A fire's shadow

The voice of a brother

Spacing back and forth in Shadow's room in the hospital, Kai was too lost in thoughts to notice any type of movement.

It had been seven days since the horrible news about Shadow and Kai was driving himself into depression, nothing the others did or said would make him start to take care of himself. He had only small portions of food and rarely slept and almost never left the hospital even though the bounty was currently parked on the hospital roof. He practically lived in Shadow's room and only left when the doctors need to check up on him or when he needed to eat or go to the bathroom, but he refused to leave for the nights and no one could convince him otherwise.

Shadow had broken his jaw, a few ribs, and his right leg, his wounds were all bandaged, and he had an ice-cold towel wrapped around his left shoulder. He was also connected to a heart monitor that beeped in sync with his heartbeat.

A lot of citizens and reporters had noticed the bounty on the hospital roof and had started asking a lot of questions that no one answered.

Shadow had shown almost no sign at all that he was even alive, the only sign was that his heart was still beating. Kai sat on the couch that was in Shadow's room and stared out into space, getting lost in his thoughts.

The door suddenly opened and Lloyd came into the room, without Kai's notice. The green ninja looked at the motionless ninja on the bed and then looked at the red ninja who was almost just as motionless.

Letting out a sigh he walked over to Kai and sat down next to him, wrapping his arms around the brunette who only now noticed Lloyd's presence.

"Hey, Lloyd....." Kai's voice was empty, trying to hide the pain deep in his heart.

Lloyd looked at him with sad forest green eyes, "Kai you can't keep hurting yourself like this. It's not helping anyone."

Kai stood up, removing Lloyd's arms, "I don't care about my health. I need to keep an eye on him.........I want to be here when he wakes up......."

Lloyd stood up as well and talked a bit louder, "Kai, he might never wake up and you know that."

"I know that if it was me then Shadow wouldn't have given up on me. So I'm not giving up on him."

"I never said I'm giving up on him, I'm just facing the fact that he might never wake up, that way it won't be as breaking if that turns out to be the case."

"He's stronger than to give up after this. He was weak when I found him and yet, he somehow made his whole body burst into flames and melted the vengstone chains the held him."

Lloyd stared at Kai with a surprised look, "Kai that's not possible. Vengstone blocks our powers, making it impossible to use them. There's no way he used them while chained up in them."

Closing his eyes in anger, Kai turned away from Lloyd and towards the window, "Well he did. And I'm not giving up on him."

Lloyd sighed, "Kai, a lot of people and reporters are asking questions. We can't hide his existence forever."

"I know that, but I refuse to tell them anything until he's okay."

"And what if he never wakes up?"

Kai hesitated, "Then we tell them nothing."

"Kai you aren't thinking straight! We can't keep leaving everyone in the dark like this! It isn't s-" 

Kai opened his now blood red eyes and turned his head to Lloyd, "Smart?! Is that what you were going to say!? Because in that case, I guess I am not smart but I know that Shadow wanted to stay a secret to Ninjago and as long as he hasn't said otherwise, I will not reveal that secret."