Nico Bianchi's POV

May have graphic scenes. Read at your own discretion.

My head had become foggy, like that time when alcohol took me into oblivion, but I hadn't drunk a drop. It was as if every eye lash weighed more than it should have and gravity had been turned up ten fold.

My fingers quiver around the grainy soil, my insides heating up in an unwelcome heat. "I want to forget," I reiterated to myself, the words ringing within my own skull as though it had been the only mantra I'd lived by.

The soil had been wet, the scanty amount of water in it wetting the edges of my digits. And from that rain soaked ground came such life, the plants that grew so strong in the bountiful rays. The water had been liquid magic and the Earth was the richness and nurture for the flower-given seeds. Without the rain it is only mud, without the earth it is only water; together they are a sort of cozy joy, a tingle of hope and of good things to come. The grandeur and elegance I could only wish to witness.

As my eyelids dropped close on their own accord, my mind drifted into a slumber. I felt the cradle of the loving universe, as if for those hours of dreaming I had returned to heaven's arms.

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"Another one, mother. This tastes too good," I said with my mouth stuffed full, pulling out the clean fork from my mouth.

Her soft chuckled filled the room, the hushed laughs reverberating within the pastel walls. "You can't keep on eating and eating, Nico."

"It's not my fault this tastes so good."

"Okay, just one more," she laughed, the crinkles against her eyes quite adamant at showing how couthy she'd been.

Her eyes were the hue of the new spring growth, radiant and soft all at once. There were flecks of strength, of the kind of virescence that came only as the  summer advanced. And they were never more graceful than when she cried, when her gentleness flowed over her cheeks, nor when she became the wise woman I came to depend on, decorated with laughter lines. Yet the soul and the eyes were ageless, and to me, so was she.

"I'll be up in my room, mother. If you need anything, just call me," I avered, making sure to flash a smile in her direction as I got up.

I didn't know what the smile she sent back had meant. I couldn't exactly point out the vehemence it gave off; a strange mix of emotions I did not understand.

My steps had been ambivalent, unaware of what her smile had truly meant. My eyebrows crashed down in an attempt to discern it, but my attempts had been rather futile.

But before I could let my thoughts go in any further, an acute stinging coursed through my veins. It originated somewhere around my back and I wasn't sure what happened. For all I knew was my mouth had been hung open in a muted scream.

My fingers flew to the source, skimming along something fluid-like, something smooth, something velvety. My back hit against the wall, as I slumped down.

My eyes fell upon the most familiar of all sights. The silvery tears in her face had been akin to the skin of her heart. They weren't the rainbow tears, the ones that came when she witnessed the sunshine through the storm. Instead they had been something that echoed the panging guilt and remorse.

"Mother..." I weakly managed.

Her fingers had been tightly wound around a whetted knife, the one she used to cut vegetables with. And the blade had been blemished; a shade of crimson that should've never touched it. A shade of agony and coercion that would only kill with time.

"I'm sorry... You deserve a normal life, honey. Not this. You don't need this."

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My eyes flew open, disconcerting air that wrapped around me making me feel impeded. And I didn't know what to do, how to do, why to do. I knew nothing of what I should've made of that nightmare.

"Take a while to gather things for yourself. Solitude matters."