The Sun Without Stars Solangelo

The Feast

Nico's POV

Nico guessed that Nyx left him there for around a week, but it was hard to tell down here.  He felt that he might actually prefer the company of her beetles over himself in the dark room. The quiet was really starting to tamper with his brain.

He spent his time huddled in one of the dark corner, often massaging his temples when the voices grew louder, unable to sleep for fear of it being worse than his current state. The entire time, he kept his eyes clamped shut, so sure that if he opened them, he'd find creatures crawling from under his skin, tearing at his flesh.

Why don't you scream?

You don't want to, do you?

Something in you knows that no one would come down here for you.

No one goes looking for something that they won't miss.

While the cacodemons had been compartmentalized into their necklace form, their voices still reverberated in his mind, so often that Nico struggled to tell them apart from his own thoughts.

Nico had wondered the same thing, though. Why was it that it made sense that people go back to save Bob yet he still doubted they would come for him?

Because they find your presence detestable. Even after you saved them, you represent what each one of them fears the most, and they realize as well as you do that you're out of place.

You take and take and take, just like your father.

When Nyx did return, she found him half-sunk in the the shadows, drawing them in as a sort of sustenance to his power, hoping that they might help him regain some strength in his decrepit state. She seemed slightly surprised when she saw that he hadn't croaked while she was gone.

Will had never liked it when he "brooded" in the shadows like this. It was incomprehensible to the son of the sun god to heal through a closer proximity to death.

Will... 

These days, Nico had spent hours entertaining scenarios where Will told him how disgusting he was; how much he wished that they'd never met. 

This would have been so much easier that way.

"Seems I was right. You're more perfect than I could have ever imagined. It's too bad you wasted all those years on the wrong side. The loosing side." She sounded almost pitiful as she made the remark.

Nico felt a twang of pride at first, but finally realized what she meant by the "loosing side."

"They haven't done anything wrong. The mortals belong to the light. Whatever you're planning—" Nico snarled, backing himself into the wall to maintain the furthest distance between him and the goddess.

Nyx cut him off before he could continue. "'Belong to the light, you say. If only you knew how much more raw a person is when they are enshrouded in darkness, without false hopes and all those farces. Why do you of all people, who have never received their thanks or acknowledgement, even defend them? 

You were willing to DIE for them! Where are they now?!" 

You knew this would happen.

It's why you never stay in one place.

You don't belong amongst them.

She stepped forward and grabbed his face, frustration evident on her face, her claws etching into his skin. "Don't you see?! Her form shifted and she split into multiple parts, her murk oozing off each piece. In front of Nico stood Bianca, Hades, Octavian, Jason, and Nyx disguised as his mother who stood in the middle of them all.