Hi Everybody! I'M FINALLY BACK! I'm so SO sorry for the long wait. I've had too much on my plate lately, but I finally found time to do this. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy this new chapter.
"Hi everyone. It's me again," Narrator Lincoln greeted the readers. "As you all know, Lynn's threats never came to pass, and our family payed dearly for her stubbornness and arrogance. Lynn was facing the consequences of her actions in juvie, the rest of the girls were doing no better at the reformatory, and Mom and Dad were getting theirs at the mental institution. As for me, life at the orphanage was swell. I made new friends, ate good food, and my health improved greatly. I was a healthy but still not very happy boy. Despite everything they did, I missed my family. We were all separated, and now that Mom and Dad had lost custody of us, I feared we would be separated forever and our big family would be no more. These were the darkest times the Louds had ever experienced thus far."
At the Royal Woods Reformatory, kids of multiple ages all dressed in matching light blue outfits walked down halls to and from their cells with guards watching them at all times. Life there was harsh, not as bad as the place Lynn was at, but still not a very pleasant place to be. Guards and staff members looked down on the young prisoners and the inmates themselves weren't a very friendly bunch either. Recently, a new group of kids had become members of the inmate body. They were eight girls, all different ages, and they were all sisters. Ever since their arrival, these eight sisters had become frequent targets for mockery and harassment from both prisoner and staff member alike.
One day, seven of the eight new girls were walking miserably down a hallway back to their respective cells. Many inmates gave them dirty looks and hateful jeers as they passed by. However, the seven sisters payed no attention to them. They had just left the rec room after watching the Royal Woods Championship on TV and had other things on their minds.
"So the Squirrels won the game," a confused Leni said. She looked like she was trying her hardest to put everything together. "But Lynn wasn't there and she said they would never be able to win without her. Lincoln was there without the good luck suit, Lynn said he was bad luck without the suit, but the Squirrels still won. What does that mean?"
"It means, my poor simple elder sister," Lisa answered. "That Lynn was wrong about everything. Lincoln was never bad or good luck. Lynn was never some chosen messiah for some pantheon. Everything she said about him and herself was nothing more than the ramblings of a deluded ego."
"I literally can't believe we took her seriously on this one," Lori said visibly shocked and ashamed.
"She fought the law and the law won," Luna added.
"Wait!" Leni said having a realization. "Doesn't that also mean…"
"We put our brother through all that crud for no reason!" Luna finished. She had an extremely remorseful expression plastered all over her face.
"How could we do this to our own brother?!" Lucy asked with a noticeably regretful tone.
"WHY did we ever do this?!" Luan asked both ashamed and confused.
"You all should have known that other people would not be as comfortable with your treatment of Lincoln," Lisa said in a deadpan and blaming tone. "And you definitely should have known that they would not find your superstitions as an acceptable excuse."
"Hey! Don't you start scolding us on what we did wrong, Lisa!" Lori angrily retorted.
"Yeah! You're as much to blame as the rest of us," an angry Lana said.
"You let us make fools of ourselves, let our brother's life get ruined, and get in trouble with the authorities!" Leni scolded.
"All so you could satisfy your own selfish scientific curiosity!" a cross Luna concluded.
"And I learned A LOT of important facts from this experience!" Lisa argued in an angry and defiant tone. "1: you are all easily manipulated and quick to throw away your rational thinking for practically nothing! 2: our sports-loving sister's ego is so dangerously huge that she lives in her own reality! And 3:…" The brainy four-year-old went silent for a moment and her angered expression turned to one of sadness and regret. "…in the end, none of it was worth it. I'm so sorry I let all this happen."
The tiny genius looked like she was about to cry. This site made the other sisters forget their anger and share the feelings of shame.
"Nothing we did in the past few weeks brought us any good luck," a mournful Lucy said. "Instead, we lost everything."
As the eight sad girls walked down the gloomy halls, they saw two figures walking towards them. One was smaller and the other was taller. It didn't take long for them to realize that they were a miserable-looking Lola being escorted by a guard.
"You'd better behave yourself from now on or I'll put you back in that dark room again," the guard scolded the tiny former pageant participant. "Got it?"
"Yes sir," Lola answered in an uncharacteristically timid voice. The guard then left her with the rest of her sisters.
