Hello everyone. So, I've been thinking about how this story is progressing and after some advice that I got from a few readers, I've been thinking about giving it a better beginning. I know some of you might disagree with my decision to start over and I don't blame you, but I thought that Lincoln's bad attitude towards his father just came out of nowhere (at least, that's what I've been told by "That Engineer"). So I've decided to give it a more appropriate start. Some of the other chapters will remain mostly the same, but I might fix them a little bit too, and I plan to put them back in later. I'm sorry if you all don't like that I'm considering starting it over, but now I've been having doubts about my writing skills lately. If you have any suggestions for a better way to start this story, please tell me, and if any of you object to this, I understand. Thank you for your comments and views.

I've seen a few episodes of the Loud House where Lincoln is treated pretty badly, by his family and his peers. There was "The Loudest Yard," "Making the Case," "Sleuth or Consequences," "Funny Business," "Brawl in the Family," "Cereal Offender," "The Sweet Spot," "Heavy Meddle," "Making the Grade," and pretty much the worst of them all, "No Such Luck." Some of these episodes have one thing in common, they show how Lincoln is pictured when compared to his sisters, and not in a good way. I almost forgot "Kings of the Con," of course. So, I've thought of this story about Lincoln's inner struggles with his family. Note: This fanfic takes place after the episode, "Kings of the Con". I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Loud House

Lincoln Loud is an eleven-year old boy with white hair who stood as the middle child of his family with 10 sisters. He found himself waking up out of nowhere with a headache and looked to see that he was in his bedroom, except for the fact that he was lying on the floor.

"Ugh, my head," Lincoln groaned. "What happened last night?" He looked around and noticed something very different about his room.

He picked himself up, disoriented and dizzy with no memory of how he ended up in such a position. "What's going on? What happened to my room?" Lincoln began to see just how much his room had changed. His bed, his desk, and all of his other possessions were missing.

But his empty bedroom was only the beginning. Once Lincoln opened the door, he gasped in shock as he saw the upstairs hallway in complete shambles.

"What the?!" Lincoln gaped as he stepped into the hall and saw how much of a mess it was.

It looked like the entire house had just been through a massive fire. There was trash on the floor, broken glass everywhere, holes in the walls, and to top it off, all of his sisters' bedrooms were in complete disarray.

He looked in every room upstairs, including the bathroom. There were no signs of any of his sisters anywhere. "What's going on here?"

"Lori! Leni! Lily! Is anyone here?!" The boy tried calling out for his sisters but was met with a disconcerting silence. "Mom, Dad!" Lincoln called for his parents while running down the stairs, and there was still no response from anyone.

But once he reached the living room, it was just as much of a disheveled mess as the upstairs hallway. The furniture was dilapidated, the kitchen was destroyed, the walls had suffered major damage, and the dining room table was reduced to nothing but a broken mess on the floor. He still saw no sign of his parents or even their pets for that matter, and it was beginning to fill him with worry.

"WHERE IS EVERYBODY!" Lincoln shouted, hearing nothing but his cries echoing throughout the house.

"Oh man. I've gotta find help!" Lincoln ran outside hoping to find someone who could help him find his missing family, but as soon as he stepped out the front door, the white-haired boy was rendered speechless by what he saw.

Royal Woods was reduced to a decrepit, lifeless desert of broken memories. All of the houses were completely destroyed, the streets were utterly ripped apart, and the trees and all of the plants were burned at the steak. There was also the fact that there was no sun shining in the sky, there was nothing more than a darkened sky engulfed in a layer of thick smog. It was as if a great catastrophe had suddenly befallen his suburban home town and he was the only one who survived it.

"What happened to Royal Woods?!" Lincoln grieved as he began wandering the damaged streets, trying almost in vain to find any signs of life.

