Deep Inside me is an emotionally resonating story about Leni being diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness and how she and her family deal with her treatments and her decline. I have the pleasure of regularly Beta-Reading the story, and every now and then I make suggestions on how the story might progress.

This was one that was made in jest, but PlasticPencils' reaction convinced me that it deserved the light of day :)

Deep Inside Me: Vanzilla Family Reunion

It was over.

Leni Loud was safely in the ground where nothing could hurt her anymore, where no one would see her ever again as her lovely face rotted apart and turned to nothing. Her distraught parents and miserable siblings could go home and remember and that would be all that was left of the sweet, ditzy girl who made everyone's life brighter.

Someone would have to clear out her things. Lori would probably try since they shared so much, but she was broken for now. Rita and Lynn Sr would need to help, and maybe some of the more resolute siblings could manage the task of putting away the cherished belongings into the attic along with all the other things that used to be important.

That would have to come later though, the family departed the graveyard that Lucy used to love going to, and maybe once the sting died she might again for a new reason. They were silent and empty after the catharsis of the funeral; it had started off sombre, then briefly became a thing of joy when Luan made some cheap joke about Leni finally getting into dirt like Lana. Really, it wasn't funny at all but the family needed anything to be happy about and her awful wordplay did the job.

It lasted maybe a minute before the Comedienne's laughter turned to sobs and drew everyone into shared misery.

Now they had reached their old van, the normal colour scheme sharply contrasting the formal attire of the mourning family set to go in. They crowded with a listless silence, and for a second it seemed like they would break into tears again; but they were done now.

"Dad?" Rita called out to her father, Albert of course being there for his daughter, to share her grief and to say goodbye to Little Leni.

Pop-pop had it easiest in a way; he was a quietly religious man, and despite his trials in life he was certain that he had his old friends and comrades to welcome him into something better. He knew that with his ever advancing age he would see his kindest Granddaughter soon.

He only wished that he could have welcomed her into heaven himself, and when he did that she would have been grey with a life well lived. Not young and sweet without the years of motherhood and success that she was bound to have had before the 'lights' consumed them.

"Yes sweetheart?"

"I-I think we need-"

"Of course dear, we'll be there." Albert made his face into something reassuring and it might have worked as his haunted daughter wordlessly nodded in gratitude. A few days before he had offered to help with the wake and anything else the family might need- Sue be damned- but his daughter had declined.

Now it seemed that reality had set in; none of them were going to be 'alright' to do much of anything for a good long while.

"Both of us will," Myrtle, his beloved rock clasped his hand with hers. The woman had taken Leni's passing better than most simply because of the extra emotional distance that she had never quite breached, but Albert knew she was mourning the sweet girls death with him if only for the boundless kindness she had sadly only briefly seen from her.

"T-thank you both." Rita said thickly and she seemed like she was going to say more, but her face crumpled and she turned to get in the van as silent tears started running down again. His grandchildren shuffled over to follow her, save for Lisa being borne by her father and Lily who had already been placed into her little chair.

By the time she was old enough to speak her name Leni wouldn't even be a memory for her anymore.

Lisa meanwhile was cradled by her father, still jittering and half muttering to herself. Whatever meaning the words had in the technical sense were lost, but the truth behind them was seared in from the brutal final breakdown she'd had earlier, pleading that they not let Leni rot;

Surely she could still save her.

But she couldn't. Lisa Loud was not a God or Wizard and no matter how many prizes she won for her brilliance; Lazarus would not rise at her command and never again could the sweetheart sister.

Albert reached out, and his son in law stropped to let the older man gently stroke the child's messy hair with one hand.

"You did your best, and I'm sorry it came to this but we both know she wouldn't 'a wanted you to blame yourself," his aged voice cracked and some blur came back over his eyes, damned cataracts probably.

Lisa shuddered, tightened into a smaller ball and a new wail came from the once stoic genius.

Albert flinched back and looked to Lynn Sr in apology, only to flinch again at the dead look in the others man's eyes. For the time he had known the man Lynn Loud had been a sprightly, playful soul with a touch too little rough and tumble for his liking.

The walking cadaver in front of him lacked all of those things. His hair had suddenly finished balding, leaving only grey streaked tufts at the sides, the eyes bore the heavy bags of a man twice his age and his skin was worn and thin. Had Albert not known better he would have said Lynn had the very illness that had taken his daughter or was ready to join him at the retirement home.

"She'll be alright. She just needs time. Thank you for coming." The dead man's words barely reached the Grandfather, and he placidly moved past Albert to place his daughter in one of the last seats, before taking the wheel himself.

Albert noticed that the 'sweet spot' remained unfilled and his eyes watered again as Myrtle drew closer to him in wordless support.

"Give them some time," she murmured as the family van groaned to life. "We'll help them get through this, together."

Albert nodded, and let the tears fall freely as the family drove away.

The van gleamed in the sunlight as it turned out of sight.

