WAIT FOR ME [ nico di angelo ]

Taurus isn't really fun

LOUIS HAD BEEN falling for what felt like years. It was completely pitch black, and it felt like the walls were closer and closer together as he fell. He could still hear the screams of agony from down below, meaning he was getting closer to the bottom . . . Or so he hoped.

Louis shut his eyes, wishing he had something to grab onto at least to help him feel a little more secure.

But he didn't regret this descion. He was here with Nico, and his main goal was for Nico to survive. Nothing else mattered to Louis as long as Nico was alright. And he could never of let Nico go through any of this alone. So if that meant Louis was to suffer along side him, then so be it!

Wind whistled in Louis' ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if they were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon.

Louis had lost track of how long he'd been falling. He could only assume Nico was somewhere not too far off above, or at least that's what he hoped. Otherwise Louis was completely screwed.

He had no plan, only to follow Nico, in hopes of keeping him alive and giving him as much guidance as he could offer on this journey.

The darkness took on a gray-red tinge.  The whistling in his ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute they’d been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below him, Louis could see the bottom. For a moment he was too stunned to think properly. The entirety of Camp Jupiter could have fit inside this cavern—and he couldn’t even see its full extent. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape—at least what she could see of it—was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To Louis' left, the ground dropped off in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.

The stench of sulfur made it hard to concentrate, but he focused on the ground directly below them and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid—a river.

For the very first time, Louis was fearful for his life. He knew that falling from a great height into water would feel like concrete, and breaking his neck wasn't exactly on his bucket list.

He closed his eyes, wishing more then anything he knew where about Nico was. As he inched closer to the bottom, Louis was surely preparing himself for death. Maybe he'd meet again with Nico in the underground. But thus was it for Louis. He has nothing to break his fall, except his own body.

The impact came sooner then expected, becsuse in a matter of minutes, Louis hit the water.

----

THE WATER WAS freezing. But that wasn't much of a surprise. What surprised Louis the most was that he was somehow still alive.

Freezing water shocked the air right out of his lungs. His limbs turned rigid, and he heard a loud snap of a bone. Landing right on his ankle hurt the most, and he was almost certin it was now broke.

He began to sink. Strange wailing sounds filled his ears—millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed him down and made him numb.

The coldness of the water, the wailing screams, the thobbing pain in his ankle all were enough to drive him insane. It was soaking into his mind, overlapping any possible thought he could have.

For right now, it seemed easier just to let go. He started letting the darkness and flow of the river sink into his mind, letting the oxygen from his lungs start to lesson.