But as far as he could see, there was absolutely nobody around for miles. He was all alone in a desolate, post-apocalyptic wasteland with nothing to give him any hope for survival. Soon, he ended his fruitless travels and just fell to his knees, grieving in utter misery. "I don't understand. How, how could this have happened? I can't find my family or my friends. I'm all alone now. I really wish my sisters were here." Lincoln lamented as tears fell from his face. Seeing his home in such chaos was too much for the 11-year-old boy to bare.

It was starting to feel hopeless for him and he felt like he was going to die as the last person standing in this decaying town. However, Lincoln soon looked up and saw something that he thought could change everything. In a plume of black smoke a few yards away from him, Lincoln made out someone's silhouette and thought it could be his salvation.

With his hope suddenly returning, Lincoln smiled and immediately ran towards the smoke. As he got closer and closer to it, the white-haired Loud boy was beginning to see what was coming up. And to his surprise and happiness, out of the plume of smoke came all ten of his sisters slowly walking towards him.

"Girls! Yes!" Lincoln shouted with joy as he ran closer to them. Seeing their faces at this low point in time was like seeing the faces of angels as they appeared to be unaffected and unharmed by whatever cataclysmic event took desecrated Royal Woods. Lincoln shed tears of joy as he saw the smiling faces of his many siblings. At least, it sort of looked like they were smiling.

Lincoln thought he was in the clear now that he found his sisters, but as he got closer to them, something felt very different about them. And by different, it looked more like they were scowling angrily at him. Lincoln's joyful smile quickly faded as they all stopped moving once he was right in front of them. All of their eyes were red as blood and they looked as if they were eyeing him with sheer malice. Even Lily looked like she was scathing mad at him.

Lincoln stopped running and looked on with confusion at the angry glares his ten siblings were sending his way. There was nothing but awkward silence between them as Lincoln wasn't sure what to say to them in these current circumstances. He couldn't understand what was going on so he decided to break the silence, and hopefully, find some kind of explanation as to what transpired to turn their home into a barren, lifeless, wasteland.

"Girls! You don't know how happy I am to see all of you!" Lincoln said, but his sisters remained silent, which left him mildly creeped out. "Umm. So, what happened here exactly? All I seem to remember is waking up in my room and then everything before that is a complete blank."

The girls still didn't answer their brother and continued glaring daggers at him. He was surprised to see that their expressions hadn't changed one bit and was starting to feel his renewed hope slowly diminishing.

"Girls? What's going on?" Lincoln asked, suddenly feeling nervous due to their dramatic unresponsiveness.

Their malicious looks refused to wane and Lincoln was beginning to feel like they were angry at him for some reason, but he had no idea what it was. "Why won't you guys answer me? And why are you all looking at me like that?!" Lincoln started backing away from them, as if felt their enraged, bloody-red eyes were piercing right through his very soul. "Come on girls. Say something!" He shouted.

"This is all your fault, Lincoln." Lori said.

"Huh?" Lincoln thought he finally heard one of them speak. But something about it filled him with a sense of dread. It was quiet, but he could feel those words stab him right in his heart. "What are you talking about, Lori?" Lincoln asked.

"This is all your fault, Lincoln!" Lori repeated with more hatred in her tone. "You are the cause of this." She stepped forward from the group and approached Lincoln as if she was holding a knife in her hand. And Lincoln backed away from her until he tripped and fell on his back. Lori stood in front of him and her very presence brought a sense of fear into every fiber of his being.

"This is your fault, Lincoln!" Lori repeated once more, but this time it was much louder and filled with more anger, she even pointed an accusatory finger at him. "You always ruin everything! Your actions, your worthless plans, and your selfishness have literally brought us nothing but pain!"

Lori didn't lay a finger on him, but every cruel word that came out of her mouth felt like it actually hit Lincoln hard in his face.

Lynn came forward next and stepped past Lori. She then grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hoisted him up to her face. Lincoln saw her red eyes up close, and now that he had a closer look, he could see the burning hatred in her pupils. It was like looking into the flames of Hell as they were showing him all of the anger and hatred that dwelled in Lynn's heart.

