Fire in the darkness

Ch.1

Nico POV

I knew shadow traveling such a long distance was a bad idea, I'm completely drained. To add on to my list of things to complain about, I have a monster chasing me. People wonder why I try to avoid coming back here, this is why I never come back to this place, something bad always happens whenever I do.
I take a break from running from whatever is chasing me and lea on a tree. I can feel myself losing any energy I had left over from shadow traveling and it doesn't help that I'm losing blood like crazy, courtesy of a hell hound I happened to run into in Kentucky. 

I take a deep breath and get myself balanced again. As soon as I feel good enough, I turn around to see how close the monster is and immediately regret my decision when I trip over a tree root into a creek. Great, just great, can anything else go wrong?

As soon as I think that I regret it because I hear a roar and I know I'm a goner. Oh well, at least I won't have to deal with Solace forcing me to stay in the infirmary forever. 

I close my eyes ready to accept my fate and I wait for the monster to strike but instead I hear a familiar voice yell, "Hey bonehead, you look like you're a long way from home!"

I recognize the voice immediately, how could I not, I spent years pining over the person it belonged to.

The thing howled and I heard a female voice that I recognized as Annabeth say say, "Well that's one way to get a hell hounds attention."

I heard the monster turn and charge towards Percy and Annabeth. Percy laughed and started running to lead it away. Once their footsteps became muffled I rolled onto my back to avoid passing out face down in the water

I heard more footsteps run over to me but I was too tired to really open my eyes to see who these belonged to. All I knew was I needed a nap.

The last thing I heard before I drifted into a nightmare plagued sleep was a male voice saying, "Oh gods Nico, please don't be dead."

Jason POV

As I stared down at the still body of the son of Hades I felt tears slip through my eyes. He's been through so much and yet the poor kid can't seem to get a break.

Nico and I had grown close after I witnessed Eros drag him out of the closet. He became like a little brother to me and he slowly, though I'm sure begrudgingly, started to let me in. Now I'm one of the only people who can touch him without getting their arm sliced off in the process.

After a few moments of me trying to will myself to relax, I felt someones hand on my shoulder and I looked up into the soft brown eyes of my best friend.

"We need to get him back before he dies or Hazel will probably kill us both a million different ways." I smiled slightly at Leos comment and shivered after I realized he was more than likely right.

With ease and care I picked Nico up and started running back to the camp infirmary but I noticed something off about his weight. I know I have a good amount of strength but I could barely even feel his weight in my arms, and come to think of it, he looks a lot skinnier than he did when he left camp. 

My mind wandered to the reasons as to why he might be so light but I immediately started worrying which caused me to run faster that I had been running previously. I shook my head trying to rid myself of any bad thought so I could focus on getting Nico to the safety of the infirmary.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Leo give me a worried glance then look towards Nico who was pale and completely limp in my arms.

As I ran through camp, a lot of people had to move out of my way and others came out of their cabins to see what all the commotion was about, immediately stopping in shock when they saw the son of Hades limp in my arms.

Leo sprinted ahead of me a bit throwing open the infirmary doors and yelling for Will Solace.
He is the only one Nico trusts enough to heal him without putting up too much of a fight. Leo had, no doubt scared the children of Apollo currently working in the infirmary, who had been peacefully going about their own business, because as soon as they can back to their senses they shot up tripping over themselves looking for Will who emerged moments later with a confused look on his face until he saw me clutching Nico in the doorway.

He paled for a moment before clearing his throat and telling us to follow him into another room.