Death Bound

Chapter One

Keep... breathing. All you have to do... is... keep breathing. He thought to himself repeatedly, but the breaths were not coming. He sucked in a breath and in the same moment felt pain race across his body, as if millions of fire ants were biting him at once. His pain made his breath, already shallow and fast, hitch and he yelled, the scream of pain tearing from so far inside him he wasn't sure if it came from his throat or his entire being.

This person was thirteen. He had jet-black, shaggy hair and eyes that were always dark in color and today were black as onyx. His skin was usually an olive tint due to his mother's Italian heritage, but at the moment it was pale and gray-white. He was dressed in tatters of a black aviator jacket, a black skull t-shirt, and a pair of black jeans. He was covered from head to toe in mud, but his main problem were the silver chains draping around him. His wrists, ankles, neck, and thin waist were all manacled, and the chains extending from these cuffs draped across his scrawny form and then trailed off into darkness on either side. He was draped across an opening in a pitch black place that smelled of only earth. He yelled again as more pain racked through him.

His name was Nico di Angelo.

Go on, little Angelo. Let everything go. This isn't your war to fight. Slip away, fall into the black. You like black... its comforting. You're a child of death. It's not as though anyone cares enough about you to notice you aren't there. No ones coming to look for you. No one cares. Let the world go. Let it go.

The voice had never ceased its whispering, not in all the time Nico had been chained here. Twice now he'd been tempted to listen to it. He knew he could. He had that power, the power to just... fade. To leave. To die.

But he knew if he did he could never come back. And something inside him begged him to stay, to not leave all his friends behind. So he clutched at the last tie to life he had as the pain faded. He knew it would come back as soon as he let his guard down. He knew, and he waited for it, wondering if what the voice said was true. Did nobody really care? Were there people looking for him?

If only he hadn't found the Roman camp... if only he'd just stayed back, stayed with Camp Half-Blood. Then he wouldn't have had to lie. And lie. And lie. That's all he was now, a tangle of lies. He hated it, but with his half-conscious mind he couldn't really hate it the way he wanted, so he let that go.

He'd been through two more shocks of pain before a pair of eyes finally glowed out of the darkness.

His watery eyes met the gold ones looking at him and he could feel the begging rising to their black depths before he could regain composure. He didn't care. It those eyes made the pain go away...

"Nico di Angelo... thirteen years of age. Child of my Master." the voice was melodious and charming, pure beauty.

Nico couldn't talk. He tried, opening his mouth, but blood specked his lips from a bitten tongue, and his throat made a noise sounding like a strangled cat. Finally, after what seemed like ages with only those bright eyes the color of his late sister's, he managed a tiny croak. "Th...Thanatos."

The eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"He...Help me."

"I cannot. I cannot get involved."

Nico thought some pretty rude, angry, completely hopeless thoughts towards the god of Death, but none came out of his rust-tasting mouth. Finally he spit out, "Please."

Death's eyes narrowed, as if he had smiled. "You beg Death? No, Nico, I musn't interfere."

Then the eyes vanished, and the voice and pain were all brought back.