"You're nothing but a worthless, talentless, pathetic disappointment, Stinkcoln!" Lynn yelled in Lincoln's face and for some strange reason, he actually felt a sharp pain engulf his chest, like every word coming out of Lynn's mouth was her fist punching him where it really hurts.

"You have absolutely no talent for anything! I tried to make you into a man and get you to play football, but you ended up losing the entire game and humiliated our family. You can't even bring home a real trophy! The only thing you've ever brought us is shame and disappointment!" She ranted, making Lincoln feel even more excruciating pain throughout his chest.

"We are the ones with the real trophies, Lincoln!" Lola said. "We are the ones with actual accomplishments in our lives. And you are nothing but the miserable failure who fails at everything he does and drags us down with your lousy ideas that only make things worse!"

"We all saw how pathetic you were in that football game and in everything else." Lynn said. "You can't do anything right, Lincoln. You will never be anything more than a pathetic, worthless waste of space. We never wanted a brother like you. We were just fine when it was just the ten of us, and then you came along and ruined our lives!"

"You are the worst big brother ever!" Lana yelled. "I can't believe I looked up to you when I thought you were playing football! I should've known you were a fake!" she scorned. "I'll never make that mistake again. You're a loser, Lincoln Loud! A good-for-nothing, talentless loser!"

Lincoln was beginning to shed tears again from all of their' heartless words. Now, he was starting to feel his spirit break and his heart shatter, both from the physical and emotional pain that he was experiencing right now.

"By my research, all you have ever done to us in the past is use us for your own selfish benefit, make us look bad with your constant failures, and cause all of us to suffer from your mistakes." Lisa said. "You've ruined my greatest science experiments! If not for you, Lincoln, I could've saved the world from this horrible plague. It's all your fault!"

"No, no." Lincoln said while sobbing. He just couldn't understand why his sisters were saying all of these horrible things to him. But somewhere inside, he felt like they were right and he truly deserved it. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?! SORRY?!" Lynn shouted while still holding him by the shirt. "You think that changes anything, STINKCOLN!? Every time you get involved, we always have to suffer for it! You've never done anything that would make us think you weren't a loser. You've always been a spineless coward!"

"A disappointment!" Lori added.

"A pathetic weakling!" Leni added.

"A screw-up!" Lana said.

"An embarrassment!" Lola said.

"A talentless loser!" Luan said. "I should know. I tried to help you win that video contest because you couldn't get a real trophy like we did. I should've just let my pranks do you in last April fools and then we would've been rid of you forever!"

"You're also a constant source of ridicule." Lucy said.

"And a miscalculation that should've never happened." Lisa said.

"Poo-poo!" Lily said, blowing a raspberry at him.

"In other words, Lincoln. You are not the brother that we wanted. You're nothing but a mistake!" Luna shouted. And that was all Lincoln could take.

What Luna said finally broke him completely as he remembered all of the times he's ever been nothing but a burden to his family. The times that he's clogged the toilet, the time he couldn't choose between Aloha Beach or Dairy Land for their vacation and ended up using his sisters as servants, and all of the other times that he's let his family down by being the person that he is.

"See now, Stinkcoln?" Lynn asked. "You will never amount to anything in your worthless life. We were always better off without you and always will be. The world would be much better if you were never born!"

Lincoln couldn't stand it anymore. All of their hurtful words had already broken him and he just wanted it to stop. "You should disappear, Lincoln. Disappear now!" Lynn raised her hand into a fist and gave Lincoln a punch in his face so hard that it released him from her grip and sent him flying miles away from them.

Lincoln landed flat on the ground lying face-up on his back. He continued to sob as he felt the pain of Lynn's punch spread throughout his body, along with the constant echoing of his sisters' cruel, heartless words in his head. He was beginning to lose all sense of himself. But it wasn't over just yet.

