Arthur walks into Matthew's room. He hadn't seen the boy since his first battle in war. It wasn't just the battle skirmishes of 1812. This was the war, the Great War. The war that dwarfed every other war in comparison. This wasn't the charging on horseback, or the early days of muskets where the backfire killed just as many soldiers as the enemy. This was dirty, this was the war spent squatting in trenches, this was the war where food supplies were in short supply, this was the war with the terrible gas at any time, this was the war where thousands of young patriotic men would lose their lives for no more than four hundred meters.

He wanted to see how it would affect the boy. He had wanted to before but there was always something else to attend to. The first thing he noticed that the room was dark, the second was the loud click, unmistakable in these times, a gun being loaded. He instinctively turned the light on. What he saw was his colony, Canada, Matthew sitting on the floor. As he walked in, Matthew looked up at him. His first instinct was to run. The look on his face was bordering maniacal. He was expecting horrified, guilty, traumatized, any normal symptoms but not this. He looked childlike, more so then before, and with a look of unbridled joy on his face, backed by insanity. Arthur tried to remember the last time he had seen Matthew smile, not the calm, reassuring smile he usually received after Alfred left, not him forcing himself to smile because Alfred was, but a true smile. Was it sad that he couldn't recall once? Worse was, he didn't know whether he simply forgot or that it had never happened. Realizing he had lost himself in his thoughts, Arthur turned to Matthew. While Matthew watched him, he had resumed fiddling with the gun, dismantling it, assembling it again, repeating the process. Arthur found the rhythm strangely haunting

"Did I do well?" The gun clicked, an echo that rhymed with the words.

"Yes, Matthew, you did very well." He didn't know what else to say.

"Good, then I'll keep fighting for you." For a second, his eyes switched, changing the expression to one of a terrified, haunted boy who had experienced things he shouldn't as such a young age, silently pleading for him to make it stop, make all the pain, and grime, and horror, just go away; for him not to make him fight again, to please do something. Then he blinked, and the previous look of lunacy replaced the old. Arthur had to leave, he felt it.

"I'll call you when I need you." He said as he left, wishing with all his heart that he could place an if in that sentence or a won't but he knew he couldn't. His first and foremost duty was to his country and his country needed the Canadian troops.

Matthew knew when he said that, the words keep fighting were synonymous with keep dying.

"I'll keep dying Ífor you," he whispered, knowing and not wanting anyone to hear him. Matthew could feel the pain of the dying, the wounded, and the dead, reliving every passing moment. It pressed down on his consciousness. Sighing, he turned back to the gun, resumed his pattern, and tried to stop all the feeling, all the memories. And he tried to forget who he was fighting for.

~~~~~~Echo~~~~~~

All right, this was probably my most dark fic yet. I just started thinking about WWI and Canada and well, this happened. I hope it portrayed everything fine, especially the insanity. He's about 14 in this fic and its like 1914 or something. Please tell me if the writing style is good for this piece and your overall thoughts. In other words, it means REVIEW

If I get lets say ten reviews, I'll write a sequel, with Matthew and either France or America, you pick!

EDIT: So sorry about the WWI WWII thing. I was being stupid. So that's fixed, if I can figure out how to replace things. Don't worry I did face palm and my idiocy.