❪ 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐑 𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒𝐄 ❫

𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐄 (NICO's STORY)

╰┈➤ ๋࣭ ⭑ ༘⋆ LOST APPETITE : a short
story.
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•••

Nico walks down the sidewalk towards the apartment he and his mom had lived in together, tucking some hair behind his ear he keeps his eyes lowered to the ground, stepping in some rain puddles and he took one glance at himself before looking away.

Nico slips off his headphones and reaches to touch the handles of the apartment building to get inside, but he hesitated as his hand was shaking.

He lets out a sigh and eventually opens the door, heading upstairs and shutting the door behind him. "Hey, I'm home." he says, his voice slightly hoarse from constant screaming in his sleep during nightmares he's had in class.

His mother was inside the living room, watching TV as her eyes were peeled to the screen. he followed her gaze and saw she was watching a horror movie of some sorts, the screen a darkish blue.

He sees that the lady on the screen was rushing down the hall and away from something, he tilts his head with a raised eyebrow. "She isn't even gonna turn around to check behind her?"

Himiko sees nico and gives him a warm smile. "Nico! hey, you made it back from the academy early, did everything go well?"

"Went fine." Nico replied as he cleared his throat, scratching the back of his neck before speaking. "Hey mom, could we– actually y'know what? never mind I'm pretty exhausted anyway. just gonna head to my room, love you."

"Love you too." Himiko replied, her brows furrowed as she watched nico head to his room.

Once the door to nico's room was shut, he set down his backpack and glanced at himself in the mirror, his heart beating fast as he slipped off his grey hoodie. he had on a black t-shirt underneath and a pair of black loose shorts, he had on a pair of chuck taylors. his long shaggy hair and bangs fall against his face, he blows it out of his face as he turns away— sitting down on the edge of his bed.

Nico grabbed his headphones and placed them over his ear, the mask inside his backpack peeking out, like a beckoning call, a call for him to go back to his duties as a superhero.

For anyone it'd be easy, to just, maybe, go back to work. but for him, he wasn't doing any regular work, he was stopping villains and that came with a price.

You always seem so distracted, why?

Nico knew why, his thoughts of distress increasing. how would he cope with the significance of being a hero? he felt so pressured, like he was meant to stop all villains at any time. this came with an extremely heavy price, and he was paying it.

Nico snatched his headphones off and stood up, "aw hell nah, I'm buggin'." he whispers to himself before stretching and rubbing his eyes, going to lay down.

Nico closes his eyes and tries sleeping, but when he opens his eyes, standing right above him—

Was a shadow of himself, a mirrored personality..something that felt..different.

The figure then disappears before reappearing, its hand right above him before everything turned dark.

The room around him vanished and now he was on a beach, the sun was a colored red and dark blue, which created a purplish hue.

He looks around, the wind blowing against him rather harshly, causing him to nearly trip in the process. he treads forward but then the shadowed version of him appears again.

The shadowed person in front of him just stared at him blankly, blinking but not speaking. then it disappeared before nico felt the ground cave in beneath him.

Nico screams as he falls further, thrashing around aimlessly— not hitting a thing. but he yelps in pain when he hits a hard surface, which must've been the ground.

He sits up slowly, clutching one side of his head before he feels something crawling up his shirt, his eyes dilated in fear before he slowly pulls up his shirt, he sees tiny little spiders crawling against his flat stomach, they also crawl around his waist and hipbones.

He shrieks in fear as he tries slapping them off, but it was no use, more and more of them kept coming. Nico sits up and feels something moving around inside his eyes, he groans in pain as it crawled out his eyelid, revealing to be another spider.

He stood up and tried getting it off him, he realized the area he was inside was nothing but a bright green void. he stood up slowly and looked around, above him he saw water, and when he looked down he also saw water.

What was this place?

The spiders seemed to have disappeared, leaving him to panic if more were to come later. Nico walked forward and then a hand rises from the dark green water, lurching at him and grabbing him by the wrist.

"Let go!" Nico shouted as he tried pulling his wrist out of the clawed hands grasp, but it holds him tightly, not bothering to let him go even if he shouted at it.

Then he saw multiple more hands rise out of the water, grabbing onto him and yanking him down— nico screams as he tries getting out of their grasp, they were pulling him down deeper into the water.

Whispering words like 'come home' and so on. Nico felt tears brim his eyes as he saw an opening above him, clouds forming into reality, back to his place.

He sees his mom walk into the room as he had his knees pulled to his chest. Nico screams as his hair was tugged on this time, leaving him to tear up again.

Nico then feels himself getting dragged deeper into the murky sticky water, the multiple hands holding him down more. and with that, using the last of his ability, he outstretches his hand towards the opening.

Reaching out for help.

. . . it felt like hours, all he saw was darkness . . . until—

He felt a hand grasp his arm, he opens his eyes slowly and sees his moths staring down at him with a worried look, frowning as she gently caressed his hair.

"You okay?" Himiko asks her son with a worried gaze, tilting his chin up so she could see him more better.

Nico breathed heavily, calming himself down as he realized he was home, alive, and okay. "I- I'm okay. do..do you still wanna watch those horror movies by chance?"

Himiko could only smile as she helps nico up, nodding. "Yeah. c'mon. it looks like you need a good scare, anyway." she chuckled.

Nico followed her out of his room, but he paused to glance over his shoulder one last time.

He was gonna be okay.