Leo's truck is warm and comfy. The seats are soft and feel like you sink in. The inside of the truck looks small from the outside but on the inside it feels large and spacious. The seat belts are normal but I don't use mine and Leo doesn't bother with his either. Of all the cool things about Leo's truck, none can compare to the controls. The whole front dash board has multiple different controls, two small screens, multiple knobs and buttons. They all glow a bright neon green. The stereo system in the middle is upgraded to the best and looks like it came out of a five star limousine.

How does he even know how to drive, especially something like this?!

"Wanna listen to some music," Leo questions absentmindedly as he drives down the street.

I stay silent. The truck isn't shaken at all by the winds even though everything around the truck is whipped about.

Leo presses a few buttons and the radio turns on. Music bursts out from all around the car, clear sound with the bass increased.

"We all wanna BE SSSSSSooooommmmmeeeBBBBBBBooooddddyyy, we just NEED a TASTE of whooo, weeeee AAARRREEE! We all wanna BE SSSSSSooooommmmmeeeBBBBBBBooooddddyyy, we're willing to GO but nooooot TTTThhhaattt FAR!"

Leo sings along to the song that comes on. I sit silently and listen as he taps his steering wheel along with the beat.

"I'm just a boy inside the man, not exactly who you think I am~"

He continues to sing and drive as we go down the road at 70 miles per hour. I don't comment on how fast he is driving. Soon another song comes on.

"So SCREAM if you wanna, SHOUT if you need, just let it ggoooooooooo! Take it out on mmmeeeeee! FIGHT if you need to, SMASH if it helps you! Get con-TTTRRRROOOOOOOOoooooooolllll~!"

"Leo."

"HM?"

"Who sings these songs."

Leo chuckles at me, "Thousand Foot Krutch. This is a mix playlist I created of their songs. I'm sure you can download them with the app I gave you."

He freely gave me an expensive music player... right...

I choose to stay silent for the rest of the ride and simply listen to the music playing instead of saying something I know will be stupid. Leo sings along to the songs he knows by heart and hums to the others.

"I'm a monster if that means I'm misunderstood, Cause its alive and I can't hide it. The energy is rising~"

Misunderstood... monster... and I can't hide it... the energy is rising...

"So when am I turning Nico? You never gave me all the directions."

Shit, shit, shit. What should I tell him?! I shouldn't have gotten into his truck. Now he's going to find out where I live, that can happen. That would be horribly wrong. So stupid. Why am I always fucking UP!

"...Hey, Nico... It's okay? I'll just... uhm... Keep going this way and... you can tell me as I go..."

His voice barely enters my mind as my thoughts rage. My body feels like it is bubbling lava. I glare at my open hands in my lap, staring at the hands that are mine. Staring at the hands that have killed. Staring at the hands that constantly ruin things. Staring at the hands that are disturbed, and uncontrollable. Staring. Staring at MY hands. MY hands that ruin everything. MY hands that destroy. MY hands that kill. MY hands that can't be controlled. MY hands that killed Bianca...

"Okay Nico. You see that tree I'm pointing to? I want you to decay the leaves, the leaves only," Bianca says to me.

"I don't think I can Bianca... I'll decay the whole tree and the few surrounding ones," I mumble to Bianca, ashamed and nervous.

She smiles and a soft breeze plays with her hair. "Nico, I know you can do this. You just have to direct it. Focus on the leaves and only the leaves. PRetend that the rest of the tree isn't even there. Just focus on the leaves and make them decay. Try now."

I look up at her confident encouraging smile. I love it when she smiles.

"Ooooookkaaaaaayyyyy..."

I turn and look at the small oak tree. It's large in size but compared to the other trees around it is smaller. A squirrel jumps from branch to branch on the tree.

I put my hand out and close my eyes, focusing on the leaves. I cant them as my own. I want to claim them. They belong to me and where I come from. The leaves are mine.

