Face Your Fears

Chapter 9

Lloyd laughed as his father threatened to ground him if he disappeared again. "It's not like I disappeared on purpose..." He chuckled

"I know, but you could've been hurt or, kidnapped, or killed, or-" Garmadon began to rant

"Dad. Dad I'm fine aren't I?"

Garmadon sighed and hugged his son. "I'm sorry, you worried me, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you'd been hurt..."

"I know how to control it now Dad, I'll be fine."

"You say that a lot Lloyd." Kai smirked as he came in the room. "Like before you left to check on the museum when you got possessed by Morro, a few minutes before you fell off your dragon when we were fighting The Hands of Time, that one time when we were fighting Py-"

"I get it Kai, half the time I'm wrong, but right now, I'm fine."

"I bet five bucks he'll be missing in the
morning..." Lloyd heard Jay whisper to Cole in the next room

"Ten bucks says that Oni'll show up during breakfast and try to take him." Cole whispered back

"You guys do I know I can hear you, right?" Lloyd asked

"Shoot!" Cole and Jay ran away

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Garmadon walked through the Bounty, looking for Lloyd. "Lloyd I swear if you got kidnapped I'm gonna ground you for a year...." Eventually he ran into Kai and Nya "Have either of you seen Lloyd?" Kai and Nya shook their heads no. "Where is he?" Garmadon wondered to himself, until he walked past the game room, which was filled with blankets. He looked at the blankets. "A, blanket fort?" He questioned. He poked his head through the blankets, and saw Lloyd, fast asleep in a pile of pillows with a mound of candy wrappers a few feet away. "There you are." Garmadon sighed in relief when he saw his sleeping son. Lloyd had an book sitting on a pillow a foot away. "And that's why Jack the Rabbit, never trusts a snake...." He read quietly. The book was old, and the pages were torn, the pictures on the pages were faded, it was hard to see the illustration of a yellow rabbit

"No..." Lloyd mumbled in his sleep. "No... Go away...."

Garmadon raised an eyebrow as Lloyd continued to say 'No' over, and over, and over again. Until the teen was practically yelling. "Lloyd, it's just a dream son."

Lloyd shot up, and yelled "Dad!" as tears dripped down his face. He looked at his father "Dad!" Lloyd hugged Garmadon as though he'd just witnessed something terrible. (He had)

"Lloyd, what's wrong? What happened?" Garmadon asked as the other Ninja poked their heads into the blanket fort

Lloyd continued to cry, soaking his father's shoulder. "T-That Oni, H-He-"

"The nightmares.... " Garmadon heard Kai mumble as the red Ninja crawled into the fort followed by his sister

"H-He ke-kept h-hurting yo-you a-and Ka-Kai, A-And N-Nya." Lloyd continued to hiccup as he cried

"Shhhh, it's okay Lloyd." Kai said calmly trying to calm Lloyd down

"A-And Jay, and C-Cole, an-and Unc-Uncle Wu." Tears dripped down onto the pile of pillows

"Lloyd, shhhh you're okay bud."

"H-He wou-wouldn't st-stop!"

Garmadon was surprised at how quickly Lloyd was calming down. How many times had this happen before? Why were Kai and Nya able to clam him down so easily. "It's okay Lloyd." Nya shushed kindly before mouthing to Cole 'Tissues.'

Kai patted Lloyd's back as the green clad teen cried onto Garmadon's shoulder. After about five minutes Lloyd, fell back asleep. Right when Cole came back with the tissues. "How long has this been happening?" Garmadon asked

Kai looked at Lloyd, then at Garmadon, "A while..." Kai replied "It started a few weeks before the Hands of Time first attacked. At first, he just avoided sleeping and would fall asleep eating candy on the kitchen floor. So it started a little over a year ago..."

Over a year. Lloyd had been having these nightmares for over a year. Garmadon looked at his sleeping son. His poor son. "What caused it?"

"We don't know, Zane thinks it was all the stuff that's happened to him..."

"Like Morro, and the Serpentine..." Cole mumbled as he set the tissues down. "He'll probably be crying again when he wakes up."