Rain, rain, everywhere. Pouring down on Royal woods. Instead of seeing the Loud House we open to a young man running in the rain. Trying to keep dry in his tattered clothing. Running through the streets of Royal Woods. Trying to find a place to keep dry.
As we pan over to the regular scene of our favorite house in Royal woods, Lynn was looking out the window, bummed that the game she was supposed to play today.
"Man this sucks. Today was supposed to be the day we won and made it to the championship." Lynn said, getting away from the window and stretching.
"It happens Lynn, hey at least the game was moved instead of outright canceled." Lori said, trying to uplift her little sister.
It helped a little, she would join her siblings in the living room getting away from the rainy window. She would Join Lincoln, Lucy, and the twins in the board game they were playing.
"Hey Link?" Lynn said.
"What's up Lynn?" Lincoln responded.
"I wanted to apologize again for calling you bad luck and trying to convince everyone to shun you." Lynn said, rubbing her arm and blushing in embarrassment.
"Eh, water under the bridge. I'm just glad mom and dad put a stop to it before things went too far." Lincoln chuckled.
They resumed their game with Lucy picking up a card and moving forward 3 spaces.
"I can't believe we actually thought Lincoln was bad luck." Lola commented.
"Lynn can be rather persuasive when she wants to be." Lucy said.
"Still, I kinda feel crappy about believing Lynn over something as stupid as Luck." Lana added.
"I have to agree with you, their 8th eldest sibling. I spit in science face when I started to believe in a cockamamy concept like "luck". Lisa contributed.
"Hey, guys, it's alright. Everything was squared away when mom and dad put a stop to it. Nothing bad happened to me, or any of you for that matter." Lincoln said, trying to uplift everyone.
As the Loud siblings were conversing the same young man we saw from the opening had started running down Franklin. Seeing the porch he ran to it to get under the porch roof. It was early spring so it was still rather cold out. The young man was shivering in the March rain storm. He tried rubbing his arms and legs to try and warm up, but eventually he would pass out, hitting the porch floor with a loud thud, grabbing the attention of the siblings inside.
"What was that?" Leni asked.
"Maybe a branch fell on the porch?" Lana said.
"Doubtful, our trees are very healthy and neither of our neighbors have trees that could have falling branches." Lisa explained.
"I'll go check it out." Lincoln said, getting up and opening the front door. "Guys someone's passed out on our porch."
Hearing this, the Loud sisters got up and ran to the door to confirm what Lincoln said. And he was right. There was a young man around Luan's age right there, out cold on their porch. Luna was the first one out to check on him. She put her hand on his head and felt it burning.
"Lynn, Lincoln, grab his feet. He's burning up right now." Luna said, grabbing his arms.
Lynn and Lincoln did as they were asked and the three moved him to the couch and propped him up.
"Can one of you guys get some towels so we can dry him off?" Luna asked.
"I'll get them." Lori said running up the stairs.
Lisa went upstairs too, to gather some basic medical equipment for their unknown guest.
The two would be back downstairs soon enough.
"I got a few towels from our closet." Lori said, handing one of them to Luna who started dabbing the towel on the young man.
She was trying to get him dry but his clothes were so soaked that he was still wet. Luna took a deep breath and started unbuttoning his shirt. When she did, the Loud siblings were in shock at what they saw. Multiple big strike marks across his chest and stomach, bruises covering his front. Everyone was shocked when they saw them, some had to leave the room, specifically Leni, who took Lily with her and the twins who were shooed out by Lori.
Lisa took out her medical bag and started looking over his bruises. To her surprise they seemed recent. Not fresh, but still recent enough.
"It looks like these wounds are rather recent. I'd say a couple days old." Lisa stated, as she took out a thermometer to take the young man's temperature.
"How old are they Lisa?" Lori asked.
"I'd say maybe 5 days to a week old." Lisa explained. "If you all would mind going to the other room. I'd like to examine him more. Make sure there isn't anything wrong with him."
The rest of the siblings ended up heading into the dining room where silence was all that was heard. Lisa soon came in, taking off a pair of gloves and a mask.
"Well, it seems our guest has only a fever and those bruises. Aside from that, there seems to be nothing wrong with him physically." Lisa told her siblings.
"Did you find out who he was?" Leni asked, concerned that he might be kidnapped.
"Negative, he has no ID on him and I couldn't find anyone in the Royal Woods Database that looked similar to him." Lisa said, taking a sip of the Juice Lori gave her. "Thank you eldest sibling."
"You have to wonder what happened to the guy. Those bruises, running all the way here in the rain. He must've been through a lot." Lynn said.
Before anyone could say another word, the front door opened with the Loud Parents coming.
"Kids, we're home." Rita said, before noticing the young man on the couch.
"Kids, who is this?" Lynn sr asked.
"We, really don't know dad. We found him passed out on the porch. He was running a fever." Luna explained.
"Why didn't you kids call us?" Rita asked.
"I just finished examining him mother. I wanted to make sure he was alright before we moved on to calling you." Lisa said.
As the family was conversing, the young man woke up slowly. With a groan he sat up and held his head. He noticed he was inside, away from the rain. He felt something coming up, he noticed a toy bucket next to where he was laying, he grabbed it and started heaving in it.
The Louds noticed the young man with Lily's bucket. Leni approached him and started rubbing his back.
The young man shot up in shock when he felt it. He turned around and looked at the people behind him.
"Wh-who, are you people? Where am I?" The young man said, grabbing his throat as he felt a major amount of pain.
"I would suggest you refrain from speaking, you have a common head cold at the moment. Your throat is sore, you're running a fever, and obviously, you're prone to vomiting." Lisa explained.
"But if he can't speak, how will we find out who he is?" Rita asked.
