Chapter 1:

Nonnie Tierney Prieron was, in all simplicity, a restless girl. She fidgeted, she twiddled, she twitched—anything to keep from being completely still. She would twist her fiery red curls round and round, until they were even curlier than before, giving her a rather frazzled look. She would adjust and readjust her glasses over and over again, kick her feet back and forth, run her tongue over her teeth millions of times "just to get the feel of them".

She rarely ever looked at one place for more than ten seconds. She always seemed to take things in rather hungrily as if she would never be able to see again. Random outbursts were most definitely not uncommon, and usually they would be pretend-words. Made up. Fictional.

Her friends were the air, the sky, the ground, the cushions on the couch; anything. School and social life had almost no meaning to her. It could even be as if they didn't exist.

Until she discovered Hetalia.

All of a sudden, her ever-moving pupils were fixated onto the computer screen, completely eating up the vivacious colors, bold humor, and exciting characters. Her kicking feet rested exactly two and a half inches above the floor, and her fidgeting hand was poised solely upon her mouse, ready to click to the next episode. Where her mouth had been twitching constantly, torn between a smile and a frown, there was now a ghost of a grin adorning her small, carefully crafted features.

Her parents were rarely ever home, preferring to go on wild exhibitions to exotic places like Africa and Asia, leaving their thirteen-going-on-fourteen-year-old daughter in the comforts of her home, a small apartment in the middle of downtown New York.

Instant Ramen had become a staple in her diet, and even though she could cook, and was pretty good at it, she rarely ever did, instead enjoying the three-minute Heaven-in-a-cup she so often ate.

Now, Nonnie, had a habit of clicking anything that caught her eye while on the computer. For example, there was the instance where she had clicked on an IQ test, only to find it was nothing more than an internet scam. Many more of these cases happened, and Nonnie never seemed to learn from them.

So it was naturally no surprise that she clicked on a pop-up that said, "Free Hetalia Units!"

Although, it was a surprise when, instead of a bunch of ads, a message saying, "Congratulations! Your unit will arrive in 1-3 business days!"

Nonnie blinked. She hadn't even entered her address, much less her personal information. Shaking her head, figuring it was a scam, she exited out the window and resumed watching Hetalia.

Two days passed without a hitch, and Nonnie was becoming increasingly bored. Even though she knew the pop-up was a scam, she kept wishing and wishing with all her heart that it wouldn't be. She lay upside-down on the couch, tapping her fingers over her stomach, and trying to see how long she could stay that way without fainting.

Just as the blood started rushing to her head, the sound of a doorbell piercing the endless vacuum of silence startled her, and she fell, legs first, onto the ground.

Nonnie picked herself up, rubbing her head as she made her way towards the door. Upon opening said door, the first thing she laid eyes on was a man. With electric-blue tufts of hair sticking out from a green cap with green wings on the sides.

She also noticed a giant crate next to him. "C-can I help you?" she asked, biting her lip. She wasn't very good with other people.

The man grinned radiantly. "I'm guessing you're Nonnia Prieron, right? I've got your Hetalia unit here for you." Quickly he shoved a paper upon a clipboard into her hands.

Feeling flustered, Nonnie took the offered pen and signed her name in messy cursive. "Please…just call me Nonnie. And don't I have to pay?"

The man's smile did not waver. "Of course not," he said, "You won this." Without another word, he began to push the crate into her living room, leaving Nonnie to wonder for the first time how he had even been able to fit the box in the elevator, anyway.

As the man left, he shoved a paper into her hands. "You'll need this," he murmured, his voice dropping slightly into a warning tone, and he left quickly, without even another word, not even a goodbye.

Which left Nonnie standing in the middle of her living room, in front of a giant box, holding a paper. She shuffled around for a second, shifted her weight from toe to toe, wondering what to do. After a few minutes of just standing there, she decided it would be best to look at the manual.

And she could do nothing but breathe in sharply when she saw the words:

FELICIANO VARGAS: User Guide and Manual