Draw A Circle, That Was the Earth

A Hetalia oneshot .

Summary: Based off Walking Dead 400 Days. Ludwig remembered everything, from the first day until day 400, although he wished he did not. To preserve the memory of those who were with him, he wrote down everything he could, so they could live on even when everyone died. A Zombie AU.

Warning: Rated T for language, character death, sadness, and pairing. Pairing included are: Spamano, USUK, GerIta, DenNor, and FranceJoan

No one knows when it began. We just know it has yet to end. Like clouds billowing around the dying world, it overtook us in little over three days. What it was, was an infection; an infection that made you not human. The first few people succumbed to the carnal hunger the plague caused, and therefore turned on anything with flesh to aid the undeniable ache in their rotting bellies. Corpses walked the streets, low groans in their throats, lashing out with the bones of their fingers at anything that moved. I never thought I would see the dead walking, but there they were, dressed like every day was another human buffet. It all began in France, or at least we thought it did. We teased Arthur for the longest time about poisoning Francis, although the Frenchman didn't find it funny. Wherever is started doesn't matter, because within hours it was everywhere, and within days it was in everyone.

Everyone's infected. Whether we die from it is up to us, but we can only get the Sickness once. It's like chicken pox, except the mortality rate is ten times higher than average. The lucky few of us (or should I say unlucky) that managed to live now have to fight to survive. If one of the dead bites us, even if it's little, they will inject the virus into us a thousand times over from such brief contact. No matter what happens, no matter if you're clever or you're sneaky, you're fast or you're strong, because once you're bit, you're dead. 'With a scratch you can last, but a bite means no fight.' That's what mein brother said once.

The smartest thing to do is avoid them altogether. They aren't fast and by themselves they are pretty wimpy. It's the hordes you need to be weary of. You'll have a lot more trouble trying to lose a dozen of the dead than an individual. Another thing I don't suggest is going out at night. They may not see you, but they can hear you all the same, so stepping on a twig you can't see doesn't work in your favor. Find shelter in the night, scavenge in the day. That's how we always do it. Always did it.

We figured out pretty soon that you always need to assume someone is in a building, whether dead or alive, especially when we are scavenging. A human can be as deadly as the dead because a human can match pace with you, a human can ensnare you in a trap and outsmart you, and worse of all a human can use a gun on you. We couldn't trust anyone that came along our path. Anything walking was a threat and for the longest time we forgot who we were. We became enslaved by the world we lived in, no matter how many times we swore we would not succumb to it. Towards the end we found our humanity, but it was too little, too late. Maybe I'm writing this to warn the next person who reads this of the things you should not do.

No.

I'm writing my story. Our story. Because as long as it's on paper, it'll never be forgotten, no matter if the world is completely overrun with the dead or not. My brother would be the person more likely to do this but he sort of… can't. I'm not the best writer but I know I have one good quality: I remember everything. I can recall every last fine detail, every single moment ever since the beginning. All the heartache and the hardships we endured. Just everything. I wish mein brother was still here… He really loved to write. But that's a story for another time, another day. Right now I want to preserve the memories of all the people I knew, who they were, and what they did. You see, we had a group of us that survived. It was big group as well. Most of the time, we were at each other's throats… but other times it was peaceful. We had our good moments, the ones you don't ever want to forget. Gott, I miss them too.

The first person we lost was Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. He was a Spanish immigrant who came to America for that All American Dream. He worked as a hand at a local tomato farm harvesting in the summer. He worked diligently and hard at his job, but something he was even better at was football, or here in America, soccer. He was amazing on the field. I swear, before the world went horrid, he would've signed onto the pros when he graduated. He had the amazing talent to do it. Antonio though… out of everything, he had an amazing smile. It's a quality he did not lose in this twisted universe.

I will never forget the way Antonio died. It was in early October, sixty-two days into the infection. We were making a run into town when he spotted something in a store. Even to this day, I still don't know what it was, but whatever it was, it was so damn important to him, enough to make him walk in alone. We didn't know something was wrong until we heard the screams. We rushed in, but it was already too late. He was overpowered by a dead man and pinned to the ground. While he managed to keep the dead aloft and the teeth from his neck, the dead's fingers found purchase on his chest, and literally ripped it open. Blood was gurgling from his lips, bubbling into his lungs, suffocating him in the most excruciating way possible. My brother had to shoot him, had to put a pistol between those fading green eyes and pull the trigger. We took his body back with us, back to camp, right back to the frantic questions asked by his boyfriend Lovino. At first we avoided him altogether, but when it came time Antonio needed a burial, we had to tell him. Lovino blamed it all on me. He said I could've looked out for him more, should have noticed he was gone, the whole nine yards until he collapsed into a sobbing mess.