It was bad enough when Lincoln was all alone in a dilapidated version of his home town. Soon enough, his surroundings looked even worse as the entire landscape broke apart and was engulfed in flames. "What's happening?! What is this?!" Lincoln panicked.

All ten of the girls walked up to him at once, repeating all of the nasty things they said. But now, they looked even more frightening than they did before. It wasn't just their eyes that were red with flaming rage, now their skins were red and they all had horns on their heads like demons from Hell. They looked so terrifying that Lincoln felt like he was truly in the fiery pits of Hell, and all of his sisters were there to be his eternal tormenters.

"Weakling! Coward! Failure! Talentless! Screw-up! Disappointment! Useless! Mistake!" These same words repeated over and over again, and Lincoln was on his knees sobbing and begging for it all to stop, but no matter how much he begged, it just kept going.

"Please no more!" Lincoln yelled in agony. His eyes were pouring tears like crazy and it felt like this suffering would never end.

Soon, their voices grew louder and louder as Lincoln saw the demonic versions of his sisters grow to humongous sizes, towering over him and looking down on him like he was just a puny, worthless, insignificant insect. And that was what he pretty much felt like right now.

Poor Lincoln covered his ears as he quivered miserably on the ground in a fetal position, listening to the hurtful words and monstrous laughter of the ten gigantic demons towering above him. The sound of their horrible voices was too loud for him to ignore as they surrounded him in a circle, blocking any hope he had of escape.

*STOMP!* *STOMP!* *STOMP!* *STOMP!*

The ground shook around Lincoln, forcing him to open his eyes and look in horror as the gigantic, demonic form of his athletic older sister stomped toward him with her feet smashing into the ground below her. Lincoln was too distressed and terrified to even move as the demonic Lynn Jr. stood in front of him, smiling with malicious intent as all ten demons laughed sadistically at the puny insect at their feet.

"This is the end for you, Stinkcoln!" the giant demon girl bellowed, her voice resonating in Lincoln's ears. "You were never our brother. You will never be anything but a worthless, pathetic mistake who should never have been born! And now, it's time to meet your fate!"

Lincoln looked up, gasping in absolute horror as the gigantic, demonic girl raised her massive foot over him.

"Lynn! Please! DOOON'T!" Lincoln begged helplessly as the shadow of her shoe eclipsed him. It was just one of them, but it was more than enough to make him feel like they were all about to squish him together.

"GOODBYE FOREVER, LINCOLN LOUD! THE WORLD WILL NEVER MISS YOU!" With those final words, she brought her foot down upon him.

"NOOOO!" Lincoln screamed as the giant foot came down on him with the force of a meteor and squashed him out of existence.

"AHHHHHH!" Lincoln woke up with a scream. Everything that he saw, his entire home town being destroyed, his sisters saying all of those horrible things to him, and them turning into angry demons before his eyes. He realized it was all nothing but a horrible dream. He panted heavily trying to regain his sense of reality.

As far as Lincoln could see, his room wasn't a mess and everything was right where it should be. He then felt himself and realized that he was very sweaty and his pajamas were all wet. He also touched his face and felt soft tears flowing down his cheeks, and there were still tears falling from his eyes. He quickly wiped them off and stopped breathing so hard as he began to relax.

Breathing a great sigh of relief and falling back in his bed, Lincoln finally managed to get his head together. "Oh man. What a nightmare," he said. "Thank goodness it's over." But then, just as Lincoln was laid in bed, he decided to sit back up for a second to look at the time on his Muscle-Fish clock. It was only 3:30 AM and he still had a few more hours before it was time for everyone to wake up.

He sighed again with exasperation. After a nightmare like the one he just had, there was no way he'd be able to go back to sleep.

Lincoln then got out of bed and walked out of his room. He was about to make his way to the bathroom when his third oldest sister, Luna, emerged from her bedroom and stopped him. She had a concerned look on her face as she noticed the position Lincoln was in. His pajamas were wet and wrinkled and his hair looked like a complete mess. And once she saw the dismal look on his face, she just couldn't turn him away.

