Prologue: The Fall
It all happened so quickly, he barely realised what was happening. A stack full of folders in his arms, a mixture of official documents and comics, blocking his view, a stray object lying in just the wrong place at the top of the stairs, and a misplaced step. That was all it took.
He went from walking along at an easy swagger to staggering forward, arms flailing wildly out to the sides in an attempt to keep his balance, papers flying everywhere. There was a second of heart-stopping shock, followed by a moment of relief as he managed to regain his balance in his mad stagger down the corridor – and then another jolt of pure, honest fear as the floor disappeared from under him and his foot hit empty air instead of carpet and he was sent careening down the stairs.
He fell awkwardly, head first, left shoulder hitting a step, rolling forward, legs flying over his head far too fast. He yelped, shoulder throbbing nastily in a way that meant it was sure to bruise magnificently, everything moving too fast for him to process much more than shock and pain.
The next step he hit struck his back, a horizontal line that cut directly across his spine, forcing it to bend unnaturally. There was a moment of discomfort, a flash of white-hot pain, and then nothing. The throbbing in his shoulder disappeared too, and a second later he landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs, back twisted in a nauseatingly wrong fashion.
He had only a split second to register the half-formed, stomach-churning realisation that he couldn't feel his legs, and then his head struck the floor – and that was that. No more worry, no more fear, no more thought. No more life. No more Alfred F. Jones.
And so the United States of America fell.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.
A/N: So. Because I am apparently a crazy masochist and don't have enough to do at the moment, I've decided that it's high time I start posting the USUK fanfic I've been working on for a couple of months now. It's not finished, but I am a lazy, lazy child and I'm hoping posting it will motivate me to do some actual writing, rather than endless procrastination. The pairings will be USUK, and some PruCan (for the sake of this fic, stuff like GerIta and SuFin will be taken as canon, and Spamano is vaguely implied). Other than that... there's nothing that would require warnings, really, other than character deaths and liberal amounts of angst. (Also, I know killing a main character off is a somewhat... odd way of starting a story. bear with me. It will make sense, I promise.)