Gentle Worlds

Author's Note:

This is my first foray into the world of Hetalia. Well, I hope you will find it rather enjoyable. It certainly had been an enjoyable experience for me, writing this first chapter.

Disclaimer: Himaruya owns Hetalia.

Soundtrack:

'Après Moi' by Regina Spektor

XXX

Spring, 2084

On the eighth of May, the world ended.

It collapsed thoroughly, flat-lined through a fitful seven-and-a-half minutes, based on calculations by scientists published in various newspapers across the globe on the next day, before clambering up to its feet and starting to move again.

"Only this time, it's no miraculous reconciliation," a tense Gwen Kirkland said in a press conference. "Humanity is running on its third leg, practically jetting into darkness on its afterburners. The current world is a zombie of what it used to be. The moment the magic that holds this golem upright runs out, human civilisation will freefall back into Stone Age."

The confrontation coming from his son later that night was expected. The moment they were both comfortably seated in library of the Kirklands' London residence, twenty-seven-year-old Arthur promptly forgot his cooling tea and said, with as much vehemence his manners would allow him, "Bloody hell! What was that about, Mother? You're a scientist, the Chief Scientist of Rozetta Research Institute, for fuck's sake! Not a bloody fantasy writer!"

"Well, I've always wanted to be one, so I might as well fucking talk like one," she pointed out, smirking triumphantly—over what, only God knew. She rose up from the couch and went towards the gilded mirror hanging on the far wall, across the slumbering fireplace. Running one hair through her sandy blonde hair, she grinned and said, "Not bad for a woman turning forty-five, right? Maybe it's high time for me to quit biotechnology and return to my parchment and quill…."

"…Parchment and quill?" Both Arthur's eyebrows went up and disappeared beneath his bangs. "Bollocks! What about the people?"

Gwen made a grimace, scrunching up her face. It was then that Arthur noticed the lines on her face, spidering from the corners of her eyes and lips. Although her spirit was trapped in the state of a twenty-one-year-old college girl and her energy level was frozen in a seventeen-year-old's, she was forty five, and that was it: Time might have been a gentler deity on her than on other people, but concessions did not mean she was allowed to escape unscathed.

Turning in wide-eyed innocence at her son, she shrugged and said, "…Guess we're all doomed, eh?"

His hand trembled as he reached for his teacup. "What—just like that?" he asked hoarsely, almost laughing at the bitterness of it all. Having a spirit younger than Arthur, her very own son, naturally Arthur always viewed her as the greatest optimist in the Kirkland household, in Rozetta, where strode bearded misanthropic professors preaching about the end of the world, in the community of glum-faced politicians, among which Alistair Kirkland worked, and in the whole world, if you did not count all those grinning, fairies-and-sugar idiots, namely children and some specimens in the asylums. "Just like that?"

"It's not like we have any other choice," Gwen pouted, gathering her hair up into a bun. "Arthur, my darling, Senta was our last hope for a sustainable fuel. By my estimation, we had, oh, one year left of fossil fuel, give or take a couple of months."

His tea was sloshing wildly in his cup. Noticing it was because he was shaking all over, he gripped the edge of the round coffee table until his knuckles turned bleach-white. "And that fuel—that last hope—just went out like that?"

"Not exactly like that," Gwen sighed, speaking to her reflection. "The whole reactor practically went ka-boom! Kill all the scientists in the lab, it did. The whole Senta lab, the whole frigging facility, was on fire. Took it seven-and-a-half minutes to release all its energy and break through the protection of the lab. By now, its energy field must have encompassed the whole globe." The grandfather clock at the corner let out a terrible chime; it was midnight. She threw it a wry glance. "Alistair is coming late without calling me. Again."

The girlish pout in her intonation caused his anger to flare up, a brief but sharp spurt of red across his vision. "You're giving a verdict on the end of civilisation. And you are still so calm. You know how fucking hard this is for father," he spat, shoulders trembling in his dress shirt. "His wife invented a fuel that could have saved humanity, but it went bloody straight down to hell before it could do anybody any freaking good!"

His mother did not even flinch from her son's emotional outburst. Her smile did not waver, much less budge. "I did, didn't I?" she chuckled. Arthur would have lunged at her throat right then and there, only she moved, crossing the room, past the anger-paralysed Arthur, and towards the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony. She threw open the heavy curtains, and held her arms up in the air as the blinding light of midnight rushed through the glass and claimed her.

It was brighter than the day itself, Arthur realised in fear, shielding his eyes against the light. Gwen's body was nothing but a dark, humanoid silhouette.

The silhouette spoke, "Photons form Senta." The bodiless voice adopted a keening wail, and Arthur had to clap his hands over his ears and closed his eyes. It was so bright that he could hear the light, the jetting photons from between the gaps of his fingers. "All the energy from Senta is my child," the shadow cried, "and now it has gone! Gone and freed itself!"