Everyone had loved Antonio. He used to play guitar at the campfires, singing native songs that would mesmerize us all to forget what world we lived in. He liked to tell jokes and grin, perk up anyone's day. That's what he had been doing when he died. He was going to retrieve something that was going to brighten up a person's life. A little piece of our hearts died with Antonio, because he was like a symbol of all the good things remaining in this bent up world. After day sixty-two, we still carried around his guitar, as if we suddenly expected the man to appear and play it again.

The next person we lost was Arthur Kirkland, on day seventy-eight. Arthur came from England to get a masters as a doctor. He called it a fancier profession, but quite frankly it bored me when he talked about it. I just knew one thing: it's a good thing he wanted to be a doctor and not a cook because he's a Gott awful one. The sole time I ate his food, I got food poisoning. He seemed immune to it though. It was really weird. But out of all things, Arthur was an amazing story teller. When Antonio was not playing, he was speaking. He could recite novels and poems from memory and could make any form of literature entertaining. One time we made a special run to the town library just to get him new material to read from. In some ways he was like me, because we both bind ourselves to our morals. Except his morals were different than mine.

And his morals got him killed.

Our camp had been ransacked and we caught the thief before he ran off with an abundance of meds and ammo. We couldn't let him free. He was a danger and probably would only come back with more friends and a thirst for revenge. We were close to unanimously voting to kill the thief when he spoke up. The same voice the previous night recited Julius Caesar was now telling us that murdering a human was immoral and was wrong. He tried to convince us that we can't lose that humane part of ourselves. Like the supportive group we were, we rallied around him and agreed.

The same man came back that night and killed Arthur as he slept. Beat his head in with a baseball and stripped him of all his valuables. We were horrified when we found him, whatever that was left of him splattered on the pillows. We thought the dead were only capable of being monsters, but we were wrong. The camp became even more silent after that. No one wanted to replace his empty shoes. It felt wrong, immoral, to do something like that. All we could do was bury the story alongside the music and call the silence good. Like Antonio, Arthur left behind a lover named Alfred who was absolutely devastated, but all the same vengeful. I guess I could say Alfred F. Jones died the same day too, because hours after the fact he was never the same again.

The next day is the day Alfred F. Jones really died. Before Arthur's death, he was a bright soul. He'd grin and laugh, making the others laugh at the way he laughed. He had an insatiable hunger too. It was hard to keeping him out of the supplies. He was American born, living as an average American teenager, working at McDonald's for minimum wage just to get by. If he had a talent, it would be baseball. He was something else when he stepped onto the diamond. He was a pitcher with a top speed of one hundred and six. He could bat left or right, and routinely knocked it out of the park. It was something about the way he dove for every ball, skid for every base, screamed his heart out for the batter to miss when he sat in the dugout showed how much he loved the sport. I had only managed to watch two games before the apocalypse, and both times I was impressed. He was a friend of my brother's, so I couldn't help but befriend him too. Just watching him, he seemed pretty smart, which I find ironic considering he died pretty stupid.

He ran after Arthur's murderer blindly, chasing a shadow through the night until we found him dead the next day on the side of the road, a gunshot to the back of the head. He became something sinister when Arthur's death surfaced, and it wasn't pretty. I half expected him to return within an hour or so, cooled down and ready to help bury his lover. I never would have guess he'd be so suicidal as to chase that illusive man down. He should've known it was pointless, but yet he did it anyway. He left behind a little brother, whose last memory of his brother will be the rage burning in his eyes as he stomped from the camp grounds. When Alfred was angry, he was terrifying and this time was no different. I cried when we buried him.

I cried because Alfred lost himself and never got that part back when he died. He went to the grave as something other than human.

