Chapter Text
Shinzo Village,
The heart of Hiroshi’s Labyrinth and home to the most beautiful waterfall in all of Ninjago, or so Kai had heard.
Currently, he was in the car, listening to his dad endlessly ramble on about this ghost town in Hiroshi’s Labyrinth, which the four of them would be staying at and turning into an official Historic Park of Ninjago over the summer months. Bummer.
In short, Kai was not looking forward to any of this. His parents had gone on many trips to historic sites throughout his childhood, Kai was very used to it by now, but they had never brought him and Nya along with them. Double bummer.
Ray and Maya were at the top of the Explorer’s Club and had been sent to Shinzo Village to make it visitable by tourists and other historians. Kai was fine with this, it was normal for them, it was their job, but why, oh why, did they have to bring him and Nya along? He certainly didn't know.
“Oh, I can’t wait for you guys to see the village, it’s going to be an experience for the history books! Pun intended!” Ray smiled from the passenger’s seat and Kai rolled his eyes and let out a sigh.
Nya looked over at him, “Come on Kai, it might be interesting.”
“We’re getting robbed of our summer! Why should I be looking forward to this?” Kai argued, not planning on changing his mind anytime soon.
“Dude, at least try to have some fun with it, maybe you’ll like it,” Nya suggested, but Kai still wasn’t buying it.
She just didn’t get it. Kai had friends back in Ignacia, friends who would miss him. Hopefully. Either way, he currently had no interest in some stupid run-down village, and he didn’t plan on gaining any.
His attention was brought back to the front when Ray started talking again, “By the way, there are some interns who are going to help us clean up and run the park this summer. They should be meeting us there,”
“Oh great,” Kai grumbled.
Maya spoke from the driver's seat, “Kai, they are right around your age, maybe you should try and make friends with them?” She sighed at the boy in the back seat, who was still irritated and pretending to ignore her.
Ten more minutes passed, this time in silence. Kai was too busy glaring out the window to notice what everyone else was doing. He just wanted to be back at home, playing video games and hanging out with his friends.
The time Kai spent looking out the window made him admit that, although he didn’t want to be here, the scenery was absolutely beautiful. It was late afternoon, so a glimpse of sunset was streaming through the wall of trees and moss, on top of that was a blanket of fog, perfectly encapsulating him in his little world.
Unfortunately, he was planning on helping his parents, despite how he was acting. Don't get it wrong, Kai absolutely did not want to be here, but he didn’t really have another choice. Nya was sort of right, this was going to take all summer, might as well try to have fun with it. Kai was still salty about it though.
“Welcome to the jungle, kids!” Ray practically yelled, with way too much energy for five pm. This outburst also broke Kai from his thoughts, forcing him to turn his attention to his parents as the car came to a stop.
While Kai and Nya gathered and put away some of their things, Ray and Maya got out of the car to have a quick look around.
“Oh! Those must be the interns, I’m glad they made it safely,” Maya pointed out two more cars that had pulled up not too far from their own. Kai groaned, he was not in the mood to meet new people right now.
Nya rolled her eyes at him and elbowed him in the side, “They probably aren't as bad as you think, stupid,” She muttered into Kai’s ear.
“You don’t know that,” He said back, lightly hitting her in the arm in retaliation.
Kai watched as his parents called the interns over to talk. Honestly, he didn't want any part in it, but despite his complaints, Nya had started dragging him over to them.
Okay, maybe Nya was right. Again. The interns didn’t seem too bad. There were three of them, all around Kai’s age. The first one to come up to him was Zane, the tallest of the three and the most formal, he almost sounded like a robot. Weird. He was nice though, so Kai let it slide.
Second was Jay, he was a little shorter than Kai and seemed way too excited to be there. He had curly, brown–almost reddish–hair, and there were freckles all over his face. Kai found him sort of annoying but he didn’t care too much. Although, Jay seemed to immediately take a liking to Nya, Which made him slightly less tolerable to Kai.
The last was Lloyd, who seemed to be the youngest, but was the most normal of the three. He also didn’t seem to be interested in small talk, which Kai was thankful for. One of the first things Kai noticed, was Lloyd’s bright green eyes. Like seriously, they were almost blinding. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but his point still stood.
A few minutes later, Ray called them all over to discuss what they were gonna do next. He blabbed about jobs and rules, but Kai wasn’t listening. Finally, Ray pointed at him, “And Kai, I want you to help your mother set up for dinner,” Kai let out an overdramatic groan, gaining a glare from his father in response.
Great, just great. All these abandoned buildings to explore and he has to set up for dinner. It’s like his father was out to get him or something.
Once everyone had been given their jobs, Kai reluctantly walked with his mother over to their car to grab supplies.
“Kai, go get the cooler from the back and bring it over to where the tents will be set up,” Maya told him. Kai shot back a quick “Alright” before walking to the trunk of the car, moving stuff around to get to the cooler.
