"Darling, I'm going to play you like an instrument. I'm going to drag my fingers across your heartstrings. And I don't care how much it hurts, she's going to sing for me. Your heart is going to sing for me."

He hissed it into my ear this morning. I could feel his warm breath seeping into the back of my neck as he spoke. I'm not entirely sure if that's what I woke up to or if that's what woke me up, but I was sure that I didn't want anything like that happening again.

Russia followed me for the rest of the day. Sometimes I would hear a whisper behind me, someone softly calling my name. So many times I turned to look behind me and would only catch the fluttering edge of his scarf, a flash of violet eyes, a tiny, smug smile set against pale skin.

"Alfred."

I hated the way he said it. Softly, I could tell he was savouring it, twisting his tongue around the letters, caressing my name with his voice. I hated the way it leaked out of his lips, coated in bile.

He didn't approach me the entire day. Not until I got home. Not until I was alone.

"I meant what I said earlier," he growled, smiling. "Alfred."

The cotton of my shirt was no problem for him to tear through. And I could tell that even my own flesh wouldn't be terribly difficult for him to get through either. Slowly but surely, he proved me right. I screamed, I screamed and screamed, but the sound was drowned out by his laughter.

And the way he laughed! Screeching, ear piercing noise! It's not possible! It's not human! Nothing on earth should be able to make that sound! Ringing in my ears, rattling through my head! His laughter tore through the air like his nails ripped through me.

I closed my eyes, slumped against the wall. My throat was raw from screaming: I couldn't dredge the sound out of my lungs any longer. The sensation of his hand parting the shredded curtains of flesh to reach for the beating organ inside of me was-

I felt his fingers brush gently against my heart, and I gasped so sharply it hurt. Not that I could feel it in comparison to the excruciating pain that bellowed in my chest.

His long, cold fingers snaked around my heart. It was taking all I had in me not to jerk away at his touch. I could see how that was going to end, and it sure wasn't a pretty thought.

"Why are you doing this?" My words came out ragged and wheezing. There goes that laughter, again! I clamped my hands to my ears, still gasping at every move the Russian made.

I opened my eyes again and immediately regretted it. The sheer amount of blood that coated the both of us sickened me. And the sight of my mutilated chest was too much for me to bear. Russia began laughing louder than ever as vomit and blood mixed in with eachother.

I'm crying now, crying as his laughter seems to scratch at my eardrums, and his fingers slip across my heart. I can sense him being careful, trying not to kill me. He knows that if he does, it'll stop beating. And that's worse than everything else going on. My mind sends me numb as I think about it. Worse than his hands clutching at my heart, worse than the blood and vomit splashed all over me, worse than the tattered flesh at my chest, worse than all the worlds of pain I'm in at the moment:

The fact that he won't kill me. Not tonight.