We lost the next person on day one hundred and three. We were doing so well. We had gone twenty four days without an incident and we had goals to extend that another day, another week. That all came crashing down at the death of Ivan Braginsky, the last person you would expect to die. For one he was big and incredibly strong and he could easily hurl a dead man away from him. He claimed he was just big boned, but he had such brutal strength and… an interesting humor. He was a Russian exchange student hoping for a warmer climate change in America. He wanted to be a gardener, as strange as it was for a man of his stature. Ivan had a thing for plants. When we would be hiking along a trail, he would randomly start chattering away, naming off every plant in the vicinity. His knowledge was made useful when collecting herbs and food. Even for an educated man, he could make mistakes though.

On the twenty fourth day without incident, we were searching the forest for food. We were desperate for any shred because our supplies were drying up and our sources were dissipating. A man with us named Kiku had found a berry patch nearby and was delighted to show Ivan his find. Blinded by his hunger, considering he had been going the longest without food, he extended his hand and took a berry, popping it in his mouth. Within seconds he grew pale and dropped dead on the ground. Just like that, we lost the man at the time we desperately needed.

Since Ivan was so big, Kiku could not carry him alone. By the time he got us and lead us to him, the dead were already feasting on his corpse. I dispatched three bullets: one for each dead, and the third for Ivan. We had to cart his body back with all the remnants dangling from his body, whatever we could salvage stuffed hastily back into the cavern of his stomach. When we dropped him in his grave, I turned away and puked. It was more gruesome than Antonio's death, but it still wasn't the worst I've. I still miss his comments and his smile, half expecting him to appear right now and say that 'da' he always added at the end of his sentences. When we buried Antonio, Arthur, Alfred and Ivan all together under the same sycamore tree, we decided to move camps and start over. We needed to escape the death hanging like rain clouds over our heads.

The next death was on day one hundred and thirty seven, in the midst of another streak of incidence free days abruptly broken. The boy's name was Eduard. He came from Estonia or something like that, somewhere near the Baltic area. He never really talked much, or at least not to the group. He mostly just conversed with his older and younger brother. I believe his older brother said one time that he wanted to be an engineer, but an accident infected his eyes and he's never tried since. He always wore these wire rimmed glasses that could never stay on his face. They kept slipping down the bridge of his nose, which annoyed everyone else but him. He was a good kid submitted to the ugly world. He didn't deserve to die the way he did.

We had been clearing out a grocery store. Eduard wanted to come along since we never invite him, but he wasn't very savvy with a gun; he opted to carry a knife and the flashlight into the piercing darkness of the store. Maybe if I had went first, he wouldn't have died, but when he rounded a corner, there was a dead man and it chewed off a hunk of his shoulder. He killed it, but the damage was already done. Eduard was the first real person to be bit by the dead, so we weren't sure what to expect. We drug him back to camp, making him moan and groan every step of the way. A fever had burned him all throughout the night and into the next morning, day one hundred and thirty seven. We were observing him, watching him as if he was a guinea pig, noting the way his body convulsed and dementia swept away his brain. It continued until about noon, when his heart beat ceased in his chest. We waited a minute, or maybe ten, and he never reanimated. We assumed it was safe. When his youngest brother, Raivis, reached down to hug him, Eduard pulled him into an embrace and dug his teeth into his neck. Raivis was just a child. He stuttered constantly, but now as his older brother devoured his throat, he couldn't even manage a whimper. We learned the hard way a bite will kill you. Wish I would have learned that sooner. We buried Raivis and Eduard and moved on. For us, nowhere was safe; only safer.

Day one hundred and sixty eight was the slaughter. We lost the greatest amount of people and hope. The victims were Matthias Køhler, Toris Laurinaitis, Matthew Williams, Francis Bonnefoy, and Wang Yao. They were all really good people. After this, we stopped keeping how many days went by without incident. There was just no point to us anymore.

Matthias Køhlerwas a bit of an odd ball but he made us laugh. Like Antonio, he too was a football star, and possessed an amazing voice as well. His true talent however laid in his encouragement. He is the spark that got us going when all hope seemed forgotten. He wanted to be a pro athlete someday and travel to the Olympics, although he said the only Olympics he would attend would have to be in his native country of Denmark. He also boasted that he was so great at everything that the Olympic committee would be asking him where they should hold the Games. He could concoct some pretty farfetched yet hilarious stories. One thing that kept him optimistic was his mission. When the apocalypse happened, he was separated from his boyfriend named Lukas. He was absolutely positive that he was alive somewhere and he planned to find him. He never did. The only picture he had left was the faded copy he kept in his back pocket.

