"Nico." Will's voice tugged at the edge of my subconscious, "Nico, you have to wake up. It's time for you to get ready for school."

I groaned, rolling away from him, "Just let me sleep for five more minutes."

He laughed, running his fingers through my hair, they got caught in the tangles there, caused by a night of tossing and turning, of waking up to find dark figures looming over me or lurking around my room, they came in all sorts of different forms, taunting me, trapping me. Sometimes they seemed to have no purpose at all, sometimes they were just strange. Will never complained about having to chase them away. "Neeks, you say that every day and five minutes always turns into ten minutes and ten minutes turns into fifteen and then ten minutes after that your mom comes up here yelling at you to get up and then you have to rush around doing everything."

I sighed, "Yeah, I know, but I just don't want to go to school, Will."

There was a pause and I didn't have to look up to know that Will was frowning sympathetically. "I know, Neeks. . . but we have to go. You already missed two days this month."

I rolled over to face him, my nose was barely a centimeter from his, "I know. . ."

He smiled softly, "Hey, it'll be okay. I'm here for you. You know I'm here to protect you."

"I know." I whispered again, and Will leaned forward and kissed me softly.

"Okay, you have to promise me to get up and get ready right now. I have to go, but you know where to find me."

I nodded, Will always waited for me at the school's front doors, he was always there when my mom pulled up to drop me off. "I promise."

Will smiled and started pushing himself up, but I caught his wrist, pulling him back down to me to kiss him again, longer this time. He laughed and pulled away gently, cupping my face in his hand, "I love you."

I grinned, "I love you too."

He brushed his lips over the tip of my nose, making me laugh, and then he pulled himself out of bed and started making his way to the door, turning around to call one last goodbye before he shut the door behind him.

I shook my head, the ghost of a smile still on my lips, and then dragged myself out from under the covers and started my bland morning routine. Showering, getting dressed, combing through my hair carelessly, eating, brushing my teeth, all without Will there to talk to me. The Others and the Voices liked to crowd around me in the morning, they knew how vulnerable I was without Will here to protect me. It was often in the mornings when my parents found me screaming and crying, being attacked by figures they didn't believe existed. Their insane son, fighting off his "inner demons" in a way that was much more physical than they were used to.

My mom had noticed that Will wasn't around in the mornings a while ago, that he wasn't there to calm me down when I had these "breakdowns," that I didn't have quiet, teasing conversations with him over breakfast or argue with him about what we should eat (Will was always concerned about my health), and it had puzzled her until I explained that Will had places to be in the morning and he met me in front if the school.

"Where does he go?" she'd asked, frowning at me. I hated it when she talked about him, when anyone talked about him, actually, they acted like they were either humoring me or collecting data for an experiment.

I'd shrugged and told her that he'd never mentioned any specific place, but then I was frowning too. I'd never stopped to wonder where exactly Will had to be, I'd just accepted that he did, in fact, have to be somewhere. When I asked Will about it later, he'd studied me for a second like he was trying to make a tough decision and then he shook his head, "I'm sorry, Nico, but I can't tell you. I swore that I wouldn't."

And that was the end of that.

I still wondered about it sometimes, though, Where did he go? Who was it that he swore this thing to? Why was it that I couldn't know? It wasn't that I didn't trust Will, but I was curious. It is a natural, human response to wonder about things we can't know, after all. That's why we have science, though, isn't it? Good things come from curiosity, so obviously it isn't a terrible thing to do, to speculate. But sometimes I even considered following him, that's how badly I wanted to know. I'd always shoved the thought aside, though, it was absurd. I wasn't supposed to know and Will would tell me if knowing would actually somehow benefit me.

He just wanted what was best for me.

-

I kept my head down as I made my way down the halls, I hated the way people looked at me. I hated how they only cast quick glances at me like they wanted to get a look at the crazy kid with the imaginary friend, but they didn't want me to see. I hated how some of them went out of their way to smile at me, it should have made me feel good, accepted even, but instead, I just felt like even more of a freak. All they were doing was following orders given to them by the principle. Even if they weren't, the fact that they smiled at me but never actually came up to talk to me, never helped me when I dropped my stuff, never sat by me at lunch, all of it told me that their smiles didn't really mean anything at all.

"Nico." I looked up at Will, he was the only friend I had here. He was the only friend I had anywhere. "Don't let it get to you."

It was easy for him to say, they couldn't see him, he wasn't the one they whispered about when they thought he wasn't around.

"I know, Will." My voice was hollow.

Will took me by my arm and pulled me into the boy's bathroom, where he could talk to me without people staring. "Listen to me, Nico." He was holding my face in his hands, trying to give me a grip on reality. "They just don't know. They can't see me. You are not crazy."

I looked down, taking in a shuddering breath, "I know."

He nodded, brushing his thumb over my cheekbone, "Okay. Come on, you have to get to class on time."

I felt his hands drop slip from my face, heard the startled yelp that followed, but when I jerked my gaze up I found that he had vanished. My heart climbed its way into my throat.

