Nico once heard that spider silk was stronger than steel. He wasn't exactly sure how true that was, but he hoped that it would at least be strong enough to support his body weight, not that there was much to support in that department anyway. He hadn't exactly had the chance to weigh himself since he was freed from that accursed jar, but if he had to give a ballpark estimate, he was probably well under the hundred pound threshold. If he were any thinner, he'd probably be able to trace the outlines of his organs.
It had taken a while to thin the cocoon with his sword until it could serve as a suitable rope. During that time, he could feel the borderline acidic air of Tartarus start to take its toll. Every breath he took burned, and in no time, his vision was reduced to a blurry mess of dark colors. Not to mention the countless blisters dotting his pale skin, making every slightest bit of movement a chore. The world spun around him in a meandering way; it was like he had spent the last hour breathing in the smoke from an exhaust pipe.
Eventually, he figured that he had enough length to get to the bottom. He tried to be as generous as he could with his cutting, but in the end, he was only estimating how long the drop from the cliff was.
Using the car as an anchor, he held onto the other end of the silk rope and started crawling back to the cliff's edge, periodically stopping to dig shards of black glass out of his bandages. By the time he got there, he started having second doubts. That height from the cliff to the ground seemed much too high all of the sudden, as if the drop doubled in size. He groaned, shaking his head. There wasn't time for self-doubt now.
If he had to breathe in any more of the toxic Tartarus air, he would probably pass out, eventually. He needed to get to the Phlegethon. While he still had one more square of ambrosia, the toll of the god-food was already taking effect. His lips had gone numb ever since his second helping, and he found that a cold sweat had broken on his forehead.
"Damn it." Nico muttered. Before he could second-guess himself, he tossed the end of the rope down the cliff and watched as it unfurled, dropping all the way down. Whether or not it reached the ground, he couldn't tell; he was too far up, and his vision had degraded to the point that he probably couldn't even read that book that Annabeth had in her backpack.
Annabeth.
Gods, he wished she were here. Salty tears stung his eyes as he thought back to that moment on the beach. That split second where he was filled with that terrible knowledge that a demigod has just died. Someone who he knew well, someone who had friends who cared about her and above all, someone who deserved to live more than he.
Someone who, allegedly, was part of the Prophecy of Seven.
"Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it." He began whispering as he positioned himself so that he was facing the cliff face. He gripped onto his makeshift rope as tightly as he could, grit his teeth, and then began lowering himself down.
Immediately, his arms began to protest. It was just a dull ache, but with every passing second, he could feel the tension in his arms muscles begin to tire. Cursing his lack of upper-body strength, he tried to lower himself faster, though it didn't really help matters. All he could do was focus and try not to lose his grip as he kept his gaze focused on the floor of Tartarus, which grew in size at a snail's pace.
So long, such a long ways down. At times, it seemed like he was climbing up rather than down. The blurry field of red, flickering static danced before his eyes, like a meadow of open flames. Funny, he thought, that the spider web rope still held strong. Wouldn't the fire have burnt it to ashes by now? Perhaps it was luck, Luck, and godly patronage. Oh, sure, the mark of Hades was upon him. Tartarus was Tartarus, but was it not still under his father's domain? Both literally and figuratively.
He supposed that his father only held sovereignty over Tartarus in the way a nation could hold sovereignty over a rebelling state. Officially, but not practically. Was that why everything hurt? Was that why he couldn't simply laugh and shadow travel out of this hell? Was that why, for the second time now, he's had to trek to the Doors of Death by himself?
No one to blame but himself, yep. He wandered in here by his own accord, the first time around. Then he practically jumped down that pit and let her die.
Good Gods, Percy must love me now. Good job Nico, if you ever manage to get so lucky as to stumble out of the doors of death, if you ever manage to get so lucky as to run into Percy before getting eaten alive by monsters, I'm sure he'd just be head over heels. A skinny, deranged mess of a demigod bringing news of a dead girlfriend. Percy would be overjoyed to see me.
"What am I even thinking?" Nico said out loud. "None of this matters."
How long had he been climbing down for? The dull ache in his arms had transcended into something more, like a nagging pain that crept through his nerves with the consistency of molten lead. He frowned and squinted down at the ground. It still seemed so far away. And yet his arms still moved, and yet his body still shuffled on downwards, because that's what he had to do. Down down down, all the way down to the lava so that it could burn him and all of this could be over with. Or not. He could just keep going too, the river of fire would help with that.