But not in time to spare Albert the sight of the freight truck barrelling straight through it. The van was blasted backwards and on it's side with the crack of a mortar shell explosion. Albert could only watch as it fell towards him, bouncing first on the back, then rotating one hundred and eighty degree again to slam the front down where his only child surely sat. It flipped again twice, before cruelly sliding to a halt just before it could take him too.

The roof almost neatly flattened to the now upside bottom half.

Blood started leaking from the sides.

"Oh… oh dear…" Myrtle murmured and even his shock couldn't stop his reflexes from catching her as she fell. Sadly he knew the signs of death well enough to know what the sudden expansion of her pupils meant, and at her age Myrtle…

He gently rested her in the grass and closed her eyes, checking her absent pulse before beginning useless chest compressions. From the screaming around him there would be a pointless ambulance coming for his family soon enough.

It was the cherry on top of everything else that he lived, and only one thing came to mind as his uncaringly strong body refused to give in.

"Dang it."


"Like O! M! Gosh you guys!" Leni squealed at the sight of her slightly dazed family. "I thought you would be totes longer!"

"You know so did we," Lori shook her head. "But I guess we can skip the mourning period now…"

"Aww man, I wanted to be a sports star." Lynn Jr sighed.

"Cheer up Bruv; I bet all the cool sportsmen are up here too!" Luna ruffled her little sister's hair. "Kinda a shame that Sam's probably going to find someone else, but I guess it's for the best…"

"I'm so sorry Rita, if I hadn't been-"

"Don't beat yourself up dear, that truck came out of nowhere."

Leni practically danced over, dragging a young man with her. "Like look who it is!"

The family looked the young man over, was vaguely familiar but…

"Is that… Keith?" Lana squinted.

"It totally is," Leni chirped. "He got his hair back and it's so soft." She promptly demonstrated by running her hands through the young man's now very present and long hair.

"She's been doing this a lot," Keith commented ruefully. "I'm not sure if she happier to see me or my hair."

"That's our Leni down to a tee," Lynn Sr laughed, then had a sudden realisation and tremblingly reached up to feel his own repopulated scalp. "It's official guys and girls; we got to the good place!"

"I would say that would be a premature assessment, male parental unit." Lisa dryly countered. "If this is indeed the afterlife then we are most likely in the antechamber, the 'waiting room' so to speak. Observe the suspicious lack of detail in our surroundings, the curious light behind Leni and her designated squeeze; judging from what details I have gleaned from the assorted extant and extinct religions known to modern history we still have to be judged before we can safely say that we have achieved heaven as it were."

"Could you say that but normal?" Lana groused.

Lisa's eye twitched. "We need to go through the pearly gates before going to heaven."

"Ohh…" Lola understood, then started sweating. "But, what if someone maybe wasn't entirely always once hundred percent good-"

Suddenly Leni was there to bring the twins into a hug, "Oh it's totes okay you guys, we can go in together and- wait I don't think-"

"You have to go an find out yourselves," Keith confirmed. "It's different for everyone anyway."

"Typical baselessly flexible theological copout," Lisa muttered. "Regardless I see no other option but to 'go into the light' as it were. Together would likely be best if we don't want to be separated."

"Yeah that's a good idea," Lori shivered. "We have no idea where we're going."

"Then like; group up and follow me." Leni smiled and started herding the family together, before marching forwards into the vague light ahead of her. "I heard there's like this guy who really wants to meet us!"

"He wants to meet everyone Leni," Keith sighed.

"That's what I just said!"

"I can see that some things remain a constant at least," Lisa dryly affirmed. "Perhaps this 'guy' can be reasoned with in regards to certain.. 'societal norms' that may have been forgotten in the advance of science."

"Do you think there's mud in heaven?"

"Eww no!"

"Do you think Kurt Cobain made it?"

"I wonder if Jesus has a funny bone?"

Lincoln couldn't help but laugh as he walked towards the light...

Then he turned back for just a moment with bright eyes, "...you know for a sec' there I was really scared, an kinda' still am. And with a family like mine there's no telling what can happen. But we always have each other no matter what, and in end I think that's what matters.

I guess we're not going to be seeing each other for a while, but I think everyone ends up here anyway. So see you later I guess."

"Linky stop talking to the imaginary audience and come with us!"

"Opps, gotta go!" The orange clad boy quickly raced to re-join his family, where he linked hands with Lynn and Lucy, who joined hands with each of their siblings in order of age except for Leni who lead them, and Lily who was babbling in her mother's arms. Keith took up the rear guard, as they slowly walked forward, only stopping for a moment as Leni dipped back to take the trembling Lori's hand into her one of her own, and her father's in the other. And with one eager motion she pulled them and their chain of family into the light as one.

A/N:

This was meant to be funny.

It was meant to be a distraught Albert watching his family get Isekai'd and having the bloody remains became macabrely hilarious.

But sentiment has infected me, and as I wrote feels dripped from my fingers where humour was meant to form.

Now this is what remains.

Maybe I should stick to stories about Lincoln being Bad Touched instead :P