Author: Cyhirae
Edited: Lumineux

Rating is for: Mild language, somewhat more than mildly suggestive themes/situations. No lemon here though, folks. Seek thine citrus elsewhere.

Notes: This fic is the result of an FST project between me and Lumineux; the full thing will soon be posted up on the Hetalia Livejournal community. :) The chapter titles will not make much (well, frankly, they won't make ANY) sense unless you know what songs are being referenced. The story is intended to be read alongside listening to the songs; this is not a songfic. The actual lyrics do not appear in this work. It also is a bit fragmented and that is intentional given it was following the songs chosen. This takes place just at the tail end of the hypothetical doomsday war of World War III. The most history mentioned are vague, if frequent, references to the plagues and famine that hit Norway at one point and the kingdom of Denmark-Norway as the last vestiges of the Kalmar Union.

Disclaimer: Hetalia, the characters and the songs referenced are not mine or Lumineux's; they belong to their respective creators. We just borrowed them for this dark little story.

"De ville ikke ha våget ...De ville ikke ha våget …"

Like a prayer for strength, Norway continued that chant in his own mind once his voice gave out. He stumbled through the long, dark corridor that had led to the shelter. No, once they would not have dared even think of attacking him. The very thought would have sent all but the bravest -or most foolish- of people running to find where they left their sanity.

Norway could remember those days; why did it seem like no one else did? He paused in the darkness to lean against the wall; he could hear water flowing freely from a broken pipe somewhere; the corridor itself was rank with the smell of smoke and ruin. This corridor had been brightly lit when he had first come down it…how long ago?

He didn't know. The world had lost its mind again; and since then he and his people had been hiding deep within the shelters that had been promised to withstand such an assault as World War III. They had hunkered down and waited…Norway could count how many of those shelters had failed to uphold that promise. He had felt each as a blow to himself, the people who had counted on them barely having time to acknowledge their own fate before it was upon them.

That had not been the worst of it. Even after the final missile landed, deaths had continued. Water was contaminated, food was in short supply and no one dared venture out. The early days had not been bad; but days inevitably gave way to weeks, weeks became months…had they even gone so far as years, perhaps?

Human nature had won out. A different war had begun then, this time among his people- those who had never had a true revolution or rebellion in all of his existence, they turned on one another. The stronger, more organized ones survived while the weaker were overrun and their food taken.

Norway shuddered, arms crossing over himself as pain wracked him again; he had never known the agony of civil war- if this could be called that. He had kept himself hidden in that shelter as long as he could; even after those who had been there with him had either left or died. He hadn't been able to stand it any longer; he had to try to find those who were the most prominent and convince them to stop the fighting and start the recovery instead. Before this killed them all.

He pushed away from the wall, feeling dampness and muck come away with him as he began the slow climb back up into the world above. The corridor stank of more than the fall out of above; the lack of anything resembling light kept him mercifully blind to the things over which he stumbled in the darkness. Part of his mind knew; both the scent and the size of the forms from the days he raided across the seas…he had found those who had fled the shelter. Once he would have felt their precise deaths when they happened…but they had instead been just one more pain among so many as to render him numb.

If they had all stopped here, then the exit couldn't be far. Had they been unable to open it? Norway fumbled around in the shadows along the wall as he went until at last he touched an inlaid stone ladder; this had been a newer shelter, built when it was understood how metal could conduct radiation and then keep it even from the new bombs. Above the ladder then, should be the way out. He climbed up the rough stone unsteadily, feeling upward until he found the hatch; still sealed, even after the wheel had been turned. They hadn't been able to open it.

Norway shoved against the hatch with increasing desperation; he knew why they had died in that corridor now. A frustrated, despairing cry tore free as he continued to throw himself against the hatch; if he didn't act soon, this would be his tomb as well. Again and again he threw his shoulder against it, growing near mindless in the desperation that took him.

He didn't notice when it finally began to move; suddenly it was gone from above him with the next attempt and he was throwing himself out of the corridor in the sudden absence of the barrier. Body aching where it had not simply gone numb, Norway pulled himself up to look around for some sign of where to go.

Thought of finding the current 'leaders' died as his eyes adjusted to the painfully bright light after so long in the dark. The sky was heavy with smoke even now; it was all he could see. There should have been more here; buildings, homes, businesses….

There was nothing. The sky was bare of even a single building. He looked down slowly in what he knelt; ash, broken pieces of stone and crumbling mortar…the corpse of a building's foundation and little more. More like it were spread about along the ground, silent tombstones among the gray and black ashen light of the world.

Norway stumbled to his feet, shaking his head as he went. This couldn't be right; he had to be having a nightmare. It couldn't simply all be gone, not like this. In all of his days as a raider, he had never seen such devastation, never brought it on any other. A village wiped off the map, a town plundered…but never such a total destruction of….of everything.

The unsteady walk became a stumbling run as Norway ran through the streets, calling out for someone to answer him. His voice was rough from doing nothing but that soft, quiet chant as he sought his freedom; now it was soaring brokenly over the ruin, calling out to his people.

No one answered. The words soon lost their shape, becoming ragged screams as he finally fell into the street, curling up amid the ruin as he clenched his eyes shut in denial. Once, they wouldn't have dared strike at him for fear of what it would bring back on them.

Once…was a very long time ago.