The Death of the Ash (Hetalia X Reader)

Day 2

"He's not breathing."  Her mother stumbled towards a fireman.  The fireman held giant plier-like things in his hands.  Jaws of life, or something like that.  "The one with the long hair; he's dead." Tears jammed themselves in her mother's throat.  Her voice sounded like someone was strangling her.

The fireman moved towards the car and began to cut through the mangled metal.

(Y/n) looked down at her mother's hands.  They were red. Red like the frames of the glasses that rested at (Y/n)'s feet.  The were neatly folded and undamaged.

She leaned down to pick them up, but retracted her hand with a hiss when they burnt her.  What the hell? S he folded her hand inside the sleeve of her sweater and pinched the glasses carefully, lifting them up to her face for closer examination.

She was going to call out to her mother, but she was to preoccupied talking to the police, so (Y/n) slipped the glasses into her pocket.

×××

(Y/n)'s eyes slid open, her heart hammering in her chest.  Her room was dark.  It must still be nighttime, then.  She turned over, searching for her alarm clock.  Her limbs felt heavy and her joints ached with every movement.

"Three twenty eight." (Y/n) whispered to herself.  She turned onto her back and closed her eyes in attempt to go back to sleep.  She lay there with her eyes closed, listening to the house groan as it settled.

Then, there was the sound of squealing tires and the entire house shook a moment later as if something had collided with it.

(Y/n) gasped and sat bolt upright.  She launched herself out from under her sheets and towards the window, expecting to see yet another car smashed to pieces on her lawn.

Only, there was nothing outside.  She looked towards the ash tree and the soft glow of candle light being cast up the trunk.  A sea of flowers and pictures rested in a type of shrine to the senior who had died.

She looked down the street to see if there was any car that could have made the tire sounds but nothing was there.

(Y/n) looked back to the shrine and froze.  There was someone standing in front of it, looking down at the flowers.  "Oh my god." He was bleeding from his temple.

(Y/n) yanked on the closest sweater and stumbled out of her room, down the stairs and to her front door.  She yanked it open and ran down off her porch and onto the damp grass.  "Hey!" She called to the boy.  He didn't make a move to acknowledge her.  "Hey are you okay?" She asked in a normal voice when she was at his side.

"Huh?" The boy looked up at her.

"You're bleeding." (Y/n) pointed out.  "Do you need help?"

"Oh, uh," He looked away from (Y/n) and back at the shrine.  "No thanks. What happened here?" He gestured to the base of the tree.

"Haven't you seen the news?" (Y/n) asked, looking down as well.

"No." The boy hesitates.  "I don't even know how I got here."

(Y/n) looks back up at him, frowning.  His wavy blond hair brushes against his cheek as he scrutinizes the ground with violet eyes.

Her stomach drops and she takes a step back.  The boy looks up at her.  "What's wrong?" He asks, seemingly startled by her sudden movements.

"That's i-impossible." She stutters, looking down at the shrine and back up at the boy.  The pictures portrayed a smiling young man with a wavy blond bob and kind violet eyes, set behind a pair of red rimmed glasses.  (Y/n)'s hand shoots into her pocket and grazes the cool frames of the glasses she'd found on the ground last night.

"What's impossible?" He takes a step towards her.  (Y/n) pulls the glass from her pocket and flashes them for him.

"You're dead." Her throat clenched up.  "My mother felt you die."

He frowned.  "What are you talking about?" He demands.  "And why do you have my glasses?" He reaches out for them but (Y/n) drops them to the ground, fear coursing through her viens.

"You can't be real." She tripped over her own feet and landed in the grass.

He leaned over to pick up his glasses but stopped short.  He frowned.  (Y/n) looked down too and noticed that he had an arm of the glasses pinched between his fingers... but it was as ghostly copy of the physical glasses.

"I don't understand." He murmured to himself.

(Y/n) was shaking now.  "Y-you," Her voice caught in her throat.  "Last night... you died."

He looked up at her, sliding his glasses onto the bridge of his nose.  "I did?" He asked.  He was much to calm for (Y/n)'s taste.  She nodded anyway.  "Oh." He dropped his arms to his sides. "What about Alfred? Is Alfred alright?"

"Who?" (Y/n) forced herself to hed feet despite how violently her legs were shaking.

The ghost chuckled to himself.  "It's not every day I hear someone say that." He lost his smile when he saw the look on (Y/n)'s face.  "My brother." He explained.

"Hospital." She said.  "Last I heard, he was in the ICU.  And who are you?"

He sucked in a breath.  "I do however hear that quite often." He looked at her with sad eyes.  "Matthew. Matthew Williams."