Nico felt like a stain on another wise silken white surface. It was obvious to anyone there that he didn't belong in a place like this. This place was for healing, and yet he gave off waves of death, grief and resentment. Most of the people there tried to ignore his presence; others that did not were quickly shooed by the dark glares he sent their way. Nico was not in the best of moods.
He leaned further back into the hard plastic chair and crossed his arms over his well-worn aviator's jacket. He had still kept it with him all these years.
The dark corner he was sitting in seemed to blacken even more with his presence, and anyone in the slightly crowded room who had been brave enough previously to considered taking sitting near him quickly gave the spine-chilling boy a wide berth, which was fine by him. This, however, did not stop a tall blond girl wearing a gray business suit form plopping down in the chair next to him without a second thought.
"Okay, I went over to the nurse's station and asked some of the questions Chiron came up with earlier that wouldn't arouse any suspicions. Apparently what we are looking for is not isolated in just one section of the hospital. We'll have to start in one wing, and work our way to the other. I suggest we start either in the ICU or Emergency Care hallways first, that's where most of the problems started." Annabeth stated while shuffling through the various papers she had collected of the reported technical failures over the hospitals data base she broke into using the camps computer; at least it was untraceable if anyone ever found out that the twenty-second year old had broken through there firewalls faster than the Minotaur could swallow a hotdog. Nico guessed there were some definite perks to being sort-of friends/acquaintances with the daughter of Athena.
Annabeth and he had never really gotten along; mostly they had tolerated each other, kept their distance for the good of everybody. Nico never really had any reason to talk to her that much. When she had found him and his sister nine years ago at Westover hall, they had gotten off at a rather rough start. First of all, she didn't let him leave with his sister and told him (rather harshly) that he had to respect her decisions to leave him behind forever to go prancing around with a goddess who had an all-girl posse, and a no boys allowed rule. He didn't necessarily take the news well.
When she brought him back to camp, after the whole Artemis fiasco, things just started to go further downhill. After the quest was completed and people found out he was a son of Hades, he quickly discovered how hash the world can be. It turns out, even in a world full of the different and unusual; he was still considered a freak. He left soon after; no one wanted him there anyway. For a while, Nico was on his own, travelling the world and living on whatever he could find. He often wondered if this was how it would always be. He would be lonely, hungry and hated because of his father's name for the rest of his life, maybe even after. This was when Nico first discovered his powers over ghosts and met King Minos.
Later, he encountered the daughter of Athena again, and she showed him how Minos was using him to get back at his old foe. Since the battle at Camp half blood, he stopped by the camp every once and a while. People were still wary of him and the animals still ran away when sensing his presence but he found it somewhat bearable now, though he still disliked the place because of all the bad memories of him and his sister.
He did help them during the war when he turned sixteen. He gave the son of Hermes the knife and now the gods still rein over North America. A decision he almost still questions a lot of the time.
Now, three years later, the camp has come to sort of except him (Mr. D likes to think of him as a "lackey" for when they have quests concerning the underworld). This is why Chiron thought it best that he'd "tag-along" with Annabeth's investigation, even though both participants voiced (rather loudly) their disagreement.
The reason they were there was to find out what was causing this hospital all of the "unusual" incidents. We're not talking sudden light bulb failures or creepy noises coming from under the beds. Entire levels have been shut down because of what the bystanders described as a ceiling cave-in, even though the floors above and below had no such damage. Pipes have busted and turned the med-check into an Olympic sized pool of gushing and frothing water. The patients staying overnight said that they keep experiencing horrible nightmares, and hallucinations that seem almost real. This and more have all occurred all during the same year, almost causing the hospital to shut down. But even though that would probably be for the best in his opinion, mortals are nothing if not stubborn.
Chiron's suspicions rose along with his eye brows when he received the news and he asked to send a team there to see if the problem was monster related or rouge demigods from Kronus's army. Annabeth, being who she was, volunteered to check it out. She had an apartment nearby and was curious herself. As to why Nico was dragged along, Chiron thought it best, just in case.
So while Annabeth scoured the halls looking for clues with a device that looked like a Ghost Busters prop, Nico walked calmly beside her with his hands in his pockets and a scowl etched in his face. Nobody paid them a thought.
Annabeth looked deep in thought. Her eyes squinted, brows pulled together, and fingers twitch as if they were itching to write something down. She didn't even glance at him when he left to go search another area.
The hall he took seemed almost empty, which he was grateful for. Nico's steps bounced off the tile and plaster in a steady rhythm, his combat boots moving in perfect time. Every door he passed was closed, and every window pane smothered in a good layer of dust. Nico assumed that this part of the hospital had not been occupied or even cleaned in months.
When Nico had almost come to the end of the hall, the lights buzzed, and then flickered out, and he was plunged into total darkness.
Normally, Nico was would not spare on thought on panic if he was alone in the black. Give him a minute or two and he would be able to see again (son of Hades thing, comes in handy when finding your way through some deeper parts of the underworld) and find his way out, but this time, two very imperative things were different.
One, the gloom that swallowed his senses did not seem normal… or to him it didn't. The shadows surrounding him felt unbelievably icy, like he was looking into a great chasm made from deep-rooted frost. The air he breathed felt sharper and bitter, freezing blades of oxygen that spiked against the inside of Nico's lungs. It was unlike the underworld, completely unique and terrifying.
Two, he was not alone, if the soft breathing against the back of his neck was anything to go by, or the subzero touch he felt on his cheek bone.
