Updates are going to be slower this week. I have tech week for our spring Musical Revue, so I'm at school from 7:30 am, to 9pm most nights. I'll type when I can, but be patient with me. My friends will verify that I come online for maybe an hour or two a night before I'm so tired I'm going to drop dead.

Chapter Four

He sighed, lying down on his bed. Going to sleep was the worst part. It wasn't natural, since he couldn't close his eyes. He had to be medicated to get to sleep, until they could find a way to remove the ice so he could close his eyes. The blindfold was off, lying beside his bed. His parents had told him they had thick curtains over his windows so if he slept in, the sunlight wouldn't hurt his eyes.

Numbness was slowly taking over his limbs, just like it did every night. It was like he was being pinned against his mattress by a heavy weight that would lie over his body, as if his thin blanket weighed a ton, pressing his arms and legs down.

Then something brushed against the sole of his foot, making him snap awake, forcing him to fight against the grip of the medicine. Lloyd's head turned left and right, as if that would reveal what had touched his foot.

Outside of his room, the wind whispered softly, trying to soothe him, and lure him back to sleep. Lloyd couldn't sleep. His heart was beating strong against his chest, like it was trying to escape from inside of him.

Licking his lips, Lloyd pushed his blanket back, feeling light headed and sleepy, but not wanting to rest until he knew there was nothing in his room. Standing, he swayed violently, and Lloyd knew he wasn't going to last long. Instead of getting right back into his bed though, he began to walk towards the door of his room. Eight little steps which were all it would take for him to get to the door, and out into the hall.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-

His foot met with the door, and Lloyd reached forward, grasping the handle tightly, opening it, and stepping out. Unable to see anything, Lloyd could feel his world spinning faster, and he lurched sideways, shoulder slamming into the wall.

Barely able to fight the medication any longer, Lloyd's legs crumpled out from under him, and he felt himself falling, world darkening fast.

ThudthudthudthudthudthudthudTHUD-CRACK.

Misako bolted upright, the book in her hands falling to the floor beside the couch. Draping the throw blanket over the back of the couch, she got up, walking towards the stairs. "Garmadon…? Are you—"Misako covered her mouth. At the bottom of the steps, crumpled into a heap was her son. His foot was bent in an unnatural direction. She fell to her knees beside him, scooping him into her arms.

Across his eyes, etched into the ice was a small symbol, which had a jagged crack through it from the fall. Lloyd coughed, twisting away from the light.

"Garmadon, I need your help!" She said, panicking. "Lloyd fell!"

In a flash, her husband was at the top of the stairs, looking down at them in horror. "What happened? I heard something falling, and I thought it was—"He shook his head, taking the stairs two at a time, falling to his knees, picking Lloyd's slight frame up. "Should we take him to the doctor? To make sure he didn't hurt himself?"

He shifted Lloyd in his arms, and their son cried out. Misako watched in horror, and then snapped into action, grabbing the car keys. "Let's go."

Lloyd was floating, suspended in air, like he was weightless. He was on his back, staring up at a dark, ceiling that had to be in a cave of some kind. Sunlight filtered through cracks and holds all around him, lighting up the space just barely.

Then it hit him.

He could see.

The weird thing was he didn't want to see anymore. His eyes drifted around the cavern lazily, stopping at the sight of a pile of bones. On the ground beside of the skeletal remains of something long dead, was a flashlight, old, dull and dusty, the thick lens over the broken bulb had a thick crack, going from the bottom, fracturing outwards towards the top.

'I know this place…' Lloyd realized. With a startled gasp, he looked around, praying desperately that he was alone.

He wasn't. It wasn't just the one he expected. There were hundreds of them, swarming closer, appearing in front of him, and surrounding him. Their clawed hands grabbed at his arms, dragging him deeper into the tomb.

'Your fault.' One said, claws reopening the cuts on his arms. 'You caused our end.'

Lloyd shook his head vigorously. "No, I didn't! I didn't!" He turned, looking at one in particular. "You got yourself killed!"

