This time, Nico was 7 years old.
Him and his family were in America at this point, and his mother told Bianca to watch her brother while she was out.
"Where are you going, mama?" Bianca asked their mother.
Maria smiled down at 9 year old Bianca and patted her head. "I'll tell you when you're older. Now go play with your toys, Bianca. I love you."
"Bye, mama!" She yelled after her mother.
Nico watched as his mother walked along the dark streets of D.C. In about 5 minutes, she reached an old warehouse. It was decent sized, and it had big letters on the side that were too hard to make out.
Once she reached the warehouse, which was the perfect place for something secret because of the lack of people and buildings and because of the trees and underbrush surrounding the warehouse like camouflage, his mother pulled back the doors and walked inside.
This time, Nico could just barely see people inside. He couldn't see faces or genders, but he could tell there were a lot of them in there. Before he could see the people inside, his dream faded yet again.
Nico expected to wake up. Whenever he had these mysterious dreams of his mother, he would always wake up right afterwards.
But this time that didn't happen.
Instead, his dream changed to a place that was all too familiar. A place he had spent over 70 years in.
He saw himself. He was 8 at this point. He was playing a video game like everybody else, labelled "What is Wrong With Me?" He remembered when he got there that he was confused about all of the games because that didn't exist when he was young, but soon he started to not question it. Not question anything. Not question anything for more than 70 years. It was a horrible feeling.
Even though people didn't stop playing didn't mean they didn't stop to go to the bathroom or go to bed or eat. And that was what his younger self was doing right now. Logging off because he was hungry.
He trekked up the stairs to where the food was. Sitting at one of the tables was a little girl that looked awfully familiar. He looked at her for about a minute before he realized who she was.
She was his best friend while Nico was stuck there. Well, as much as a best friend as you could get while being there. Even though he felt like he was there for a couple of weeks, he had already made a really good friend, because that's what outgoing little kids do.
He couldn't believe he had forgotten her. Things were so warpy and weird it was easy to forget things. Looking at her felt like he had unlocked a memory that was deep inside of his mind.
What was her name again? That's right, it was Rosemary. Rosemary had strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes with freckles across her nose. He remembered her being very sweet and kind. She was cheerful and always excited. She was around 6 or 7.
When he came to the casino, she was already there, and he had know idea when she came. Nico looked at her outfit to see if he could tell from that, and he guessed she was from some point in the 1800's because she was wearing a very vintage looking, very frilly white dress.
8 year old Nico got some food and walked to the table Rosemary was at and started eating his food.
"Neeks!" The little girl squealed.
"Hi, Rosie!" He said in return.
They talked back and forth to each other, but Nico couldn't hear the conversation because of all of the noise around them.
Nico started to remember other things, too. Other people. Annie, Sarah, Lincoln, Emma, Darrin.
Then the dream was gone, and Nico woke up. And he knew what he had to do. Something he needed to do a long time ago.
He sat in his bed for a minute. He looked over at his clock: it said 7:37.
Nico quickly put on clothes, then he tore across the green to the Apollo cabin.
Nico opened the door quickly, and it closed with a slam. Will looked up from his book and he quickly put it away, though Nico didn't think about it. He was too busy focusing on the problem at hand to think about anything else.
"Nico? What's wrong?" Will asked, shocked.
"Will. We need to go to the Lotus Hotel and Casino."