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Lloyd’s eyes snapped open and he clamped his hand over his mouth milliseconds before a scream tried to rip itself from his throat.
The Green Ninja shot upright in his bed. His skin was clammy and his hair stuck to his face. His heart hammered against his ribcage and his chest rapidly rose and fell as his lungs heaved for breath.
The Bounty, right in front of him, in the cold unforgiving hands of a massive stone colossus.
Himself, held in the air by his collar, forced to watch.
The Ninja, running around on the deck, trying to fight the beast off.
Kai, somehow meeting his gaze from across the city, eyes wide and terrified and pleading for help.
The dead silence that followed the ship’s cracking and crunch when the hull finally gave out and the colossus’s hands connected.
Lloyd squeezed his eyes shut and felt tears spill down his cheeks. His hands shook as his fingers curled around his hair and pulled. He wanted to scream but he did not want to wake the others.
But the darkness created by closing his eyes only brought more of the dream back to the forefront of his mind.
Running towards the wreckage of the ship, stumbling over his feet, lungs feeling so tight that he could barely cry the names of his brothers.
Pulling broken wooden beams away, uncaring to the splinters embedding in his hands.
The moment his gaze landed on an arm clad in red, unmoving.
Lloyd tried to stand up but fell off the bed and collapsed to the floor with a soft thud. He instinctively curled up on his hands and knees, head bowed, shaking like a leaf.
He couldn’t breathe.
Lloyd barely had the strength to push himself to his feet, but he managed. His recently-broken ankle stabbed with pain when he put weight on it. It wasn’t really injured anymore, but the memories made it feel he’d just broken it.
He felt numb and disconnected as he lifted another plank of wood away from Kai. This couldn’t be happening.
The moment his eyes landed on Kai’s face, the Fire Ninja’s arm suddenly shot up and grabbed Lloyd’s gi and pulled him closer. Lloyd yelped and his hands gripped Kai’s wrist.
“You should’ve saved us,” Kai rasped.
Then his hand went limp and his eyes closed.
Lloyd screamed.
The Green Ninja’s hand hovered over the door handle, shaking violently, but he couldn’t bring himself to open the door. He couldn’t go make sure Kai was okay.
Kai’s dead Cole’s dead Jay’s dead Zane’s dead Wu’s dead they’re all dead dead dead dead dead and gone and not coming back and it’s his fault that they’re dead he just watched as they died right in front of him he did nothing not even yell or scream or try to use his powers and they died because of him—
Lloyd stumbled back into his wall and sank to the floor.
Terror had an iron grip around his lungs. Every breath wheezed in his otherwise-quiet bedroom, shallow and shaky and much too quick. His ears rang with the annoying high-pitched noise he was well-associated with, the one that came with panic and fear. His head spun and he felt like he could throw up despite not having eaten in at least a full day.
Kai’s dead his big brother is dead his protector his caretaker his family his lifeline his fire that always kept him warm and safe he’s dead Kai’s gone forever he’s not coming back—
Tears flooded down Lloyd’s face and he made no effort to stop them.
Black spots danced in his vision and the ringing in his ears drowned out even the wheezing of his frantic breaths.
Gone gone gone gone he watched them all die die die they were crushed no one can survive that they’re dead his father’s won Harumi won he’s useless and only brings destruction and loss and pain to everyone he cares about—
His ankle throbbed as a reminder of his recent fight against his father. His shoulder ached as if he’d just injured it in Kryptarium when Garmadon landed blow after blow on the already-sore joint. The shadows around him suddenly seemed oppressive and they were closing in on him—and if Lloyd looked hard enough he could’ve sworn he saw his father’s glowing red eyes staring at him, mocking him, laughing at him, watching his pathetic teenaged son lose his mind and break down in the lonely confines of his bedroom because the other Ninja were dead and gone and there was no one left except him and his mistakes—the shadows neared, getting darker, closing in on him, ready to drag him down—
FSM, he’s going to die.
He’ll finally lose to the stronger power of his father. He’d never been strong enough to stand up to Garmadon. He hadn’t been clever enough to see through Harumi’s lies. He hadn’t been fast enough to stop the ritual. He hadn’t been enough to save his family from death.
His surroundings were blurring and darkening. Belatedly, Lloyd realized that it was not a good sign. But he couldn’t do anything but accept his fate as unconsciousness tried to drag him away from the world. The grip on his lungs had only tightened and strengthened. Maybe the release of death would finally bring him some peace.
A shape moved in front of him—no, two shapes—and Lloyd panicked more than he already was. His weak and trembling arms tried to push his body away from the figures approaching. This couldn’t be happening, he knew he was going to die but not like this, not at the hands of Garmadon and Harumi, he—he can’t—can’t…
“Lloyd!”
It was the last word he heard before slipping under.
There was light.
At first, Lloyd wondered if this was what the Departed Realm looked like. He’d expected it to be cold and dark, not warm and bright like what surrounded him when his eyes flickered open.
His heart still hammered and his chest still heaved for breath. His whole body shook like a leaf. He would never have guessed that even death wouldn’t stop panic from trapping him in his own mind and shackling him to the ground.
But when his spinning vision cleared somewhat, he realized that he was in a place that looked suspiciously like his bedroom at the monastery, not in the Departed Realm. The wooden floor was too familiar. The warm yellow light around him was the same. The black and orange embroidered weighted blanket around his shoulders was a mirror image of the one Cole gave him many years ago.
