In the peaceful town of Royal Woods, the sun was slowly rising as many people were still asleep on this fine morning—except for one boy named Lincoln Loud, who woke up due to a sharp pain that ran through his head.
Lincoln is a scrawny, white-haired 11-year-old boy with azure-colored eyes, chipped buck teeth, and three freckles on each cheek, as well as a permanent cowlick on top of his head.
Rubbing his head, Lincoln faced the audience as he spoke, "Morning, everybody. It's been a while since we last talked. I've been busy these last few days. Having 10 sisters to deal with is very stressful, and lately I've been having this really bad headache that just won't go away," Lincoln said as he continued to try to soothe his throbbing head.
"Now, you might be thinking, 'Why haven't you told your family about it?'" Lincoln replied. "Well, that's because of my sisters. Don't get me wrong—I love my sisters. But they can get a bit out of hand."
Lincoln remembers the last time his sisters tried to help—with him wrapped up in bandages on the couch, them spilling hot soup on his crotch, and ending it off with him being electrocuted by a defibrillator—and that was just for a paper cut.
"Nope. I am not going to tell. I prefer to stay alive, thank you very much. And when I tried to tell Mom and Dad, they barely have time to make for me when they have to juggle 10 other kids. It's better to get this day over with. Besides, how bad could today be?" Lincoln said as he walked out of his room.
A few hours later
It was now turning night as Lincoln entered his room looking devastated and tired, closing the door behind him.
"'How bad could today be?'" Lincoln said sarcastically. "Today was a complete disaster. My 6-year-old sisters, Lola and Lana, are twins—but that is all they have in common. Lola is a pageant queen, loves to wear dresses, and hates anything dirty. Lana is the exact opposite—she's a grease monkey who loves to wear her muddy overalls and red hat, get into anything dirty no matter if it's a trash can or a car engine, and hates getting clean. So even though they love each other, they fight constantly. And when they do, I'm usually the one that breaks them up. But today was not like usual."
Lincoln remembers that as he was about to separate the twins, they bumped into Lynn—his 13-year-old sister who is the sports maniac of the house. As she was practicing with her soccer ball, she accidentally kicked it in the direction of the third-oldest Loud sibling, Luna—who was 15 years old and the resident rocker—causing her to drop her guitar at a weird angle and break the neck. She got angry and went to fight Lynn.
Things just continued to get worse as they very quickly got the others involved. His 8-year-old sister Lucy—the goth in the family and the one person who seems to appear out of nowhere, constantly scaring them half to death—joined the fight after they ruined the new poem she was working on. His 4-year-old sister Lisa, who is the genius in the family, jumped into the fight after they destroyed a project she had been working on for months. His 14-year-old sister Luan, the fourth-oldest and the comedian who does almost anything for a laugh—from her lame puns to her annoying and/or cruel pranks—thought it would be funny to record their fight, only to join in after they broke the video camera she was using.
His 16-year-old sister Leni is the ditsy fashionista with a heart of gold, but even she has her moments—for she, too, jumped into the fray after they ripped the new scarf she made. Their fight continued until the eldest of the Loud siblings, Lori, who is 17 years old and has always threatened to turn her siblings (mostly Lincoln) into a human pretzel, was about to go through with it after they made her drop her phone, causing her to overreact over a small, almost unnoticeable scratch on the top left-hand corner.
As the fighting continued, Lincoln was involuntarily dragged in as well, doing his best to calm the others down. On the side, in one of the doorways, stood the youngest—Lily. Though only 15 months old, she is smarter than your average baby. For she knew better than to get in the middle of the fight cloud her sisters made, and decided for her health to stay out of it.
"Aw man, just thinking about it makes my headache worse," Lincoln said, rubbing his throbbing head. "And the worst part is that after the fight, the others blamed the entire thing on me, saying that it's my fault for not stopping Lola and Lana fast enough!" Lincoln said, exasperated, clearly trying—and failing—to see a logical way for his sisters to come up with that conclusion.
Lincoln sighed. "Whenever something like this happens, I always seem to get blamed for it, and none of them ever have my back. I just hope things will be better tomorrow," he said as he crawled into bed.
Suddenly, he felt a huge, sharp pain in his head.
"OUCH! And for this stupid headache to be gone…"
As Lincoln drifted off to sleep, he didn't notice a multicolored glow that came from him, only for it to vanish. In his dream, he was in a completely dark void. He was confused as he heard many voices talking excitedly. Not knowing what to do, he called out:
"Hello?"
Only for them to suddenly stop—before they spoke once more in unison:
"It's time."