A/N: I don't particularly know where this story is headed...which is true for any good tale, lol. I know that Lovino is a wee bit out of character here, but I'm hoping that it'll get better as I continue on. There is potential for a yaoi theme in this fiction, so if you don't like it, don't read it. But for you fans of it, I'm not promising that there WILL be, lol. There will be several other Hetalia characters featured.
Hetalia only belongs to me in an alternate dimension, so I currently lay no claims to it here.
It all first began on a summer evening. One of those dreadfully hot nights in which you can toss and turn all you want, shed as many blankets and articles of clothing as possible, and yet you're still smothered in the sticky, heavy oven air that is our substance of life. We shall watch tonight's victim groveling in the pain that comes with these high temperatures, one soul which would soon be thrown into a new life that they had never imagined, embarking on a journey. A journey so extravagantly troublesome that they would be scarred for life by both the forces of good and evil…
...
Lovino Vargas shifted with a heavy sigh, kicking the sheets completely off of his narrow twin sized bed and to the floor. "Damn it. Why does it have to be so hot?" he muttered, rolling over onto his chest and burying his face into the pillow, which was quickly hurled to the floor moments later. After several aggravating minutes in which sleep refused to come, he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed with a growl of annoyance.
"Why is it that we had to fucking choose the hottest part of summer to move?" he pondered aloud. "The old house was perfectly fine. But ohhh, no. We had to move into a Victorian piece of shit with no air conditioning just because it's 'historical' and mother grew up here. My ass."
He huffed and stood up, shaking his auburn hair out of his eyes as he flicked the bedroom lamp on. In the dim light, the spacious room's antique white walls were cast in shadows, the wallpaper border of red roses wrapping around the room at about four feet from the ground barely visible. He sent the wallpaper an angry glare, more grouchy than usual due to a week's lack of sleep. "And even better yet. I get a fucking girls' room. A GIRLS' ROOM!" He hollered at the top of his lungs. "Why couldn't Feliciano get it? But ohhhh, no. He gets the fucking nice room that was obviously meant for a boy just because it's right next to Mom and Dad's room!"
Downstairs, his mother rolled over in the bed, nuzzling her head beneath her husband's chin. "told you… he'd have a fit over the room in the middle of the night…" she murmured.
Riccardo yawned, not bothering to move or even open his eyes. "He's your son, dear… I can't help that he took so much after you…"
Back up stairs, Lovino was pulling his khaki cargo pants on in a vicious manner, and then his t-shirt, jerking it over his head so hard that his skull didn't even make it through the neck hole. "Ow! Fucking shirt!" he hollered at it, ripping it off of his arms, throwing it on the ground, stomping on it, and then pulling on a brown shirt instead. "Teach you right not to mess with me." he muttered darkly, sitting on the floor as he laced up his heavy combat boots.
After this, he got to his feet and strode off, slamming the bedroom door behind him as hard as he could, stomping down the steps, and noisily rattling through the fridge as he dug through the drawers for a tomato, intent on making as much noise as possible. After that was finished, he headed outside, walking to the edge of the pool of light that filtered out from the garage's motion light. He paused for a moment as he pulled the little pocket Mag light out of one of the cargo compartments on his pants, twisting it on as he continued to walk and the darkness enveloping him.
The light revealed a dirt path leading into a dense forest, the branches draped with all sorts of moss and other fungi. The trail was packed and damp, no grass or weeds growing on its dark face that wound through the trees to an unknown location. "well…" Romano muttered to himself. "Guess I'll figure out where this goes now."
He traveled down the path for a moment before stopping and turning back to face his home. "I still don't believe that mother grew up in this shit hole." He added to himself, watching the flickering of light in the distance as the motion light shut off. Shaking his head, he turned and stomped through some underbrush that was blocking the mostly clear path, the little circle of light from his 'electric torch' violently bouncing with each of his heavy steps.
This forest was silent, none of the expected hum of nocturnal wild life thriving throughout it. Only the crackling of twigs under foot and the rustle of Lovino's shoulders brushing against a branch breaking the heavy seal. He stopped after a little while, taking a deep breath of air and leaning forward, resting the palms of his hands on his knees, flashlight pointing downwards so that everything but a small 'hole' of light on the ground was surrounded in darkness.
"So hot…" he grumbled, straightening up and wiping his damp forehead off with an arm. "Why does it have to be so fucking humid out too?" he suddenly hollered into the woods, his annoyance from earlier returning. "Why?" he cried out to nature. "Why do you not only weigh our lungs down, but you have to go and stick to us like glue? It's summer! It's hot! Water is supposed to fucking evaporate into the air! Make clouds! And then rain and cool us down!" He threw his head back with an angry snarling sound in his voice, taking a heaving breath of air. "It's as if it's saliva, and you're drooling over us, waiting for us to blink so you can devour us whole!"
"But no." he continued as he began to follow the winding trail once more. "You decided that you needed to be different. That you don't want to have land lakes. Nooooooo, that's not good enough for you. You want to have lakes that hover in the air! You are doing nothing but slowly killing us all! You're the true silent killer! You just float there in wait! Slooowly filling our lungs with water! Drowning us! Bullshit!" The entire time that he continued on this rampage, Lovino swung his arms around in an attempt to empathize his points, the beam of white light flashing from branch to branch, frightening away a solitary raven that had been dozing on a limb.
"No. You're right," he said, agreeing with some disembodied voice, as if said 'weather' had answered him. "It's not your fault. It's the fucking government! It's a conspiracy! They're testing it on us here before they send it overseas! To Russia! Korea! Afghanistan! Bombay! New York! Ireland! They're going to destroy them all!" With this, he gave a tremendous swing of his arm….and sent the flashlight flying into the distance. Lovi froze as he watched the tiny light take to the air, and then heard the hard thwack of metal on thick tree trunk.
"…Fuck." he muttered, beginning to take a careful step off the path. But alas, as his great luck would have it, it was then that the light flickered…and then terminated itself, plunging the young man into complete and utter darkness.
"Shit!" He shouted, immediately turning to shuffle his way back to the path. "I knew I shouldn't have fucking come out! In the dark!" he ranted to himself, refusing to admit to himself that he was terrified for his life. But, as he began to step forward, he walked smack into the chest of a very tall, sturdy being…
