Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A moment ago, everything was wrong.

The sky was about to rip in two. The voices of the dead wailed in his ears as the wind threatened to tear his gi from his translucent body. His fists were still glowing orange from the new power he discovered mere moments ago, strong enough to shatter the Yin Blade but not enough to pull Yang away from the slowly closing rift above them.

“Cease this nonsense, boy!” Yang had screamed at him, desperately clawing at his arms to escape his embrace. “Don’t you realize your attempts are futile? Even if you win, your friends will never remember you!”

Cole had ignored him. He had not cared about the master’s words at the time, because they had not mattered. Whether Yang was right or not, it had not mattered; Cole had to stop him from coming back and releasing his evil to Ninjago.

They had fought. Cole remembered this. They had fought, the world had spun against their Airjitzu tornadoes, the sky had screeched along to the pulses of the rift, and in the final moments, up had become down and down had become up and everything was wrong and Yang was kicking and clawing and screaming and the world was falling apart and all Cole could think of was that if he let go, if he let go of the body thrashing against his own, everything would be lost.

That was a moment ago.

Right now, everything was still wrong – just in the opposite way.

There was no wind. There were no wails of the dead, no unearthly disharmony of the rift, no ghostly fingers digging into his flesh as they fought to be freed. Not even his hands were burning with strength anymore; even his headache was gone.

There was nothing.

He felt… nothing.

He couldn’t tell if the air was scorching hot or icy cold around him. He was vaguely convinced he was in a horizontal position, but it was hard to be certain when he couldn’t even tell where his limbs ended and the rest of the world began. He must’ve been lying on the ground. He couldn’t feel said ground beneath his back.

Everything was wrong, because there was nothing to be wrong.

Nothing.

Maybe not even he was there.

He took a deep breath. The motion had long lost its original functionality – he wasn’t sure if any air moved into his lungs with it. But despite its uselessness, he still found it grounding, to focus his body on one task instead of letting his form float about and let the currents dissolve it into nothing.

Desperate to get that image out of his head, he opened his eyes.

The sky above him was bright blue. Not black, not green, no moon, no rift. Just average sky blue, with a few white clouds painting its canvas. The sun was nearing its summit, or perhaps had just left it recently – it was impossible to tell.

He blinked a couple of times, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the brightness. In spite of its abundant normalcy, especially compared to the scene mere moments (minutes? Hours? Days?) ago, Cole couldn’t help but feel the sky was oddly empty, too. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

It didn’t matter. Whatever had happened, the universe still clearly existed around him, so the worst possible ending to the fiasco could be ruled out.

Which still leaves plenty of bad endings to pick from, he thought bitterly.

He lay-floated in place for a couple more moments, watching the clouds pass him by, and tried to remember what actually happened. Flashes of fights and struggling and escaping of his chains and even more fighting bubbled up in his teetering mind, but the closer he got to the present, the more confusing it got. He and Yang had both gotten into the Airjitzu tornado, Yang headed towards resurrection while Cole desperately trying to keep him from it, but…

What happened after?

And where was he?

The universe didn’t particularly feel like handing the answer to him, and so it was time for action. He gathered his energy and the edges of his form that were attempting to escape him, and after one last moment of consideration, forced himself to sit up.

It was surprisingly easy.

He should have been in pain. The instinctual part of him, the one that told him when to kick and when to run, knew that after this fight, he should have been in agony. Bruised ribs and cracked bones and missing teeth and perhaps blood dripping from unfortunate places – that’s how fights to death were supposed to go.

And yet, he felt none of that. No pain, no discomfort, no nothing.

Nothing.

That’s what he felt.

He hadn’t felt this untethered since-

He sucked in a sharp breath. He wrapped his arms around himself, forcing the negative thoughts out of his mind. His palms were neither soft nor warm against his shoulders. Just- there.

He was just- there.

He let his focus drift onto his surroundings. After the unsettlingly normal-looking sky, the weirdness around him comforted him almost. Everywhere he looked, objects of all kinds glinted in the sunlight, piled in several-meter-high hills atop the rocky ground. It almost reminded him of the junkyard Jay grew up in, except most of the things he saw couldn’t be classified as junk. A bottle of soda here, a bathroom mirror there, a hairbrush sticking out of the seat of a battered plush couch, a backpack littered with various pins hanging off of the handle of a mop or perhaps a broom sticking out of one of the piles. Stuff ranging from old to brand new, broken to pristine.

It was like someone broke into random people’s houses to steal the most random objects they could find and stockpile them up here.

He definitely was no longer at the Temple of Airjitzu anymore, that was for sure. He had no clue where he could be, though.

Maybe I accidentally went through the rift and this is what’s on the other side? The question made him glance around paranoidly, as if expecting Yang to pop out from the mini fridge a few steps away and start assaulting him. That, thankfully, did not come to pass, and Cole was left in his unanswered confusion.

He sat around a little more, trying to rack his brain for memories of Master Wu talking about a place where junk of all kind collected. When nothing came to him – his mind feeling empty and clouded, just like the sky above -, he realized, resigned, that if he wanted answers, he would have to look for them.

He groaned, more out of habit than actual annoyance. It wasn’t like the fight had actually exhausted him, after all. He still closed his eyes and pretended to gather his remaining energy before finally rolling to his feet and coming to a stand.

