Summary: Nico has always known that this is how the world ends. – zombie apocalypse!AU.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
This is the Way the World Ends
—not with a bang, but with a whimper. (T.S. Elliot)
Nico di Angelo is fourteen when he realizes that he's fighting for a hopeless cause. He is sixteen when the inevitable finally comes.
The sky is an endless stream of smoke and ash and pollution that has clouded what was once a beautiful scenery many, many years ago. It's a view that Nico has grown accustomed to, since the very beginning, and there's something oddly comforting about knowing that there's a constant in his life that doesn't involve running and hiding and killing. It's all he needs to give in to the arms that are reaching to him from the other side.
There's been an alluring presence of something calling out to him for a long time now, and he's resisted it, just slipping past its fingertips every time. It's a never-ending battle he's fought for as long as he can remember—but he isn't sure why he even continues to defy the natural order of things anymore.
Nico di Angelo is tired. He is tired and he's ready to take a break from it all.
So he stops. He stops running through this forest that doesn't look like a forest anymore and he stops trudging through the dirt that barely resembles dirt anymore. The figures from behind him closes in, their grunting noises a cacophony ringing in Nico's ears.
Their dirty, decaying fingers grab at his trembling body. He feels the rough texture of their skin, the disgusting smell of dead bodies overwhelm his senses as they draw nearer. He doesn't move.
A bang: one final bullet shot by the shaking fingers of someone who could only survive for so long.
A whimper: a chocked out cry, one last sound to echo off the walls of a fallen world, and—acceptance.
Nico di Angelo has always known that this is how the world ends.
A/N: Had to write something for my favourite quote of all time.
~Madin456.