Hello everyone! My second story here, hopefully better than the first one... gah... the first one was a failure... Anyhoo, I just wanted to set some things straight:

1. This story is set in a co-ed college dormitory in America.

2. This is told from Ivan's POV (1st person).

3. This is not meant to be romantic in any way.

4. In this AU, (I guess it's an AU...? *shrug* I dunno.) Maria (NyoPrussia) has mental problems she takes medicine for. Or should, anyway. I just didn't want to offend anyone by implying that I think Prussia/NyoPrussia is canonically insane- uhm-

5. Yes, I am aware this is shitty, but please be constructive/nice in your criticism... I wear my heart on my sleeve. v-v;;

And that's it! Enjoy!...? ^^;

Her hysterical laughter broke the dead silence, punctuating it like thunder on a calm evening. Glancing up from the mayonnaise, I quirked an eyebrow at my roommate Maria, who was apparently having a fit of mirth from some hidden joke.

"…What's funny?" I inquired, feeling the words with my unaccustomed tongue. The novelty of English still hadn't quite worn off.

Maria seemed to have calmed down a bit by this point, but still let little giggles slip. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, I returned my attention to my half made sandwich. To be honest, I was still a bit apprehensive about having a roommate with mental disorders, but then, what American didn't have them? (I learned that Maria was actually German, but that's beside the point)

"You know, Ivan-" She said, whipping her head around to look at me suddenly with a lopsided smile before I cut her off.

"It's Ee-vahn." I corrected automatically. That was probably one of the most annoying things about living in America: no matter how many times I would tell them, people would still pronounce my name wrong.

"Fine then, Ee-vahn," She said, emphasizing the syllables far more than she should've, on purpose. I mentally slapped my forehead. "What's your opinion on-?" She made a very odd sound that might've been suppose to be a word and looked at me expectantly.

"Erhm-" I wasn't really sure of how to respond to this, and so I changed the subject. "Have you taken your medicine today?"

Maria shrugged. "I ran out last week, why?"

Oh dear. This was not good news. "Oh, no reason." I tried to assure her and go back to making my sandwich, making it look like I was really absorbed in placing the lettuce correctly.

All through that evening, the tension only seemed to grow between my roommate and I. Well, for me at least. I was not at all keen on the idea of being stuck in that tiny dorm with a potential madwoman. Maria, however, made no other odd comments or actions, and so I fell into a sort of sense of security. After all, I thought, even if she tried to do something, what could a tiny girl like her—well, tiny to me, anyway—possibly do to me? I had never been so wrong in my life.

Late that night, about 2 o'clock AM, I was doing some research, as I often did when I couldn't sleep. Maria was suppose to have gone to bed a good five hours earlier, and so I was puzzled when I heard strange noises coming from the kitchen area.

Shutting my laptop lid, I squinted and rubbed my eyes as they tried to get use to the lack of light. After I was quite confident in my ability to navigate, I slid off the side of my bed and made the trek.

What I found in the kitchen was disturbing. In the floor sat Maria, seemingly engrossed by a large kettle, and wielding dual steak knives. I went pale. "Maria, what are-"

She snapped her neck around to look up at me. A twisted smile tugged at her thin lips. "Oh, hello Ivan." She greeted in a sweet voice. Something about that voice did not sound right. It chilled me to the bone.

"It's Ee-vahn." I said as I had earlier, growing more and more uncomfortable with this situation be the minute. "And really, shouldn't you be in b-"

Maria interrupted me with an animal-like hiss, and before I could react, she had sprang up from the floor and pinned me to the wall. Frankly, I was quite shocked. I had known Maria since grade school, and she was never the type to have any great amount of physical strength. She was always one of the kids who would have to sit down during gym class to use her inhaler. It didn't help my state of mind to feel the icy hardness of one of Maria's knives against my throat.

"Maria-! Please, calm yourse-" I forced out, trying to keep the fear from showing in my voice, but to no avail.