"Give me a moment." Lisa said, going upstairs to her room and grabbing a text to speech device. "This will allow our guest to speak without having to speak."
The young man grabbed the device and typed into the device. "Thank you."
"Can you tell us your name, son?" Lynn sr asked.
"My name is Syrus." He types.
"Serious?" Lynn Jr asked?
"I think he said, Syrus." Lori explained.
"Syrus, what were you doing out in the rain?" Rita asked.
"I was running." Syrus typed.
"Running? You couldn't have picked a worse time to run dude." Luna criticized.
"No, I was running away." Syrus typed.
"Running away? From what?" Lincoln asked.
"Were you kidnapped!?" Lana asked, in a shocked tone.
"No, but I was imprisoned. I do not know where I will go now." Syrus typed.
"What about your family? They must miss you?" Leni asked.
"I no longer have any family. I am all alone." Syrus typed.
The family looked at Syrus, shocked by what he typed. Before they could say anything else Syrus got up, but quickly fell back down and grabbed his head. He was really dizzy.
"Syrus, you really should lay down. You must feel awful if you've been running in this weather." Lynn sr said.
"It is okay, I do not wish to be a burden to you and your family." Syrus typed, before putting the device down and trying to stand back up. But this time, he was stopped and pulled back down onto the couch by Leni.
"Syrus, you're sick, if you try to leave, there's a chance you could die. I don't want that. You need to rest." Leni said in a stern older sister voice.
Syrus looked at her and figured he wasn't getting out of this, so he sat back on the couch. He didn't wanna talk anymore though.
The Loud family gathered in the dining room to discuss what just happened.
"We really need to call the police. If this young man is an escapee from some makeshift prison there might be others." Rita said.
"I don't think that would be a good idea Maternal unit." Lisa said, adjusting her glasses.
"And why would that be a bad idea Lisa?" Rita asked, skeptical of her daughter's reasons.
"The way he said family, I feel he's a runaway from a very far place. He might want to run away from his own family. Those marks could be because of someone in said family, or the entire family. If I had more information I could do more research." Lisa said.
"Honey, I think I might agree with Lisa. Syrus might have something wrong in his life and if we go to the police, there's no telling what would happen. We could send him back to an abusive household for all we know." Lynn sr said.
Rita rubbed her head, she wanted to protest but they both had points. Syrus was a runaway, they don't know exactly why he ran away, and it seems like he was rather tight lipped.
"Fine, we won't call the police, until, we find out more about him." Rita said, caving to her family.
Syrus was looking at his bruises, thinking about what happened before he ran away.
"YOU WORTHLESS WASTE OF SKIN! MOM SHOULD'VE ABORTED YOU!" A loud voice yelled in his head as he started tearing up.
"Syrus?" Lori called to him.
He looked up at the oldest sister who had a towel.
"Here, it's best if you take a shower. The longer you're in those clothes, the longer it'll take to get better. Don't worry, we'll have something for you to wear when you're done." Lori explained handing him the towel.
Syrus nodded as he took the towel and followed Lori upstairs to the bathroom.
"Just hand me your clothes when you're finished undressing and I'll throw them into the wash." Lori said
Syrus nodded once more and went into the bathroom turning on the water and handing his clothes to Lori from around the door.
Lori took his clothes downstairs and let Lisa examine them. Lisa wasn't able to get anything from the clothes. No such luck, not even a single strand of hair on his clothes.
Lori started the wash and gathered some clothes from her family for Syrus. She got a tank top from Lynn and an old pair of shorts from Luna that she didn't really wear. Syrus may not be too keen on wearing girls clothes but it was better than nothing, perhaps their dad had clothes in the attic he could wear tomorrow.
Soon Sora would be done with his shower and drying off. He grabbed the clothes from Lori and put them on. He came outside and went back downstairs, well he did thank Lori and the girls first obviously.
The Loud Parents were downstairs, the two of them had cleaned up the couch and set it up for Syrus to sleep on.
"Syrus, you can sleep here tonight. It's gonna be pouring all night and we'd feel awful leaving you outside in a storm." Rita explained.
Syrus nodded and mouthed "thank you".
The family had gone to sleep not too long after that and all was quiet in the house, until Lily started crying. Syrus got up when he heard her, going upstairs to check on her. When he got upstairs he saw the Louds by the door wondering what happened to Lily.
Syrus decided to go inside and pick Lily up, cradling her as he started singing Beautiful Boy by John Lennon. Replacing Boy with Girl, Daddy with Big Bro, and Sean with Lily.
"Close your eyes
Have no fear
The monster's gone
He's on the run and your big bro's here
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful girl
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful girl
Before you go to sleep
Say a little prayer
Every day in every way
It's getting better and better
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful girl
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful girl
Out on the ocean sailing away
I can hardly wait to see you come of age
But I guess, we'll both just have to be patient
'Cause it's a long way to go, a hard row to hoe
Yes, it's a long way to go but in the meantime
Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful girl
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful girl
Before you go to sleep
Say a little prayer
Every day in every way
It's getting better and better
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful girl
Darling, darling, darling
Darling Lily."
Lily started falling asleep again as Syrus slowly placed her back in her crib. He made his way to Lisa who also fell asleep and lightly ruffled her hair.
He slowly and quietly closed the door.
"Come on, you guys should get back to bed. You've gotta wake up soon." Syrus said quietly.
As he made his way downstairs, before he made it to the steps, he was grabbed by Lana and Lola who asked him to sing them to sleep too.
"One private concert, coming up." Syrus said as he picked the twins up and started singing House on Pooh Corner as he tucked Lana and Lola in.
"Wow, he's really good." Lori said.
"Yeah, I wonder if he wants to be a singer?" Luna commented.
The siblings all went back to their rooms and went back to sleep. While Syrus went back downstairs and slept well for the first time in a good while.