Chapter Text
'Lloyd- Page 1. Personal Entry.
I remember my father. I usually tell the people around me that I was too young to truly remember what he sounded like or looked like, truth is I do. People always talk about my father like he is a monster, a man who is only created by the destruction that fuels him. I never knew him like that. My mother was angry and violent around him, she insisted I was to never be around him alone. That he would teach me to become evil. She said there was a darkness that ran through his veins. The odd thing is, my Uncle said the same thing about me.
I remember it so distinctly. I had been crying, tears I had sworn to never let fall because the fear of a mothers disappointment is a barrier you fear when the mask of calmness falls. A mothers anger feels like betrayal. A fathers anger feels like fear that cannot be replicated by any other source. Both to be led by tears that must be hidden, smuggled under a blanket with those quiet gasps that hurt more than anything you've ever felt. And for a second you think that maybe it is the worst pain you will ever feel. It's not even from your chest hurting either, it's from the mere thought of the people who were meant to love and protect you break that shell in ways a child could never imagine. It damages the child. it leaves them with tear stains that are treated like scars. Hidden.
I had been crying, those tears I swore to next let fall. Mother is angered by my crying, she say's it's a noise that she does not need to hear. That she can give me something to cry about if I truly wish to whine. My father had found me, he was never allowed around me for very long, but he found me and I hold on to those moments every time I think about the abandonment she left with me. For what she called a monster, he cared for me in a way she never could. He sat beside me and he did not wipe away my tears. He said to let them fall and I long for a hug like that again. I had never heard words spoken so calmly and warm when he said them. And then she came in, screaming that he will plague me with evil.
That was the last time I saw my father.'
They walked down the concrete path in silence at first, all getting used to that feeling in the air as people were hustling around getting from place to place. The Casino had been closed, the hours hung up on the glass door. All of the games had been lit up and there was a cleaning system vacuuming the floors and draining some of the cash from the machines. A crinkled twenty dollar bill was wadded up by some of the trash bags by the curb. Cole picked it up happily before placing it in his pocket. God he was so happy to have pockets again.
Geo had stayed back a bit with Lloyd still thinking about what Cole had said. Something didn't sit right with him when he thought about it, Cole talked about Wu a lot. He said he was a wise man who always had some sort of reason for absolutely everything, but Geo was starting to wonder just how true all those claims had been. Thinking now, this guy seemed manipulative in a way that defined truth to be merely what he made it. Geo decided to get a second opinion.
"Lloyd, you knew about the other labs right? Did Wu ever talk about them? What studies they did?" Geo's voice was hushed, almost like asking about somebody behind their back.
Lloyd shrugged, "Honestly, my Uncle didn't tell me much. He actually considered them as Districts at some point to ease the confusion. Each district was color coded in some way to show the type of studies that were done, but of course that quickly spread out of hand. Jay and Kai had the most experience working at other labs, but we don't know where Jay is right now to answer any of those questions. Why?"
"Do you think people you are close to lie a lot?" It was a question that lingered in the air heavily, if they hadn't stopped at the crosswalk and Lloyd was sure he would have paused right then and there. "I mean I know there isn't an easy answer for that, but this whole lab thing is so sketchy to me. It almost makes you wonder why the lie was said in the first place."
"You guys think we should go across or just go around the block here?" Cole had asked, he looked apologetic when he realized he cut off the conversation.
"I say we turn, we shouldn't stray too far from the hotel." Geo had started up another conversation with Cole, he completely disregarded that question as if it had no weight to it. Of course he had thought about it, they all had. Hell Zane is on the verge of making decisions that could be fatal because of that. Kai died because of that. Jay and Nya were still missing because of that. Oh how good memories can turn to horrors so quickly.
A silenced voice screams the loudest amongst a closed mouth. No one hears these screams, they build up amongst everything that must stay inside. How a child is not taught how to control that anger, that child is not taught how to cry, to understand joy. Realization that strikes and it strikes deeper than any known wound. It cannot be healed, a deep wound heals, but the skin changes. It toughens and breaks, it bleeds and it remains.
