The Broken Light and the Broken Boy

Advice from the human fish

Will's P.O.V

Nico stormed out of the room and I immediately feel my wave of anger replaced by a storm of guilt and then more anger, except this time at myself. I raise my arms and grab my hair as if to yank it from my scalp and I pace around muttering to myself about how stupid I am. Great going Solace, not only did you get Nico to storm out you also ruined the friendship you had just made. I groan and punch the nearest wall as hard as I can, which is not very hard may I add, and immediately pain flares up my arm. I sigh and debate putting ice on it until I hear someone in pain in the other room so I rush over to help them. It's a boy by the name of Nicolas. He's 13 and is part of the Hermes lot. He was hit by a piece of shrapnel from one of the Roman traps, no hate towards them of course (anymore at least), and it pierced his liver. I let my hands do their work and they let off a soft glow, but he still looks uncomfortable so I start humming a lullaby I used to listen to when I couldn't sleep because of-... well problems. I sense his drift off to sleep and I make sure all the other patients are ok. 

As I go over to check on Nico,  Austin walks back in. "Hey Will, sorry I was just carrying Clovis back to his cabin." I raise my eyebrows at the statement and Austins face looks red and he was panting. "He fell asleep on me and I couldn't wake him, but I swear I only dropped him once," he looks sheepishly at the ground and I chuckle. 

"It's fine Austin, did you wanna go sleep?" I ask nonchalantly hoping he would take the hint that I didn't want to go sleep. I want to make up for last night's incident... and make sure I can apologise to Nico first thing in the morning. 

"No can do will, I have direct orders from Kayla to send you to bed once you woke up," the lighthearted mood now replaced by a serious atmosphere and I feel my hope draining as my smile freezes on my face. Darnit Kayla... 

"Don't listen to Kayla she doesn't know what she's talking about, I'm fine to do the night shift again," I say to him putting every ounce of sincerity I can muster into my voice. "She's just being overprotective as per usual." A wave of conflict passed over his face and I could tell this was a battle of morals in his eyes. 

"Will, it's just that... you've been putting in so much energy into everyone else recently... not that we're aren't all extremely grateful or anything!..." He panics and continues with a sigh and refuses to make eye contact. "It's just that we're all worried about you, we'd all be lost without you so it's kinda stressful watching you run yourself into the ground..." He finishes with a whisper and makes eye contact with me finally, his eyes looked sincere and immediately I am washed over with another wave of guilt. My family was worried about me? They were upset because of what I had done and I felt my eyes well up with tears that I blinked away fast before Austin could catch on. 

"Ok Austin, you win, I'll head back to the cabin to sleep," his eyes light up and he smiles. "On one condition though" his smile faltered and his brows raised urging me to continue, "Wake me up as soon as the sun rises so I can do the morning shifts." He looks thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head smiling.

"Sure thing if it'll get you to sleep," he walks over to hug me and I feel a warm feeling in my chest as he embraces me. As the head of the cabin, I'm often making sure everyone else is cared for and looked after, so having Austin reassure me felt as if I was walking on air for a few seconds. I ruffle his hair and walk out the door looking back at all the patients before being shooed away. I walk away towards the cabin with an image of a sleeping dark-haired demigod and pray that he sleeps peacefully with the rest of the patients. 

As I enter the cabin I hear the soft sounds of breathing and the occasional loud snore (looking at you Kayla) and ruffle of blankets. I check on each of my siblings making sure they aren't sleeping funny or in danger of falling out of their bunk.  I kiss each one goodnight on the forehead and make my way to my own bunk below Kayla's, I grab my clothes and head to the bathroom to shower. After spending almost 2 weeks stressing in the infirmary I realised how little I looked after my personal hygiene - in short, I smelt bad. I get undressed and turn the shower on letting it run hot and sit under the jet while it burns my skin in a comforting way, washing all of the sweat, stress and tears away. As I said being looked after by someone you care about can make you feel as if your walking on air, but what happens when you come down? I sit under the jets, my body shaking as hot tears fill my eyes and fall down my face with the water. I try to be as quiet as can be even with the shower on, it's not with the risk of having to explain why I'm sad because, in all seriousness, I don't even think I have a reason. 

I'm just tired. I'm just weak. I'm just sad.

Eventually, the tears stop falling and I get up, dry myself and chuck on some clean pants. I trudge back to bed and fall face-first into my pillow and a world of dreams, hoping that, maybe one day, I won't have to cry for no reason.

Heyoooo~

Ok so it's been a lottttttttt longer than 2 weeks and that's my fault, I'm sorry to those who wanted more chapters and to those who didn't well... sorry again??? 

I'm not going to try and explain why I didn't write because in all fairness I don't think it's important or that strangers will want to hear my sob story, so I'll try to continue to write more chapters for those who like reading my book and for my sanity.

- Author xx