Toris Laurinaitis was the eldest brother of Raivis and Eduard and he was never the same afterwards. He was soft spoken like his brothers and stuttered every other word, but he seemed to be friends with everyone. He was the type of person whose shoulder you would cry on, but also the person that keeps all the emotions pent up. One day he absentmindedly said that he lost his boyfriend the first few days of the apocalypse, and when we tried to console him he quickly changed his tune. He did not speak much of his past and chose to remain quite after that. No one pressed him and he didn't provide any explanations.

Matthew Williams was the brother of Alfred. He's usually drifting off somewhere, staying out of people's way, but he had a quirk I could never forget: It was maple syrup. Every time we'd make a run, he'd ask, "Can you find some maple syrup?" It was like his brother's ultimate quest for a hamburger. Although we could never find any (because for some reason when the dead rise, everyone craves maple syrup.) he still would start bouncing around when we arrived, eagerly asking us if we brought any. I believe he's Canadian born so that explains it. Matthew would always carry around this stuffed teddy bear, even though he was too old for such toys. After Alfred died, the toy became a part of him and went everywhere with him. When asked, he explained that his brother gave it to him as a child and he's always kept it with him, especially when they were apart. It was an endearing memento of the brother he lost. He was the first to explain to me about remembering and forgetting. He told me he thought it was okay to be forgotten, because at least he still remembered.

Francis Bonnefoy was a very, very, flirtatious Frenchman with a knack to say the right things at the right time. He is so charismatic that he would've worked well in politics if he hadn't dreamed of being a gourmet chef first. He is good at what he does. He makes sure we consume the proper portions and nutrition and can make the worst tasting foods delicious. A bad day could be amended by a nice meal Francis always said. He had a girlfriend before the apocalypse, but she died three months prior in a car wreck. The Frenchman wore the necklace they savaged from her car every day unfailingly, saying the memory of her is what gets him by. He was friendly, maybe overly friendly, but nevertheless a treasured member of our group.

Wang Yao was a Chinese man with a very prominent accent and had a thing about finding weapons. He's used pretty much everything against the dead race. One time he was using a wok and ladle to take out a few stragglers. He was never weaponless that's for sure. Wang Yao was super thin and extremely flexible. He was the man we went to crawl through vents in the ceiling or through doggy doors. He always grumbled and complained about his back but his service was very useful. I believe he came over to America to be apprenticed as an artist. While I never got to see any of his works, his younger brother claimed they were wonderful masterpieces. I wish I could have got to see at least one of them before… the earth was not so much the earth anymore.

They died… Wait. I forgot two other people. They weren't really people but they were both best friends to me. I lost two of my dogs, Aster and Blackie. Aster was very serious, kind of like how I can be. He listened to every command I would give him. He was an excellent war dog. Blackie on the other hand was clumsy and couldn't jump two inches off the ground. He was the comic relief a lot of times when he would randomly face plant in the middle of the camp, having tripped over basically nothing.

On day one hundred and sixty eight there was a loud argument. It was about losing people, moving constantly, about fear and hope, about pain and suffering, and worst of all about how we could be the last people remaining. The argument escalated so high that punches were flown at one another and the tranquility began to shatter. The noise attracted hordes of the dead, guiding them right to our camp side. They swarmed like bees, three or four of them overpowering Matthias in seconds. Matthew twisted his ankle, making him an easy lunch for the dead. Even when he died, he clung to that teddy bear for dear life. While the rest of us managed to flee on foot, Wang and Francis weren't so lucky. They too were overpowered and eaten alive. Blackie was bitten in the scuffle and like the loyal dog Aster was, he remained behind. We all know they turned. But we couldn't go back and kill them. We had to keep running. I bet now, they are still wandering around; shallow shells of the vibrant people they used to be. We swore we would never argue again after that. And we never did.