Cole stopped half way down the sidewalk, he looked at the window of a small shop. The menu was on the window and the prices were great considering they didn't have much money. A Noodle house the address right on the side of the bricks, "Oh we have to stop here sometime. Looks like its opened all day too, man I miss noodles." Cole looked at the store almost in awe before that conversation started up again right where it had fell. Cole picked it up, why couldn't Lloyd do the same? In the lab he was taken, it had felt so similar. You do not speak. You cannot speak. You give them the secrets and you will kill this family. He isn't Zane, he isn't anything like Zane who keeps his mouth shut and replies in only well calculated responses.
He isn't anything like Cole who took on the understandment of needing to say nothing. He isn't anything like Jay who couldn't keep his mouth shut. He isn't like Nya who keeps herself busy every day so she doesn't have to think about what has to be done. And he was sure as hell nothing like Kai who picked back and argued over that stuff. How they were children and being given a death sentence over something that should have never happened was disgraceful.
How villainous of a father to dare dip his hands into the pool of destruction to protect his son, but how much of a savior the Uncle is for destroyed the lives of children and not to protect them, but to protect himself of the wrongs he had done. Lloyd looked again to the inside of the noodle house, a girl inside the shop had been talking to a costumer. He had never seen hair as red as hers before, unless he counted the intense pink color of Sora's hair when she freshly dyes it. Lloyd wondered if she had bought any corner store box dye.
Lloyd walked forward smiling every so often when he sees how happy Cole and Geo are, as if they weren't being hunted down by.. shit. It was foolish to think this was the only lab hunting them, especially if word got out that LaRow's chemicals were actually working.
Which was very plausible at this point. This town was the closet to the labs, there was every possibility they would look around for more people to test. This place already seemed pretty desolate. The cheap prices. The eerily clean streets. The puddles that were clean. It clicks to Lloyd that maybe this wasn’t the best idea. They shouldn’t stay much longer.
Lloyd picks up the pace not exactly watching where he was going. Cole and Geo must’ve stopped because he had ran right into one of them, stumbling back he lost his breath.
The other side of town, completely ransack and destroyed. Buildings had been burned and the glass was shattered in. Everything looked to be directly out of some sort of history book. There was no color to these buildings, the sky was still this odd colors which was confusing.
Cole and Geo paused before the curb ended, both refusing to even breathe the oxygen in this domain. Cole remembered how he felt last time he took in that unfamiliar air. Dropping to the floor and this time there was nobody to save them. Not when the people who were taken from these homes weren’t safe.
That’s what solidified Lloyd’s sudden fear, or what helped prove that this was not the safe zone they thought it was. Cole stepped back and then Lloyd did, but Geo didn’t take his eyes off the nightmareish neighborhood in front of him.
The house to the left, the lights had been flickering on and off. The corpse of a child could be seen as if they had became one with the window. Their face smashed into the glass. Eyes hallow and the skin sunken in. There was nothing left in that body to identify it to be a human child, but Geo knew.
That was the only body for miles.
“We need to head back. We have to leave, we can’t stay here. There’s something dangerous about this place.” Lloyd held onto Cole’s arm.
Cole wanted to agree, but the look on Geo’s face made his heart drop.
“We can’t leave. They already know we’re here. We’ll be endangering more people. Cole this is what I said, this is what I meant. I’ve seen the maps, Lloyd told me about the districts. There are three. You said only two held people. What do you call this then? I'm starting to realize that you guys aren't being entirely honest and it needs to change. We can't have secrets like that and don't give me that whole 'protecting' bullshit because it's only hurting us more. Where can we go?” Geo emphasized the 'can' at the end of his moment.
"Geo we can't talk about this right now. I know this is upsetting you, but not here. We need to head back now. I promise you we are safe here, I said it before and I mean it. I don't have an answer for you, about what happened on this side, but there's more to it than just the labs. We can ask around, somebody had to know what happened here, but people wouldn't still be here if there was some sort of open study." They went back and forth a couple times before finally settling that they could talk more back at the hotel. Geo was angry, rightfully so. But that didn't explain why this part of town looked the way it did, why people seemed to just ignore it.
Lloyd looked back as Cole and Geo made their way back down the concrete, they didn't speak. A figure ran down the lawns on the other side, Lloyd couldn't see their face. They ran down the lawns and stopped by the corpse, cradling the skull within their palms as if they had known the body the skeleton had belonged to. More figures joined, one who was fast and ran quicker than the speed of light. Another who appeared from a thick black smoke. There had to be at least ten people standing there by the corpse, one had turned to look at him and Lloyd had the instinct to run as soon as they did. Something in his mind screaming to run away so he listened.
