I own nothing but the story.

If the night did grace me with sleep, it was only by vague definition. I'd hoped to have another dream that night, a dream where Cole sat down and explained everything to me, but I awoke to gray skies and disappointment.

There was no explanation, and there would be no explanation. Everything was a mess, and I was foolish enough to try and pick it up. I groaned into the pillow, pulling the pink blanket over my head.

It took me a moment to realize I was alone. The air was still around me, and after several moments of the unnatural silence, I realized that it was too still.

The couch was empty; Zane, missing.

I sat up, running a hand over the blanket he'd wrapped himself in the night before. It was cold. So was the rest of the room.

I glanced about the empty basement, finding everything right where it was. Cole's folder lay ripped open and scattered across the table, our bags and its contents littered about the place. Zane was gone.

My face crumpled, and I stood, looking around once more. As angry as we'd gotten with each other, I didn't want to think that he would leave me. My walk around the place was a shuffle, terminated when I heard Misako's muffled voice calling out for her son.

I waited for her to come downstairs, to find me, alone, but she didn't. I'd almost hoped she would.

Her cries went silent after a full half hour, and the only sounds from above were the distant noises of what came from the café.

I sat down on the couch, wishing I was home with my parents, wondering where Zane was. He couldn't have gone far; the folder was still here, but I didn't know how much use he had for it anymore. And Misako was looking for Lloyd…so Lloyd was gone, too. I frowned.

Were they together? Why would they leave me?

I looked towards the window. Cold air leaked through a small crack where someone had forgotten to shut it all the way.

Or where someone had crawled out.

Zane. Where had he gone?

A sigh escaped me as the beginnings of a headache teased at my temple. I don't know if I ever felt the phrase, "the weight of the world," so surely on my shoulders as I did then. The woods watched me as I crawled out, but I didn't spare it a glance.

I couldn't believe yet that Zane would go in there, but he might be in town.

I figured that I should have worn those mixed-up coats that we agreed to do to disguise ourselves, but I, frankly, just didn't care anymore. I doubt anyone noticed, anyway. The walk through town was a dazed one; the world felt like it was moving around me, rather than with me. If Lou or anyone was there to notice me, they wouldn't. We existed on separate planes, now.

Lloyd might have been at school, but the fact that Zane was gone and that my gut feelings had never been so pronounced convinced me that they were together. After yesterday, they would have to be.

Hours passed, and I wasn't even sure where I was looking, anymore.

Somehow, I found Dareth's dojo, now open and absent of Lou's car. When I walked inside, he stood before a group of ten-year-olds, arms hovering in the air as he taught them something that had to do with giraffes and nothing to do with martial arts. The surprise on his face would have been comical in any other universe.

"Jay?" he said, mouth hanging half open.

The children looked, and I gestured for Dareth to follow me.

The bar and the dojo were connected by a single hallway filled with framed photos ranging from still lifes to crude fakes of Dareth's many feats. We walked as far from the children as we could get, and I asked if he'd seen Lloyd or Zane.

"I saw Lloyd walk by with a shovel this morning," said Dareth, smiling at first, but fading fast, "I haven't seen your buddy Zane, though."

I frowned, and Dareth continued.

"You alright?" asked he, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

He didn't know the half of it.

"Zane's gone, and I don't know where he would go," I whispered, rubbing a hand at the back of my scalp, "He was so insistent about remaining hidden, but now he's gone."

Dareth brought a hand to his chin, letting out a dramatic, "Hmm…"

"I thought he might be with Lloyd," I said, apprehension turning fast into worry, "But I don't know where he—they would go."

"Well, I had to start class shortly after I saw Lloyd—" said Dareth, "So if Zane went by, I didn't see him, but Lloyd was heading up town, if that helps you out."

I looked at him, "What's up town?"

Dareth shrugged, "Town hall, the library, the cemetery, more woods, of course."

Something unpleasant began curdling deep within my gut, but I pushed the feeling aside the best I could as I asked one more question, "Dareth," I said, "Have you seen a man by the name of Lou Brookstone, recently?"

Dareth frowned, "Is he a tall guy with a beard and only one leg?"

"N-no?"

Dareth shook his head, "Probably not. You see, I invite some rather tough patrons—"

I waved a hand, the feeling inside of me rearing its head and making me sick. Something was wrong.

It was a slow feeling, one that creeps into the gut almost unnoticed, like the way a mother feels watching her child drive off in a car, both knowing but not knowing that her child would get in a crash later that day. When I left, I followed this feeling in the direction of "up town", using it as a guide through the streets.

As I walked, my pace got faster with every step I took. Dareth said Lloyd went by with a shovel.

Something was wrong.

Something has been wrong for a while, but today, it was catching up with me like a tidal wave, crushing and too fast to fight.

Very wrong.

I bypassed the library and town hall, knowing that they wouldn't be there. Though there were several other buildings along the streets, I was drawn to the very end, where iron gates marked the entrance to a tiny cemetery.

I froze upon seeing it; the graveyard was old and carved out of the trees, practically inside the woods. I couldn't go into the woods.

But there, over a hill and behind the trunk of a massive pine, the dirtied hood of Zane's white jacket peeked out, a pale hand covered in dirt rested against the bark, twitching as he spoke to someone outside of my line of sight.

It didn't take a genius to figure out who it was.

I bolted over as fast as my legs could carry, feeling dread frighteningly like the day we found Cole lying dead in a ditch, only this time, I didn't have the comfort of my family or the wellbeing of my friends to share the pain with.

I called Zane's name, but the sound came out like a cry as I hopped through graves as old as three centuries. Trees stretched high above us, and I was sure that they were going to swallow us whole, eat us alive and spit us out, nothing left but bones.

When I reached the hill Zane was hidden behind, I was met with a cold stare, and a sight so chilling, I was sure that all the blood drained from my body right at that second.

Lloyd looked up at me, face and hands covered with a mix of dirt and mud. His expression was as frozen as Zane's; resigned, a little scared, but too prideful to show it.

Time itself seemed to stop as I looked at what he was doing; nature herself held her breath.

He had a shovel in his hands; he was standing in a ditch, before a small, gray headstone.

Garmadon was written across it.

Lloyd was digging up his father's grave.