He felt light. Lighter than even before. He was not even standing, but rather floating, mere inches above the ground, forcing his feet into the rough, rocky surface to anchor himself to the earth. Knowing that the moment he stopped would be the moment he ceased to exist in this mortal realm.

“This is stupid,” he said out loud. “I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just- a little lost, that’s all.”

And it was true. Sure, he just went through something that he was probably going to have nightmares about for weeks, and he had been feeling a lot less in control of his own self for a while now, a feeling amplified to the max ever since entering Ninjago Museum of History- but it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

He was fine. He had to be.

He began walking, focusing on keeping his form solid. Focusing on how the earth felt beneath his feet, how the air parted around him as he moved through it, around his very physical, very present, form. He was there. He was present.

He was real.

He shuddered and almost tripped as he accidentally walked through a coat hanger sticking out of a nearby junkpile. The feeling knotted his guts and for a moment, he was back at the museum, warning his friends about the coming danger, only for them to look past him, to walk through him, plain ignoring everything he had to say.

“Focus, Cole,” he chided himself. “Be aware of your surroundings. That’s like, ninja 101.”

After all, how could he defend himself against dangerous enemies, if a simple coat hanger could surprise him?

The thought drove his attention back to his surroundings. As he continued his trek, the scenery refused to change, only its specific details. The contents were as varied as before – a box filled with rolls of toilet paper, an abandoned doll with hand-sewn clothes, rows of colorful lights wrapped around a paper mache pillar painted wooden brown – but none of them gave him any clues to his whereabouts.

He kept going. Surely, sooner or later, he would run into something, or maybe even someone, who could provide him answers.

Surely.

He just had to keep going.

Doing so was a lot more arduous work than he originally expected. The rising and falling terrain, combined with the occasional rusty scooters and empty coolers thrown in his path, made navigating around the mounds rather difficult. Whoever was collecting the junk into piles was not doing a very good job at it.

Whoever – or whatever. Judging by the sheer amount of things around him, and the time it would take for anyone to drag it all into one place like this, Cole very much had to consider the option that everything he saw was not put here by man, but by some force of nature. It wouldn’t have been the strangest thing he had seen in his life. He was a strange force of nature himself, after all, being a ghost and whatnot.

Occasionally though, he ended up on a path that seemed a lot clearer than the rest. No more broken office chairs and scattered boxes of paper in his way. Even the rocks seemed to have been cleaned to make for a better track. Every time, he got excited that finally he found some sign of life, only to deflate with disappointment again when the path led nowhere and he found himself fighting through the mess again. Clearly, whatever random chance scattered the junk around the terrain could accidentally leave some spots empty as well.

He didn't let go of hope, though. He just needed to have patience and endurance. And to climb over and crawl under a lot of junk.

He could’ve, of course, used his ghostly ability of phasing through physical objects to progress faster. He could’ve cut down corners and saved a lot of time. He could’ve chosen his own path, ignoring the boundaries set by the physical world, as if he was a lost spirit no longer belonging to the mortal realm, still in search of its unfinished business but no longer remembering why…

No. He was a ninja with a duty: to find his way home, to find his friends and protect them. And besides, choosing shortcuts like this could never lead to a good outcome. After all, who could know what could be under the topmost layer of the junkpiles? Maybe some of them held unopened water bottles or half-filled glasses or even just tiny cracks collecting the morning dew within. That would not be fun to walk into blindly.

And so, he discarded the idea. Wandering around like a lost human it remained.

Time passed him by unnoticeably as he explored. Without hunger or thirst or exhaustion, his only marker was the sun above his head. Once he was certain which direction the sun would be setting, he decided to keep heading north, a choice as good as any from what he could tell. For all he knew, north didn’t even have any tangible meaning in this confusing place. Still, he watched as the shadows slowly crept their way further and further towards his right, until the sun began nearing the horizon.

Soon, darkness would be cast upon the landscape, and Cole had a choice to make. It was a choice he made nearly every night since becoming a ghost.

Should he stay awake for the night, or should he try to force himself to sleep?

Normally, back on the Bounty, he liked going to bed with the others. It was like any other bonding activity they did together – eating, training, gaming or movie sessions. Sure, it took a while to get used to the fact that he essentially had to force himself to pass out, but he did get used to it. He figured it out, and it was like nothing had changed.

Missions were a different question, though. He didn’t need sleep, not like the others. Even Zane needed a break every now and then, but Cole? He could go on forever without as much as a small pause. And when it came to missions, that ability was something he had to use to its fullest – to stay awake and watch over his friends, or to keep planning even while the others took their well-deserved rest.

It was what a good team leader did. Well, technically, no longer the team leader, but still. A good teammate, definitely.

And right now, he was on a mission. A mission to figure out where he was and how to get out. Which meant, there was no time for stopping and rest. He had to keep going and cover as much ground as he could, figure out as much as he could in as little time as possible.

Decision made, he began looking for a way to light his way forward in the increasing darkness. He almost immediately came across a box of matches – luck seemed to be on his side. He had hoped for a flashlight with its more direct and brighter light, but with the sun having nearly already set, it was easier to gather whatever could be safely used as torches and light those up instead. By the time his surroundings were greener from his own glow than orange from the sky’s, he had already found himself a wooden stool, a picket fence panel, and two easels that must’ve been taken from the same art studio.

