Hard stone. Stabbing vines. Damp air. Dust in his eyes. Grease in his hair. Flaking mud on his pants. No food in his stomach.

There were so many reasons as to why Lloyd could not sleep, but right now, none of those seemed quite right.

He was exhausted, that was for certain. He'd wandered for miles upon miles in those winding tunnels, desperately searching for an escape. When Lloyd finally found the exit, by pure chance, he'd nearly sobbed in joy.

So yeah, he was absolutely exhausted- but despite this, he still could not sleep.

Eyes heavy, he rolled staggeringly onto his side. Vine crunched under his shoulder, digging into his bicep. He reluctantly returns to laying on his back.

After escaping the tunnels, he'd returned to the room from before, the one thick with vines yet empty all the same. Admittedly, it wasn't Lloyds' brightest idea- deciding to sleep in the one room with the outrageously uncomfortable floor- but he'd made the decision for a good reason.

His father.

How could Lloyd face him again after the embarrassing little tantrum he threw? Yelling at his father and then storming off, what was he thinking? And so, in desperation to avoid his father out of pure shame, he'd tucked himself away in the corner of the closest room to him.

Sure, maybe it wasn't very wise to pick the one room that Garmadon knew the location of, but if anything it was ingenious! He'd suspect nothing.

If you could not already tell, Lloyd was going delirious with exhaustion.

So he lays there, defeated and too tired to move. He lays in wait for the sweet release of slumber to take hold of him.

It doesn't come.

So eventually, his mind wanders. It does that thing it does, when you're trying to sleep but you can't stop thinking. Whether it be something embarrassing you did as a kid, or something you wish you'd said as a response in an argument. His mind wanders.

His friends.

Lloyd missed his friends. They had only been apart for a few days, which was nothing compared to the five months he'd gone no-contact, but still. He guesses it was the circumstances that mattered.

Strangely enough, Starfarer drifts into his mind.

Starfarer... ever since he could remember, it was his favourite comic. As a kid, he'd read it under torchlight, under the covers in their shared bunk. He'd owned every copy, spare for the newest at the time of his... age up? Rapid puberty? After that, he'd been so caught up in being the green ninja that he'd refused to get back into Starfarer.

That didn't last long. Once his golden powers were taken from him, he'd very quickly gotten back into starfarer. Safe to say, Starfarer is a big comfort to him.

He feels cotton behind his eyes. It's working.

Wu.

The thought of him made Lloyds' face sour. But it also saddened him. Recently, his relationship with his uncle had deteriorated, becoming less uncle-nephew, even less master-student. It was as if they were like strangers.

Yet the thought also comforted him. Wu did not respect him. He was so single-minded and selfish, Lloyd is surprised he didn't realise it sooner. Countless times, Ninjago had nearly been destroyed due to Wu's actions. Aspheera, Morro and the Preeminent, even Garmadon had become evil due to Wu's actions. If some kind of dimension-ending catastrophe emerges in the future, Lloyd won't be too shocked when Wu utters "I haven't been completely honest with you."

A headache begins to form at his temple when a familiar name bombarded his thoughts.

Harumi.

For so long he'd spent his time scouring the earth for her. Every town, city, and ruin he'd flipped upside down to find her, and yet now he was here, stuck on the Dark Island with no way of getting back to his pointless search.

Despite himself, despite Wu, he still depended on her, and despite what he'd like to convince himself- that he had searched because he owed it to her- it just wasn't true. No, Lloyd was not looking for her out of sympathy. Nor out of empathy.

A bitter taste fills his mouth.

It's overwhelming, like rust on iron, and it ignites like flames of vigour.

Exhaustion eats away at his better mind, dissolving it into bitter resentment and "What if?" "Why not?"

Why were his friends not here to rescue him already? They had a flying airship for goodness sake, they could fly across the ocean at speeds unheard of! Why was it taking them so long to save them already? How much longer would it take? Hours? Days? Hunger was already biting his stomach, to last days longer was unheard of.

Wet crunching, the splatter of liquid, and the crushing of bones. The sick sounds invaded his mind at the thought of his hunger. The terrible crime no longer seemed as unreasonable.

Anything and everything flashes through his mind in a frenzy of churlish convictions.

A headache rings behind his eyes, angry and relentless as his frustration eats away at his sanity.

