𝐊𝐄𝐘𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐒 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐍𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐄 |𝐊𝐒𝐏𝐒𝐒|

𝕆ℕ𝔼 - ℕ𝕀ℂ𝕆

Nico di Angelo went missing almost three years ago.
To anyone else, his disappearance might have resembled the one of Percy Jackson, but Nico himself knew there was no similarity linking the two. He left on his own and remembered every second of it.

The chilling words of the prophecy eddied his mind in dreams, his hands reminded him of the rough ground of the cemetery whenever they touched soil and his friend's name still sounded as bitter as it did on the night he left. Nico stood on a cliff towering above a busy town and wished there had been a goddess whom he could blame for his disappearance. But there was none.

The hand he had rested on his sword had long gone numb from the cold but he wasn't planning on moving it any time soon. He lost track of time. Motionless, he was letting the wind hit his face as he stared at the port underneath him. The fishermen were just returning from a long day on the sea, the pier was filling up with trucks, and the fish odour spread through the air like plague. A clock began to strike somewhere in the distance, but he couldn't be bothered to keep count. Whatever number it was, another hour had passed. And he was still gone.

Nico took a sharp breath. He was gone. The wind picked up.

Why didn't he tell anyone? I couldn't have, he tried to remind himself, They couldn't know. It'd kill them.
Nico bowed his head and looked at the ground.
One of them knows.

But does it even count if he does? Does it, if he promised to leave and never return? To lie and divert attention from this place?

He looked at the surrounding mountains again. The busy port. The flickering lights coming out of the Alaskan houses... it was so peaceful and simple, so... mundane.

The wind picked up again.

It was stinging, ruthless, and wheezing. Sometimes, it sounded as though it was trying to speak.
Nico frowned at that thought.
Was it trying to speak? He would've sworn he heard it whisper. Or was it just his mind playing tricks again?
The wind returned and whizzed past his face.

'We believe he's died...'

Nico felt a cold wave wash over him the second he heard the echoing voice.
It was too familiar now. He heard it in every dream, every time he'd been alone for too long. Even today, it came back to haunt him.

'We believed he's died..." The whisper now resembled the hissing of a snake. It was wrapping around him, mocking him, luring him back into that horrible moment...

And there was nowhere to escape it. The nightmare swallowed him all at once.
It dragged him back in time, back to a cold autumn evening at Camp. Nico tried to fight it. He closed his eyes, shook his head... he strengthened the grip on his sword and felt his nails scratch its hilt.

But it was too late.

A wave of warmth hit his face first. Then came the smell of a burned cloth. Nico didn't want to open his eyes. He'd been here before. He knew what was waiting for him.

'It's been too long...'

'No, no, no...' he crouched down and covered his ears. He couldn't hear this.

The noise grew even louder.

'There's no trace...'

Nico felt goosebumps run down his spine.

Dead leaves rustled as someone approached. He needn't look, he'd been here before. Will stopped just a few inches from him.

'He was a good friend...'

Nico's chest was beginning to rise up and down at an uncontrollable speed. His head hurt from the pressure of his hands trying to cover his ears. The warmth of the Camp's fire and the frost of the wind blowing from the port were both hitting his face and slamming against his body, as if in a fight. But who was going to win?