To see the roads so bare and silent, Lloyd stopped almost wondering if he ran the wrong way. But he watched as Cole and Geo walked back into the lobby, a drop of rain hit Lloyd's arm and he looked up. That sky so grey, but this time the clouds were what he noticed more. The cracks of white between the mists of grey. The wind picking up ever so slightly as the clouds move on away from the sky he had grown familiar with just a moment ago. Another drop started the dozens of tiny ones hitting the tarps over buildings and dripped down the glass. And all he could think about was how the rain would have caused blood to slide down the window after that child had been murdered.
His father loved the rain, his mother despised it. She wasn't one much for washing away old blood, she covered it up and ignored it as part of her work. But his father? He sat in the rain every time it did, and sometimes Lloyd would find him crying alongside the sky. Other times he would bring Lloyd out with him, they would splash in puddles and lay in the grass. Lloyd remembered his fear of thunderstorms, that fear that was deep within his bones. They shook when the windows did. Lightning flashes seemed so violent back then.
A crack and a boom.
As a child that would be the scariest thing, but once his father left the scariest thing was the noise of his mothers hand striking his father's cheek. That violent crack and a boom. Thunder storms didn't seem so scary after that.
But as a child he would be sleepless until his father kept him safe from the monsters in the sky who howled. That's what he called them, monsters who needed to let the rest of the world hear their agony. They hurt more than anyone, the pain of being silenced. Every so often Lloyd recalls what his father said before he had left,
"I will become like your thunder, you shalln't mistaken my cries again. You will drown in my rain for taking my son from me."
As a child you think not much of your parents words towards each other, it was to be normal for them to argue at some point. Lloyd never grew up hating either of his parents despite what his mother wanted him to think. His father never spoke lowly of her, he said he made mistakes and now he was paying the price for them, but never would he trade a single one of those punishments if it meant staying there. Lloyd was closer with his father, the man taught him everything. Everything his mother tried to take. She was more like Wu, they followed these strict rules made under the collective to permit control.
His father went against those rules a long time ago, he was outlawed and thrown out by his own brother, but Misako had cared for him back them. Lloyd didn't know the full story, his father said it wasn't something a child should be expected to understand. But deep down they both knew Lloyd understood.
Walking back into the hotel, Lloyd dragged a hand through his hair to try and shake off the water. The person behind the counter stood up making eye contact before reading though the mail.
"Hey you Lloyd Garmadon?" He nodded, "We got a message for you from some chick. Look we ain't a mailing service okay? I'll let this one slide, but tell your girlfriend or whoever to quit sending messages. This ain't the first time." They handed him an envelope, Lloyd eyed it like it was going to erupt into flames just by holding it. He nodded again and walked to the the wall where the stairs were. Opening the letter with wet shaking hands wasn't the easiest thing to do, but he managed to get it open and a small piece of paper was inside.
At the bottom it was stamped with two colors. One being an almost Emerald or Jade color, and the other one was an almost greyish blue. He read through the note at least a dozen times, an address sticking out to him. The noodle house, at 17:20 p.m. with todays date. There was two clocks in the hotel, both with different times, he sighed. Entering the room Lloyd sat on the couch now very aware that his hoodie was not dry. He didn't mind that though, he minded the fact that the letter had asked him to go alone which was the set up of any murder, but what got him wasn't that part. It was the sentence referring to the location of his mother. Which was ironic considered the memories he had just been thinking about.
But this was beyond telling Zane or Cole, this was personal.
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Sora had been working hard on the piece as the shower turned on for Lloyd, at some point the door had clicked shut and everything faded to background noise, even the sounds of Arin's intense writing. When Cole had asked later, she had told him that she heard the door open, but that was about it. By that point she had the first few instructions complete, checking over her work a few times bumped up the time it would take to make this thing, but she needed to be careful. One wrong wire, one misplaced IC and the whole thing would either explode or could put Zane into some sort of error. His systems could crash and maybe even explode themselves if this thing was seen as some sort of virus.
