Chp 155 - Hazel's POV

                                    

                                          
A/N: Did I get distracted and missed two weekends of updates? Yes. But I only had one chapter ready so... not that much of a loss.
                          
Hazel's Flashback
                          
TUESDAY, 31st January
                          
"Wow, he looks like hell."
                          
Hazel followed Lucy's eyes to find her brother leaning against his locker. Ashen skin, bags under his eyes, and eyelids dropping in tiredness. His shoulders moved brokenly and she knew he was having trouble breathing. She recognized the symptoms and her heart squeezed.
                          
What happened?
                          
He dreamed of Tartarus.
                          
Oh. And he now he looks like he just crawled out of hell, which is pretty much true.
                          
Both girls approached him and Nico turned to them with haunted eyes. At seeing his sister's face, he saw her worry and gave her a small apologetically smile, like he'd messed up by dreaming of his trauma and worrying her.
                          
"Seriously, what in the world happened to you?"
                          
Nico pursed his lips at Lucy's question and avoided both girls' eyes when he answered.
                          
"Just had a bad night of sleep."
                          
"Grumpy, you look like you had a bad night of no sleep."
                          
He shrugged and kept avoiding their eyes, focusing on his locker and moving his things around with sluggish movements.
                          
He looks hurt.
                          
Tartarus wasn't easy.
                          
I mean, physically hurt. Do you think he was beaten up?
                          
No, I don't. It's a reflection of his nightmares. He was in very bad shape when we found him, it took him several days of forced rest and even ambrosia to move around like his muscles weren't all screaming in pain at the same time. When he dreams of that place, his mind takes him back to those days, and he can't move normally.
                          
"If you are that tired, why did you even come to school? Wouldn't it be better to just stay home?"
                          
Hazel adored Lucy, but at that moment, their friend was not helping. Hazel knew that Nico staying all day alone with his thoughts in an empty house would be worse, that coming to school was almost like a defense mechanism against his own mind. When Nico didn't answer, Lucy sighed and stepped forward, forcing him to give her full access to his locker. Lucy took his backpack from his hand and removed a book, setting it back into the locker and taking out another.
                          
"You don't have English now, you have History. I'll be right back."
                          
When Lucy left, Hazel reached for her brother's hand and squeezed.
                          
"How long?"
                          
He knew she was asking how long he was able to sleep before the nightmares started and sighed tiredly, closing his locker and leaning against it.
                          
"Maybe two hours? I don't know, maybe more."
                          
She knew he was lying, that it was definitely less than two hours, but didn't pressure him into admitting it.
                          
"Do you want to talk about it?"
                          
"Nothing to talk about. Same as always."
                          
"You haven't had one of those for months, even before we came here."
                          
"I know and no, I don't know why now. Maybe too long have passed and it lost the effect."
                          
What lost its effect?