Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.
1….2…3
It felt like the end of the world. It was called the Great Plague (he'd always thought greatness was found in the hearts of men not black scabs on the skin and blood in vomit) and it swept through Europe, carrying thousands upon thousands away to Heaven.
18…19…20
Cobblestones clacked underneath his boots as he wandered silently about Florence. His amber eyes were feverish, blood speckled his lips and his skin was marked like the corpses who lined the streets (if it weren't for the bodies and the smell of sickness and decay it would be a beautiful day). Dying boy walking through a dying city.
66…67…68
He didn't have to be here. Not as he was, anyway. He was the city, was the country, he knew exactly who was dyingdeadmouring without ever leaving his house. But he wanted to. He wanted to be there for his people, even if all he could do was observe their last, hacking breaths and their corpses.
213…214…215
So many dead, so many going to die (he could feel the sickness eating away at his insides but he was not dead) but he could do nothing. Just let the plague run its course and keep pockets full of poesy.
591…592…593
"Ashes to ashes," he whispered through a raw throat (part of him wondered what they would do with the dead, too many for proper burial-maybe a bone cathedral, skull for decorations and leg bones for walls).
1,024…1,025…1,026
He hadn't seen his brother for a while now. Not since this plague first forced him into bed rest as he vomited blood and pus, not since the sores appeared. But he couldn't worry about him now, his southern brother could take care of himself, unlike the people Feliciano walked among (people who initially recoiled, seeing bloodblackness then paused, their souls clamoring that this was their citycountryhome and will not harm them).
7,865…7,866….7,867
He came across a little girl, once (he did not know how long he'd been wandering through –where again?). She couldn't have been more than three, with dark curls and eyes as blue as the really was too bad, he mused distantly, that her eyes would never see again. He reached out with hands as marked as her own and closed dulled sky eyes (he made sure she was buried with her mother).
20,031…20,032..20,033
The plague was finally waning, fewer were dying every day and the stench of decay was starting to lift (but would never fully go away). He still coughed blood, but the sores decorating his skin had left, and his eyes were slowly gaining the natural brightness that came with a love for life instead of fever.
49,664…49,665….49,666
This was good, he thought. I am so very tired of pain. (And did not know what kind he meant.)
Author's note: In Italy, Florence's population was reduced from 110,000 or 120,000 inhabitants in 1338 to 50,000 in 1351 due to what was then called "the Great Palgue." It would resurface in the early 17th century and claim another 1,730,000 citizens.