Screw everything , Lloyd realises. I can't sleep like this.

He presses a dirtied hand to the ground, shoving himself to stand with a huff. But as he takes a too-heavy step his knees buckle, hitting the floor. Ficus digs uncomfortably into his shins but he can't find it in himself to care. His head throbs like an earthquake, pounding behind his eyes in time to his heartbeat. His stomach, too, aches like never before, rumbling as if it was eating itself.

The pain sweeps through him all at once, shuddering and harsh as he collapses in on himself.

He wallows in self-pity until the pain subsides too quickly. Once he's sure his stomach is no longer eating itself, he pushes himself to stand again.

The familiar echo of his first constant rings like a ghost in his ears.

" I'd advise against that, Lloyd. "

A huff. "What? Like you have a say, you aren't even real."

As he mutters the condescending sentence, his headaches once more. Although far less violent, it still rocks him.

He thuds back down, sliding ungracefully against the wall.

" I'm just as real as you are. "

Lloyd huffs. "Okay, Mr ominous voice in my head ." His fingers find their way to his temple, rubbing in small circular motions. He winces. "I swear I wasn't this tired before..."

The silence eats away at him, bringing his attention to the muffled sound of thundering rain, still hammering down upon the outside walls of the tomb. If Lloyd strains his ears enough, he could hear the faintest sound of birds.

The voice still does not respond.

It feels ironic to him. That he was now seeking out the voice that used to pester him, coerce him into living his worst nightmare. Even more so ironic that he felt uncomfortable when it wasn't chatting away at his shoulder like a little devil.

Lloyd didn't just find it uncomfortable, however. He found it frustrating.

Everything seems to frustrate him now. Lloyd is changing.

Lloyd huffs again, something he appeared to do far too often since returning to the team. His hands fall from his temple, folding separately over his knees.

"Why is it that whenever I try to talk to you, you don't respond?"

The voice- gosh, he needs to give it a name or something - fades back to talking, an annoyed lilt to its voice, but something else lining the surface.

" I'm not here to entertain you, Lloyd. I'm not your advantage to keeping your sanity ." If it could, a smirk would be on its face, condescending and manipulative. It gets anything it wants, without Lloyd even realising that he's giving it everything it wants.

Lloyd, ever dense to its intentions, flails his hands as if talking to a real person. "Why are you here, then? What even are you? Just- leave if you're annoyed with me!"

" Should everyone do that? Leave when they're annoyed? "

"Well, I don't know!" His hands make their way back to his knees, clutching them. "If you stay it'd be terrible for both of us, but if you leave we'll have unresolved issues."

A hum. " So it depends on the situation? "

Lloyd just huffs a yes in response, not willing to engage any further.

" So in this situation, I should leave you? What about our unresolved issues? "

The boy refrains from closing his eyes. With his eyes open, it was easy to remind himself that he wasn't talking to a person. It was just an oddly real feeling figment of his imagination.

"We already have issues, why not have a few more?" Despite Lloyds' best efforts, the disembodied constant still felt like a person. Someone he should listen to, respond to when he knows he shouldn't.

A bark of laughter. " No, you have issues. "

Lloyd laughs back. "If I'm the one with issues, you're the one giving them to me."

" Why is that, Lloyd? Am I driving you crazy? "

Lloyd regrets even speaking. Whenever he spoke, he was just enabling that graining voice to invade his mind and continue to coerce him.

It does just that.

"I wonder what your father will think. Seeing you here, talking to yourself. In that case, you are crazy."

It hits a nerve. "I am not crazy."

" Then what are you? "

The prior thought hadn't even occurred to him. He'd raised his voice before, what if his father had heard him? What would he think? Hearing his only son yelling to himself, surely he'd assume the worst. That his son had gone insane in the short amount of time they'd been trapped on the dark island. In reality, he was "crazy" long before.

Frustrated with himself at the stupid voice, he slides down the wall impossibly further, until his head thuds against pitted leaves and latticed vines.

Green eyes grow heavy far swifter than before, and Lloyd feels himself drifting suddenly into sleep.

-

Sunlight.

It blares in from a too-high window, searing directly into the boys' sleep-crusted eyes. A weary hand moves to block the sunlight from his eyes. A sight escapes his throat as he is dragged into the conscious world.