Gathering his newfound possessions, he settled down on a clearing between the piles, and began breaking the wood up into more stick-like shapes. As he did, the sun finally vanished behind the horizon, and so he was forced to sacrifice bits to make a small fire already, to see while he worked.

It didn’t take him long to finish. Once done, he found himself staring at his small fire, taking its flickering light in blankly, unwilling to move from his spot. Unable to break his gaze from the flames.

He couldn’t feel its warmth, no matter how close he scooted to it.

He picked up a stick and poked the kindling mindlessly, pretending he was doing something useful and not just wasting time. No longer focused on the goal ahead, his mind began to wander aimlessly, remembering once again everything that went down before he ended up here.

He wondered if his friends were okay. He recalled Yang rambling something about sending old enemies after them, enemies brought back from the grave thanks to the Yin-Yang eclipse, although at the time he couldn’t spare much thought to those rants. Surely, they had to be fine, though. Right? They were all trained and skilled ninja, who have already defeated those enemies before. They could handle themselves.

Of course, that still left Yang. With his friends busy with their resurrected foes, Yang was left unchallenged. Left to go forth with whatever evil scheme he was planning, with nobody to stop him. If only Cole hadn’t been such a failure and actually did his job as a ninja-

No. He had to stop thinking like that. For one, he didn’t even know if Yang’s plan to come back to life was or was not successful. For all he knew, Yang might’ve also ended up in this strange land, just perhaps another location, and now it was only a matter of time till they clashed again. Or maybe Cole was the one to be sucked in by the rift, and Yang stayed back in the temple, forever bound by the ancient curse to haunt it.

And even if he did escape – the rest of the ninja would be ready. They would already know something was up, and once they defeated Yang’s minions, they would find Yang too and kick his ass. It’s what they did best. Cole was sure they would succeed, because they always did. Heck, they probably already did, and were now putting all their efforts into finding Cole and bringing him home.

Yeah. The others were all right. They were on their way to him. He just had to wait for them to arrive.

Yang’s words echoed in his mind like a warning- like a premonition. Nobody’s coming for you. They all forgot about you – you don’t even exist to them. You’re all alone.

His free hand squeezed his other upper arm. It had seemed like groundless taunting back then. Just another villain monologue, of how his team didn’t care about him, how he was going to lose, blah blah blah, trying to bring his spirit down. He had learnt to pay no mind to those. It was a waste of time to even consider the validity of the words, when he knew villains would say anything so long as it gave them the upper hand.

But now, looking back on everything that happened – could Yang have been right? He still remembered how difficult it was to drive his own vehicle on their way to the museum, how his hands slipped through the controls like air. How his friends didn’t seem to hear his words, how their eyes just slid off him even as he practically danced with anxiety in front of them to warn them of the coming danger.

How, just like Yang had said, they didn’t come to help him.

But that made sense. They were busy with their own fights. They didn’t even know where he was, because no matter how hard he tried- no matter how hard he tried to tell them-

His fingers dug hard into his skin, but he couldn’t feel a thing. He didn’t even notice it over his memories of previous weeks resurfacing. Details he missed or ignored were suddenly clicking into place. All those times when the others started dinner without him, or didn’t invite him to join their gaming sessions, or paired up for training and left him out. All this time, he thought they were trying to be supportive of him, the best they knew – not forcing activities onto him that he would no longer have use for as a ghost, not wanting to put him through training when he didn’t yet have a grasp on his form, but-

What if that wasn’t the case? What if the reason the others forgot to invite him was just because of that- because they forgot? Because they forgot he was there, they forgot to involve him, they forgot he existed?

His control on his panic slipped, just like the controls of his vehicle slipped out of his hands just a couple hours (days? weeks?) ago.

What if it wasn’t just them? What if Yang was right, and Cole really was slowly fading? Fading away, slowly becoming invisible and intangible, until nobody could see him and nobody could touch him and nobody even knew he existed?

Would he even exist, if nobody knew?

The stick cluttered to the ground, and the noise snapped him back to reality.

He stared at the wood, then at his hand that held it just a moment ago. His fingers flexed in the air, as if trying to grasp something that wasn’t there- that was no longer there. He felt more unstable than ever.

He reached to pick the stick up again. His fingertips slipped right through the splintering wood. He tried again, and his heart leaped at the feeling of phasing through the solid material.

He cursed under his breath. He already learnt once how to control his solidity, why was he struggling with it again? Nothing happened to explain it, because Yang was wrong, he was fine, he should have been fine, he wasn’t fading or being forgotten, he was here and present and alive-

Calm down, Cole. You can do it. You just need to focus.

He shook his head. He needed- he needed a distraction. Something to ground him, something to stop these thoughts from constantly occupying his mind. He considered following his original plan and continuing his way forward, but the idea of wandering around with no specific direction or goal in mind sent an uncomfortable shudder down his spine. No, he needed something more than a distraction. He needed his thoughts to shut down – completely.

So, sleep.

He groaned.

He never was good with falling asleep on an upset head, not even when he had been still alive, and that ability has only worsened since- well. But willing himself to sleep was still a better option than letting these emotions fester. Plus, it would help clear out his head and give him a new perspective on things, maybe even new ideas on how to proceed.

