Nico closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath. He hasn't done that for a long time and it feels good to take a breath- even if it's one of his last.
The air around him is too humid for his liking, causing his usually flat-lying hair to stick up in rather odd places. Hazel suffers from the same ordeal, but hers is much more prominent. Bianca, Nico realizes, always had the perfect hair. She used to laugh and tell Nico that it was a gift from the gods. Nico realizes with dry humor how it's funny that how in the last few moments of his life that he's focusing on something as stupid as his dead sister's hair.
Hair, he decides, is extremely overrated. Even in death, the spirits in Elysium (especially the females) would obsess over the newest hair style. Currently it was beach waves tied half up half down, with the occasional bow. Silena Beauregard started it after a date with Beckendorf to some café.
"Stupid," Nico mutters to himself. "Stupid."
He's been muttering this to himself a lot lately. At the Hades cabin table. At the sword fighting arena. During camp fire. While listening to Percy ask him if he's okay. In the Fifth Cohort's barracks. Hazel's started to worry that he's lost his mind, but her concern started a little too late. His mind had been lost a long time ago.
Nico lets out a hollow-sounding laugh that the muggy air seems to absorb. In the distance crickets chirp, creating a loud buzzing sound that vaguely resembles the sound that fills Nico's ear whenever his mind starts to wander a little too far. Right now, his mind is hyper-focused- almost to a point that scares him. He glances down at his note that had been folded and unfolded so many times that the fold lines are about to wear themselves away. Just like my sanity, Nico thinks bitterly.
He picked a corner of the woods where he knows that no curfew-breaking campers would stumble upon him until morning.
His life flashes before his eyes.
Bianca.
Quests.
The Argo II.
Tartarus.
Percy.
Hazel.
Camp Jupiter.
Hades.
Manticores.
Stygian iron swords.
A dozen more broken memories rush through his head at lightning speed. In a daze, Nico takes the note and places it on the ground. He puts a small rock on top of the note, so the gentle breeze doesn't blow it away.
He stands up. He squeezes his eyes shut. He takes a deep breath- his last ever as a living human being and he
Jumps.