Maria simply smirked, pressing the knife tighter. It was rather dull, and that was why it hadn't started actually cutting my skin yet, but it still was far from a pleasant feeling. "You know," She said in that same sickly sweet voice from earlier. "I've always wondered what Russian food tastes like… Is it gooey? Yucky? Is it… scrumptious? Awesome, even?"

My eyes widened in realization. No way. No freaking way. My roommate was not going to eat me. This had to be some sort of twisted joke. "Maria, you wouldn't—"

She gave a somewhat frenzied laugh, pressing the knife even harder. That was when it actually started to cut. I gasped in pain. "Maria-! Stop-! You're hurting me-! I'm your friend, remember-?!"

Maria shook her head. "No, Ivan, you're my dinner."

It was then, far too late, that I realized this was no joke. The pain was now much, much sharper than before. Apparently, she had cut a little circular flap of skin into my neck, and was now chewing on it. I screeched as she ripped it off and kneed her in the stomach as hard as I could.

That succeeded in winding the girl and knocking her back, giving me just enough time to bolt for the bathroom, locking the door tightly. I could hear Maria yowling and thumping at the door. My breath was coming out in short, choppy gasps, and there was a red liquid decorating my neck, shoulder, and dripping down my shirt. It took me longer than it should've to realize this was blood, and that I should get it cleaned up. I was about to do that when suddenly the door was ripped off its hinges.

"Ivan!" Maria shrieked. She somewhat resembled a bird of prey. Her long, choppy, bright hair was flapping like feathers, and there was a fire smoldering in her eyes."I did NOT order this dinner to go!"

They say when a person is frightened, they find new strength. I now know this to be untrue, at least in my case. There have only been a few times over the course of my lifetime that I have been truly frightened, and this was indeed one of them. I was scared stiff. Literally.

Maria pounced, and I barely had time to react properly or even scream as she started tearing the skin off my neck in large chunks. The pain was excruciating. Before this point, I hadn't known that pain could even exist in such a great amount. I howled, and that caused Maria to glare up at me before clasping a bloody hand over my mouth tightly.

I continued to howl, despite the obstacle, and felt hot tears leak out of the corners of my eyes unbidden.

"Hush!" Maria hissed. "Someone will hear you!"

I hadn't even been thinking about that. I had been howling because, well, I was in pain. A lot. Who wouldn't be in pain if they had their flesh ripped off? But now that my panicked mind calmed for a brief second or two to think about it, it seemed like my only hope. I screamed, yelled, howled, yowled at the top of my lungs. I didn't even care how helpless and miserable I probably sounded, I just needed someone to hear me.

And someone did.

As luck would have it, my sister Anya, whose dorm was down the hall, had apparently been out near the vending machines to get some late night munchies, and had heard my screams. I didn't hear her enter, but I found out later that my front door's hinges were mysteriously ajar, and the lock was broken.

It wasn't until I was about to black out from the pain that I caught a glimpse of the tail of a pale pink nightrobe outside the bathroom. What happened next was hard for me to follow, since I was still in so much pain and my brain was still so frenzied, but I did hear some shouting, some clashing of metal, and another ugly noise that I couldn't register as anything else except bones breaking, but of course, I still can't be for sure.

The next thing I knew, I had woken up. My neck was bound with bloodsoaked bandages. I tried to move to sit up, but I couldn't. I was apparently tied into my bed.

"Feeling any better?" A sweet voice inquired, but this voice wasn't the deathly sweet Maria's had been. With difficulty and a dull, throbbing pain, I craned my neck around to find the source of the voice. It was my sister, seated in next to my bed.

"Anya-"

"Shh, don't talk. Rest. Sestra take good care of you, Ivan." She insisted, using the Russian word for sister, and, wonder of wonders, pronouncing my name correctly.

"Maria-?"

"Hospital." Anya said gleefully. "I made sure the madwoman will get the… care… she needs."

This was and wasn't comforting. Nevertheless, my gratitude to my dear sister overflowed, and over the course of the next week she actually duct-taped my mouth shut for thanking her so much. Ah, the joys of family.