Sleep was obviously the superior option.

And so, despite already dreading the countless minutes it would take for him to properly pass out, he lay down on the ground. For once he was glad for his inability to feel the harsh rocks under his back. He closed his eyes, and prepared to employ the most ancient technique for falling asleep known to mankind.

Counting sheep.

Chapter Text

Cole woke to the feeling of being watched.

His first idea was to keep pretending to be asleep in hopes of luring his stalker closer, until he realized that a sleeping ghost was probably significantly more suspicious than an awake one. Without the lingering feeling of sleepiness, getting up was thankfully easy, and soon he clambered to his feet. He began acting his routine morning stretches, an old habit he refused to drop even after it stopped serving a purpose.

He tried to appear as unsuspecting as possible. With every casual movement, he scanned his surroundings, looking for the source of the feeling. He covered up his attention with an empty, uninterested expression.

There. Right in the corner of his vision, something shifted. It was hard to make out without looking at it directly, but it definitely had the silhouette of a person. As he rolled his head, pretending to work out a kink from his neck, he could even catch the glint of eyes.

Someone was definitely watching him.

His heart leaped, but strangely enough, not with fear. With excitement, almost.

Finally, someone else to talk to. Someone to answer his questions, directly or indirectly.

Sleep was indeed the superior choice.

He crouched down next to the remains of his fire, pretending to inspect the ashes, waiting for the stalker to make their move. He grabbed one of his sticks and poked the ashes, testing its strength for a combat situation. He even hummed while he “worked”.

The stalker shifted again, now almost completely out of the protection of the junk pile they chose as their hiding spot. They began slowly approaching, constantly sticking to the shadows.

Cole waited patiently.

“Um, hel-“

He leaped at the stalker. With a single swift move he swept their feet and knocked them to the ground, earning a yelp from his enemy. He placed a foot on their chest, a bit harsher than intended, and pointed the sharp end of his stick towards their throat.

“Who are y-“

“Please don’t eat my soul!”

Cole froze. “I- what?”

“Please!” The stranger trembled under Cole’s foot. “It’s probably gristly and disgusting and filled with all kinds of negative emotions so it’s probably very unhealthy for you anyway!”

Cole kept staring, mouth hanging open. “I- you- what?”

“Look, I can- I’m sure we can find something else that you would like around here! I can help look, I know this land inside and out, just name it and I will find it for you! Just don’t eat my soul, please!”

Cole remembered he should be blinking, so he blinked while he gathered his bearings again. “Why would I want to eat your soul?”

It was the stranger’s turn to look confused. “Because you’re a ghost? And that’s what ghosts do?”

The statement stung, but Cole snorted regardless. “Ghosts don’t eat souls, dummy. Ghosts don’t need to eat anything, not really. That’s kind of the whole point of, you know, being dead.”

They didn’t seem convinced. “But, if you didn’t attack me to eat my soul, then why…?”

“Because you were trying to sneak up on me and attack me?” Seriously, who does this guy think he is?

Well, not just who, but what? In his haste to get the upper hand, Cole didn’t really stop to take a good look at his enemy. Now that he finally had the chance to do so, he could tell they were definitely not human.

Humanoid, yes. Their two arms and two legs spread out around their round body from the force of Cole knocking them to the ground. Their expression was rather easy to read, too, a very human mix of fear and uncertainty.

But their general shape was where the similarities ended. Their skin was a bright purple, their elongated ears twitched at every noise, and their bottom canines protruded from their mouth. Their hands were laid upon the ground as a sign of peace, and just like their barren feet, ended in nails that resembled claws. Their tail flicked nervously next to them, the black tuft on its end matching in both texture and color to their unkempt mess of a hair.

Their grey top and black pants seemed to have been fished directly from the junk piles.

Their golden-yellow eyes widened in shock at Cole’s comment. “What? No! I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you or anything! I was- I saw you were asleep, and I didn’t want to spook you by waking you, but I knew I couldn’t just leave you behind. So I waited for you to wake up by yourself, and when you did, I…” He trailed off, then let out a guilty sigh. “Yeah, I suppose I did sneak up on you a little. But- but it was an accident, I swear! I wasn’t planning to attack you or hurt you! I just thought you should have someone to show you around, you know? Someone who knows this place well. And, well, I know this place, so.”

Cole studied them. Even if they weren’t telling the truth, or the full truth, the terror in their eyes seemed genuine. And their story made sense – why would you wait for someone to wake up if you wanted to hurt them? Sure, they might’ve arrived at the same exact time Cole woke, and maybe that’s why they opted for the sneak attack, but… Cole chose to believe them. If they were telling the truth, this was his best bet at figuring out a way back home. And if they did turn out to be evil…

His grip tightened on his improvised spear.

He could always defeat them rather easily.

Besides, didn’t Master Wu always say that the best way to defeat an enemy was to make them your friend?

He resisted making one last suspicious squint. “I… see.” He stepped away from the guy, pulling back his spear-stick. “In that case, I- I’m sorry about all that. I had a rather long day before arriving here. I guess I’m still a little jumpy.”

He stood awkwardly. Not many opportunities to make friends after a first impression like that. With no other ideas, he reached out a hand. “I’m Cole, by the way.”