Luna got down on one knee and put a gentle hand on her little brother's shoulder. "Lincoln, are you all right, bro? I thought I heard you scream and I got worried." Luna asked in concern.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Don't worry, Luna." Lincoln answered downheartedly, which made Luna even more worried. "Anyway, I'll just-"

Lincoln was about to walk past her, but Luna stopped him and grabbed his other shoulder. "You sure you're okay, Linc?" She asked again, softening her tone as she put a soothing hand on his cheek. "I heard you screaming and I thought something was wrong. Did you have a bad dream, bro?"

"I get that you're worried, Luna. But it's okay, really. I just need to use the bathroom right now. I'll be fine," he said in denial. He then took Luna's hands off of him and walked past his rock musician older sister. Even though he said he was fine, somehow, Luna could tell that wasn't true.

Lincoln turned on the sink and splashed some water on his face, which helped to ease the tension on him a little bit since he was still sweaty and sticky from that nightmare. Then he looked at himself in the mirror, but for some reason, it felt like his own reflection was making him feel more self-conscious. Looking at his eyes, Lincoln felt like there was really something off about him, but he had no idea what it was that was making him feel this way.

He sighed and let it go before heading back to his room. Once Lincoln was back in his bedroom, he felt like wanted to go back to sleep, but there was a part of him that wouldn't let him.

Remembering that the next day would be a Saturday, he saw no need to wake up early and decided to do something before heading back to bed. The albino boy opened his desk drawer and took something out of it. It appeared to be an orange notebook with the words "Lincoln's Journal Do Not Read" in black ink on the front of it. Underneath the cover was an extra note written in red just for fun. It said, "That means you, Lola".

Normally, only a girl would keep a diary, but Lincoln was one of those boys who was the exception. But before he started writing in his journal, Lincoln turned his attention towards the reader like he usually would. "Normally, I'd talk to you guys when I'm saying how I feel. But right now, I feel like keeping it to myself instead."

With a pencil in his hand, the sole brother of the Loud family sat at his desk and opened his private diary to a blank page. From there, Lincoln took a deep breath and began writing his innermost thoughts.

"Dear diary,

It's been another sleepless night for me. Another night where I've been plagued by a horrible nightmare, and this one was one of the worst of them. I tried to shake it off as nothing but a silly dream, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like that nightmare was trying to tell me something. Like most of the other bad dreams I've had recently, this was another one where my sisters were involved, and it wasn't in a good way."

While writing the words of his thoughts into his journal, he also added a few drawings under it. To emphasize his point about the dream, Lincoln wrote an image of himself on his knees, crying while surrounded by evil, demonic versions of his sisters. They were all telling him horrible things that succeeded in hurting him even more.

"Ever since the Ace Savvy Convention where Clyde and I freed the villain known as the 'Kitty', I feel like I've fallen deeper into the shadow of my sisters' success. I just wanted to win the contest to get a cameo role in the next Ace Savvy Movie, but once again, my sisters were the real heroes and they barely even had to try. Lisa easily guessed how many poker chips were in that jar, and unlike me and Clyde, she didn't even have to write any notes or overthink it. It just came naturally to her.

And it wasn't just Lisa. Lynn had no trouble impressing those judges at all. I tried to show my skills at the strength test but all I did was show how much of a scrawny weakling I am. Lynn, on the other hand, made it look so easy when she effortlessly conquered it and put my lackluster performance to shame."

As Lincoln finished writing that part in his journal, he suddenly came to a stop and reflected on it. The very memory of being outshined by his athletically-superior older sister seemed to stir his mind into a frenzy. The more Lincoln thought about it, the more he felt like Lynn showing him up was nothing new to him. After all, it wouldn't be the first time Lincoln ever felt like nothing compared to her. With that in mind, Lincoln let out a doleful sigh as he resumed writing.

