Overall Author's Note here. There won't be any more of these unless they're for clarifications/important things.

Summary: What does it mean to be truly alive? Science can only take you so far... and Dr. Arthur Kirkland went far beyond that. He set out to save a life; and instead, he created life. USUK. Steampunk!AU

Warnings: Human names used, Steampunk! AU, possible OOC (forgive me, I'm challenging myself to write some characters I'm really not fully comfortable with yet), possible character death, some controversial topics involving: history, current events, politics (I'll try to keep those to a bare minimum), human experimentation, possible torture and other things that challenge morals, ethics, as well as popular views on things.

Ah yes, and many plot twists will be coming your way. Just a heads up!

Note: Try to read this with an open mind and think about the semantics and deeper meaning behind the words, because I assure you, the secrets, as well as the truth (funny, that, hunh?), lie within those little things (and I work really hard to get said little things to mesh together). With that said, if you spot any grammar/spelling mistakes, please BITE ME via review. Mistakes need to be taken out with a bottle of Windex on laser sniper mode. And, as always, food for thought is great. So please, enjoy.

Oh, and if you're reading any of my other stories, I haven't given up on them, and I'm not quite on hiatus—it's just that the (demonic) plot bunnies are eating me from the inside out. I blame it on my recent obsession with Hetalia (first Hetalia fic, so rip it to shreds, please!).

This is my Remembrance Day tribute that has barely anything to do with Remembrance Day—but I was never good at writing themed things for a specific day or time of year. Anyways, here it is. Thank you veterans all the world over—past and present. Thank you.

The plot belongs to Prince SuperSharky and her beloved MotherMaple. If I owned Hetalia— PFFFT. Well, there go your beloved bishonen and bishojo... People generally turn out looking like generic stick figures with super-sized nametags when I draw them.

Hetalia © Himaruya Hidekaz

HEART

Prologue

do you know
where your
heart is?
do you think you can
find it?

-OneRepublic;
Say (All I Need)

What is a heart?

Is it the organ beating in your chest; you know, the one that's pumping blood through your body? That's what it's labelled as on his chart on the wall of his beloved lab. It's dusty and a bit faded from the sunlight, but his swirly handwriting is clear; in the middle of the map of the human body, a little to the right of centre, is a fist-sized lump labelled simply as a 'heart'. It has thin tendril-like 'veins' branching off of it, spreading throughout the picture, intertwining with the delicate appendages of the hands, twisting like an intricate design around bones and all the way to the fine nerve-endings of the brain.

All humans have one—this heart—or so I've been told. This organ allows humans to live; without a heart, they would die. He said something about air and a chemical called 'Oxeegen'(?) I didn't really understand it when he explained it to me, but it's clear that the heart is very important to people.

He also told me that people sometimes use 'heart' to describe someone's soul.

What's a soul?

...Can you eat it? Can you see, feel, or smell it? I searched, looking over the map for hours, scanning it once, twice, thrice—but there was nothing labelled with that word. So is the heart really the same thing as a soul? Does that mean that I could reach out and touch your soul right now? He'd just scoffed at my question when I'd asked—he's a mean one alright; a downright snarky one, I tell you. He doesn't understand what the answer really means to me. It was just a question, that bloody old grouch...!

He did say this though: a heart can't be touched, that it's a feeling. What are feelings? Do I have them? Humans have them, I know. They were in some of his books—"Shakeyspeare", was it? Humans are capable of so much. Anger, vengeance and a lust for power can drive them to murder, raid, pillage and plunder; but it's this thing called love that can drive them to do unthinkable things. Love sparked the Trojan War; love begot the demise of Romeo and Juliet; love drew Mark Antony and Cleopatra to each other and then tore them apart; and it was love that compelled Orpheus to knowingly walk into the depths of Hades.

I spent many days on the floor of the lab reading—so much that he had begun to suspect that something was wrong. He'd fussed over me, trying to make me eat some of his horrible 'scones'. But if he wasn't going to give me straight answers, I'd find them myself! The books told me one thing—three things run this world: money, lust, and love. Money is power, and money can satiate your lust...but money can't buy love—hearts are the currency of love. The cost of love is steep. Always, always, the books mentioned this heart. Some said that you can touch a heart, and some deemed it impossible. I don't know what to believe.

But…could I? Could I really reach out and touch your heart?

If I could, then...

...could you maybe...touch my heart?

I...I don't know...but...

But do humans need a heart to truly live?

.

.

.

...Am I alive?

A-Are you still there? Please, tell me that I have a purpose—that I'm just the same as you, that I live, that I breathe, that I have a heart, that I am alive.

Lie to me, and tell me that I am human.