The stranger hesitated for a moment, before taking Cole’s offer and letting themself be pulled to their feet. “It’s nice to meet you, Cole. I'm uh, I'm- Geo.” They paused uncertainly, before adding, “and I go by he.”

“Oh, yeah, same here,” Cole responded. The pause after the name and the extra comment raised a gnawing suspicion in him, but he decided not to bring it up.

Instead, he flashed a warm smile, and thankfully, Geo returned it. They stood like that for a moment, smiling at each other and holding each other’s hand in a weird handshake, before they both snapped out of it and pulled back.

“So,” Geo said. “What brings you here? It’s not exactly usual to get visitors around here.”

Around where? Cole wanted to ask. He wanted to ask many things. But as burning as his desire to get explanations was, immediately revealing his lack of knowledge would have been risky. Geo already knew he was new around here. The less Cole let on, the better.

Or maybe he was just getting paranoid.

He shrugged. “Oh you know, nothing much. Just- average ghost ninja business, I guess.”

Geo stared at him, unblinking. He studied Cole from top to bottom, trying to be discrete and failing miserably, mouth slightly open with a question resting on his tongue. He considered for several long moments, before he finally asked. “So, you mean… dying?”

Cole stared back. Then his mistake clicked, and he winced in embarrassment. “No, wait, that’s not- ugh. Okay. Let me try to explain.” He didn’t really want to, but being a ghost was hardly a fact people looked past without an explanation. He took a deep breath. “Technically, I didn’t die. I became a ghost as a result of a curse. So yeah, I am technically dead, but I didn’t like, die. I just- got cursed a little. Yeah.”

Even if all sensation slowly getting ripped out of his body and being replaced with unbeatable numbness did feel like dying. Even if the feeling of fire consuming his skin and flesh at an agonizingly slow pace still haunted him to this day, with no new memories of touch to fill the hole it burnt in him.

He swallowed down his shudder. His smile must’ve been a lot less convincing than he assumed, because Geo’s slightly horrified expression did not falter.

“That’s messed up,” he said flatly.

Cole couldn’t help but snort again. “Yeah, bit of an understatement. But don’t worry, I’m fine. It’s- it’s been a while.”

He could tell that only raised even more questions in Geo, and was glad when the other didn’t press further. “And that’s how you ended up here? Getting cursed sent you here?”

“No, not really, but, well- kind of.” Cole scratched the back of his head. “It’s kind of a long story, actually. We might be here for a while if I started laying it all out.”

This finally brought the smile back to Geo’s face, the grin wide enough to showcase his surprisingly sharp teeth. “Oh, that’s alright. We’ll have plenty of time for that while we get back to the Rookery.”

“The what now?” Cole raised an eyebrow, but Geo already turned his back to him as he started making his way between the mounds of junk.

“The Rookery! You didn’t think I would come all this way for you, just to leave you here in the middle of nowhere, did you?”

Oh, right. That made sense. Geo did say he knew every corner of this land, it made sense he would bring Cole first to some familiar, more recognizable location. Maybe the Rookery was some kind of gathering point, where Geo met up with his community and the people who inhabited this place. Despite the anxiety of having no answers just yet, Cole already felt excited to be introduced to this new culture.

Assuming they were as friendly and welcoming as Geo has been thus far, that is.

“Of course not,” he replied. “Show me the way.”

He followed Geo closely, watching him climb over and between the piles with great expertise. The fluidity of his movements seemed almost impossible with his stocky frame, and yet Cole quickly found himself having to hurry and even employ some of his ninja training to keep up with him.

“So!” Geo said enthusiastically. “As you were saying.”

“Right. Right.” Cole barely had time to gather his thoughts before he had to leap after Geo again. “As I was saying. Me and a couple friends of mine went to this- haunted place, another long story, and I got cursed.”

“But that’s not how you got here.”

“Nope.” Cole took a breath as he recalled the events from the day before. He could feel Geo’s gaze on him.

He ignored it. He was too busy trying to come up with a story that made sense, but also didn’t reveal everything about him. After all, as nice and defeatable as Geo seemed, Cole didn’t know much about him. For all he knew, this was all a ploy set up by Yang, to distract him from the actual threat, or to get secrets out of him. Or maybe Geo was the lackey of a completely different villain, someone who might not have even heard of the ninja’s existence, but would have loved to take their powers for their own benefit.

No, he needed to be careful with what he told Geo.

“But then,” he continued, “one day, me and my friends went to visit this museum, right? It was the opening day – erm, night – of one of the exhibits, and the curator invited us to go check it out. So, obviously, we had to go.”

“Obviously,” Geo nodded along, though for some reason Cole got the feeling that he didn’t actually understand a single thing of what he was hearing.

Cole shook the feeling off. “The exhibit itself was about all the bad guys we’ve faced in the past – including the guy responsible for my curse. Naturally, I went to check that one out first-“

“Wait, ‘all the bad guys you’ve faced in the past’?” Geo echoed him. “You make it sound like that’s a regular occurrence for you. Facing bad guys, I mean.”

Cole bit his lip. Had he said too much?

“Yeah, it- well, sort of. We’re a kind of- hero team, in the place I come from. It’s not that big of a deal though. We usually just fight low-life criminals who try to rob banks or act annoying towards kind grandmas.”

