Saving This For Later :3 Will Reblog With Thoughts

Saving this for later :3 will reblog with thoughts

Heyo folks, ready to have your hearts SHATTERED???

I wrote this to make people cry I hope you enjoy it : D I am so hype for monstrosity I can't wait for June 1st

Kai Focused

🚫No Ship Present🚫

Phantom Tags: angst so much angst, depiction of panic attacks, mention of hunted food being cooked

“Ugh, this sucks!” 

Sparks crackled through the dry shrubs Kai had just added to their little campfire, the flames burning a couple inches higher and illuminating the faces of the group around him. Everyone looked exhausted, faces pale and muddy and clothes torn. They had been hit by some kind of freak storm, rain pouring down on them in buckets. And because being soaked to the bone and nearly freezing in the night cold wasn’t enough, something had torn through the curtain of rain and attacked them. 

Now they were all soaked, shivering, and injured. No one had come out unscathed. 

Jay inched a little closer to the flames, rubbing his hands together and sighing dramatically. “This is just great. Trapped in the wilderness, no shower, no video games??” 

“No food.” Cole echoed, his legs splayed out in front of him. He had a hand on his stomach, and a longing look on his face. “What I wouldn’t give for a bowl of Chen’s noodles right now…” 

“Do you think of anything besides food?” Nya asked, tightening a bandage on Jay’s arm. “We’re trapped in a cave in the wilderness, and all you can think about is Chen’s Noodles??” 

“Whaaat? They’re good!” He said defensively, eyeing the tiny ball of mystery meat Kai had put over the flames. The mass of meat that had been some kind of rabbit sluffed off a bit of something, which dropped into the flames with a wet sound. Cole grimaced, shaking his head. “Better than whatever that is…”

“How are we all supposed to share that?” Jay complained, gesturing to it with both hands. “It’s tiny!”

“We’ll all take small bites.” Lloyd said patiently, rubbing his arms as he glanced at the mouth of the cave. They’d covered it with a false door made of leaves, but anything with any real power or senses would probably sniff them out regardless. He shook his head, turning his eyes back to the flames. “Any food is better than no food. I’m sure something will come along soon.” 

“Cole isn’t allowed any bites.” Jay humphed, resting his chin on his knees. 

“Hey! I need to eat too!” Cole sat up straighter, scowling at him. “That’s not fair.” 

“You’ll eat the whole thing! I’ve seen you take smaller bites than that thing has in it!” 

“Oh, real nice, Jay! I know how to share, I’m not gonna-“ 

“Cut it out!” Kai’s voice echoed through the small space, hushing all of them. 

The shout had been too loud… something had definitely heard. 

For a minute, they all cowered and held their breath, listening for any sign that their position had been given away. There was the crackling of the fire, the pattering of rain on stone outside the entrance, the almost peaceful sound of the water hitting the leaves on their shield, and… nothing else. 

When nothing happened, everyone relaxed. 

“There is no need to worry.” Zane said, his voice low and calming. “Everyone will have a fair share. There is no need to save any for me, so the rest of you can take what you need.” 

“I’ll hunt something else later.” Kai promised, turning the meat over the fire. A bit of grease dripped off it, sparking the flames and making them jump. “I promise. It’s just… not everything out here is edible.” 

“You’re doing your best, Kai.” Nya said, still sitting at Jay’s side. He glanced at her through the flames, wrapping his arms around himself tighter. He wanted her to cross over to his side, wanted some comfort. More than anything, he wanted to feel her wrap her arms around him and squeeze. Nya always gave good hugs… but she couldn’t do that for him now. 

He had to be strong, had to put on a good face for the rest of them. He knew the most about this place, and he had to be on guard at all times if there was going to be any escape from it. 

“We need to think about what we know so far.” Lloyd started, sitting up a little straighter. “This land, whatever it is… we need to think about all the information we have, then decide how to proceed. It’ll work out better if we have a plan before we leave this cave.” 

Kai scoffed, eyes focused on the fire. He stuck his hand into it, turning over the leaves and twigs. “What kind of plan can we have? I know the most about this place and I still don’t know much. There’s monsters every ten feet…”

“Let us bring together all of the information we have learned so far.” Zane suggested. “We know that the land we are in is vast, perhaps triple the size of Ninjsgo city by my estimations.”

“Can you tell exactly?” Lloyd asked. 

“Unfortunately, I cannot.” Zane’s head dipped as he shook it. “There is some kind of strong magical interference here, not to mention the cloud cover blocking the horizon. I cannot say how far we are from anything in these conditions…” 

“So, it’s big.” Cole concluded. “And it’s full of monsters.”

“Monsters that want to eat us.” Jay added, rubbing his wounded arm. Nya put a hand on his shoulder, scooting a little closer to him. 