He had to scream against the noise of the light and the shadow's cries. "Mother!" he called. "Fuck! Gwen! Close the damn curtains!"

After a lag time of a second that felt like a whole minute, the shadow dropped its arms. The curtains fell over the light in a matter of an instant, and Gwen turned her back against their dark folds and staggered back to the couch.

"Your father must be having a bloody hard day," she sighed, stretching luxuriously against the soft fabric of the couch. Arthur refused to reply; he simply stared. "Wake up when the git comes home," she mumbled sleepily. "For him, his world ended at eight thirty-two in the morning, when Senta exploded. I have to comfort him and offer him my condolences."

"Hell yeah," she heard Arthur reply; however, she was already slipping into a dream, where she could see her husband, head bent over his desk, with the top two buttons of his shirt left open, and his tie missing. Such a rare sight it was….

XXX

Alistair Kirkland had his head bent over his desk, with the top two buttons of his shirt left open, and his tie missing. Although his young guest did not know it, it was actually such a rare sight. Not even Gwen had seen his husband's attire in a state of disarray, except in their preludes to sex, and after she had had her nimble hands all over his body. If Arthur had seen Alistair at that time, he would have had difficulties identifying him as his father; after all, it was from his father that Arthur inherited his immaculate way of dressing.

Finally, he looked up from the screen of his laptop and gazed at his guest with tired eyes. "I like you," he suddenly said, grinning affably from the top of his laptop. "You don't fidget. Most people do that when they start thinking that they've been waiting too long."

His guest blinked his only good eye in surprise. The left eye was covered by a medical eye patch. Alistair decided that he liked the eye patch. It made the youngster look like a pirate.

"Um, I guess it comes from military training, sir," the boy said, laughing nervously. His eye appeared dark blue under the poor lighting of the candles, a side effect from not having the convenient fossil fuel handy. They did not have enough solar panels already, so he volunteered to make his own sacrifice—noblesse oblige and all that crap he could not believe he actually did believe in. Absently, Alistair wondered what shade the eye would appear under the rays of Senta's explosion.

He would have opened the curtains of his office and answered his curiosity, but the boy just nearly got blinded by the explosion, and, not that he was willing to admit it, this time Gwen's invention did inspire a veil of fear in his heart of heart.

Instead, he chuckled warmly. "How old are you," he paused to squint against the darkness, struggling to read the identification tag clipped to the breast pocket of the boy's green uniform, "…Alfred F. Jones?"

"Just Alfred, please," the youth snapped, only to withdraw, flustered, upon remembering whom he was talking with, "…sir."

Pursing his lips in amusement, Alistair put his laptop to sleep ('Conserve energy,' his mind reminded him, 'you're not going to enjoy it much longer.'), before folding his hands on the table and saying to the boy, "Well, Alfred, tell me: how old are you?"

"Nineteen, sir."

"Education background?"

"Hetalia Academy. I, uh, attended that school from kindergarten all the way up to high school, sir."

"Hetalia Academy?" Alistair muttered, raising an eyebrow. "I was there myself, and so was my son." At the look in Alfred's face he said, "No matter, Alfred. He was—what—eight years your senior. I suppose then you joined the Air Force."

A shadow of a smile formed on the young man's lips. "Bingo, sir."

Alistair tapped his own left eye. "How's your eye doing?"

Shrugging, he touched the fabric of the eye patch. "They said it should be fine, sir." Grinning ruefully, he added, "Though they also said I might not retain my full vision. Might have to look for another job. Consider other career options and think about another future that doesn't include the army."

"Your father will have no trouble finding, and securing, you a job."

"Yes, but—me and my father, sir—we have different opinions of what a job constitutes." Frowning, he said, "I'm never any good with paperwork. Don't have the patience for it, if you ask me."

Pointedly staring by this time, Alistair asked, "Will you be sad to leave the Air Force?"

"Frankly, yes, sir."

At his words, the older man leaned forward, his green eyes appearing black in the darkness to Alfred. "Tell me, Alfred, what happened at this morning, at eight thirty-two a.m.?"

The question reverberated on the thick walls of the dusty room, and Alfred repeated it under his breath, "…What happened?"

What happened?

XXX

What happened was the beginning of the last year of human civilisation. The end of the world, especially the modern world. For example, the death of electricity for all people (except for a handful who could afford the swiftly ascending prices of solar panels; really, the only ones who should be rejoicing were the producers of solar panels, with the catch that they needed electricity to produce said panels first). With electricity gone, solar panels becoming rarer than good ol' Stradivarius, and windmills having been torn down by developers in the sixties to make way for Earth's exponentially increasing population, manufacturers of palm oil candles were left with a pot of gold.