Only half the truth.

“Sounds like a pretty big deal to me. You’re like- the protectors of your people!”

“Yeah, basically.” Cole really wanted to steer the conversation away from the topic, before he let something slip that he really shouldn’t. “But, as I was saying. I go to check out this painting made of the guy, it’s very dark and spooky, and I guess I was a bit tired after a long day because I started talking to the painting. Crazy right? Except,” he paused for dramatic effect, “then the painting started talking back to me.”

He took pride in Geo’s appropriately shocked gasp.

“I know, right? Honestly I thought I was hearing things. Being tired and all. But nope – apparently, whatever spell cursed me could also be used to reach me, even from afar. I obviously couldn’t ignore that kind of call, so I followed it all the way back to the tem- the haunted place.” His voice wavered. “The master of the house was already waiting for me.”

He felt it again, that frustrating weakness that crawled up on him every time he was forced to think about Yang. He knew it was stupid to be afraid of the old ghost, so long after their first meeting that had gone wrong – and yet, he never could shake that weakness from himself.

He hated it.

He took a deep breath, evening his voice. “The rest of it was just stereotypical bad guy confrontation. You know, evil monologue, you cannot hope to win, you’re cursed to die alone, blah blah, evil convoluted magic spells and ghost ninja attacking you. I admit, it was pretty spooky, I wasn’t sure I’d make it at first, but- bad guys like him tend to have their barks worse than their bite. I would’ve gotten him, had it not been for the final, very explosive spell which, long story short, is what I think sent me here.”

There, picture painted. Just a run-of-the-mill street hero who got caught up in the business of the wrong people. Not a skilled ninja who frequently stopped world-ending disasters with his elemental powers. He hoped that by skipping over the details of Yang’s spells, Geo would assume he knew little about supernatural forces, let alone use a special kind of it himself.

Though judging by Geo’s furrowed brows, he wasn’t sure how well he sold the image.

“…so, that’s basically it,” he concluded. “After that weird explosion, everything’s kind of blank. It’s like everything was bright and then- I was here, in this place.”

Geo seemed to be going through the process of wanting to ask a question, deciding not to, and opting for a different one, several times. “What about your friends, though?” was the one he finally picked. “Didn’t they come to help you out?”

“They couldn’t,” Cole shook his head. “Turns out part of my bad guy’s plan was a spell that had the rest of the team be occupied with other bad guys, so that they can’t come and save me. He was pretty proud of that part of the plan, he could barely keep himself contained when he monologued it at me.”

Seriously, what was it with bad guys always feeling the need to reveal their plans before they defeated their enemies? Cole never could understand it.

“That’s-“ The terror in Geo’s voice was unmistakable. “That’s horrifying! You went through all of that, and all on your own? I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to even go near a haunted place like that, and especially not alone.”

Cole shifted uncomfortably. He shrugged. “Like I said, my friends were kind of busy with their own villains. It’s why we’re a team – so that we’re able to take care of multiple threats at once.”

He kept climbing forward, pointedly, but stopped when he heard Geo wasn’t following him. He turned back, and shot Geo an impatient glance. “What? Aren’t you coming?”

Geo’s expression was a mix of sympathy, understanding, and some kind of deep pain Cole didn’t quite understand and yet still could relate to. It sent a sharp pang into his chest.

“Are you sure that’s the only reason they didn’t come with you?”

Cole held his gaze for a very long second.

“Yes,” he said confidently. “Why would I think anything else? They are my friends. They would never leave my side – not without good reason.”

He folded his arms defiantly, and waited until Geo started slowly moving again.

“It’s true that I don’t know your friends,” Geo began, “definitely not as well as you do. But, and forgive me for my mistake if I’m wrong, but… from your description, I get the feeling that there might be more under the surface than what you’re saying is happening.”

Cole huffed. “Well, there isn’t.”

Geo’s expression didn’t waver.

“And if you don’t believe me,” Cole continued, “they’ll prove you wrong when they come for me to take me home, because that’s what friends do when one of them mysteriously goes missing.”

His words came out sharp, but he didn’t care. He had been prepared to let go of the prospect of friendship between the two of them at a moment’s notice, but he had expected it to be on the grounds of misaligned personal values, and not Geo being the type to make quick assumptions and jump to fast conclusions. What did he know about Cole’s friends, his team, his family, when he never even met them? When he’d known Cole for less than an hour by this point?

Nothing. He knew nothing, because he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there for any of it, the hundreds of times they helped Cole and the times Cole helped them.

He wasn’t there when his friends abandoned him in the museum.

Geo paused, again, and Cole groaned loudly this time. “Are you serious right now?”

“Cole.”

Cole rolled his eyes, but stopped and turned, again. “What.”

“You really don’t know what this place is, do you?”

Cole opened his mouth for a witty comeback, but could come up with nothing. “Well- no.”

Geo’s small smile was filled with so much pity Cole had the sudden irresistible urge to wipe it off his face.

“We’re in the Land of Lost Things, Cole.”

Cole blinked. Stared. Blinked again. “Come again?”