Fifteen minutes later, they had a fire. Kai was setting up a few camping chairs while his mother was making food for everyone. Once he had everything set up, Kai sat down next to the fire. He loved fire, not in an arson kind of way, but he just found it so mesmerizing. He let himself get lost in his thoughts as he watched the fire dance back and forth, embers occasionally flying around.
Soon enough, everyone else started walking over to the fire, sitting down, and starting conversations. Maya handed out dinner, Kai thanked her, but he didn’t say anything else, still lost in the flames.
The rest of the night was a blur to Kai. Tents were set up, the fire was put out, and suddenly he was lying awake in his tent, the sounds of the night trying to swallow him alive. He sat up, blindly grabbing for his sweatshirt and a flashlight. As quietly as he could, Kai unzipped his tent, stepping outside into the darkness.
Walking out of sight from the tents, Kai flicked on his flashlight, feeling confident as ever to explore the town. FSM, he knew that he wasn’t going to get to sleep anytime soon, so might as well have some fun with it. By fun, he meant exploring the houses that he was told not to earlier.
Kai took a deep breath in, taking in the calm air of the forest. Maybe, just maybe, he could get used to this.
Finding his way to the first house he saw, Kai creaked open the decaying door. According to his father, the village hadn’t actually been abandoned for very long, well, in terms of things being abandoned at least.
Despite that, the old-looking wallpaper was slowly peeling from the walls of the small house, and Kai noticed that almost every space had plants growing out of it. Somehow, it was almost calming how nature had reclaimed the village.
After deciding that it was time to move on, Kai wandered around the village, examining every building with help from his flashlight and the moon. By the time he was finally getting tired, he had looked at a lot of the buildings, at least the outside of them. But it was now late in the night and Kai unfortunately had things to do the next day, so he started heading back to his tent.
Kai stopped in his tracks. A little rustle of the wind was normal but this was different, louder, closer. Shining his flashlight around, Kai decided that it was probably an animal. He was in a forest after all.
Then, coming from a small house beside him, Kai heard footsteps. Human footsteps. He went to investigate because at least if he was killed out here it would make for a good story.
Stepping into the little house, Kai shined his flashlight around, not knowing who or what he was looking for.
Then he heard someone. Not very loud, just a little “Hello?” from another part of the house. Kai didn’t know what to do. Does he go after the voice? They didn’t seem hostile. Or does he go back to his tent and pretend nothing happened?
FSM, who does he think he is? Kai sighed and walked towards the voice, eventually deciding to say something back.
“Show yourself. I’m not going to hurt you if you don’t hurt me,” He tried to sound confident, but in all honesty, Kai was scared.
Then Kai saw something emerge from the shadows just a few feet in front of him. Immediately upon seeing him, Kai let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding. It was just one of the interns, Lloyd, to be exact.
Lloyd seemed just as scared and surprised to see someone else out this late, and that made Kai feel a little better about feeling scared. At least he wasn’t the only one.
The shorter boy spoke after a few seconds of silence, “Sorry for scaring you, I couldn’t sleep and I wanted to explore a few more of the houses before heading to bed. I wasn’t really expecting to see anyone else,” Lloyd let out a small laugh, avoiding eye contact with Kai.
“Actually, I’m in the same boat,” Kai didn’t really know what else to say.
The two stood in silence for what felt like an eternity before Lloyd spoke up again, “Wait, I didn’t recognize you earlier, but I think we go to the same school. I swear I've seen you before.”
Now this caught Kai off guard. He wasn’t really one to pay attention to every single student, but surely he would've recognized the other boy, right? Wrong. It turns out, Lloyd was a year younger than him, which would–sort of–explain why Kai never saw him. And on top of that, Lloyd was only friends with the two other interns and didn’t really talk to anyone else.
A few minutes later, the two of them were sat on the floor of this old house, talking about school of all things. Kai was surprised, one; because he and Lloyd had more in common than he had originally thought, and two; Lloyd was surprisingly open to Kai about everything.
Not that Kai was complaining, it was nice to talk to someone new for once. Don't get him wrong, Kai liked talking to his friends and occasionally his family, but it was sort of refreshing getting to know someone new.
But this also meant that Nya was right for the third time that day. Not great, but Kai could let it slide. Eventually, the two wrapped up their conversation. It was probably really late by that point, but who cares, that was for later Kai to deal with.
Lloyd had talked about his parents and his horrible middle school experience, and oh boy was Kai ready to beat up some middle school kids from two years ago. That night, he made a silent vow to keep an eye on Lloyd for the rest of high school, that boy didn't deserve any more hurdles to be thrown at him, literally or figuratively.
Kai also realized that Nya was probably right for the fourth time today, as he might be starting to like this place. Then again, he was still going to be salty about it.
He yawned, quietly zipping up his tent and turning off his flashlight. As Kai drifted off to sleep, he could’ve sworn he heard someone outside, but through his drowsiness and his dad’s snoring, he wasn't sure.
Then again, this was a ghost town. There are bound to be ghosts.