Sell Your Soul For Love

Chapter 4

That week passed by dreadfully slow. The first few days, Nico drew enormous amounts of pictures, all illustrating Will's bright smile. For the first time in his life, however, he got bored of drawing and put the paper and pencil aside.

Nico slept a lot. He wasn't really tired, but bored. The dreams that played in his mind were so much better than reality, at least for the time being. His favorite dream, happening a couple times, was of him and Will dancing. Will was so happy with it that Nico himself found it impossible not to be happy. Their bodies moved together, fit as one, danced until the dream faded.

But the nightmares...they were horrible. Nico knew he was asleep, could feel the fuzziness of dreams, but he couldn't force himself awake. Instead, he went through the torturous dreams with tears pouring down his face; in the dream and in reality.

The nightmares would start with Nico and Will dancing in what appeared to be a ballroom. Nico could feel the eyes on them, see faces from the corners of his eyes. But not all of the faces were human. Some were ashen gray, with black bottomless eyes and red pupils. They sacred him, sent fear and dread spreading through his chest. But then he would look back at Will, and everything would be okay.

Will's smile was breathtaking, and his eyes shown so brightly Nico was convinced he was at least part angel. His very being was made of light, light so bright it hurt Nico wherever he touched Will. But he didn't mind. Pain, to touch Will, as okay. Pain was good. Pain was there for a reason.

That's when the nightmare took a turn. After a couple minutes of this, this blissful dance number, Nico would become aware of the pain in his legs. His legs...he could feel them. But they didn't feel good. All they felt of was pain. Pain so blinding, so infuriating, the tears fell and his heart almost lost the power to beat.

When he looked down to see what the hell was wrong with them, he whimpered and cried some more. Blood was seeping from them, from his knees and his thighs and his calves and his feet. The dark liquid covered the ground in a trail of where the dance had been and where they had moved from. Some spots on the floor held pools of it, while others had only a small trickling. Amounts of everything in between were also around them, painting the floor in a graphic dance.

Nico would look back up at Will to find the smile gone. His eyes were filled with horror, the light dampening. Where Nico was touching him, dark tendrils of shadow leached into Will's body, absorbing the holy light.

The inhuman faces were watching, waiting, laughing.

Nico fell, didn't get up, and would wake up.

Nightmares were the worst.

~~~Line Break~~~

One night, he woke from a nightmare at around three in the morning. His face was wet with tears and his mouth was dry from crying. Nico looked down at his legs like he did every time, to see if they were normal. If they were alright. They were, of course, the same limp things they usually were.

Nico wiped his face and looked around the room, trying to calm his racing heart. It was dark, only the light from the streetlights shining through his window and into the room. But he could see enough to know that something wasn't right.

Was he still dreaming? Those shadows...they were just shadows...right?

He closed his eyes tightly, rubbed them, and opened them again. The shadows were normal, no faces in sight. Just him, alone in his room, alone with his thoughts.

"Everything's okay, the pain is gone," he whispered to himself, laying his head back on the pillow. His eyes drifted with laziness, until they met the wall by his bed where a crucifix was situated. It was tilted slightly, the bottom almost higher than the middle would have been.

The screw that was on the bottom was laying on his bed, plaster still in the grooves from being pulled out. When he reached to fix the crucifix, he couldn't reach. He knew he hadn't done it himself, and knew screws couldn't just fall out, but ignored it. It wasn't like he was hurt, like something was wrong. It was just a missing screw.

But something about the turned crucifix bothered him. He wasn't even really religious. His parents were, so it was incorporated into his mind, but it ended there. He didn't go to church and he didn't pray before every meal. So a turned crucifix wasn't horrible for him...

But something was off about it. It bothered him, deep inside, and he couldn't figure out why. It was just a piece of wood, carved into a shape...right? It wasn't like it was a church itself, or a relic. It was made by common folk and sold to anybody.

But it bothered him enough to reach for his phone and call Hazel to come and fix it, at three in the morning. She came and did what he asked, too tired to really process what had happened. She didn't ask questions, didn't look suspicious. Just straightened the cross and left.

Only then did Nico relax, closing his eyes and snuggling into the blankets. They were so warm, so comfortable, he felt sleepy immediately. During this state, he could have sworn he could feel his toes, the blankets against them.

But when he awoke the next morning, he was just as paralyzed as ever.