"So, what have I missed?" the once proud pageant queen asked her siblings.
On their way back to their cells, they filled their sister in on the results of the championship. Needless to say, she was taking it just as well as they were.
"So it really was all for nothing," Lola mournfully said.
"Yep," her twin replied.
"I still literally can't believe we did this," Lori said.
"What's wrong?" Lola asked.
"We've been trying to figure out what made us suddenly become insanely superstitious and turn on our brother," Luan answered.
"I've never really needed a reason to mess with Lincoln," Lola said shocking the rest of the sisters. "One time Lincoln asked me to help him injure himself so he could get out of playing football. I was more than happy to run over his leg with my princess car. He didn't do anything to make me mad, I was willing to do it because I could."
The rest of the sisters were shocked and appalled to hear this and some were giving Lola disapproving and disgusted looks.
"Wow Lola!" Lori was the first to speak. "That's pretty low, even for you."
"Like you're any better, Lori!" the former pageant queen defended herself. "You've been pushing Lincoln around longer than me and for some of the pettiest of reasons, like walking into your room. Even when he does nothing you come up with some of the most ridiculous excuses, like being the oldest." Lola stopped her rant for a moment as she suddenly had an epiphany. "Oh my! The terrible things I do… I think I learned most of them from you, Lori! But I'm more honest about why I do them."
At that moment, the bitterness between the sisters suddenly started fading away as they all shared in Lola's realization. Lori was taking it the hardest. As she grew older, she became more moody and aggressive, taking much of the frustrations of her life out on her siblings, especially Lincoln. But now she was realizing that not only was she putting a strain on her relationship with her only brother, she was indirectly influencing the other sisters to do the same.
"Lincoln was right!" the ashamed seventeen-year-old quietly said to herself remembering the time she came across an insulting listen written by her brother about how she was the 'Worst Sister Ever'.
The eight girls finally made it to their cells and entered them to turn in for the day. Some of them were able to share cells with one another just like they shared rooms at home. Lori with Leni, Luna with Luan, Lana with Lola, and because Lynn and Lily weren't there Lucy and Lisa had to bunk with one another.
Inside their cell, Leni was having a hard time sleeping because there was a very uncomfortable question on her mind.
"Lori?" she said to her older sibling who was resting on the top bunk of their bunk beds. "Are we bad people?" For a moment, she waited for an answer. It never came. Believing her sister was asleep, the sixteen-year-old decided to try and fall asleep and not disturb her.
Little did she know, Lori wasn't actually asleep. She was wide awake and heard her sister's question. But she had pretended to be asleep to avoid answering it. The truth was, Lori couldn't bring herself to answer such a question. She didn't know how to.
Over at the Royal Woods Mental Institution, the parents of the Loud kids, Rita and Lynn Sr., weren't adjusting to their new environment and shock therapy sessions very well either.
The Loud patriarch was strapped in a reclined chair with multiple wires strapped to the skin of multiple parts of his body. He was wearing a long sleeve white shirt and pants. He wasn't alone, there was a short elderly man wearing spectacles and a white lab coat in the room with him sitting over at a table with a bunch of equipment that the wires were hooked up to. While the doctor was putting on a seemingly friendly smile, Lynn Sr. had an extremely fearful frown on his face.
"So Mr. Loud, how would you rate our session today?" the smiling doctor asked.
Lynn noticed that the doctor was eagerly tapping his fingers very closely toward a switch on the table. During their time together, the Loud patriarch had learned very well what that switch does.
"I'd say it was a good 3 and a half out of 5," Lynn replied forcing a smile.
"Is that all?" the doctor replied in disappointment. "I thought we did a lot better this time." Then he flipped the switch.
ZAP!
OW!
Lynn felt painful electric shocks from the wires attached to his body.
"Lynn, you do know that treating someone so inhumanely over a superstition is wrong, right?" the doctor asked. When his patient hesitated, he flipped the switch.
ZAP!
"Yes! Yes! Of course it is!" Lynn answered. "What kind of ignorant, irresponsible monster would do such a thing?!"
ZAP!
"Oh right, me!"
"Thank goodness," the doctor said relieved. "I'm happy to hear that we're making some progress with your rehabilitation, Mr. Loud."