The next person died at day two hundred and three. His name was Honda Kiku, a Japanese boy trained from a young age as a samurai. Although in Japan it's an honorable duty, they would come to America just to impress the population with their amazing sword skills and discipline. He happened to be at an American airport awaiting a flight home when the apocalypse occurred. Luckily enough, he had his katana and he defiantly knew how to wield it. Like Toris, he was quiet and kept to himself, but he found our 'western ways' amusing. He would always chuckle quietly and observe as if he's never seen anything like it before. After the slaughter, food was hard to come by. I never realized it but when Kiku returned with a bag full of food and claimed he snacked on the way, he was actually lying. Maybe if I paid attention more I would have caught it, but he sacrificed every scrap of food for us. As a result, he died of starvation and dehydration. We were absolutely devastated. Not because that meant only four of us remained, but because he truly became our friend. Without the apocalypse, we could have never received a gift as great as Honda Kiku. That's also when we learned that good things can come out of the most horrible events.

On day two hundred and fifty six we lost Lovino Vargas. Lovino was Antonio's tomato loving boyfriend and the older brother to Feliciano. He was a hothead but he still cared in his own way, no matter how any times he called us bastards and glared our way. He was good at protecting Feli. Before the apocalypse he was a part of a Mafia ring that he didn't dare breathe a word about. When Antonio died, the Italian was a lot angrier than usual and had an even shorter temper with me. He went to his grave hating me. He still thought I got Antonio killed and now he thinks I got him killed too. It was an accident but…I can't really say I regretted it. We were driving down the road when the car broke down. We popped open the hood and at first didn't see any problems. That's when I noticed a bullet hole. I grabbed the two people closest to me, mein brother and Feli, and dragged them down when the bullets began to fly. Lovino was shot multiple times, but so was my dog Berlitz. While Lovino fell in the line of fire, Berlitz did not. I didn't have any choice but to pick my dog up and run into the forest with Gilbert and Feli, abandoning Lovino on the road. I felt so guilty, especially when I looked over at Feli and saw the fat tears rolling down his face. He wanted to go back, so my brother had to hold him down. Even right now, I can imagine Lovino's words perfectly as he whispered them in those final moments before we ran.

"It's all your fault."

The next day, two hundred and fifty seven, mein dog died. Berlitz meant so much to me. He was the first puppy I ever received as a child and he was always there for me. I could tell he loved me and I loved him too. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't do anything as he died in my arms. A little piece of my heart broke off that day. But it wouldn't be until day four hundred when my whole heart would shatter.

The day was bright, sunny even, just beautiful. Whatever month it was didn't matter. It was just perfect. Perfect. It made the three of us stop and think is the world really broken? We went into a housing edition and Feli, cheery that day, picked out a house he wanted to stay in. We went in per usual, me bringing up the front and mein brother securing the rear. We screamed, a tactic to draw the dead out. None of them answered. We split up. Me and mein brother cleared the first floor while Feli took a look at the second. A loud thunk above our heads signaled we weren't alone, so me and mein brother went to back Feli up. He always got scared when he was alone. Feli had his back to us, with a dead man at his feet. I called out to him and he turned.

I nearly fell to my knees.

A chunk of skin dangled from his jaw, a bite mark forming on his skin. While I stood weak kneed, mein brother rushed to his aid.

The dead man was still alive though.

It latched onto mein brother's leg and dined on his ankle before I could deliver a bullet to its head. I lost both of them just like that. I knew I couldn't kill them. I just knew I couldn't. Mein brother smiled at me hugged me tight, and whispered for me to go. He knew I couldn't do it either. I told him I couldn't leave him and he said I had to. But what really did it was when Feli spoke.

"Go Ludwig."

I couldn't argue.

I scrambled down the stairs, feeling the tears burning my eyes as I stumbled from the house, collapsing when I heard two gunshots clap. I wept on the pavement, screaming so loud that I could've attracted the neighborhood. Just like that, they were gone. Gone forever. Mein dear brother, the one who raised me. My dear Feli, the one I loved. I pounded my fists into the pavement, but it did no good. I just wanted to be eaten at that point. I was begging to be a dead man walking.

That was one hundred and thirty three days ago. I always kept track. But there's one thing I left out on my recount of day four hundred. I died too. Ludwig Beilschmidt died with Gilbert Beilschmidt and Feliciano Vargas in house 143, East Lane Drive. Maybe I got that date wrong too.

Maybe he died on day one.

I got this idea from the Walking Dead 400 days. I literally finished the entire thing in two hours and it was so cool. Now only if I could afford Season Two…

-Soul Spirit-