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They were loud.
They were so, so loud.
Gasping, he’d leap up from his bed, feeling his heart as it attempted to escape his chest, beating at unmeasurable speed. Each breath would be shaky, his body unable to adjust to the shock and pain he’d been overcome with at that moment.
His eyes would struggle to merge in with the daylight, stinging and burning as he blinked and struggled to shift into a more comfortable position. Nothing was comfortable. Body feeling out of place, he would quickly try to shake off the foreign feeling, closing his eyes and counting down from ten repeatedly.
Then, they’d start talking to him.
Every night, and every morning, it happened the exact same way. His routine was never off - the unnatural awakening causing his sleep to lack and his body to become weakened. It was decaying him, chipping pieces of his confidence and security away until eventually he began to lash out at others.
A loud screech sounded through the monastery, shaking everybody onto their feet. Lloyd cried out angrily, emerging from his room with heavy footsteps. As he entered the courtyard, he caught sight of Jay and Cole, who were clearly struggling to move a large box into the building.
Usually, Lloyd’s mind would automatically stride to assist them, but today, it urged him to do the opposite.
They disturbed your mediation.
Denounce them.
Lloyd stormed towards the duo, fists clenched in anger as they noticed his approach. Slowly, they placed the box down, panting from the effort.
“Hey, Lloyd!” Jay exclaimed, raising a hand as Cole made a similar motion, both ninja smiling politely. “Could you lend us a hand?”
Lloyd rolled his eyes, grunting at the question that seemed extremely out of hand to him. “No! Can you keep it down?!”
Jay deadpanned. “What?”
“I said, keep it down!” He crossed his arms. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”
Within seconds, Lloyd turned around, staggering back into the monastery after shooting both boys with a serious glare. Jay shivered at the eye contact.
“Geez,” Cole squinted his eyes in confusion, “Who pissed him off?”
Lloyd never shouted. He never condemned his teammates for messing up nor got mad at them for something out of their control. But, when they started to tell him to react, he struggled to fight against it. Not even minutes after he would get annoyed, he would return to a suffocating feeling of guilt, despite the fact he had no control over how he felt at that time.
The demanding, imperative voices would command him to be rude. Over something that usually he would shrug at, he would soon growl and shout about. Mixing with his conscious thoughts, the voices quickly began to merge, and Lloyd struggled to decipher the difference between what was real, and what wasn’t.
Naturally, his team picked up on it, sharing worried looks at every interaction where Lloyd was unnecessarily mad. It had come out of nowhere. To them, the blonde had absolutely no reason as to why he was so hostile. Nothing had happened since the Crystal King events to get him so provoked, and the fact it was so sudden made them completely confused.
Adding to the futility of their attempts to get answers, Lloyd also never mentioned his weird mood swings. If anything, it was almost as if he ignored them, acting like it never happened only a short while after he’d make the indignant remarks.
For a while, it stayed just like that. Lloyd remained rather oblivious to his declining state, and therefore, the ninja did too.
Eventually, to his demise, it started to get more violent .
Nya flew to the ground, accepting Jay’s supportive hand gratefully as she rose, brushing herself off. “I should train more, I’m getting kinda stiff.”
“No you’re not, Nya!” Lloyd laughed, watching her smile. “We all have off days.”
Kai smirked at his remark. “I, personally, never have off days.”
“Oh, yeah? Wanna prove that?”
“You’re on, green machine.” Kai braced himself to take Nya’s place in the sparring court - which was literally a chalk drawn rectangle that Jay made when he was bored.
Chuckling to himself, Lloyd followed suit happily, entering the sparring court with the older boy. Almost naturally, he assumed his form into a fighting position, something he was very much used to by now.
The team had done this together hundreds of times at this point, and Lloyd knew where his limitations had to reach like the back of his hand.
However, the voices had never been this loud before.
Lloyd brushed them off, watching contently as Kai began to run towards him. Blocking the hits and kicks, he threw a few towards the ninja himself, resulting in pained grunts from Kai as the fight continued.
At one point, Kai accidentally threw a nasty punch at Lloyd, and impulsively he retaliated with the same level of aggression.
Kai quickly cried out in pain, but Lloyd didn’t stop.
They didn’t let him stop.
Hurt him.
Make him beg for mercy.
Kill him.
Unable to ignore these commands, Lloyd’s eyes turned a threatening purple, committing to the instructions he was given.
At one point, Lloyd stood firmly on the ground, but the next thing he knew, he was on the floor. Straddling Kai, he continued to throw aggravated attacks towards him, not pulling his punches in the slightest. The limitations he once knew were smudged and rusted, leaving Lloyd unable to decipher when or how to stop.
After whole minutes of worried shouts and pained cries, Cole ran towards the blonde, tackling him off Kai and causing him to roll across the ground. Almost immediately, Lloyd gasped in shock, watching the ninja crowd around the injured boy and dismiss the attacker thoroughly.
He’d almost killed him.
You know you wanted to.
He’d lost control.
You loved it.
He was a monster.
This is who you are, Lloyd.
“No!” Lloyd exhaled, scrambling off the ground and sprinting away from the group. Nobody noticed him go, too invested in Kai’s wellbeing to see him rush by. “Leave me alone!”
You can’t get rid of me, Lloyd. I am part of you.
“No, you’re not! I’m a good person!”
You really think that?
“Yes!” Rushing into the monastery, Lloyd found the first bathroom he could, locking the door with haste and almost collapsing into the sink. Gripping the edges, he struggled to look into the mirror, but once he did, he saw it. “What-”
Your eyes are purple, just like your father’s.
“I am not my father!”
You’re allowing the evil to consume you, just like your father did.
“Stop it!” Shooting his fist forward, Lloyd didn’t even realise what he just did until he noticed the blood pouring down his hand, shattered pieces of mirror embedded within it. “Leave me alone, please!”
Only you can make me do that.
Lloyd froze, watching his blood pile onto the ground. Slowly, he turned his attention towards the cabinet on the wall, staring at it warily.
You know what to do.
Raising his uninjured arm, he opened the cabinet with ease, eyeing every item within it.
Grab it.
He didn’t move.
Grab it, Lloyd.
Reaching out for a small, plastic container, Lloyd didn’t even have to read the label, his body moving as if it knew where to go. He opened it numbly, his mind completely empty and lacking any defence for what his actions may lead to. Discarding the contents into his palm, a few dozen small, colourful pills landed onto his hand.
Dinner time.
Lloyd closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, before giving in. Every pill piling onto his palm flew into his mouth as he clasped his hand to his face, swallowing strongly.
Intense, distressed shouts emerged from outside of the bathroom as the inhabitants banged on the door. To Lloyd, the room was shaking, despite the only moving item in the room being the door itself. He ignored the shouts, as if he could even form words to reply anyway.
He felt like throwing up, but at the same time, also felt extraordinarily elated. Sliding to the ground just as the door of the bathroom swung open, his eyes clamped shut, body giving into the intrusion as he lay limp - utterly lifeless.
You were weaker than I thought.