The ambrosia hurt more than it helped, he decided. All he felt at the shore was cold numbness, like a dark void had opened up inside him to swallow up any semblance of feeling. Now? Now he could feel the rusted daggers piercing through his lungs with every breath. Now, he could feel the bleeding blisters along his back rub against the rough fabric of his shirt. Now, he could feel the warm dampness in his bandages as blood slowly seeped through.
Oh yes, bleeding wounds and all that. Blood loss, what's there to be concerned about? He's already been going light-headed from the poisonous 'air' he's been breathing in. His hands already shook so terribly, like he'd just drunk a gallon of coffee. What's there to be concerned about? Just cruise alllll the way down, yup. Couldn't do anything else.
In hell. Nico was in hell, yeah, so what? So what, so what, so what, so what, so what.
He almost wished he could have met Annabeth here, down in hell where she surely did not belong. Only, her soul had been consumed by Cocytus. Ha! A worse fate than the Fields of Punishment, if he did say so himself. At least in the Fields, you still knew who you were. You could think back on your actions, feel remorse or guilt, treasure those memories, as few as they may be. At least you could feel and hurt and cry and scream and do all of the things that a tortured soul must do while facing their retribution.
Oh, Annabeth. Annabeth, Annabeth, why? It was unreal. His mind stubbornly refused to see the whole truth of the situation, of what exactly he's done to her. There was grief, though it was detached from his conscience, like an observer peering into the mind of a deranged killer. He felt remorse for the victim, though only in a superficial way. What made it worse was that he was self-aware of it all. So why then? Why couldn't he properly mourn her? It was-
He fell. There was that sense of weightlessness that drove his heart into his throat for just a split second, then it was over.
Nico bit into his tongue, drawing blood as he fell backwards from the rope and hit his head against the ground. He screamed, hands cupped around his head as he cried freely. All at once, all of the repressed terror and misery he's kept bottled up came out like a flood, smashing through his loose collection of thoughts with unbridled wrath. Choking on the horribly salty taste and copper smell, he began pulling at his hair as he continued to scream incoherently into the silent air of Tartarus.
He ground his knuckles into the black gravel, eyes rolling to the back of his head as fresh waves of pain overtook him. His screams gradually turned to sobbing moans, streams of tears pouring from his eyes and onto the ground, where it sizzled into steam. At that exact moment, Nico decided that he just wanted to die. He didn't want to do any of this anymore, didn't want to have to be strong, didn't want to have to carry all of these responsibilities and expectations any longer. All he wanted to do was draw his sword and fall onto himself. He didn't care if his soul was sent to wander the endless Fields of Asphodel, or even if he was sent to the Fields of Punishment. All he wanted was an escape. An escape from all of this.
He raised his hand. Instead of drawing his sword though, he just slammed his fist into the ground as hard as he could. Panting heavily, he started to crawl towards the stream of fire, which was no more than a few yards away. More than once, he had to stop and spit out mouthfuls of blood, which largely resembled oil, both in consistency and color.
At last, he reached it. He could feel Phlegethon's heat on his face, searing through his pale skin without mercy. He cupped his trembling hands together and dunked them into the river, cringing as the nigh unbearable burning spread evenly through his skin. It was a terrible, frozen sort of heat that could have convinced him that his flesh was melting off. He couldn't feel anything but that anomalous frostbite cutting to his bones.
Urgently, he brought the liquid flames to his mouth and gulped, the taste of salty blood and liquid ash mixing to create an otherworldly bitterness, which could only rack his body with bouts of rigid pain; it seemed that his muscles could only seize into paralysis as the horrible cocktail burned holes into his stomach.
He vomited then, an expungement of clear stomach bile, black blood, and smoldering flames. It all pushed out of his stomach and back into the River Phlegethon, where it boiled into an off-gray steam, steam with an incredibly sour aroma that permeated through the air. His body tried once more to push out its contents, but Nico held it back, veins popping in his temples as he clenched at his stomach.
Once the violent bouts of nausea started to die down, he closed his eyes and drank more of the fire, wincing as the burns coated the inside of his mouth, making it seem as if his gums were crackling from the heat. He shuddered at the taste but managed to keep from throwing up this time, for the sole fact that it was working. He could feel the torn muscles in his arms begin to heal. The various cuts all over his body began to scab and after his third gulp of fire, he was able to feel a bit of tingling in his legs, the first sensation down there that he's felt since falling into Tartarus.
The crisp, burning pain as his body shook violently with each gulp, it was bliss compared to the unfeeling numbness he had to endure while he climbed down that rope. Leagues better than wading through the millions of souls at the River Cocytus.
So Nico drank, thankful for the searing agony that kept his body alight.