I'm sorry I've been gone for so long. It's not an excuse, but I haven't really written for almost 2 years now. I had a really bad experience with a professor in a creative writing class and it led to a lot of self-doubt. I felt like everything I wrote was garbage because he basically told me that everything I gave him was cliche and bad. And he never graded my final short story fiction piece and that was the final straw (to me). I wasn't good enough. No one would ever like what I wrote. So on and so forth. But I'm hopefully back more frequently now, because of TombRaiderNinja. I told her I would push myself to write for Christmas and it felt so good. I really missed this.

I never left this site completely and I never stopped thinking about all of my different characters, but I am out of practice. So I apologize if my voice seems off or the characters just feel a little different than normal. I'm still trying to find myself and get back into the rhythm that use to come so easy to me. If you're reading this chapter and you've been waiting since July 2015 for this update, I'm sorry I took so long. If you're just discovering this story for the first time, welcome and I hope that the jarring difference in writing style between last chapter and this chapter doesn't ruin the story for you. Thank you.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Ourselves

"So, did Zane fix you up?"

Laurie heard the voice, but she didn't see it. Ahead were Cole and Zane, escorting Lucas towards the looming shadow on the horizon. Ninjago City. Kai's familiar grip was on her shoulder, squeezing too tightly. Though she couldn't see Jay, Laurie knew that he was somewhere behind her, waiting for her or Lucas to try something else. Despite everything, she knew that she was in no position, strategically or physically, to make a break for it.

"Hello? Are you sure you're okay?"

There was a flash in front of her face. A hand. Laurie stopped her steady gait, unnerved and unsure of what was happening. "Lloyd?" The question was nothing more than a faint whisper that barely met her own ears.

Something blunt jabbed itself forcefully between Laurie's shoulder blades. The red head stumbled forward, but managed to regain her balance without falling to the dirt. If there was anything Laurie wanted besides an escape, it was to keep her dignity as much intact as she possibly could. "Why did you stop moving?" Kai's hand was back on her shoulder, his voice harsh in Laurie's right ear.

"There was a bug," she lied, actively focusing on keeping her voice as steady as possible. "It flew in front of me and startled me. That's it." Keep it short and sweet. Laurie may not have been a good liar, but if she could keep it as close to the truth as possible then maybe she could try and keep herself from being found out. Of course, she didn't know what she was trying to hide from Kai anyways. Lloyd was dead and she was obviously just hallucinating. Except. . .

Laurie closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in. There was a Lloyd who wasn't. "Yeah, he fixed me up," she said, feeling the wind of the forest around her kiss her face and ruffle her cropped hair.

The hilt of Kai's sword was in her back again. "Stop talking to whoever you're talking to and move."

"Does it still hurt?"

Shutting her ice blue eyes tighter, Laurie listened to her brother talk. "It does a little." There was a stinging on the right side of her neck, a tingle that slowly turned into an unbearable itchy sensation. Laurie reached up to touch it, but a hand gripped her wrist and forced it still. It wasn't a forceful and rough hand like she had been expecting from Kai. It felt gentle, small, and concerned.

Laurie slowly opened her eyes and saw Lloyd standing in front of her. His emerald eyes were narrowed and stern as he lowered Laurie's hand back down to her lap. "If you scratch at the stitches then you could tear them out. I really don't think Zane would want to patch you up again." She stared straight back at him before craning her head to examine the room around her. A spiral staircase jutted out from the familiar interior of a tree and the howling wind of the Birchwood Forest rattled the door a few stories up. "Laurie, are you sure you're okay?" The hand waved in front of her face again, like a distant memory.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she smiled lightly. "Just a little dizzy, but it's nothing to worry about." She was happy to be away from all the darkness for a little bit, even if being here wasn't much better. Her wound stung again with the memory of Kai's blade against her throat. Two realities left, and neither of them had a Kai that she could lean on for support or even hold a decent conversation with. Maybe you should have stayed where everything was boring. At least then you could have had a little peace. "There was nothing peaceful about it," Laurie settled on, trying to push the doubt from her mind. That other world wasn't real and there wasn't a point in living in a fantasy, especially on where life was boring and your mom thought you needed to go to therapy.