'Doesn't matter.' He said, eyes glimmering in the dark light. 'You're at fault. That's why you can't see anymore.' The corners of his mouth curled up in a twisted, sickening smile. 'And that's why we're in your head.'

'Revenge…' One hissed, razor-sharp talon-like claws digging into his wrist, slicing through the veins. Bright red blood flowed freely from the cuts.

'Blood for blood, flesh for flesh, enact our revenge, or meet your death.' They chanted. Each time they said it, the words seemed to echo louder and louder.

"No!" Lloyd shouted.

Everything was black again.

Kai knocked on the door frame, seeing Lloyd sitting up in bed, a headset over his hair, and the thick bandages that were wrapped over his eyes, and then Lloyd spoke, not knowing Kai was there.

"I don't know, CB. It felt real." He said. Kai could hear how shaken Lloyd sounded. "And I knew that I had—Don't tell me that it was just my mind coming up with things! HE was there! He was laughing at me!" Lloyd's voice jumped up an octave, sounding scared, and stressed. Kai knocked again on the door frame, leaning against it. Lloyd still didn't hear, and sighed. "CB, it's getting worse. The doctors…they don't know if the tea's going to keep working."

'What about the tea? Sensei said it was supposed to work!' Kai thought, straightening up, looking at Lloyd, slowly stepping into the room.

Lloyd was silent for a few minutes, nodding a little. "I-I don't know how—if—I'm going to tell the others…"

Kai realized that Lloyd was talking with his support group, and quickly walked out of the room, Nya looking up from her book as Kai went back into the waiting room.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nya, they don't think the tea's going to keep working." He said, the words coming out in a rush, just a single breath. "What if it does stop working? What'll happen to Lloyd?!"

"…You know what would happen, Kai." She said quietly, eyes downcast, hidden partially by her long bangs.

They both knew. Everyone knew. Lloyd might not know…but that was probably for the better.

None of them wanted to admit that it was a possibility though.

"So you said you're in the hospital again. What's the damage?" AI asked when she heard the news after she came online to the chat room. Lloyd could tell she was sick, but that was one of the best parts of the online support chat room. You could be sick, but you could still be there.

"Broken ankle." He said simply. His mom told him they gave him a green cast for it. "Are you sick, AI?"

"You should be resting if you are. We're here if you can't sleep, but if you don't feel up to it, you can always sign off, and come back on when you feel up to it…"

"CB, calm down. I'm a grown woman, and I can take care of myself. If I need to go, I'll let you and LG know. It's just a little bit of bronchitis, I get this every year. I've had it every year around this time since the third grade, CB. You're starting to sound like my mother." She said, laughing a little, her breath sounded raspy, and shallow, and Lloyd could hear her wheezing.

"Last time you had bronchitis, it turned into pneumonia, and you were in the hospital for weeks." CB reminded with a light, friendly tone.

Lloyd knew he was—once again—the youngest in the group. KK was close, being in his early twenties, AI was in the middle, around her early thirties, and CB was the oldest, but he hadn't said how old he was. Running his fingers over the scratchy, but very warm blanket over his lower half, Lloyd smiled.

At least, he tried to. The right side of his mouth cooperated, but the left stayed where it was. Slowly, Lloyd raised his hand to it, working hard to try to smile, but he couldn't. His fingers found the answer fast.

The ice had spread further, now coating his left cheek, freezing the muscles from curling up to make a smile.

"LG? Is something wrong? You just got really quiet…" AI pried calmly, her gruff, airy voice reaching his ears. Lloyd didn't answer her; he just sat there, fingers clawing at the ice, trying to pry it off his face.

"I-I have to go." He said, hitting the button his mother had told him would disconnect him from the group.

'It's spreading… but I'm still drinking the tea! Why is it spreading?!' He panicked, heart pounding. Ripping the headset off, Lloyd could hear the frantic, rapid beating of his heart through the heart monitor.

He felt cold. It wasn't just the cold he was used to, the external cold that resided in his fingers and toes and nose during the winter, but the kind of cold that sank deep into his bones, anchoring itself to his soul.

Something had to be wrong.