“We’ve seen how dangerous they can be. The last one nearly killed Kai…” 

Across the fire, Kai rubbed a matching wound on his own arm, one he’d patched up himself while Nya was taking care of Jay. He sat up a little straighter, boosting the fire under the food with his powers again. “I’m fine. But Jay is right. The creatures in this realm are dangerous. More than anywhere else we’ve been before…”

“We have to be more careful.” Lloyd agreed. “We wouldn’t want to end up being some monster’s lunch.” 

Cole groaned, leaning back against the cave wall. “Man… lunch sounds so good right now. I’d love to go to that all-you-can-eat sushi place downtown. Unlimited noodles, two dollar potsticker plates-“ 

“Ugh, Cole! Stop it. My stomach hurts enough as it is.” Kai complained, running his hand through his hair and grabbing a fistful. “There’s been barely anything edible around for days! I don’t want to think about food.” 

“Sorry.” Cole sounded exhausted and apologetic, crossing his arms loose over his chest. “Can’t help it…” 

“At least I’m not defenseless.” Kai held up his hand, igniting all five fingers. The flames danced across them nimbly, jumping the spaces between and eagerly lighting the space around his face. His flames seemed brighter here, almost glittering even in the darkness of the cave. “I haven’t been in a lot of places where using my powers felt like this. It’s… weird.” He closed his hand, extinguishing the flames and looking back at the others. “But good. If I had to do this without my powers…” his voice trailed off, and he shut his mouth quickly. Better not jinx an already bad situation.

“We’re all counting on you, Kai.” Nya said, her expression more serious than he’d ever seen before. Kai looked over, meeting her eyes across the fire. “We need your help to make it back. You’re stronger here. You can make it.” 

He nodded, his lips set in a firm line. He didn’t need to tell her that he wasn’t really feeling stronger here. Not after that last fight. 

“It’s going to be alright.” Lloyd agreed. “What’s important is that we stay together. We’ll find a way to get home.” 

“Will we?” Jay put his arm around Nya, his eyes reflecting the flames as he stared blankly into their hopeless future. “Home seems so far away. What if we never get back…?”

“We will.” Kai assured them, hugging his legs to his chest. “I swear. I’m going to get home. We all will.” 

There was a sound outside the cave, a roar that ripped through the sky and shook the ground. The cave trembled, the fire dimmed, and Kai covered his head with his arms. 

It sounded like chaos, like a violent death made audible pouring from a monsters’s throat. The fear it instilled in him was almost instinctual. He wasn’t scared, it was more than that. 

Before this, he’d never understood what kind of a coward would choose flight over fight. To him, there was no situation too far gone. No matter what, he would keep pushing forward. 

But this sound… these things screamed their terror right into his bones. The sound made his muscles tense, as if his legs might start running for him. His stomach turned, and he had the sudden heart wrenching feeling that whatever was outside, it was going to kill him. He had no chance of fighting it. Not in a million years…

Kai gripped his sleeves as the roaring continued. He could hear the thumping of something a hundred times bigger than him stomping by their cave. Each footstep seemed to shake the earth in slow motion. Kai grabbed the ground, crawling into a corner not visible from the entrance and curling up tight. His heart was practically in his throat, the beating resonating in his ears as it became harder and harder to breathe. His chest heaved against the bandages wrapped around it, a fresh wound going sticky and hot with blood from the disruption. Kai’s knuckles were white on his shirt sleeves, his vision restricted to his own lap, and even then, only when he could manage to see through his blurred vision. That sound, even as it faded away, practically bore down on him. 

‘Stay down’ it seemed to be saying. ‘There is no victory for you here’

When the sound stopped, Kai stayed curled into a tight ball for what felt like an hour. He couldn’t get his arms and legs to stop shaking, and for some reason, they didn’t seem to want to unwrap from around him either. When he finally fought the urge to cower and pried himself free of his own limbs, he noticed that his face was wet. He licked his lips, and tasted something salty. 

His blurred vision hadn’t just been from disorientation. 

Kai took a trembling breath, then another, then another. With the cave floor cooling his knees, the master of fire slowly brought himself back to his senses. His lungs stopped burning, his heart quieted down. After ten minutes or so, he wiped his face and shakily crawled back over to the fire.

The stick holding his food had fallen into the flames. When he grabbed the end of it, it was scalding hot. It didn’t hurt him at all, actually more than anything he found the prickling heat grounding, and focused on it as he dragged himself back to reality. He took a bite of the food and chewed, wiping the extra grease from his mouth with his sleeve. He had to stop shaking. He had to focus. For them. 

He looked up across the fire at the empty space in the cave. The dimming flames illuminated the five chalk scrawlings he’d made. They were crude renditions, with lopsided heads and mismatched limbs, all staring back at him in a ghostly white. Even so, in the twisting firelight, he swore he almost saw them move. 

“I’ll get out of here. I’ll get home.” He promised, his words unconvincingly weak from the panic he was still shaking off. “I swear, I’ll make it back to you. Whatever it takes.”