Nico's POV:

"Where's the desert?" Nico frowned at his plate. Visiting hour was over, and now it was dinnertime. Had Will done this? The jerk! It would be just like him to interfere with Nico's diet, which was totally unfair! After all, Nico had gone to bed, hadn't he? Nico had half a mind to-

"I'm sorry," Lacy flushed. "The chef was going to make a lemon meringue pie, but someone robbed all the citrus at the local supermarket."

"They did what?" Of all things Nico had suspected, it hadn't been that. Sure, he liked lemons, oranges, and grapefruit, but they weren't that expensive, and not in an extremely high demand. Why would someone steal them? It made no sense.

"I know," Lacy agreed. "Totally random, right? But the chef couldn't get his order, so the supermarket refunded him the money. Unfortunately, it was too late to make something else, so there's no desert today."

Lacy put the tray by his bedside and left, as if afraid Nico would stick a knife in her back given half the chance. Nico felt disappointed, then felt angry for feeling disappointed. Why hold he care what others thought of him? He was used to being alone.

Sighing, Nico reached for his tray and ate. Dinner tasted blander than normal, probably because of the lack of sugar. Hospital food was already bad enough, why did the robbers have to make it even more intolerable?

Squeezing the last bite of his food down, Nico lay down and went to sleep.

The building was painted pure black. Each hallway was practically identical. This place had definitely earned it's nickname of the Labyrinth, but that didn't stop Nico. He had to get to the end, had to get to the office of Mount Othrys. He didn't care it housed a murderer. He had to get there.

Minos, Antaeus, Kronos himself- it didn't matter who died, as long as he knew his sister was safe.

Panting for breath, he turned a corner just in time to see Bianca fall to the floor, Kronos standing behind her with a knife covered in blood.

Grinning wickedly, he spun to face Nico and snarled words that rang repeatedly in Nico's head.

"You're too late, Nico, your sister is dead!"

Nico woke from his dream with a jerk.

Taking deep breaths, Nico tried to forget the image of Bianca lying on the floor, blood all over the back of her shirt, her eyes glassy...

Sure, he knew it hadn't been that way. The authorities said that Percy'd activated the bomb that Kronos was going to use to destroy them. He and some other kidnapped people had run, but while escaping, Bianca and Beckendorf had turned around to hold off some of Krono's employees. They hadn't made it out, but neither had Kronos. In there eyes, Percy was a hero.

Nico liked his cousin and all, and he knew that Percy had done his best to save everyone, but part of him wondered, why couldn't Bianca have been saved, too?

Nico shook his head furiously. Don't think about it, don't think about it, go back to sleep.

Nico turned around to get into a more comfortable position, lying on his side to face the wall.

In the darkness, the white walls looked stark black.

Nico stiffened. It was like his dream all over again, the identical hallways, all the colour of obsidian-

Nico threw off his sheets. He couldn't sleep. He had to go somewhere.

Not outside. There was no way he could get past security without getting caught. But inside, in a dark, forgotten place that nobody would check... or at least, not until morning.

Stumbling out of bed, Nico left in search of a broom closet, or anywhere nobody would think to look.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he heard the sound of footsteps approach his room.

Nico sat up and rubbed his eyes. Darn it, had he fallen asleep? Stifling a yawn, Nico waited for the person to pass so he could go outside. Maybe there would be a clock he could check-?

Then the door flew open, and without thinking, Nico automatically punched the person who opened it.

"Ow!"

Nico nearly toppled over from surprise. What was Will doing here at this time of night? Or was it already morning? "Will?"

"Nico?" Will's voice was full of surprise and joy as he tackle-hugged the younger boy. "You're okay! I've been searching for you ever since Chiron called me at midnight!"

"You have? Why did you come after me?" Nico asked. "Why would anyone want to be woken up in the night to be told to search for me? Don't you know why I'm here? Didn't you read the files?"

"Of course I did," Will said. "I'm here anyways."

"Why?" Nico said again. "You know I've killed somebody. Why would you want to search for a person like that?"

"Because," Will snapped. "You don't seem like the type of person that does something with no reason. If you'd killed someone, it was because you had to and there was no other choice. You had your reasons, I'm sure. What they were, I don't know. Maybe I'll never know. But if you want to tell me, you can."

"Are you pulling the, 'I'll always be here for you' cliché?" Nico demanded. "Some false, 'You can tell me everything' stuff? Because you can't, you know. There aren't any guarantees in life except for death."

"True," Will admitted. "But no, I am not telling you those things. All I'm saying is... everyone has a life. Everyone has a story, their own version of their lives. Some of them get heard, some of them have people who sympathize. But some don't. Some stories people ignore, and are muffled by those who are heard. I don't want you to be like that, okay? So if you want- and only if you want, by the way- you can tell me about it. Or at least stop running off in the middle of the night to hide in closets, and we'll get along fine."

"I wasn't running off."

"Yeah, yeah," Will said. "Just stop, okay? My mom is the overprotective type, and if I keep getting late-night phone calls telling me to go somewhere she might call the police. Chiron told me they thought someone abducted you, because around when you disappeared the electricity went off. The backup generator kicked in, of course, but by then you were gone."

"Everyone thought I'd been kidnapped?" Nico's voice was full of disbelief. Sure, he could understand why, with the blackout and all, but wasn't that going a little too far? "Didn't anyone consider it might have been a coincidence?"

"I don't believe in coincidences," Will told him. "To me, they're fate in disguise."

"That's coming from the guy who's working in a hospital. Isn't it all facts and information here?"

"What? It's true." Will shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. "I think it's easier to believe that nothing happens by chance, and there's always a reason for something, not just pure luck."

"Easier isn't always better," Nico countered.

"Maybe," Will said. "but maybe not. I'll keep believing anyways. Are you going to come out now? You have to stop hiding sometime, you know."

"I know," Nico snapped. Will's words could be interpreted two ways, it seemed. From the way he was putting it, it sounded like Will was either telling Nico to come out of the closet, or come out of his comfort zone and tell Will the story of why he was there. He might have won on the first one, but Nico wasn't ready to accomplish the second. At least, not yet. "I'll be there in a second."

OMG. I LOVE YOU GUYS, SERIOUSLY. THIS STORY IS DOING SO WELL I WANNA CRY~

I'm not sure when I can have the fifth chapter up for you guys. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after that or the day after the day after that. I'm done most of it, (921 words precisely!) but the weekends are over so yeah, I might not update as much as I want to.

Weird thing? I'm almost done half of chapter 10 and more than half for eleven, which are the last two chapters for this story. (For now, I might change the number later) I've got everything planned out, so I guess that I wanted to write something for the end (Call me weird, I don't always write beginning to end, more like beginning-end-middle-end-beginning-middle-end).

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LAST EDITED: 24/03/15