"My wife and I are so luck– I mean happy to have someone as patient and understanding as you to help us see the error of our ways and better ourselves, Dr. Sadist," the Loud patriarch commented in an attempt to flatter.
"It's Satis!"
ZAP!
OUCH!
"But I am still very happy to see that you're learning from these delightful sessions we have, Mr. Loud," Dr. Satis said with a pleasant-looking smile. "So how do you rate today's session?"
"5 out of 5," Lynn managed to say through a whimper.
"Wonderful! Any questions?"
"Uh…"
ZAP!
"No! No questions!"
"Good. Same time next week?" the doctor asked.
"I don't know, doc. I'm not feeling very –"
ZAP!
"I mean Yes! Absolutely! Same time next week is a great idea!"
"Very well," Dr. Satis said satisfied. "I'll let Nurse Cratchet know we're done for today."
Rita sat by herself at a table in the institution's recreation room. She was wearing the same type of outfit as her husband. There at least a dozen other patients in the room but none of them interacted with her. When they first arrived, Rita was afraid that she and her husband might be assaulted by some of the crazies that lived there. But when word got out about why they was there, no one wanted to harm them, no one wanted to befriend them, no one wanted anything to do with them. As she waited for her husband to return from his session, a sad memory from a few days ago lingered on the Loud matriarch's mind.
Flashback
Shortly after his visit at the Royal Woods Juvenile Detention Center, Albert decided to pay his daughter and son-in-law a visit at the Royal Woods Mental Institution. He was sitting at a table with his daughter sitting across from him. Rita nervously watched her father sip a cup of coffee with a disappointed expression on his face. He didn't even look at her. Eventually, the head nurse, Cratchet, came in and walked Lynn over to the table where his wife and father-in-law were waiting for him. The patriarch looked like he'd been through a very painful and scary experience.
"Thank you for your 'cooperation' today, Mr. Loud," Cratchet said with a sadistic smile. "I look forward to the next one tomorrow."
"Kids can drive you crazy sometimes," Albert said once the nurse was gone. "But I never thought you'd become this crazy. I mean, what were you two thinking?!"
"Now hold on, Albert," Lynn tried to calm his father-in-law down. "This is a big misunderstanding."
"Is it?" Albert asked doubtfully.
"Yes. They're exaggerating the severity of this whole thing more than it really is. We don't belong here. Did you know I've been diagnosed as a man-child?! A Man-child! Where would they get an idea like that?!"
"I don't know. Was it the fact you disowned your own kid over a superstition or crying like a baby the day you arrived here?" an eavesdropping patient interrupted.
"I do NOT CRY LIKE A BABY!" the offended Loud patriarch immaturely wined tears dripping from his eyes.
"Very convincing, Lynn," a disappointed Albert sarcastically remarked. "By the way, before I came here I paid Lynn Jr. a little visit at juvie."
"How is she?" a concerned Rita asked.
"I tried to explain to her what she did wrong and she chewed me out. She was completely unreasonable. But what I'm wondering is what did you teach her to make her develop such behavior. Did you really mean what you said about 'agreeing with the majority' or are you really that superstitious? And please be honest with me."
"I…" Rita nervously struggled to come up with a response. "I don't know what to say."
"How could you let this happen?" an upset Albert asked in a demanding tone. "Your own son?! How could you let your daughters treat him that way? How could you participate in such a hurtful crime?! And how could you even defend them for such stupid and cruel behavior?! Do you love all your daughters more than your only son?!"
"No! Of course not!" Rita insisted. "And we don't defend their actions all the time. They were just… We… Lynn was…" After a moment of trying to think up an explanation, the two parents had to face the facts. They didn't have one. "And now I'm doing it again! Am I?"
Both Loud parents lowered their heads in shame as terrible realization swept over them. They had finally run out of excuses for their daughters and themselves. Now it was time for them to start taking responsibility for their own actions. Albert was pleased to see his daughter and her husband finally realizing the error of the ways, but he wasn't ready to forgive them yet.
"Rita, Lynn," he spoke to them. "I can see that you finally feel bad for what you've done now. But I cannot help you. You need to understand the consequences of your actions just as much as your daughters need to understand theirs. Just promise me you'll get your acts together and do your jobs as parents right."