Geo sighed, patiently. “The Land of Lost Things. It’s where everything that gets lost or forgotten ends up at. You know, like that one sock that you can never find, or that pencil you drop to the floor and then it goes missing forever, or a jar of orange mold that you put on the highest shelf in your pantry and then completely forget about. Everything that gets forgotten – it all comes here in the end. That’s why you can never find them again.”

Cole took a step back unconsciously.

He could relate to all that, of course. Well maybe not the orange mold one specifically, but he wasn’t one to judge cultural differences. But the sheer concept seemed – absurd. The idea that all those things, everything that got lost and forgotten, didn’t just end up in some unreachable corner or unnoticeable location, but a designated space? It had to be wrong. There was no multiversal vacuum that could pick up objects on the nondescript criteria of them being “lost” or “forgotten”. He wanted answers, yes, but this was nonsense.

He looked around. Around the piles surrounding the two of them, the many, many pieces of junk contained within them. All shapes and sizes, old and new, from the universal tools to the completely useless. Anything you could imagine.

Anything one could potentially lose or forget about.

Against his will, even Cole had to admit: it wouldn’t have been the craziest concept he’d come across in his life.

“And let me guess,” Cole said, throat tight, “you and your people are the guardians of this land, right? You live your lives, collecting- whatever’s worth collecting, making sure things go right. And when you find a person, someone like me, who ends up among the junk, you take them back to your- wherever you live, so that you can guide them back home.”

Geo remained silent for a moment, and it squeezed Cole’s throat even tighter. “Right?”

“I wish it was like that. Your guesses seem a lot more fun than what my life actually looks like.” Geo’s sad laugh sent an invisible knife directly into Cole’s chest. “Unfortunately, they’re only that. Guesses. No, I’m no guardian of this place. I ended up here the same way everything else did.”

Cole found it hard to breathe. He didn’t want to hear the story. He didn’t want to know whether he would relate.

“I’m a Munce with the coloring of a Geckle,” Geo explained, the words meaningless to Cole. “The two tribes used to be peaceful, but that was a long, long time ago. Ever since I was a young kid, they’ve hated each other’s guts like nothing else. Someone like me? I didn’t fit in anywhere.”

Cole wanted to say something, anything, anything to comfort Geo, almost on reflex, but the words were trapped in his closed-up throat.

“Needless to say, it wasn’t the best of circumstances to live in,” Geo continued as casually as if talking about the weather. “After a while, I just- couldn’t take it anymore. So, I left. I ran away, and after a couple of days, found myself here. I guess nobody really missed my presence back home.” He chuckled again. “That has been a few months ago. So, as you can tell, there’s no tribe of keepers or guardians here to guide you home. Heck, you’re pretty much the first person I’ve seen here! It’s- it’s why I was so excited to meet you and talk to you.”

Geo approached, slow and careful like approaching a scared animal. Cole felt like a scared animal.

“Cole,” he said gently. “I- I know this is difficult to hear and- trust me, I get being upset about it. But anything that ends up here, never leaves this land. Ever. Things, people, we’re all trapped here. Your- your friends aren’t coming to rescue you.”

Cole shook his head, continuing to back away. “No, no that’s-“ he wheezed, trying to breathe. “That’s- that’s not true. They’re- they’re coming. They’re my friends.”

“I know it’s hard to believe otherwise,” Geo repeated kindly. “But try to think about it rationally. You said your friends didn’t come with you because they were busy with the other bad guys, but- you yourself only heard about those from the villain monologue, right? You left for that haunted place before you learnt about the other part of the plan – before your friends became busy themselves. Otherwise, you would’ve stayed to help them. But then, why wouldn’t they come with you?”

Cole squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to cover his ears too, to shut out Geo’s speculation. He wasn’t sure what was worse – if Geo got things wrong, or if he got them right.

“At first I assumed you were coming from the same circumstances as me,” Geo continued mercilessly. “Your friends didn’t join you, even though you asked, or you didn’t even ask, because you knew they would say no. But that was wrong of me, wasn’t it? You know your friends care about you. Or at least, you want to believe they do. But something changed. Maybe something about that whole ‘cursed to die alone’ thing you mentioned. Something happened, and they let you leave alone.”

Cole clutched his chest, the light fabric of his gi, as if trying to tear out the knife lodged between his ribs. “S-stop. It’s- it’s not like that.”

“Please, Cole.” Geo was in arm’s reach now. “I know it hurts. I really, really do. But you need to face what happened, really happened, before you slip too deep into denial. First Master knows that’s a hard pit to climb out of.”

Cole choked on his own breath. He didn’t even have the ability to choke anymore.

He wasn’t alive. He wasn’t real. He wasn’t-

“Stop,” he begged. “Stop.”

He barely noticed Geo’s hands inching to find his own. “It’s okay, Cole. It sucks now but- it will feel better in time. It will be okay. And I’ll be here to make sure it really does. You don’t have to face this all by yourself. Not anymore.”

Geo’s fingers reached to wrap around Cole’s fisted hands. Instead, the warm flesh slipped through Cole’s form like air – because he wasn’t there, he wasn’t real, he wasn’t- he wasn’t- - his too-sharp claws digging into Cole and tickling his lungs.

The knife in Cole’s chest twisted violently.

