Hungary, eyes wide with horror, pressed a fist into her mouth in order to stifle the cry from which she had woken up.
Austria, lying next to her, blinked and asked sleepily: 'Budapest 1956 again?'
He felt her nod as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. Her whole body shivered. The hem of his pyjama became uncomfortably wet.
There were some unwritten rules. One of them was: Hungary never cried. And if she did, you held her close until her trembling subsided and she fell asleep again.
—
Notes
Thematically, this didn't fit into my 'Awesome Heroes' drabble series.
'Budapest 1956' refers to the Hungarian Uprising or Revolution of 1956, a revolt against the Communist government of the Hungarian People's Republic which had begun as a student demonstration in Budapest on 23 October. In November, Soviet military forces invaded Budapest and other regions, eventually crushing the movement, killing more than 2,500 Hungarians. Imre Nagy, the Communist politician who had led the government during the revolt, was hanged two years later.
I'm sure all of the countries have their nightmares…