Narrator POV

Finally Will started bleeding out so much he fell straight forward, face first, to the ground, as his eyes rolled up in his head...

Then, two skinny arms scooped him up, and raced him to the infirmary.

Did... did he really love me? Nico wonders, as he scurries back to his cabin. He couldnt see anyone like that... anyone but himself. He wouldn't have risked his life just for a lie... right? Nico wondered, realization hitting him.

The sterile walls of the infirmary seemed to shrink with each raspy breath Will expelled. Kayla and Austin exchanged glances, their usual vibrant eyes dimmed by a shared burden of dread. They'd seen Will crumble before, witnessed the cracks in his usually unflappable facade after Nico's disappearance. But this, this abyss of despair, was a sight neither of them ever imagined.

"I never thought..." Kayla's voice choked, her gaze glued to the bandages swaddling Will's arm like a tragic shroud. "He seemed so...whole, you know?"

Austin, normally as steady as a mountain, clenched his fists until knuckles turned white. "He hid it all so well, the sunshine king with a storm raging inside."

A suffocating silence settled, punctuated only by the relentless beep of the heart monitor. The air thickened with unspoken fears and regrets, the ghosts of words left unsaid and bridges torched by the fires of anger and desperation.

Then, the door slammed open, shattering the tense stillness. Nico stood there, his face a storm-ravaged landscape mirroring the desolation etched on Will's pale form. He looked at the sleeping boy, the shadow consuming him whole.

"It's my fault," his voice cracked, the words tumbling out like broken shards. "He wouldn't have done this... not if I hadn't been such a... such a goddamn monster."

The air crackled with a sudden static. For a moment, time seemed to warp, stretching and twisting before coalescing into Austin's roar: "Monster? You call yourself a monster? Look what you did to him, Nico! Look at him!"

Nico looked down.

"You're so much worse than a monster. Monsters wont play with your heart like you did to Will. Monsters wont leave people wondering if they are worth anything in life anymore. The only thing similar about you and monsters... is that you can both be killed." Austin finished.

Nico looked at Kayla, expecting her to say something in his defense, but she did not speak, leaving Nico on his own.

"I... I didn't mean to..."

"Didn't mean to?" Austin bellowed, stepping closer, his voice trembling with barely contained rage. "Didn't mean to push him away? Didn't mean to spit venom that festered inside him until he shattered? Didn't mean to break the one person who loved you unconditionally?"

Kayla, unable to bear the escalating tension, reached out and touched Austin's arm, a silent plea for restraint. He turned to her, eyes blazing with a grief so raw it burned.

"He's lying there, half-dead, Kayla," he hissed, his voice angry but laced with pain. "And all Nico can do is mumble excuses? What good are apologies now? What good is anything when he's already ripped his heart out and stomped on it?"

Nico's knees buckled beneath him, the sterile floor rushing up like a tidal wave. His head spun, nausea churning in his gut as Austin's words echoed in the hollow chambers of his skull. Was it another act, another pathetic ploy for their pity? Austin's face contorted with doubt, the question unspoken but hanging heavy in the air.

But it wasn't an act. It was an abyss, a bottomless pit of regret swallowing him whole. Memories flickered on the periphery, fragments of a past he couldn't grasp. A blade, cold and unforgiving, inches from his own throat. Then... darkness. Silence. Nothing.