Elias Celeste's POV

The hoary fog had been the only thing he could see. There was no fathoming, where one wisp of the mist ended and the other began. The gray, murky atmosphere was all he could witness... Like a person trapped in the middle of the ocean. No land, no wight... Nothing.

But it was far more than he could bargain for. Nico Bianchi, I mean. It would've taken a trip to the moon and back for me to have convinced him to effectuate what the quotidian mortals did.

He wasn't a quotidian mortal, howbeit. Mortal, yes? Normal and mundane? No. So far, he's been the only beguiling person I've dealt with. And I've had a fair share of banausic and benumbing interactions with most... Earthlings. Or that's what I'd rather call them.

People called him peculiar. Some called him non compos mentis, while the others just pitied him... For his bizarre idiosyncrasy. For the way his heart reacted when it was a man, and not a woman. For the way his cheeks became blemished by a hue of pinks when he thought of that special someone - a man.

I watched Nico sway his arms in front of him, his frantic whimpers escaping his plush lips. "Where am I?" he muttered, trying to push himself straight. But it was to no avail.

He had been sprawled on the ground. The soft, miry ground left faint splotches on his shirt, the puffed sleeves of his shirt being painted with a mirage of browns.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" he called out, his voice dropping to mere whisper.

His legs trembled. He shivered. The phantasm of his ephialtes had finally commenced. Or so he thought. He hadn't realized that his condition would be something... Imperishable. To put it simply, something he couldn't abscond from.

The nightly orbs he possessed did not deserve to have been laid down for being subjected to a massacre. They carried the coruscating dream - a yearning - that one day, it would all be fine and he could be with the one he desired the most.

Akin to withering cinders, his tears flowed. His cheeks glistened with the promise of yet another stream that would cascade down. "Someone, help," he pleaded, his legs finally giving away.

His knees hit the ground with an impact that would stain them all shades of purple, blue, green, and red. I felt the urge to rush upto him and mitigate his agony. But he had to learn to get up on his own. Everyone did that. So Nico had to do it, too. No exceptions.

He didn't lose his integrity. His hands tapped around all over the ground beside him, the velvety freckles of mud grazing his fingertips. "Why can't I see anything?" he questioned, his eyebrows crashing down.

The tears had ceased, like he'd closed off the tap within him. His lips tightened into a thin line, and jerked his head from side to side.

"Anyone?" His voice was just a whisper, thrumming with the hesitation of a new beginning.

He pushed his palms down again, an incandescing beam of sunlight falling over the smooth skin on his hands. Forcing himself up on his feet, he staggered. His footsteps couldn't be any more vacillating; but he stood. Stood upright, stood with his spine stretched straight.

The beam of sunlight had now been falling on his face, a band making his eyes glisten. The pupil in his left eye bled slightly into the ashen band around it. That had been the irresistible pulchritude about that man. How imperfectly perfect he'd been. So I didn't hold back.

"Nico?" I called out.

"Push through with all that you have. If not, then give up. Simple."