I open my eyes and see that all the leaves on the tree have fallen to the ground in specks of dust. A few branch tips have also begun to decay. The squirrel freezes on it's current branch.

"See? I told you, you can do it."

"Yeah but... I got some of the branches..."

"That's okay Nico, you only got a few of them. But look! All the leaves that were on that tree are gone! You did it!"

I turn and grin at her. Bianca laughs and I feel so proud. To see her happy, because I did something good. I actually did it. She grins at me.

"Okay, now lets try more. I want you to focus on that tree but I want you to get the bird's nest in the tree."

"But... what if their are birds in it... Bianca, I don't want to kill them."

She smiles warmly at me, "I already checked the nest Nico. It's been long abandoned."

"Okay..."

I turn to the new tree she is pointing at and focus on the bird's nest. Just the bird's nest. I close my eyes and imagine the little twigs decaying and smoldering into nothing. When I open my eyes again, the tree is okay, the leaves are okay, the only thing different is that there is no longer a bird's nest.

"I did it..."

"I told you you could Nico. You can do lots of things. You are powerful."

"I didn't get it all the other times though..."

"Nico, you're not going to be perfect on your first try. That is why we've spent more than one time practicing and training. It doesn't matter if this was your 20th time or if it is your 50th time trying, you did it. You got it."

Bianca always believed in me. We've been practicing since the beginning of spring, it's not the end of summer and school will be starting next week. We've practiced every other day all this time and I've finally done it.

"I'm going to teach you something new now. Okay?"

I nod.

"Alright. This is more complicated but I know you can do it. First, I want you to stand up straight and tall. Yes that's it. Okay. Now bring your arms out at your sides, palms facing out as if you are about to grab something. Perfect. Close your eyes. Try focusing on the air around you, the environment. Everything around you is living. And that is a beautiful thing. But everything dies. This is also beautiful. It's a cycle. Birth and death. It's a never ending, constant beautiful cycle. And it is okay. It is not evil, it is not good, it just is. And we have the ability to manipulate such things. We come from the underworld, we can be the door between the life and the death, the gateway. We can control and allow both to pass through us. You Nico, have this ability stronger than me. You are a better doorway than me. Whether you know it or not. You are a door between the living and the dead, of all souls, and energy. Everything. I know you will be able to do this, far better than me. Are you ready to try?"

I keep my eyes closed and focused. I'm ready. I nod.

"Okay," Bianca says gently, "You're going to be good at this, I know it. Feel the life around you. Feel the life around you, feel the death inside every life. No, don't get nervous. I know it's a lot to feel but you can do this. Feel the death in all the living that surrounds you. Now take the living in it, and allow it to grow, allow it to grow more and the death become smaller. Focus Nico. I know you can do this. You'll be good at this. I can feel it. You can do this. Nico you-"

Darkness...

"Funny how in just one moment, things can turn upside down. Wish I could turn back time to when you were still around."

The women sings peacefully accompanied by a piano. Her voice carries me back to the memories once again. The memories of what happened. The memories of my childhood. The memories of how Bianca and I cared for each other. The memories of her face.

"And all I got left is memories, of your face smiling at me."

For once my mind is clear, my mind is blank. I think no thoughts. All that occupies my mind are the memories. Repeating. The memories of what I did.

"Destroyed every hope we once had. Nothing we can do now that you're gone. No way to bring you back."

Everything had gone black. It was like a soundless explosion of darkness. I had fallen to the ground. Ground, dirt, mud, not grass. My knees had trembled and I held my head in pain, my eyes squeezed shut. There was no sound, there was no wind, there was no feeling. There was nothing. I had called to Bianca, my voice cracking. But there hadn't been a reply.

"Took us all by surprise. No, we never saw this coming."

