EdgeChronicles01: Your entry wasa really good idea! Would you mind if I used it?! XD

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
A Broken Powerbox and a Clogged Windpipe

Cole set down the heavy-weighted bench-press weight, laying beneath it in a heap of exhausted warmth and sweat. Man, did it feel good to just lay there and not have to worry about Moustache-Man demanding for him to dance, or Ed-nah forcing him to rewrite the meaning of vowels, consonants, and the sorry saps in between. It felt good. Peaceful. Easy.

Any normal person would've been content with just being able to lie down, work out, shower, and BE without the burden of learning stuff lying over his head, looming like a deadly snake about to strike. But to Cole, it made him feel weak.

He slid out from beneath the bar, sitting up, gazing around him at the empty room before him. The basement was dark, dreary, and made of mostly cement and junk. The house was held up by two pillars that Cole was stuck between. The floor and walls were made of graying adhesive, which admittedly was also tainted with water stains and therefore unattractive. The corner was consumed by boxes and boxes of crap that he didn't want to go through. Sitting up, the basement chill felt nice on his sweaty skin, but he had a sour feeling in the back of his throat. He had a strange feeling that he should be…mourning something. Feeling sad about some certain incident. But…he didn't know what to be sad about.

Cole grabbed the white rag on the floor beside his shirt, patting down his face. His breath was ragged. "Lord," he mumbled, and stood. His arms burned. It felt great.

The staircase creaked under his weight. After flicking off the light switch at the top of the steps, bathing the basement in darkness once again, he shuffled down the hallway, the dim lighting adjusting his eyes to its smoky attire. Everyone was still sleeping. He didn't blame them; it was early in the morning. He pushed open the bathroom door, into the rush of the florescent lights. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. Instantaneous shadows hovered over his face. He'd lifted those weights for two hours. Why didn't he feel accomplished?

And why did he feel like he was missing something?

Cole stepped into the shower moments later. The hot water was refreshing, but not filling. He felt clean as he walked down the hall to his bedroom, wearing a single white towel across his lower half, dangling low on his hips. It felt like the ugly sheen had been scrubbed off his skin. It was an amazing feel.

The bedroom was still inhabited by the other two that the adults shoved him in with. Cole slept on the air mattress across the floor, since his sleeping régime wasn't the same as everyone else's, while Jay and Zane stole the bunk bed. Both of them were fast asleep as Cole moved into the darkness. He could easily see everything clearly without the need of light, even if the sun was starting to peek through the dark curtains. Still, that feeling that he was supposed to be doing something else tugged at his skin. What was it that was making him feel so…what was the word… it was like walking into the kitchen but forgetting what you'd gone in there for. He knew he was supposed to be here, but he was supposed to be doing something. What, exactly, should he be doing?

There was a trunk of his clothes that Moustache Man had brought for him sitting at the end of the bunk bed. As Cole dug through the assortment, he had a flash of something. Someone. He felt like he was supposed to stand up, and when he did face someone in the eye, but…but who? The image vanished as quickly as it had come. Tilting back his head now, he saw no one.

What a weird feeling, he thought. He found a pair of jeans and a gray sweater. Then, it hit him.

Whoa. Déjà vu.

Cole stood up, feeling like he had done this before. He had done this exact same thing before…but where? When? Why? How? He wracked his brain for the answer, but never remembered any moment like this. He looked down at the clothes he'd grabbed. He was just being stupid. There was nothing to remember about—

A voice. A voice in his head. Distant, an echo, a resonant of something that once was that had come to never be. Cole almost jumped.

Sorry I'm laying in your bed.

The voice sounded so familiar, he could've blown up. That voice. The face. It was on the tip of his tongue. Searching for a trigger, Cole looked down at the clothes again, and on a whim, slowly began to untangle his pants.

Hey, squirt.

Cole's fingers flexed at the sound of his own voice echoing in his head. It was much, much deeper than a self-talk. It was a memory. His heart jumped. Cole could feel it, teasing him in the very back of his mind. It was there, all right. He stood straighter and, thinking deeply, dropped his towel into the darkness.

Then he saw a face. The flash of it, almost nonexistent, a spark that died quickly within the flame. The round, childish face peering down at him was accustomed enough to—

Although he was fully grown now, sometimes Cole would catch a glimpse of an angle of Lloyd's face and see the familiar child inside him, hidden deep beneath the surface. He experienced that just now.

Cole jerked backwards, stumbling into the black. His mind swirled with the memory. The full image—the talk about Zane's panic attack, the angst over a burned cake, and Lloyd's pale, pale face of sickness—washed over him with such intensity that he couldn't breathe. Lloyd…Lloyd Garmadon. The guy who had tried to kill him last night. Though he felt angry about it, he also had a fleeting feeling that the real Lloyd would never hurt him like that. Something was wrong with Lloyd. A-and Zane. Zane had a panic attack? In his current memories, that seemed bizarre. But something was boiling deep within his thoughts. More memories. Something…something about…Kai's voice, saying something…

You basically just said something got caught in your powerbox and now your windpipe is full of dirt?

Is that how you see it?

Cole's heart wouldn't stop thundering. Was he getting his memory back? The vision of Jay, wielding a wrench, drilling it into Zane's chest—a panel. Zane had a panel. No, he didn't. His chest now was—was bare of any kind of hole. Cole rammed the heels of his hands into his eyes. The memories he had now and the ones he was experiencing were beginning to clash.

Could it mean that his memories that he had now weren't real? Because if anything felt real, it was the ones he was remembering.

He heard the swift voice in his head, dark, deep, and scratchy. Your memories, said the voice that didn't belong to him. Cole jumped and looked blindly in the screened darkness, but there was no one. They are mine. You cannot have them back.

The creak of a floorboard behind him made him whirl. The dark outline of a small form against the light of the doorway made him freeze. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but there wasn't any mistaking the figure of a gun, clenched tightly between the girl's hands. Cole's eyes widened. He felt dirty, ugly memory seep into his brain, images of true despise, and with a loud gasp, he glimmered in disgust, "Y-you!"

The girl held the gun with her arms fully extended. Her blank face was not to be mistaken. "You weren't supposed to remember that," she said flatly, and her finger closed in on the trigger.

-.- Dawn of the Nindroids has been updated!

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