Ghost Story ► Ninjago [REWRITING]

| XIII | Unfortunate Victory

*No POV*

The Ninja had returned to the small room with the shelves, where the strange happenings first occurred. They were talking among themselves, and although scared out of their wits, they had remained strong.

Well, most of them.

"Alright... so there's no way out of the haunted temple—"

"Don't say that..." Scarlett tugged on the blue ninja's arm.

"—but at least all the commotion's died down."

"Yeah... we just gotta get through the night together," Kai added. "Show Yang we're not scared!"

"I'm sorry, but I'm absolutely terrified," she told him.

"Well, don't worry—you have the four of us with you," Jay assured her. "But I really didn't know you were such a big baby."

"Cole was just as afraid as I was."

And then the clock went off, making everyone scream.

"I- It's just a clock! We're not afraid of time!" Cole tried saying. "... but we are afraid of not getting out in time! Oh my god why did we spend the night in a haunted temple?"

"Everyone, get ahold of yourselves!" Zane hollered. "Even if my volume wasn't stuck, I'd still be yelling at this decibel!"

Cole then sighed, regaining his composure. "Zane's right. What are we doing? We need to toughen up—we're Ninja. We already missed out on Airjitzu the first time, we can't let this opportunity pass!"

As heartwarming as that was, Kai then blinked, his voice rising a bit. "Uh, guys...?"

He walked over to one of the frames in the room, finding an image with moving waters. "Are paintings supposed to move?"

And Jay made the mistake of knocking on it twice, real ocean water rushing to the floor.

"Why would you touch the scary picture, Jay?" Cole questioned.

"I didn't know it would do that, Cole!"

Kai backed up rapidly as the water touched his feet. It continued to run and quickly, to their misfortune.

Scarlett held onto Zane, her eyes widened. "What do we do now?"

When Kai ran for the door, he tried opening it, but it wouldn't budge. "It's locked!" He furiously tried to pry it open, but it couldn't.

"Oh no. Oh no, no, no..." Scarlett felt her head spinning, and she thought she was going to pass out at the water rapidly filling the room.

"As iron sharpens iron, sensei sharpens student!"

"Oh, great, back for round two!" Jay cried.

As Scarlett was much shorter than the other boys, the water was reaching her neck a lot faster. She tried taking deep breaths, but they were coming out ragged.

And Kai wasn't doing any better—he was actually hyperventilating. "Water... I'm afraid of water! We're all gonna drown!"

It had already gone to their heads. Jay and Zane were near a large piece of wood, holding on for dear life, while Cole was swimming over with a drenched Scarlett on his back. "Keep her here—Kai's probably freaking out underwater, too." Zane took her arm, keeping her level with the water while the earth ninja dipped his head back under.

"It's all in your head, Kai. He's trying to scare us out so we don't get Airjitzu!" Jay tried assuring him. But he was too far deep to even listen.