"I tried so hard to impress those judges and get that cameo role with my sisters, but no matter what I did, it was all for nothing. I even let the Kitty free so Clyde and I could look like heroes, but still, my sisters ended up getting the part while Clyde and I were just the cat's pooper scoopers. Once again, my ten amazing sisters were the heroes and got all of the fame and glory while I was left in the dust.

Sometimes, it feels like I'm always going to be in my sisters' shadow and I'll never amount to anything great like them. It's only been a few weeks since the incident at the convention and I still can't get these feelings out of my head. Now whenever I look at my Ace Savvy costume or read my comics, all I can think about is how those judges felt when they compared me to my sisters. They didn't see anything special in me at all, and even if they did, I bet I still would've been cast as the pooper scooper anyway.

All of my sisters are so amazing and so talented and everyone just loves them. Mom and dad won't shut up about how proud they are to have ten daughters with so many unique talents and gifts. Lori's going off to Fairway University to start up her golfing career in the next few months, Leni is going to be a genius fashion designer, Luna will probably go on tour with McSwagger, Luan will grow up to be a famous TV comedian, Lynn is going to be a world famous athlete in the hall of fame, Lucy will be a famous writer and poet, Lana will be a mechanic for her hero in the Indy 500, Lola will win every beauty pageant in the world and then go onto being a supermodel, Lisa will eventually become a world-renowned scientist who could find a solution to world hunger and global warming, and even Lily will reach great heights as well. All of them will move on to bigger and better things once they leave home and move on with their lives.

And then there's me. The only boy in a family with ten daughters, the only child in my family who has never won a real trophy in my whole entire life, and never does anything but make things worse for myself and the people I love. Every time I've ever participated in something, all I've ever gotten out of it is pain, failure and total humiliation. I felt so pathetic when I lost that football game, not to mention all of those other contests where I ended up a miserable failure. Looking back, it feels everything I do makes me a loser in the eyes of my family. Whether it was embarrassing myself in that video contest just so that my sisters would forgive me for embarrassing them or trying to help during the incident with Sister-Fight-Protocol, all I ever did was mess up and prove just how worthless I am. After all, they never needed my help to begin with. They sure made that perfectly clear. We mistakingly thought mom and dad wanted to get rid of us once, and when they told they'd never ever do that, dad said we were the best ten things that ever happened to them. And I have a feeling I know which one of us was the odd one out."

As he continued writing, Lincoln could see all of those moments he mentioned playing out in his head. The more he remembered every painful moment, the more they began to grate on his psyche. Lincoln clasped his pencil tightly in his hand, his breathing growing rapid as he felt more tears threatening to escape. He tried to hold it back, but one tear managed to get through and fell on the page, leaving a big stain on his journal. A couple more tears landed on his journal page before Lincoln stopped writing for a moment and tried to pull himself together. He buried his head into his arms, hiding his crying face from anyone whom he felt could be watching. Sniffing and heaving dreadfully, Lincoln felt a sharp pain in his throat as he quietly sobbed into his pajamas for a few more minutes. Eventually, the white-haired Loud managed to get it out of his system and took a deep breath as he wiped his tears away before he got back to writing.

"All my life, I've been a loser. My sisters are all so great and so special, and I'm not. I'm just a nobody and a talentless loser, that's all I'm ever going to be. And honestly, if I ever left this place, I have a feeling none of them would ever miss me. As far as I know, Lincoln Loud doesn't matter."

With those last words, Lincoln completed his journal entry and closed his diary shut. He then placed it back in his desk and somberly climbed back into bed. He didn't even bother to put the covers back on as he tried as much as he could to go back to sleep. Eventually, Lincoln closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep again, but still couldn't let go of that awful dream he had. As difficult as it was to let go of, Lincoln tried to put it out of his mind and look forward to a much better day. After all, tomorrow was a new day, which meant a new chance to make something better of himself. At least, that's what he hoped.