The first time she looked up around the room, Arin had gotten up and had been pacing around the room while eating a granola bar. For an instance she could see frost building up on the window. Even if it was for a split second she could have sworn she saw it, those intricate little designs frozen to the glass. But when she looked up again it was completely gone, and Zane had been facing a new direction. Technically it was impossible for her to have seen any sort of frost, but here eyes were good. She never missed stuff like that, but of course logic overruled it considering it had been about sixty degrees out.
The thermometer on the window had remained pretty solid. It dipped twice from the two to three-ish days they had been there. Of course now it was dropping from the oncoming rain storm, Arin had been waiting by the window since he heard about it on the weather channel. The upcoming week was supposed to be nothing but cold rain and raging winds. Fragments of a hurricane from somewhere along the East Coast.
There had been a light breeze, one that brushed against the glass and moved those white clouds along. Sora missed watching the clouds as a kid, that feeling of finishing a project and looking to the outside world. Everything is still standing, everything remains the same way it had even if her own little world feels so much different. Back then that world felt stronger, that wave of a hysteric relief as everything falls into place after so much hard work. And this time it felt awful. The finished product sitting in her hand, well almost finished anyway. One final screw would lock everything into place.
The mechanism attached would allow energy to flow through the contraption and actually work. It was easy to code these types of things to work however the user wants them to work, but like this she has no control over that Zane does with it. That one little screw will solidify his purpose for her. It felt heavy in her hand, perhaps even heavier in her heart as she fumbled around with the small screwdriver. One that she would use to take apart old pencil sharpeners with so she could use the little screws in her inventions. Her parents never bought her stuff to make her creations, they said it was a waste of time. Now look at her, using her inventions to help her friends. And maybe in the process accidentally harming them.
The first drop of rain fell and hit the glass, Arin said he could have sworn he heard arguing somewhere down the block, but nobody else seemed to hear it. At some point she noticed Arin was away from the windows and coloring alongside the kids who must have woken up not to long ago because they didn't exactly seem to awake. Well Spitz didn't anyway, but Fritz was pretty awake and happily coloring with Arin. Spitz was leaned up again Fritz, it was clear the kid wasn't really with them at the moment.
The steady tapping of rain in the roof became more apparent as she thought really about what she was doing. Eventually she angled the screwdriver back and tightened the final screw, that clicking noise echoed throughout her bones, she looked up and Zane was looking right at her. As if he was waiting for that little click the whole time, one of those tactics to make sure the piece was complete and correctly complete so he would be aware the second it was. Sora had to admit, Zane was clever. Well, being a robot and all, but he was clever in ways she wouldn't even think.
He clearly thought this through and this time it was not something Sora took admiration into. She stands up leaving her tools stray in the puffy white blanket and the walk over to that desk with the instructions in her other hands seemed longer than it should have been. But she set it down on the table and Zane examined it heavily before smiling, one of those smiles she wished he hadn't done. It was so sinister almost, like smiling as you stare down the ledge of the building knowing that fall will be the last gust of wind you ever feel. Sure this was a little less sinister than that, but that's what that smile made her feel. The creation of death to what made Zane human, she shouldn't have agreed to this and despite her best judgement, she did.
"This is exceptional work Sora, you have my gratitude." He held it in his hands, the panel on his arm opened and he clicked one of the switches which made a whirring noise to a circular part on his chest revealing a blue disc. It was some sort of energy source she had never see, it glowed though his shirt as he stood up and walked to the bathroom.
Sora watched that door close and she let out a heavy breath before going back to the bedside to clean up her lose wires and stray tools. There was a little pink storage box that was about the size of her hand she kept her small tools and scraps in which was open on the bedside table. She picked everything up and placed them into her bag.
"What was that about?" Arin sounded closer than she remembered, looking over she jumped upon seeing Arin sitting on the bed right next to her. A minute had passed by.
"What was what about?" She asked, but even she didn't sound to convinced.
Arin motioned to the bathroom and the tools she had put away, "You said earlier Zane didn't need anything from you and now you're on edge about something. You have been for the past couple of hours."
Sora again spent a moment really thinking about her next sentence. Nothing she could put together seemed to really work well enough to cover what she really felt and of course she wasn't just going to straight out say what was bothering her when Zane was in the other room, "You know when you have a really bad feeling about something, but you don't exactly know what?" Arin nodded, "Well I haven't been able to shake that feeling. Somethings breaking and I can't tell what. But we need to find out before we all end up separated again."