The colors in front of him were too real to be a memory in the Departed Realm. The gentle hands propping him upright were too warm to be fake.
“…you hear…Lloyd?” The red blob asked, distant and echoey like Lloyd was underwater. “Bud?”
It sounded like Kai.
The Fire Ninja’s haunted and dead eyes as he brought Lloyd close and rasped how he failed before the older Ninja released his final breath.
Lloyd choked on the next inhale. And just like that, his panic returned tenfold.
Dead dead dead deaddeaddead—
“…right her…reathe wi…in…out.” The second figure, the one that looked like a shadow, reached for Lloyd’s hand. He didn’t, he couldn’t, pull away and let calloused fingers guide his hand to the figure’s chest. Too warm to be Garmadon. “In, hold, out.”
Lloyd instinctively tried to latch onto the feeling, but just as soon as he thought he regained control of his breathing, the nightmare returned.
Hanging in the air over death if he tried to escape and forced to watch as his father’s colossus crushed the Bounty like a soda can and he was helpless and powerless and wounded and weak and—
“We…Lloyd, we’re here…kay, it…alive.”
The last word was like a shot had been fired.
Alive.
Was Kai alive?
Lloyd’s free hand scraped the ground, trying to find a source of comfort to ground him, trying to find Kai—and warmth enveloped his hand as it raised off the ground, and there was pressure on his palm as something moved rhythmically over the scarred skin.
Dead eyes—
Alive.
Lloyd gasped for breath, and for once his lungs filled with cold nighttime air.
“With me, Lloyd,” the second voice, deep and soothing and suddenly crystal-clear, instructed. “In, hold, out.”
This time, Lloyd was able to latch onto the pattern. His whole body shuddered as he fought the need to hyperventilate and forced his breaths to slow. He followed his older brother’s quiet voice as he continued to count down the seconds for each step in the breathing technique.
The red blurry figure shifted closer to Lloyd and carefully, gingerly, wrapped warm arms around him. Lloyd squeezed his damp eyes shut and all but melted into the embrace.
“You’re okay, Lloyd,” Kai whispered, one hand still holding Lloyd’s and the other rubbing his back. “You’re okay.”
Lloyd just cried harder.
You weren’t, he wanted to say, but couldn’t find the words.
For days, Kai and Cole and the others had been dead.
Lloyd’s hand was still held over Cole’s chest, feeling his steady breathing, grounding himself in the slow rise and fall. Cole shuffled closer to Kai so Lloyd’s arm wasn’t at such an odd angle. “We’re all safe now, bud,” the Earth Ninja murmured. His free hand gently carded through Lloyd’s tangled hair.
That’s what did it, the youngest Ninja realized eventually—the words meaning that his family was safe and accounted for. There was no threat. Harumi was gone, Garmadon was locked up—they were all here and alive and safe.
“Kai and I had nightmares, too,” Cole quietly explained to Lloyd. He didn’t know why, he certainly didn’t ask what made his brothers find him, because in the end, they had, right when he needed them most—so he assumed it was to comfort him with their voices.
“Weird coincidence,” Kai continued, “but yeah. We wanted to check on you. Ended up being a pretty good idea.”
They wanted to check on him.
“I-I—” Lloyd’s voice was incredibly raspy and quiet, but it was there. “T-thanks.”
Kai gave him a gentle squeeze. “We’re just glad we got here when we did. Whenever you want to tell us about it, we’ll listen.”
Lloyd nodded and buried his face in Kai’s shoulder. He didn’t know if he would ever tell them about the nightmare, about how he felt so helpless watching the Bounty get crushed, or about the days he and Nya spent mourning them and trying not to fall apart. But the thought that he could tell them was a pleasant one.
He still felt terribly raw and exposed and vulnerable. His body still shook with residual tremors. He felt like he’d run a marathon from how fast his breathing and heart rate was. But the worst of it was over.
They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Little by little, Lloyd relaxed into Kai’s warm hold and Cole’s weighted blanket still draped over his shoulders. He spent the moments grounding himself in everything he could feel—Cole still stroking his hair and his chest moving with steady breaths and life, Kai’s hand wrapped around his own. He soaked in the comfort and felt like he couldn’t get enough.
However, exhaustion quickly crept in.
His (very much alive) older brothers carefully moved him back to his bed before he realized what was happening. Lloyd whimpered in protest and tried to sit up, but, with the weighted blanket having been wrapped around him like a human burrito when he wasn’t paying attention, he couldn’t do much, especially when Cole put a hand on his shoulder to pin him to the mattress.
“Easy, Lloyd,” the Earth Ninja soothed. “We’re not leaving.”
Lloyd stared up at him with half-lidded and scared eyes.
Staying with him and not leaving. Alive and safe.
His bed wasn’t exactly big enough for three people, but when Kai and Cole nestled on either side of him, he didn’t protest. Nor did he resist when Kai pulled him into a tight hug and Cole scooted closer so he could wrap an arm around Lloyd as well. It was a very effective Lloyd-sandwich, especially since he was already tangled up in a heavy blanket, but he found himself nodding off faster than he had in weeks.
He managed to mumble a quiet “Love you guys” to his brothers before sleep whisked him away.
If anyone wondered why half the team didn’t show up for breakfast, no one asked.
One look at the peaceful mound hidden under green blankets said enough.