. Appalled, she check the bag and nearly burst into tears…
The doorbell rang. Curious as to who would drive all the way out to their house, Laura slowly got off the couch and walked to the door.
Lloyd had slept in that day. Being used to waking up early however, he woke up only a little while after his wife. He was finishing getting dressed and had planned to see what Laura was up too. He felt terribly sorry for her. Lloyd was very happy he was a man.
Walking out of their bedroom, he heard the doorbell ring. While Laura was probably answering it, he was going to the living room anyway.
In the living room, he glanced at Laura at the door. She was frozen. Her mouth agape and hand clenching the door frame about to bolt. Lloyd digested her body language for only a second before he dashed to see who was at the door.
Lloyd turned his head to see who Laura was confronted with.
The person was a women. Old like his mother. Possibly she was a bit older. She was dressed in a suit. Lloyd's first reaction was she was a FBI agent or some cop. His words were stuck in his throat for half a minute.
"Hello, how may we help you?" Lloyd wrapped his arm around Laura protectively. Laura relaxed a tiny bit. She leaned into his touch.
"Hello, I came here to see Laura. I'm…" The woman seemed at a loss for words. Lloyd waited for her response. Laura seemed to have recognized her but Lloyd had absolutely no clue who she was and why she was here. If she did not tell her story soon he would ask her to leave. He would do that for Laura and their child's sake.
"I'm her mother." The woman said. "May I come in…?"
Lloyd looked at Laura. She barely nodded her head. Laura and Lloyd led the woman to the living room. They sat on the couch. Laura was quiet the whole time. Her stare burned holes inside her mother. Suddenly, Laura spoke.
In a cheerful manor, she asked, "Would you like something to drink?" Obviously, she was avoiding the situation.
"No thank you… I just came here to talk… I don't want to be a bother…" The woman said.
Impatient, Lloyd ripped off the band aid. "Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why did you abandon Laura?"
"Well… I work in Ninjago City as a detective… I was so young when I had Laura… I tried to make it work but when she was ten I could not do it anymore… Laura's father and I just… crumbled. I always thought about you but I could never find the time… I tried to call but when I had a phone number to get in contact with you, no one answered…"
"Why now?" Laura asked.
The woman looked a little like Laura. However, Laura knew she took after her father. The woman had grayed brown hair that almost reached her shoulders. The hair looked stiff but full in volume. Laura's mother was hesitant to answer the question.
Laura was reminded. She was reminded of what her anxiety felt like. Laura did not want to deal with this now… with the baby on the way. She was happy. Why was this woman intruding on her finally happy life? What had she done wrong? Why was she not worthy of happiness? She worked hard her whole life. She saved lives every day when she worked as a nurse. She worked hard in school. She was not mean to anyone who did not deserve it. She barely fought back against anyone besides during her time in the Cosmic Legion. Why now?
"I came here now… because your father died of liver failure…"
"Is that it?" Lloyd asked.
"Well… I…"
"Get out. Laura does not need this right now. Get out." Lloyd said.
Her mother left.
The last message
Deep within the ground the serpentine was awakened. The story was then undone like the unfolding of a flower bud. Evil grew stronger than it ever had before. The sunset's light became as bright as high noon and found the secrets of the shadows. They could not overcome the darkness. They never knew the unknown. Nevertheless, the tree of life with the ten branches of justice killed the garden snake.
The rest of the future can only be seen by the stars now.
Now I bid you goodbye because this is the last you will ever see of me.
21 is actually my unlucky number. It just turned out this way…
This is the end. Yeah… the end was pretty open I think… I will not make a sequel or anything. I simply have other things I want to do more than this. I look forward to other things. I really like Hetalia, and my sister and I are working on a RPG game.
It was really tragic and sad. I have no sad story to back this up, my life is awesome, but I am happy that I was able to write something so long.
Though, I hope my story has impacted some of my readers. What I wanted to say with this story is I believe I chose, not at the beginning but during the writing process, to be very different than other stories in Ninjago. Sure, the OC formula has been done copious times, goodly and badly. Yet I feel I took it a different way. Instead of a theme of "Everything happens for a reason" and other stuff with destiny, I chose to yell from the roof tops; "FATE IS CRUEL." While I love the other OC stories, this was a personal choice and I hope you all enjoyed my story.
Soooo… Thanks to everyone who has read and/or reviewed my story. You all have supported me and helped me write. I owe most of my writing talent to you guys because I doubt I would have been able to write so much without all of the support I have had.
Please, read and write on. Help others. Support others. Thank you.
SergeantSarcasm7 has been at your service.