a/n: credits to yew for the inspiration!
[-mosaic-]
. / . / .
It's a little odd, he thinks, that everywhere he goes, everything he sees/touches/tastes/hears/feels, he can imagine (Bianca) his sister staring at him with her dead eyes. Her eyes are always black, like they have been smeared with heavy strokes of charcoal, and she has no sclera. Everything is just black, like soil. He imagines that he can see Hell, or their equivalent of it, anyway, in her black-hole pupils.
He envisions Bianca in folded newspapers, gazing at him from between the prison cell bars of plain Times New Roman font, in cups of cooling hot chocolate, in New York's gutters and sewer pipes. Sometimes, he breathes clouds of vapor in winter, and the condensation swirls and it sounds like his sister's exasperated sigh. Chiding.
Like, Nico, why did you let me die why did you let me why why why
At which point, he usually makes his hands into fists, sticks them into the pockets of his bomber jacket, and trudges away, muttering Greek wards under his breath. He makes his fingers into crosses, even though he's never been particularly religious when it comes to anything (not even his heritage), but he does so anyway because it gives him a temporary piece of mind and temporary is the next best thing to permanent; nothing is an ugly adjective and he doesn't want to use it.
Still, he sees her in the San Francisco skyline, in Chicago's brightly lit suburban sprawls, in Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, everywhere. Remnants of Bianca sift through his fingers like crumbled flakes from fallen leaves and he snatches them away to look at them for a moment before allowing them to pass on. He sees her when he sleeps, he sees her in the fogged-up hotel mirrors after showers, he reads and can sense her hovering right next to his ear, whispering the lines so softly in her ghost voice.
Doodle's head lay limp - I cried -
He shuts the book with a loud snap and she vanishes in a puff of mist, leaving him shivering afterwards though he's pressed up right next to the radiator like it's a holy thing. The book - The Scarlet Ibis - is tucked under the mattress and he never sees it again.
He walks and he walks until the soles of his shoes are worn out and his feet are blistered, until his hands chafe and his eyes water and he feels a little breathless and a little frozen in time, whereupon he crumples to the ground of whatever godforsaken town or city he's in and prays. The prayers go unanswered, but it's the thought that counts; soon enough, he's on his way.
Nico, she entreats, pleads, gazing at him soullessly in judgment; he can see the damnation in the way her stare doesn't falter.
Nico.
"Shut up," he mutters.
Nico.
"I said shut up!" he roars, turning around to spit angry words at nothing. Empty space fits in jagged lines across a picturesque blue sky or one addled by pollution, and he looks down at his shoes and feels that much more drained. Gods know he can't keep doing this, can't keep stowing away in trains and freight liners until the end of time.
But he wishes he could.