Three • Nico

I hate looking at pictures of me.

The old pictures haunted me, like a memory that just wouldn't leave.

Sometimes I'd come across a picture with me in it. Not me now. The old me.

The me that disappeared when she died.

In those pictures, I'd be grinning from ear to ear. My skin wasn't as pale as it was nowadays. My hands would often be clutching a set of Mythomagic cards.

Other campers here at Camp Half Blood told me they missed the old me.

I didn't.

I was jealous of the old me. Bianca was with him. And now I'm alone.

Bianca's just a memory.

Memories don't last long.

When someone is gone, you don't forget.

You cling unto your memories of them.

But sometimes, that doesn't ease the pain. It worsens it.

I know from experience how it feels like to lay awake in the darkness of the night.

Your pillow's wet with the tears that stream down your face as a distant memory returns to you. There's some strange pain that throbs in your chest, almost in the same place your heart is.

In these cases, all I want to do is forget.

Forget Bianca.

Forget Percy.

Forget Camp Half Blood.

Forget everything.

The feeling tears you apart slowly.

You want to remember, you want to keep that face you've known your whole life in your head for as long as possible.

But then you realize that whenever you remember that face, that weighty pain pops up again.

And you wish that pain would just go away.

Sometimes, I wish everything would go away.

On a few cases, I want even my memories of Bianca to just fade.

Then I remember that she wouldn't want me to forget, and I realize I just have to deal with the pain.

It's been years now.

I never knew how hard it was to cope with the passing away of the people near me.

I was a child of Hades, scared of death itself.

What did that mean for me?

It was rather simple, really.

In a way, I was scared of myself.

Sometimes, I would stare into my mirror, watching my reflection stare back.

I definitely didn't look like that eager boy in the old pictures anymore.

I was an entirely different Nico di Angelo.

A Nico that had ghost-pale skin. A Nico who shut himself out to the rest of the world.

A Nico that lost Bianca.

Although, through everything, I noticed one thing that stayed the same.

My eyes hadn't changed much.

They were still the same olive green shade that they were in the old pictures. But somehow, they looked older; more experienced.

They were the same as Bianca's eyes.

Those eyes flittered in and out of my memory.

I missed them.

Maybe as much as I missed Bianca herself.

•A/N•

Heyyo!

This chapter was so hard to write.

It's tough putting yourself in the place of a boy who lost his sister at a young age.

But anyway, we finally have our full set of major characters.

The next bunch of chapters will connect them all in a way.

Please comment if you want to! I read each and every single one of your comments and reply to them, too. Feel free to point out any mistakes I made have made in grammar, punctuation, spelling and the like. All your comments always put a grin on my face.

Don't hesitate to hit that Vote button! You might just get a virtual gummy bear.

¡Adios!

-rosemaryreddings