Against his better judgement, he opens his eyes. Yellow warmth glares into his eyes. He squints, forcing his eyes to adjust to the sudden change.

Slowly, the world comes to him. The sound of birds, once so distant, now flurried outside, too cheerful for the place they found themselves in. Rain no longer thundered at the walls of the tomb. The air smelt dirty and damp, like mould. The lingering scent of metallic still irked at his nostrils, far less so than before.

His shoulder aches lightly as he rolls onto his back, the sun flicking from his face to the floor beside him.

A shuffle.

Vertigo pinches at his eyes as he whips his head in the direction of the noise. He's met with the sight of a figure coated in darkness, a stark difference from the cheery yellow light.

Oh gosh, Lloyd breathes a sigh of relief. It's just my father.

His head returns to its resting position against the ficus.

Then his breath hitches. Oh gosh, it's my father.

He presses his hand against the ground, wincing as the skin on his palm stings as he pressures himself to sit. Once he's upright, he folds his hand over his lap, glancing at the callouses that lined his palm. Each gouge of skin was red and dusted in dried mud. Dirt caked under his nails, his fingertips were raw at the edge. He clenches his hand, testing it out. It doesn't seem too bad.

Garmadons voice echoes firmly through the room. "You're awake now?"

His voice is hoarse. "Yeah. Hi." He nods, not bothering to glance in his direction, too transfixed on his hand.

They sit in the silence of the morning- afternoon? -neither individual opting to speak.

The air between them is biting, just like it used to be. Just like when his father joined them in the rebellion against the Crystal King, and just like it was years prior, when he'd joined the ninja during the rise of the Serpentine. They didn't know what to say to each other. What do they talk about as father and son who had hardly talked for the past 5 months?

But at least it's not the kind of awkwardness that bites at them after an argument. It's what he had been expecting- heck, it had kept him awake, but here they were. Their usual amount of awkwardness, stuck in a rundown tomb. Truly the life.

He pushes himself against the wall, leaning his head against it as he sighs the morning- once again, afternoon? -air into his lungs.

His father takes this as a cue.

"The ninja should be here soon. Maybe tomorrow, at the earliest. If I had to guess." Garmadon stands false laxly against the doorway, arms crossed stiffly over his chest.

" Look at him, trying to act natural, " The voice teases. " Must be hard for him to act paternal after being away for so many years. "

Shut it , Lloyd responds.

He takes what his father said into consideration. His team would be here soon, that was good. But...

"How will they know where to find us?" Lloyd speaks his mind. It's a fair question; how will the ninja know where to find the Tomb of Concentration? They'd never been here before, spare for Lloyd and Garmadon, but even then they had no way of telling where on the Dark Island they were.

His father leaves his spot at the wall, shuffling to move closer to his son. There, he ruffles through his pocket to pull out what looks like a tube.

He hands it to Lloyd. "The blue one gave me this. He said to use it when they get close, even if they are in the distance."

A calloused hand takes the tube, turning it over.

Oh , Lloyd realises. Smart .

On closer inspection, it's a thin metal tube with scrappily painted orange caps on one end. In the middle of the tube were some handwritten instructions on how to use it.

He feels his father's eyes on him, questioning, so he figures he should explain.

"It's a smoke flare," He says. He brandishes the flare out in front of him to make it more visible to his father, who watches with careful eyes. "Basically, when you pull this cap here-" he taps at the orange cap "- there's a knob that you need to pull out. When you do, orange smoke will come out." He holds it away from his body, reenacting with his other hand what the movements would look like. "It's visible from really far away, so they can find us by following the smoke."

Garmadon nods with a thoughtful hum.

Lloyd gestures for his father to take the flare back into his possession, but he denies it.

"You should hold on to it."

The boy pockets the flare.

"You say this flare releases smoke, yes" Garmadon inquires. Lloyd just nods. "Wouldn't the forest hide it?"

He makes a good point.

The Dark Island was dense with forestry, untouched by humans yet rich with wildlife. They were in the midst of jungle, shaded in by trees and invisible to the bird's eye view. There was no way their sparse amount of orange smoke would be visible from the height the bounty flew.

Which is why they need to compromise.

"We find somewhere high up and set off the flare."

-

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