Disclaimer: I don't Own Hetalia Axis Powers, Or Wolf's Rain. I would love for people to try and guess which Nation I used. So please Review!
Freezing, Alone
The world was freezing over.
The nation sighed as he pulled the tattered remains of an old jacket around his shoulders. The cold permeated everything, chilling his bones as he shivered violently. The cold was his friend now, a constant companion when everything else had left him. An old enemy of his used to complain that his land was always cold, that he was envious of those with warmer weather. Although he could not remember the Nation's name, he had been one of the first to die, his population killed by the deadly cold that had destroyed crops and made fishing hard.
They had learned fast, that grouping in cities was the only way for their people to survive, but all of the Nations too far North had met their end. One by one, as populations dropped with the temperatures, they began to die.
He was the only one left now. His brother- why can't I remember his name anymore? - had faded away a few days before, although it was hard to tell the passage of time anymore, with never-ending days and nights of gray and white and snow and ice and the cold cold coldcoldcold!
He couldn't remember his name anymore. What was there to do in a land of pure white? He knew, the unknown Nation, that his time was coming soon. The last members of his once great country were slowly freezing to death, looting and violence rampant in the cities as the last of the Nobles disappeared themselves. With the loss of people, he could sense those left all too clearly. A few soldiers, fighting over loot, an older couple, cuddling together for the last time, a pair of men and a woman traveling across the ice in a truck. They he could sense all too clearly. The old man was dying, with a faithful companion of old at his side. A flower, the last scrap of plant life, was in the front seat of the car.
And around the vehicle, the Nation was surprised to sense the wild hearts of four wolves, racing proudly towards the mountains.
He too, had thought wolves to be extinct, as much of a legend as he and his now-forgotten companions. A series of flashes – Burnt food, the sharp tang of alcohol, tomatoes, a video game with an old friend - passed before his eyes before he shook them off. Curiosity arose in his shaking frame, and he trudged up a snowdrift. He could sense that they were close by.
Breeching the drift, he stood on shaky legs. The ice was closing in, encasing the rest of the world. But before his eyes was the sight of the wolves. A gray, two tans, and a pure white in the lead. They were silent as they ran, eyes fixed on the mountains ahead, only to stop as the truck skidded to a halt. Panicked voices could be heard, human and the barking of a dog, - or is it another wolf? – rising over the hills. The Nation could sense that the man in the back was dying, and he turned away, sitting down on the snowdrift.
His head tilted back to stare into the sky. Ever since he could remember, and at this point, he was losing even these memories, the moon had been a constant white. Sometimes a little yellower than others, sometimes tinted with blue. But now, it had been dyed the unsettling color of blood. It made the unknown Nation shudder. All those people gone, all of his brethren Nations faded away. The moon reminded him of them, of all those lost, as if their blood had stained the moon in reminder.
A slight jolt. He turned back to look at the group again, to see the old man clinging to life. Whatever the flower was, it had saved him for the time being.
Another stab. The soldiers were dead, having fallen into the water below the ice. The pain was too much. The Nation groaned as he held his heart, tatters of the old jacket fisting in his grasp. It was too much. He keeled over face first into the snow, passing out.
~…~…~…~
He awoke again hours later.
It was the pain as the last human fell to his death that awoke him. Lungs protested as they refilled, but this time, he didn't have the strength to pull himself to his feet. Slowly, laboriously, he rolled over in the snow, looking up at the moon again. A shaky hand in a fingerless glove rose up, running through hair that had turned the color of mud after so many months without a shower. He couldn't even remember what the color had originally been, or what it was like to be clean, or warm.
A laugh, low and rusty as it came from a throat that had suffered much abuse over the last few years. "So… this is how the world ends…" he whispered as he sensed the life slipping away from the man who had fallen. "Not with the bang we wanted… but with a whimper in pain…" His arm fell over his eyes, and now that the last human of his Nation was gone, he expected his death to take him, for his body to fade into nothing.
But life still stirred yet within him. He could still sense the flower, only four wolves now, and a newcomer, a Noble who had survived. His heart was tainted black, and he could sense that the man was dying already, but his will was strong enough to try and take Paradise himself.
"Paradise…" Where had that thought come from? "May we… meet again, in Paradise…" Where?
A cry of pain. The flower screaming for her wolves as one by one, they were defeated by the Noble. Tears ran down the Nation's face as the wolf-dog slipped away, then the fluffy tan as the gray ended his suffering. Surprise and pain as the gray bled out a few minutes later, then a fight within the mountain. He could sense them, the pain of the white wolf and the flower as she grew roots. The triumph as the black played with the weaker, hungrier fighter, then tore the flower from the ground, only to throw her to the side.
The sudden surprise as the black spat up poison.
Delirium, glee, and then a flash of pain as the black became no more.
The Nation cried for them, for his other Nations, for the end of the world. He could sense it. The ice had all but swallowed up the world, and the flower withered away, leaving the white wolf alone. A cry of pain, anger, and anguish rang through the empty landscape, and the Nation struggled to sit up, to answer the cry. It was heartbreaking, and now he could feel himself slipping away, unable to be supported as a Nation with only one person left.
The snow was falling again. He stared up into the empty sky, wondering where it was coming from without any clouds. Blue eyes grew cloudy as he stared blankly up, seeing without seeing the sky. Barely registering the snow turning to rain, the landscaping changing as snowdrifts began to shrink away.
His heart was with the poor dying white wolf now, the beautiful animal fading fast, unnoticing of the flowers that blossomed around him. "I'm… sorry…" the Nation whispered, struggling for breath in the shrinking snow.
"I hear a voice…"
That was the last that they would hear. Each other's voice as they drifted away, the Nation fading into nothing, his last vision of a moon that was slowly turning back to white.
~…~…~…~
The streets were packed as the young man walked down the sidewalk. Blue eyes were focused as he surveyed those around him. A young man on a motorcycle passing by, black leathers glistening in the rain. A young man with a bag of food, staring out into the crowds, as if he sensed someone. A kid holding a wet kitten, red hair shining with drops of moisture as he headed home.
And a familiar pair of men in brown leathers, eyes sharp as they began racing down the street together, heading for a Paradise they could not see.