Shadows and Magic

Chapter 6

Nico

Nico never actually fell asleep.

He spent exactly 2 hours and thirty minutes lying down with his eyes closed, waiting for the wound to stop burning like someone had poured a cup of the Phlegethon on it. He didn't know why he had collapsed when the light hit his gash, but the second that curse had collided with his body, he had felt the wound explode with pain. Perhaps it had been because he had just woken up, so therefore he was a bit groggy, so it hadn't actually hurt as much as it had been before. But being chomped by a hellhound, thrown against a wall, suffering from blood loss and nearly dying of agony? It was torture. Every time he moved his neck or lifted his arm for a little bit he mentally screamed. He felt weak. He hated it. He had no energy. Nico knew his body always wasn't really in the right condition. He had barely ate, slept for long periods of time, and constantly got himself hurt by running into way too many monsters and sparring a bit too ferociously with the skeletons he summoned to help him train. No wonder it always took to long for his body to heal.

Now that he thought about it, using his Underworld-y powers and shadow traveling all the time didn't help as well. Will was right about that. Geez. His never gonna hear the end of it when he gets back to camp. If he gets back to camp. 

What were these mortals? Sometimes, when a mortal come across a magical weapon, it would cloud their brains and make them think they were a super-ninja or something. But this wasn't the case. These people... they actually knew what they were doing with their freaky sticks. How?

And what would they do to him? Nico wasn't scared of death, but he did hate being kept in captivity like this. He hated being kept like a prisoner, or worse, a lab rat. They did say they were going to use something on him. Something that sounded like virtual serum? Veroshirum? Veritaserum. What is it? Then Nico thought of something. Translate it to Latin, and you get truth serum (just roll with it). They wanted to use a truth serum on him. Not gonna happen.

Nico lifted his head gingerly, and found out his body didn't explode with pain anymore. Slowly, he sat up. He was sitting on a bed in an old room, with a half rotting table in the corner, and a musty armchair. Sitting on a chair was a man. Nico tensed immediately, and tried to jump up, but his legs had gone numb, he promptly toppled off the bed, but thankfully his demigod instincts reacted for him, flipping sideways and rolled on the floor, smoothly leaping up instead of biting the dirt, or more like, biting the dust. The man on the chair jolted awake.

"Wha..?' he mumbled. Then his eyes shot open.

'Oh, hey. You're awake." he said in a fake nonchalant tone. "I was starting to think you died." Nico narrowed his eyes. Was that a joke? Or a trick to make him talk? Seeing that the teenager wasn't speaking, the man sighed. 

"It's Nico, right? I'm Sirius." Now that you know my name, can you calm down? I'm not going to hurt you." Nico still didn't budge, nor move, until Sirius took a step towards him. Nico immediately growled a deep animal-like sound. 

"Okay, okay. I won't come near. I'll go tell someone you're awake. Maybe we'll get you some food too. You might faint from starvation, from the looks of it." And then he left, silently, walking quietly down the stairs from his room like he's been sneaking around all his life, but making sure to shut the door when he left. After Sirius had gone, he walked towards the door and tried to open it, but found out it was locked. Naturally. There were no windows in the room, nothing but bare walls and old furniture. On the other hand, there were quite a lot of shadows... but it wouldn't be use for now. Nico knew he wasn't ready to shadow travel yet. Even if he could force himself, there was a high chance Nico would get lost along the way and fade into the shadows forever. He didn't fear death, but he wasn't ready to die just yet. Sighing, he sat crosslegged on the floor. Then the door creaked, and Sirius once again stepped into the room, holding a platter of sandwiches.

"I got you something to eat." he set the plate near Nico. "Molly - Mrs Weasley, you should call her- was gonna bring it up herself, but she would just be mother henning all over you, and you look like you still need sometime to process." Sirius sat back onto his chair, looking at him in a concerned way. Nico glanced at the food in front of him. He was a little hungry, but not enough to make him wanna eat something brought to him from his captors. He didn't know if they were laced with the truth serum thing, but he wasn't going to try. Plus, there was the simple rule of eating in someone's house. When you eat in someone else's home, it means you're accepting the hospitality of the person. Nico did not want to be here, and certainly wasn't gonna accept anything from them. He turned away from the sandwiches, and decided to have a look at his wound. Bracing himself for the worse, Nico peeked underneath his jacket and shirt, not wanting to take off the jacket and show Sirius the scars all over his arms. The second he saw the wound, he began to feel nauseous. A chunk of his flesh had been ripped out, revealing a tiny bit of the white glint of bones underneath. 

"How serious?" 

Nico felt Sirius staring at him curiously. He let go of his shirt, and glared at the floor. After this continued for a few minutes, he got sick of it. He turned towards him.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Nico snapped, irritated.

Sirius looked away. "Um, no?"

"Ugh." Nico groaned. "Well stop staring at me. It's not going to make me tell you anything." 

There was a few moments of silence, then a soft voice said, "You really should eat something, it's not good for your health." Nico growling in frustration. 

"Stop trying to be nice, it won't work. Just go away." With a deep sigh, Sirius left the room. Nico heard him walk down the stairs, every footstep a soft echo. After making sure he really was gone, Nico reached into his pocket and brought out his emergency pack of ambrosia, and popped a piece into his mouth, and drank a bit of unicorn draught from the tiny flask he had stored along with the ambrosia. Nico felt some of his energy come back, and warmth spreading in his body as the wound began to heal. He sat in the corner and stared at the ceiling.

I need to get out of here. Quickly. 

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Thx for reading!