Hetalia Oneshot:Madness

Madness

He woke up in the middle of the night, breath coming in short gasps as his chest heaved up and down. Sweat pored over his body as he shook violently. Throughout all of this, he was silent. He would not let anyone see his weakness, he would be strong for all those that depended on him. Even though the nightmares had been coming more and more, sleepless nights with wide eyes staring at the ceiling and willing himself not to give in to the allure of slumber. This night he could take no more. He quietly slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen as if a ghost, with bare feet only a whisper upon wooden floors. And here, he started to give in to the madness that creeped at the edges of his soul. It was small at first, only grabbing a mug of beer and drinking it. But for him, it was fingers scrambling to hold on to the cliff side, to not go over the edge and tumble into the abyss. He drank more and more, yet he would not stop. Becoming frantic in his movements, he began to pace, fingers gripping hair as if to rip out the demons that lurked in him. He knew only one way of relief for this madness, this sickness, that consumed him. It had been a long time coming. He thought of all the hurt and grief he had caused as he cut. First, small horizontal slices across his wrist. He thought of the World Wars, and how many were needlessly sacrificed. The cuts became deeper, longer, blood seeping out of the wounds. He thought of how he was separated from his bruder for so long and of how he was tortured by that bastard he was with. The knife slashed down again and again, glinting in the light it stole from the moon. The agony in his mind and the agony in his body became one, in a horrendous crescendo that had him on his knees as tears streamed down his cheeks. They dripped onto the floor, as silent as the body they were from. Ludwig Beilschmidt was broken, shattered beyond repair. Yet even as his mind succumbed to madness, his wounds healed, flesh knitting together and closing over. His body would live. But he was no more.

As Ludwig fell, so did his country. His people had been haunted as he was and now it came to a head. They turned on each other, strangers in the street, family in their beds. Bloodshed and mayhem roaring throughout the land. Though, in the East, they still had some semblance of their minds, the kills less horrific and more lives claimed to their own owners as they realized what they did. Fires shattered the dark as if an arrow had been loosed. People lost all of their humanity. No, it was torn from them. This is who had depended on Ludwig. They did not even know he existed, yet they were irreversibly linked. He is the country and the country is him. And now they are both doomed.

Come morning, the rest of the world awakened. They went about their daily lives until they heard the news. Their faces paled, skin becoming ashen as they listened to the tale of the tragedy. Or, for some unlucky few, they saw. They saw the aftermath of something so horrific they would not speak of it even though they would remember it as vividly as a picture until they themselves died. They saw the day humanity turned on itself. And, even as the human mind and soul knows in its conception that it is capable of such deeds, it still continues to be astonished as it happens. The world mourned. But only as long as it cared to remember. For sands trickle through the hourglass, covering that which has come before. The needle continues to weave the cloth of fate, stitching in and out the future, the past long behind.The universe keeps spinning, forever bringing something new around the corner.
And it is forgotten.
Germany is forgotten.
Ludwig
Beilschmidt
is
forgotten.