No, no. Not here.

In his place was a tall man around the age of twenty. He was lean and muscular with black hair that brushed against his shoulders, a hawkish nose, and sharp features that made him look harsh and stone-cold. His eyes were red, but they weren't vibrant and glowing, but more subtle, you might even mistake them as brown at a first glance, like dried blood that had been sitting for so long that it almost looked like rust.

The thing that caught me the most off-guard were his wings. They were almost as tall as him folded in against his back and were so white that it almost hurt my eyes to look at them. He looked like an angel from Hell, devilishly handsome and willing to stab anyone in the back if it got him what he wanted.

I took an unsteady step backwards and he smiled. It sent chills down my spine; his eyes almost seemed dead, incapable of showing any type of emotion.

Just as suddenly as he'd appeared, he was gone and now I was noticing the way the walls were bleeding, slowly leaking red liquid from the spaces between their bricks. It was dripping down onto the floor. More and more blood. It wouldn't stop, the longer I stood there, frozen in terror, the faster unseen arteries pumped and gushed crimson out of wounds in the walls. It was creeping over the floor towards me and now I saw it. It was not tile beneath me, but skin. Cold and dead, I could see the veins running through it, could feel its lifelessness seeping through my shoes. Slowly, so slow that the progress was hardly noticeable, it was being overtaken by blood and soon enough, I would be too.

I turned in a circle, panicking more and more every second. The entire place screamed death, the sinks all turned on in quick succession, every one of them gushing blood. My eyes lit on the door and I started moving towards it, my feet slipping in gore, my gut twisting against the metallic smell of it.

Laughter washed over me, "You can't leave."

I whipped around, but no one was there. Had I really been expecting to see someone?

"You can't tell me what to do." I set my jaw and clenched my hands into fits, trying to hide the way I was trembling.

"I can't make you do anything, Nico," the Voice practically giggled, "but if you step out of this bathroom, there's no way you'll live to see tomorrow."

I took a shaky step backwards, "If I stay in here, I'll drown." The cruor was creeping over the toes of my shoes now, soon enough it would wash over my ankles and then my shins and it would keep climbing until it could clog my throat.

"Maybe, maybe not." Breath against my ear. I spun around and the Voice cackled again, "Give up. You can't see a Voice, Nico."

Now there was raucous laughter from a dozen or more unseen bystanders. All mocking me. I sneered and continued marching towards the door, but invisible hands clamped down on my arms, dragging me backwards; my feet blundered over the slick surface, I tried to struggle but it was useless. The hands released me all at once, letting me crash into the ground. Thick liquid squelched around me and I fumbled wildly, trying to get up, but my hands slid and I fell again.

"You're not leaving." It sounded furious now.

All of the other Voices joined in, all whispering different things. That I was insane, I would die here, my parents would be glad, everyone in the school would whisper about me, how I was screaming and crying about nothing in the bathroom, that Will didn't really care, if he did, then why was he not here?

I sobbed and thrashed, but there was a shadowy figure above me, holding me down. It had a jagged, red slash for a mouth but no other features. Its lips were bent into something that loosely resembled a smile.

I screamed for help, I screamed until I was sure my lungs would give out. The bathroom door was flung open and a teacher stepped in, her eyes widened when she saw me. I saw her turn and yell, two other people appeared behind her, they all slipped and slid and scrambled their way towards me over skin and blood, through dozens of Voices.

The Other turned when it saw me looking over its shoulder and then it vanished. The three teachers reached me and pulled me up from the ground, but still, the whispers hadn't stopped. I could not leave. I could not go anywhere, and they were dragging me, kicking and screaming towards my death.

"NO." I shouted, but they didn't listen, "I CAN'T LEAVE, I CAN'T LEAVE."

I grasped at the door frame, "PLEASE."

They yanked me loose and pulled me out the door, all around people were poking their heads out of doors, gaping at us. We were all covered in blood and I was still fighting them with everything I had.

"Nico." Hands tightened on my shoulders, a tiny voice in the back of my head muttered that I knew this person, but the voice was my own and so I could trust it.

I felt the familiar grip loosen and slip away and still I struggled, my eyes were clenched shut against tears. Sobs were racking my body and I was choking out words, words of terror and confusion and warnings. Hands against my face.

"Nico." My eyes flew open. Will.

I crumpled into him and he stumbled backwards a few steps before wrapping his arms around me and holding me up. "I'm so sorry," he was saying. "Everything is okay now, you're going to be okay. I'm so, so sorry."

I just shook and sobbed and shook some more. People were talking all around me, wondering what they should do, yelling at each other to call my parents, yelling at students to get back inside classrooms, telling them that everything was fine, but I only focused on Will.

He was strong and sure, he was my anchor and I was going to be okay.

I just wanted to thank all of you for reading and giving us feedback!! You're all awesome!
~IWrteFicNotTragedies (Ashley)