"I promise, Dad," Rita promised. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.
"We promise," Lynn remorsefully agreed.
End of Flashback
After waiting for some time, Lynn Sr. finally arrived and joined his wife where she was sitting.
"So how was the session?" Rita asked. Her husband looked at her with a painful expression on his face which told her everything she needed to know. "Oh. That good huh?"
"How are you?" Lynn asked.
"Just thinking about the last time I spoke with my father," she said in a sad tone. "It got me thinking. Remember the time when our children had a disagreement and we got tired of having to explain to them how one side was right and the other was wrong?"
"Yes."
"We decided to just take the side of the majority, whether they were right or wrong."
"Yeah, I remember now."
"How often have we done that?"
Lynn thought for a moment before answering. "I don't know. But I know it was a lot."
"That's what I thought," Rita said sounding even sadder than before. "We've resorted to that tactic so often that it became a reflex." Then tears started forming in her eyes. "I can't believe I let my own daughters turn into apathetic delinquents and my own son suffer just to make things convenient for myself. What kind of mother am I?!"
"At least you're not a 'sad, pathetic, irresponsible excuse of a man'," Lynn said in a failed attempt to make his wife feel better. He too was feeling a great deal of regret for the part he played in all this. He felt like he had shamed his father and brought disgrace to his family's name. The fact that not a single one of his siblings called or came to visit him further enforced this belief.
"Dad was right, Lynn," Rita said wiping her tears away. "We have to clean up our acts. It's the only way we're going to be a family again. When we get out of here, things have got to change."
"Then let's do this together," Lynn agreed with determination in his eyes. It was time he started acting more like the adult he was.
The couple both hugged one another as they silently vowed to become better people, find a way to get their children back, and be a family again.
The Loud family pets, Charles the dog, Cliff the cat, Walt the bird, and Geo the hamster were all put in the care of Aunt Ruth and had to live with her in her cat-infested home for the time being. Word of the events that had taken place at the Loud house had made the four animals pariahs in that dirty miserable house. Not even Cliff found hospitality amongst his own kind. Charles received the most mistreatment, not only for being a dog, but because he offered no companionship to the human who needed it the most. Dogs were supposed to be 'Man's best friend', but right now he felt like the farthest thing from. Partaking in a ludicrous human delusion that shouldn't even apply to animals! There were days where the four animals would sit together looking out a window wondering if they would ever see their home or the family that cared for them again.
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. During this time, people tried to move on with their lives after the tragic trial that had taken place before. Some were more successful than others. But the saddest example of those unable to move on dwelled within the walls of the Royal Woods Juvenile Detention Center. Cold, cruel, and unforgiving. It was within these walls that Lynn Loud Jr., the once admired young athlete of Royal Woods, sat alone with the memories of her wasted life. A life torn asunder by her pride and stubbornness.
There were many nights where Lynn wept herself to sleep. Some quiet, some not so quiet. But the tears she shed were not for herself. She cried for Margo, the only person who genuinely considered her a friend, a friendship that was now broken. She also cried for Pop-Pop for his kindly nature and sagely advice cruelly scorned. Tears were shed for parents and each one of her sisters for their unconditional loyalty and support which had caused them to fall along with her. But most of all, Lynn cried for her poor brother, Lincoln, for his compassion, his understanding, and patience only to be repaid with ingratitude.
Lynn stared at herself in the mirror that hung above the sink in her cold cell. For the first time, her reflection brought her no comfort, no pride. Instead she saw a miserable shell of her former self. A foolish child who believed she had been chosen by gods who existed only in her mind and that the entire world revolved around her.
With each passing week, Lynn felt a part of herself die. To symbolize this, she undid her ponytail she once wore with pride and let all her hair hang loose.
Her family had been torn apart, she had lost the admiration of her friends and fans, her sports career was no more, and she was condemned to dwell in this dark prison until further notice. The only thing that kept the once proud athlete from losing the will to live was the desire to repent. Every day she pushed herself to stay strong enough to endure the time she spent in that godforsaken place so that she could see the day when she would finally walk out those doors and make amends with all those she had hurt with her self-centered actions. But even the chance of that happening looked like a million to one.