I had groaned and called out for her again. And still no reply. When I opened my eyes at last, I wished I hadn't. Nothing was the same. Nothing resembled the location I had once been. For a moment I thought that I was dreaming. Then I hoped that I had shadow-traveled, and that I would somehow figure out how to go back to Bianca. She would know what I did and be so proud. But at the time shadow travel was only a concept to me, not a possibility. I soon wished it was a dream. I wished I had shadow traveled.

"With no warning sign. One day..."

I lunged forward at what had been in front of me. Nothing else had mattered. It had not mattered that there wasn't a tree for miles. It had not mattered that the ground was dirt and mud. It had not mattered that there had been no wind blowing even though before there had been a soft breeze. It had not mattered that no animal was to be found. It had not mattered that there were patches of fire burning in the dirt. It had not mattered that eve though it was midday, there was a darkness around like a fog. None of that had mattered. The only thing that mattered was what I saw in front of me, lying on the ground.

"Remember everything that you said?"

Bianca had told me so much. She had helped me so much. And she was right. I was good at that. I was too good. I was incredible. I was dangerously good. Dangerously powerful.

"Things can be so unfair. You were taken away before your time."

A skeleton was crumpled up on the ground, at least what was left of one. The bone was pure black and looked as though it was rusted. Chucks had been shattered or cracked in the bone. The bones were dry, as if they had been left out in the desert for days. Not all the bones were there either, were they would have been, there was a grey-black powder.

"Took us all by surprise..."

I reached a shaky hand out to caress the cracked burned skull. By my slightest touch, it had crumbled into dust.

"Always were...always will be...our hero..."

"Hey Nico... are you alright? We've been driving for more then an hour. I'm sure we're close to you're house now. You said you lived in the city, right?"

I look up and out the window. There are no cars around. There are no people and no lights on. By driving, in less than ten minutes we will enter Father's domain.

"Here. Drop me off here."

Leo smoothly pulls over to the side on the road so I will step out onto the side walk.

"You sure? It doesn't look like anything's alive around here."

If only you knew.

"Yeah. I live right near here. I'll walk the rest of the way, " I say, opening the door, grabbing my bag of cat food, and jump out.

"Okay... I'll see you around I guess."

I get out and shut the door and begin to walk towards hell on earth. Leo waits in his car for a short bit then I hear him drive off.

As I walk deeper in, towards Father's house, I notice that still no creatures are about. No souls wandering. Not a thing that should be. The pomegranate trees seem to have no life in them either, even though they still produce damned fruit. The stones, gems, and crystals on and in the ground seem to have a much duller shine than usual. The cracks leading down to the underworld seem to be deeper and wider though. I have to jump over some. I smell fear everywhere though. I realize that the scent of fear never left my nose my whole trip, I just got used to it. Now that I'm focusing on it again, I try to locate it once more.

I continue to walk towards the house, I can see it a couple hundred feet away. I can't find the source to the smell because it is strong all around me. The scent is everywhere and stronger than any fear I've ever smelled. I go over in my head what it could be, trying to pin point it still.

I walk silently into the house. It is all quiet inside also. I shut the door behind me and freeze.

It's me.

Hey everyone. I know this chapter is a bit short but SO MUCH happened in the chapter that I just HAD to end it. You can only process so much at one time. I must admit something though, while writing this chapter I almost cried at some parts. I put myself in Nico's shoes (which is the whole point of me writing in first person -.-) and imagined just how he must have been feeling, what his eleven/twelve year old self would have been thinking and done. I got very emotional, and the fact that I was listening to the songs I put into this chapter just made everything more intense. UUUUUHHHHHGGGG I did not enjoy writing what happened to Bianca. :'( But, the story must continue.

So tell me what you thought. Leave me a review PPPPPPAAAAAAHHHHHLLLLLAAAAAYYYYZZZZZZAAAAHHHHH!

Thanks for sticking with my story for so long ^_^ 3

For those who would like to know, the songs that were in this chapter are as follow:

Thousand Foot Krutch- Be Somebody

Thousand Foot Krutch- The End is Where We Begin

Earlyrise- Memories