Original - The 17th Realm (The Maniac Trilogy - Book 1)

3 - One's Mysteries

NYA'S POV

I woke up way earlier than Lloyd. He was still fast asleep. I'm pretty sure it's almost midday. I sat up and turned to look at him. He seemed to be having a bad dream. I stood up and walked towards him to see if he's alright.

He suddenly woke up and sat up instantly, "NO!" He tucked his ears and screamed as if there was a loud noise for a moment. His screams echoed through the forest like cries of agony. I hated seeing him like this. He calmed down as I rubbed his back, comforting him. I let him take a few deep breaths before I asked him if he's okay but he didn't give a reply. He pulled his knees to his chest and a tear rolled down his cheek. He dropped his head and cried. I tried comforting him by saying that it's fine now when it clearly wasn't. I'm not good at handling these type of situations, especially when I don't know what's wrong!

"It's just a dream, okay?" I tried reassuring him.

"A-A bad one. It just f-felt so real..." he choked out between sobs.

I sighed, "If you tell me what's wrong, maybe I could help."

"You wouldn't understand!!" he shouted. Lloyd stood up and walked off. I obviously followed him. I don't want either of us to be left alone. 

"Okay, maybe I won't understand... but you have to let it out of your chest sometime. In your own time but sometime. I can help-"

"No you can't!" he snapped, turning to me with tears in his eyes. "You can't turn back time, can you?! Just leave me alone." He sat down on a log, facing away from me. At least I now know that it's to do with the past. The question is what was it from the past that was bothering him this much?

"We have to look for the rest." I tried changing the subject.

He rubbed his eyes and sniffed. He stood up and started walking, his head facing down. I followed him deeper into the woods. He looked up.

"This way," he murmured. I looked down to see footprints. My eyes widened but I didn't want to seem too excited because he was upset about something. I just simply replied with, "We must be close."

Not long later, we heard people calling our names. We couldn't tell where they were coming from though... We decided to just go straight and then we saw them in the distance. We ran up to them and we gave each other a huge hug. Lloyd still looked miserable.

"You okay, buddy?" Cole asked.

"I'm fine," he snapped. Cole and I exchanged glances as I shrugged. Zane was doing something to PIXAL behind the others and then screwed the back of her head back on.

"Enod," Zane stated. I raised an eyebrow.

"He's speaking backwards," Jay explained. I nodded in realisation.

"What happened?" PIXAL groaned, rubbing her head.

"Ay, PIXAL! You're back to normal!" Kai exclaimed.

"What happened to her?" I asked.

"Long story short, she went cuckoo. So did Zane," Jay explained as PIXAL fixed Zane's talking problem.

"We have to find our way to the monastery as soon as possible!" Master Wu reminded.

We started walking south. We eventually got to the coast. But there was a problem. We didn't have a boat that would take us across the sea. We could see the monastery on the horizon.

Lloyd was still distracted by that bad dream. I frowned in worry. We all collected logs and we tied them together with the vines hanging from the trees. And so we took off in our raft. It was quite a long journey. I used my powers to speed up while the rest paddled. For a long journey, it went by relatively quickly. Once we got to the monastery, we rested. In fact, we went to sleep since it was so late.

It was really early in the morning when we heard a scream. Everyone woke up and searched the monastery for anything suspicious. In the living room, the scroll room, the kitchen, nothing. We thought we were imagining things until we ended up in Lloyd's bedroom. He was sat up in his bed all traumatised, pale and in a pool of sweat, staring right ahead.

"What happened?" Zane questioned.

"Are you okay, Lloyd?" Kai asked. 

"WHAT DO YOU THINK??" Lloyd walked out and slammed the door behind him when exiting the room. I sighed and followed him.

"Let me handle this," I said as I followed Lloyd who walked outside, through the gate and sat on the stairs, crying. I sat next to him.

"Go away," he mumbled

"You've been hiding it for long enough. You have to tell me what's wrong. The sooner you get it out of your chest, the better." He sighed and calmed down a bit. He wiped his tears and sighed.

"Don't tell anyone. I'm only telling you because I can trust you to keep a secret. I mean, you can tell Cole but that's it." I nodded and he took a deep breath.

"Harumi," he whispered.

To be honest, I didn't expect that to be the answer. I thought it would be something along the lines of "my dad" or something.

"What about her?"

"Everything..." he paused. "I don't think she was ever really evil. Before she resurrected my father, she seemed like such a kind and caring person. I actually found a person I loved..."

There was silence. I never knew he still had feelings for her... Especially after what she did to us. Including the crystal king stuff. But this made no sense. That was years ago. She's on our side, no?

"What about the nightmares?"

"Almost every night I have a nightmare of her trying to kill me. It feels so real... The other day I had a nightmare that I was in the cave where the last Oni mask was and she threw a knife at me. In real life, I caught it but in the dream I didn't."

I didn't know what to say.

"In another she was saying stuff like 'our blood is in your hands' and 'you did this to us' and there was shrieking and whispering in my ear and..." he paused. "My father was there too..."

I didn't understand he felt like that. I felt stupid.

"You know the building that fell? The one Harumi was standing on? If I could turn back time I would've made sure that never happened, or at least looked for her for longer. I had that weird rush down my spine and a feeling in my heart telling me that even then she wasn't evil anymore."

Everyone thought of her as a traitor. Lloyd believed that she was a good person. Maybe because he spent more time with her than us. I frowned slightly as he looked away slightly and watched the sunrise gleam in his eyes. He then smiled lightly.

"Gee, I actually feel kinda better... thanks Nya."

For the next few days he actually acted himself again. I was glad.

PIXAL rebuilt the bounty with me and Zane, or most of it. It didn't take long considering the amount of times it crashed.

After a week though, problems came...

I don't think there was anything different about this and the original apart from adding some details about Crystalized lol. What are your thoughts so far?? Have you got any theories or anything? I'm super interested. I hope you're enjoying the fanfic so far!!!