a/n: so sorry for not updating aaaggh school has been a busy pain recently. and i've been way too tired to write. stupid nightmares keeping me up all night.

but anyway, eclipse day, yay! because it's a solar eclipse, do re mi fa solangelo, this chapter's for nico! hope you enjoy. also probably going to be extra angsty because well angst. and nico. and other things. anyway here goes the chapter. which has to be set in a different time because nico being in the jar… well i don't know what to write about that

Nico didn't know what to do anymore. He was confused, and tired, and he couldn't seem to find a way to escape.

He just wanted to escape from the voices in his head.

They were tearing him apart from the inside out and he couldn't do anything about it. Nothing, absolutely nothing he did could help him survive against them.

Them, the voices in his head.

Them, the screams that he couldn't get rid of.

Them, the product of… him.

Because after all it was his mind, wasn't it? That was where the demons had first originated. That was their home, their birthplace.

Nico stared out at the valley where the legion and New Rome were, feeling utterly and completely alone. He was the isolated Ambassador of Pluto, utterly feared and perhaps hated.

He sighed, wondering if he'd ever find a place he could truly call home. Sometimes he wondered why his father had sent him here, knowing it would just be another place that he would come to hate because of the pure hurt that he felt there.

If only he could escape, Nico thought. But it'd never happen, him being a son of Hades. He'd never be able to escape his thoughts, his mind. Even if he died he'd only go to his father's palace, perhaps, or to Elysium, which he had never deserved.

Even if he chose rebirth the demons would still haunt him. He only wished he could go to Asphodel, become a chattering, unknowing ghost for the rest of eternity.

Nico sighed. Well, no use dwelling on the impossible.

All he could do was shove away the pain as best he could and keep on with life.

Somehow, he thought, he'd find a way to escape.

For now, he just had to keep on going.

Nico stared down the hill into the city of New Rome and the legion. He remembered with a start his promise to Hazel that he'd go down into the pit to see if he could find the Doors of Death.

An idea started forming in his head.

Maybe he could escape after all.

a/n: very crappy chapter i know but it was the best i could do. sorry. i'll try to update faster this time then