The Surface

Chapter 6

~image not mine~

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Nico laid on his back in the dusty attic, his hair spread out around him like a dark halo, as if he was the fallen angel everyone said he was. He stared up at those support beams, stared up at the wood that he would one day die from. Why did it look so inviting?

Twelve years old. Without him knowing, he only had five years to go. Five more years of life... If he would have known, he would have thought that was too long. Could he even make it those five years? At twelve years old, he already longed for death. It was an escape from a life not worth living.

Or so he thought, anyway.

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Fourteen years old. Skinny, short, a dirty piece of work. His only entertainment was to kill the mice that roamed the house, to catch them in less time than the last. It was a game, he told himself. It was just a game. He wasn't evil.

His skin remained coated with dirt, his eyes remained dark and dreary. Blood stuck the strands of hair together that fell into his face, and dry blood covered the back of his neck. Beatings didn't hurt anymore, nor did the painful feeling in his empty stomach. The only thing that stung was Hades' words.

Maria was happy, he promised himself. Maria and Bianca were happy. He shouldn't be sad about that.

They were happy, even though he wasn't. They were in Heaven. That seemed like a really cool place, the way the paster described it. Would he ever get there?

The pastor said Heaven was for good people. He wasn't good, was he? He couldn't give money to poor people. He couldn't go out and be nice. He killed mice. That was bad, wasn't it?

Hades never bothered to tell him what a good father should have. He never bothered to explain that you didn't need to be perfect to get to Heaven. You just needed to love.

But what was love anymore?

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Fifteen years old. So close to sixteen...so close to adulthood... Was he actually excited about something? Through the pain and the sickness, he couldn't ever be sure. Why couldn't he even eat the scraps he managed to sneak anymore? Why did his stomach hurt so bad?

Why could he see every single one of his ribs?

Bony wrists, bony shoulders, a collarbone sticking out of a shirt. As he got older, he became more exhausted. Maybe it was the lack of food, maybe it was the depression. Either way, he couldn't move much anymore.

He laid in the attic as he had growing up. He stared up at the support beam, wondering if it could hold a body. A body as light as him.