Lloyd stared down at his sister, slouching down into the sofa. She whispered something to herself as she stared straight ahead, focused on something that he couldn't quite see himself. His nerves were on edge about more than just Laurie's well-being at the moment, but her lapse of sanity was definitely adding to it. "So, um, if you're okay, could you tell me exactly what's going on?" His sister's eyes settled on him once more, full present in the conversation. "Zane's been coming in and out for a couple hours, but I haven't seen the others at all. I know you got hurt during the fight, but is anyone else hurt too?"

With the weight of her decision settling back around her heart and stomach, Laurie wondered what she could tell Lloyd. That she'd doomed Kai to an empty future? That she wasn't sure if they'd ever actually be able to stop the Devourer with the team in its current state? "Kai was hurt," she said. "The Great Devourer almost swallowed me, but he managed to save me before that happened." And it was all my fault. "I'm sure Zane keeps going out to check on him."

"Well. . . why don't they bring him back here to let him rest?" Lloyd knew he wasn't being told everything. He wasn't dumb. The same look of hesitation in Laurie's face had been echoed in everyone else's at least once or twice. It was subtle, something that could really only be discerned with time and practice, but Lloyd had been lied to enough in his life. "You don't have to protect me," he said, a sharpness in his tone. "You're not like the others. They've seen people die. Nya, Kai's sister, and Uncle especially. But you just got here. You haven't been through everything they have. You don't have to follow the same rules they do."

Laurie squirmed under her brother's gaze. She still felt obligated to protect him no matter what. There was still a part of her, deep down, that knew it was her job. Flashes of unfamiliar incidents ran through her mind. Lloyd sick and unconscious in a desert. Lloyd and the others tied up in a room. Lloyd falling off the edge of a roof. She shook them away, the images didn't make any sense. Of course, in the other reality Lloyd was dead. And no amount of lying had prevented that from happening. Maybe it was time for a slightly different approach. "One of the Devourer's teeth cut Kai." The words escaped Laurie so easily that she shivered. "He attacked me in the forest, which is why Zane had to stitch me up."

Heavy silence settled down around the room and Laurie looked up and over her shoulder, seeing if Zane had entered the small home at any point. He hadn't, which was just as well. She wouldn't want him to know that she had gone back on what she had told him when he was stitching her wound. Zane wouldn't hold a grudge, but she didn't need anyone else potentially hating her. "So. . . it's just like dad then, huh?" Lloyd's voice seemed smaller than normal and Laurie strained to fully hear what he was saying.

"Well, mother did always tell us that the bite was what changed him. So, I guess so." Laurie awkwardly wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her elbows. She honestly never remembered her father being so mean or "evil" to her. Sometimes she would hear him argue with her mother when she was in her bedroom, but never anything bad to her or Lloyd. A tear slipped down Laurie's face and she brought up her left hand, wiping it away. "But maybe we can find a way to save him. Well, I mean Kai. To save Kai. . . at least." Laurie felt she owed it to him, considering he would've never been hurt if she hadn't decided to see what would happen if she died. I didn't have to die to break free from the other reality though. What if dying at all meant. . . death? Laurie shivered again at the thought.

"So what do you think we should do? I don't know if there's just a cure for Devourer venom laying around."

Laurie gently chewed on the inside of her cheek as she tried to remember information about the Great Devourer from the books she had read in her mother's library. "No, I don't know if there's just a cure for the venom. If there was I feel like our parents would have either made it or been in the process of making it over the years." There was that nagging voice in her mind though, the one that had told her about using the Golden Weapons on the Great Devourer's weak spot. Laurie's eyes widened and she stood up from the couch, a grin tugging on the right side of her mouth. "But maybe if we managed to actually kill the Devourer, it would cancel out the venom and save Kai."

"And dad."

"And father, yes." It was crazy, but any possibility of helping Kai was better than nothing. Laurie didn't know if it would even work, but it was worth a try. Stranger things had happened, like a snake that grew for as long as it could eat actually existing. "What are the chances of everyone else helping us take the Devourer down as soon as possible?"

Lloyd shrugged as he stood in front of his sister. "Not good. They're not gonna let me go anywhere near the Devourer and I don't know if they're gonna want to try and kill it without Kai being himself."

"Well then you and I will just have to take the weapons and try to find the Devourer ourselves."

I'm not going to promise a chapter next week, but I will definitely write a chapter before the spring semester starts on January 8th. After that, I'll try to see if I can come up with a schedule that will work for me. By that time I'll be in my final semester of college and will be interning at a school the entire school day Monday-Fridays. So weekends may be when I start to heavily focus on writing and anything else I do for fun.

Until then, have a good holiday season. :)