What happened was the end of whatever financial reserves governments of all countries had, and along with it whatever grudging support the messed up citizens of the world still had for them. From the beginning of 2030, taxes had been raised, all countries had been chipping in and depleting their funds for the sake of Senta, and everybody had been bearing it quietly but painfully, groaning under hushed breath and wishing for the damn reactor to simply start and inject some new life into this exhausted world. Damn all the fossil fuel that ever was, and damn the slowness of the formulation of Senta. Fossil fuel was projected to run out by 2085, on spring, while the first barrel of Senta was supposed to be produced by the summer of 2084. No schedule could ever be tighter. They got rid of cars and motorcycles and started using solar panels and public transport; those were never enough but those were all that they could get, and they forced themselves to get by. The waiting!

The waiting was what broke the people. The Maladies of the Eighties, they called the diseases: Depression Outbreak, Lethargy Outbreak, Outbreak of Outbreaks…. Then there were outbreaks of revolts, rebellions, and plain, basic violence. People were taking anti-depressants like vitamin C. In Europe, the mummy of Prussia was brought back to life by the Chaotism movement, who sacrificed human blood and money at its altar, giving form to a completely new being, raw and stranger than ever, New Prussia.

What happened, Alfred thought, as he tossed and turned on his bed in the Kirklands' house, was that he was flying Bonnie, his bomber, the most beautiful aircraft he had ever seen. It had a name before Bonnie, an ugly name made of letters and numerals. He saw it, saw the lady it could have been, and changed its name to Bonnie, not to mention painting its side with big bold capital letters BONNIE.

(That was the only time he ever used his influence on army matters. Alfred F. Jones, son of the late wife of the President of United States, Nicholas G. Jones…. Most people thought he cared too little of that title. He pointed out that the President had another son from a living wife, who needed more attention than the reckless Alfred did. Matthew Jones was a good, sound young man. Alfred was good and sound, but he had a raw side in his personality and a wild quality in his soul that would not go well with the publicity of the First Family.)

Bonnie and he were part of the second generation of P-Ops. No matter how corny P meant—it stood for Prodigy, he was proud of his achievement. Only three P-Ops teams existed in each generation, and they were the best of the best, crème de la crème: boys with big brawns, bigger brains, and the biggest survival instinct. P-Ops were all hush-hush and huge investments of money; no one could afford aircrafts anymore, but P-Ops had them, razor-dangerous beauties used sparely, running on a mixture of palm oil and fossil fuel. In compensation, the P-Ops were given the hardest tasks: whenever there was a battle, they went first and left last.

What happened was that he was on his way to Germany, to look at the trouble the New Prussia had caused. Then, eight thirty-two in the morning, GMT, the sky exploded.

The world ended.

The sky exploded white; never had he seen a white brighter, louder, or more hurtful. He could hear it in his ears, a keening, screeching sound. He smelled its aldehydic burst of scent, enveloping his nostrils, choking him until he had no choice but breathe in. It pierced his lungs not in the way needles did, but in the way photons did, a million acrid stabs to one's insides. The photons nestled on his skin, went past his bomber jacket and every layer beneath, causing his hair to stand in attention and his bones to tingle. Closing his right eye just in time did not mean he managed to salvage the left one. It had been staring at the direction of the Senta lab, off the shores of England, built from the remnants of Sealand.

The light went in and did not go out; his pupil refused to reopen, and he managed to find his way across the sky with only one eye open to land in Sheffield, UK, from which he was quickly escorted to London. The Prime Minister of the Great Britain had requested an audience with him. It was PM Kirkland who broke the story to him: the other pilots of P-Ops 2, his teammates, had all fallen, struck blind by the light.

Alfred shivered, thinking of the light, but he could not remember anything else except for the sheer noise of it. "Guess Lady Luck was smiling on me," he managed weakly, "I mean, what happened really?"

Mr Kirkland's eyes had turned curious. "The Senta lab exploded," he said, simply, and still smiling nonetheless. "The reactor and the whole structure of Sealand sank into the ocean. All that energy had to go somewhere, and it went to the air, as photons, as light."

"All of it…gone?"

"Gone and wasted."

From the corners of his eyes, Alfred could spy the bottom of the curtains covering the windows of Mr Kirkland's office. Not even the heavy fabric could hold back the light indefinitely. The light pushed and bulged against the dark green cloth, all claws and blades of rays, fingers creeping from the bottom of the cloth and fingering its way into the room….

Alfred felt nauseous. He crawled out of his bed, covered in cold sweat, and made his way to the toilet on his knees. The sound of his own vomit was a dull splash against the keening in his ears, and the odour of it was deplorably acidic, reminding him of the burning in his lungs. He was grateful, though, for the world in Mr Kirkland's house was dark, and he succumbed gladly, voluntarily, into the darkness.

The ceramic tiles were cold against his cheek. He thought of Bonnie; not for long, though, for soon the cold changed, transformed into a comforting coolness, and soon the world was swaying out of focus, out of reach, and nothing was breaking against his senses anymore, nothing but void.

XXX

I do hope you like the first instalment. Constructive criticisms are not only welcome; it is practically begged for.

Signing out,

Ilsa S. H.

From Lost Duck Inc.