Geo pulled back immediately. “Crap, I didn’t mean to-“

Cole tore himself away, far too late. “I’m not like you,” he croaked. His throat burned, his tongue heavy and numb in his mouth. “I’m not- I’m not forgotten or lost I’m- I-“

He looked around again frantically, as if trying to find some kind of exit hidden between the broken and forgotten items. Dizziness was taking over him.

“I’m- I’m going home,” he finished, trying to convince himself as much as he was convincing Geo. “I’ll find a way out, and then I’m going home.”

Geo lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Cole, but I’ve already tried. There’s a- fog, surrounding the land, that doesn’t let you leave. Every time I tried, I would keep running into it, and when I came out, I was right back where I started.”

Cole’s vision was fogging up too. Dark and green and a slightly bit orange, like the rays of the rising sun shining through the entrance of a ghost-infested temple.

“I’m not like you,” he breathed. “I’m not- I’m not trapped here.”

His next step back missed the ground and he stumbled, the movement odd to his half-solid feet. Geo reached towards him reflexively. “Cole, wait-“

But Cole wasn’t listening. He turned, away from the voice, away from those lies, and ran.

He ran, as fast as his legs could carry him. His feet kept getting caught in rocks and he kept running into mounds of junk but it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t trapped, he still had time, he could still leave, the walls were closing in around him and the green apparitions watching him struggle becoming more and more frequent, but he still had time. He could do this. He wasn’t trapped- wasn’t going to be trapped- not again.

Jutting out edges cut into his shoulders, his torso, his head, but that couldn’t halt him. The never-ending numbness was already creeping into his veins, replacing the bruises and the pain with the discomfort of a physical object meeting a metaphysical being. It only helped to fuel his panic and make him run faster.

He ran, but he couldn’t outrun the words yelled after him. “It’s pointless!” the words rang. Your attempts are futile, the words said in Yang’s voice, your friends have already forgotten you. You no longer exist, your friends don’t remember you, your family doesn’t remember you, your people do not remember you. You are not real at all.

Cole cried out, as if it could somehow drown out the voice. But Yang was unrelenting.

You’re just a lost little ghost, with nowhere left to go.

He stopped suddenly.

The world cleared around him, like waking from a particularly straining nightmare. The scenery was the same as before – hills of trash on red rocky ground. In front of him-

For once, change.

Not a significant one, but noticeable enough to bring hope. Light, milky white fog swirled between the valleys and through the holes and crannies of the junkpiles, muting the jarring colors. It emanated a mystical energy, simultaneously beckoning and keeping Cole away.

“Cole, hold- hold up!”

Geo’s voice grated against Cole’s ears like sandpaper.

“Phew! Wow, you’re a lot faster than you look,” Geo panted. He stood next to Cole, leaning forward and on his knees as he rested. “I almost thought I lost you.”

Cole didn’t like fog. Fog was made of water, and fog always meant humid air, and humid air was really, really bad for ghosts. He hated fog.

“So,” Geo said once his breathing evened out, “what are you going to do now? Because you could go in there, but I don’t think-“

Cole threw himself forward without a moment of hesitation.

The ache started out slow, a light tinge of heat against his skin. He ignored it, just like he ignored how the edges blurred in front of him. A little pain couldn’t stop him. If anything, it helped him stay on track.

He kept going. The terrain grew whiter around him, the fog thicker, denser with each and every step. The white burnt bright, hotter and hotter as if he was walking directly into the sun, the searing hot pain crawling its way through his clothes and into his flesh, his organs, his bones.

Like poisonous gases filling a room, the fog enclosed him and slowly began to suffocate him. Flames engulfed his lungs and so he held his breath, until he couldn’t remember he needed to breathe, and his eyes were sparking with the unstoppable fire so he squeezed them shut, useless as they were in the now pure white world. The heat and pressure threatened to melt his skin and leave him in a puddle on the ground.

He kept going. The pain couldn’t stop him. It was like an anchor in a place where every solid object turned to air at his touch. A feeling he couldn’t ignore and shut away. A feeling that reminded him: he was still alive. He was still real.

He was so close. He was burning up like wood in a fireplace, but he was so close. He knew it. Just one more step. Just one foot in front of the other. One more step and he was out of this place, away from everything it was and everything it represented, away from the very idea that he’s been hiding from since leaving Yang’s temple on that fateful morning.

One more step.

The agonizing weight was ripped off his shoulders, and he fell forward. He hovered mid-air for a moment, gravity unable to decide if it wanted to claim him, until he once again forced his feet to connect with the ground. He refused to open his eyes, the awful heat still lingering, but he reminded himself to take a fresh breath.

He made it.

Geo was wrong. Yang was wrong.

He was free.

“…Cole?”

His eyes snapped open.

Geo’s hands wrapped around his chest in self-comfort, his tail circled his legs. Behind him, the Land of Lost Things stretched.

It’s futile, Yang said.

“I’m sorry,” Geo said.

The ground tilted from beneath Cole’s feet, and he landed on his knees. The impact should’ve hurt him.

It didn’t.

“It’s- it’s alright, Cole.” Geo’s voice shook. “I’m here. You’re not alone.”

The ringing in Cole’s ears blurred the words together. He couldn’t breathe. His body didn’t want to. Didn’t need to.

Nobody is coming for you.

Yang’s voice was clear.

Your friends already forgot about you.