Disclaimer: Hetalia does not, has not, and will not ever belong to me. Also, I would like to state that this story will have a bit of psychological torture, mentions of horrible deaths, demons (surprise!), depression, and well, those all of the warnings I can think of at the moment. I'll let you know if I come up with anymore.
But don't worry, there will still be fluff despite all of this angst.
Oh, and by the way, Emperor Kumquat helped me revise this summary. It needed a little work, and I'm grateful for their help!
As Alfred slowly opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that everything was blurry. However, the mix of orange and brown that he saw was short lived, as his eye lids had lost the motivation for keeping his eyes open. Once he'd returned to a world full of nothing but black, Alfred wanted nothing more than to drift off into the endless void his mind had easily tricked him into thinking that he was in. He was just so tired. There didn't even seem to be anything for him to remember. At least, that was what Alfred assumed when he did try to recall anything. Was he dead? If so, Alfred was sure that he didn't mind death too much. Despite the fact that his body felt as if it was made of nothing but lead, and that his mind was so foggy, the feeling of just letting himself be consumed by the nothingness was quite relaxing.
For what seemed to be an eternity, Alfred allowed his mind to focus on the nothingness while his body slowly regained some strength. Then, he began to grow more alert of his surroundings. He was laying on something solid, yet he was still too out of it to really tell whether that something was soft as a cushion, or hard as a rock. Then, he remembered the fire and smoke he had been exposed to. At first, Alfred thought that he must have been in the hospital. Soon enough, however, he realized that that theory didn't seem to make much sense. It wouldn't explain the orange and brown he saw earlier. Every hospital he'd ever seen had white rooms. Perhaps the fire and smoke he thought he remembered so vividly was just a figment of his imagination, or maybe even a dream. Maybe he was waking up in his own bedroom, and for whatever reason happened to be way to exhausted to want to do so much as move a muscle. He was sure that his bedroom wasn't orange and brown though. Alfred didn't dwell on that. He couldn't think of anywhere else he could be, so he just put it off as him somehow forgetting was color his bedroom was.
Time passed by, and Alfred eventually realized that what he was laying on was not a bed, but instead felt like a giant rock with some pebbles scattered around it. However, the fact that pebbles were digging into his skin was not the most important thing in the world to him. What he wanted to know was how he ended up in such a strange place. Therefore, Alfred tried to search his memory once more in order to see if he could recall anything other than the fire and smoke.
There had been a fire at the apartment he was living in. Of course, the moment he realized that there was a fire, he'd tried to make sure that everyone was able to escape the building safely, and he himself had managed to escape without inhaling any smoke. However, before the fire fighters had arrived, he realized that his roommate was not outside. He didn't know where his roommate was when the fire happened, but he knew for sure that he was still in the building. Alfred was aware of the fact that it would be incredibly stupid to go back into the building and try to save his roommate, and many people had tried holding him back and yelling at him in an attempt to make him stay outside, but he'd managed to head into the building despite their efforts anyways.
He did end up finding his roommate in the building, and Alfred was able to bring him near the entrance so that he would be able go outside to safety. Unfortunately for him, however, his rush to make sure that his his roommate was alright must have prevented him from doing a proper job of keeping the smoke out of his lungs, as once he neared the only accessible entrance left, he began to feel light headed, and extremely weak. He remembered collapsing on the floor and watching as the fire spread to block his only way out. Then, before he entered the world of nothingness, he remembered being in pain. Lots and lots of pain.
So, I really am dead?, Alfred thought, as he realized that he must have ended up being burnt alive. The thought caused him to shudder, and it really didn't help that the memory of him being burnt alive kept playing in his head over and over again. He appreciated the fact that his roommate was alright when he tried to save him, but the cost for doing so was absolutely traumatizing. Then, a morbid thought came to him, Maybe I deserved to die like that.
Despite the fear that was slowly building up within his mind, Alfred opened his eyes when he realized that he seemed to be strong enough to move. He needed to know where he was, and what was going on. After all, if that fire incident wasn't just some terrible nightmare, then this place he was in now was the afterlife he was going to have to live in.
Much to Alfred's adversity, however, he couldn't help but become even more panicked when he realized that the place he was in looked oddly similar to what people would describe as Hell. The sky was orange, and the ground was brown and rocky. Where he was looking, he didn't really see anyone being tortured, or any living creature at all for that matter. In fact, the place seemed to look quite deserted. Despite this, however, the only thing that Alfred could think of his situation at that moment was, I knew that if this place was real, I'd end up here. After what I did...
Then, Alfred flinched when he felt something akin to a dog's wet nose touch his arm. Sure enough, when he whipped his head around in order to see what was touching him, he saw what he assumed to be a golden retriever. Maybe a dog happily panting and wagging it's tail while staring at him wouldn't have been considered the most intimidating thing in the world; if it wasn't for the fact that the dog literally had empty eye sockets. That probably wasn't even the worst thing Alfred would have expected to find in Hell, but the sight of the creature still scared him to no end. He screamed as soon as he noticed this feature of the dog, and began to try and back away from the dog in his weak state as quickly as he could. Perhaps the dog did smell his fear, but that still didn't stop it from trying to be a friendly pooch, as the dog only moved closer to him with a playful trot. Of course, it was easy for the dog to catch up to him, since Alfred was still on the ground, so he tried to pick up the pace in which he backed away.
Alfred knew that in any other situation, a dog wouldn't have frightened him so much. Even if the dog did look horrifying, for well, what could've possibly been the cutest puppy in the world if it had eyes, it didn't seem as if it wanted to hurt Alfred. Unfortunately, Alfred was completely unable to understand that. What could someone expect though? Not only had he been burnt alive, but he ended up in Hell. Alfred wasn't even sure how things were going to turn out for him at that moment.
When he set one of his hands down in order to continue dragging himself away from the dog, he felt his gut drop when he realized that there was nothing to set his hand on. It was then that Alfred realized that he must have been on some sort of ledge. An unpleasant chill began to creep throughout Alfred's skin as he tried to keep his balance. The dog immediately stopped wagging it's tail, and began to whimper as it prepared to lunge forward in an attempt to grab Alfred's shirt. However, before the dog could do anything, something flew by and scooped Alfred up off of the ground.
After a few moments of shock, the first thing Alfred realized was that there were two giant, light grey wings flapping; attached to whatever was holding him (judging by how he was being held, the thing must have been a humanoid of some sort). Curious as to what could've been carrying him, America dared to take a glance at the creature. However, he immediately regretted doing this. Sure, it seemed to have many traits to that of a human, but there was no denying that fact that this person was a demon; as he had both horns and bat-like wings.
At first, Alfred tried to squirm out of the demons arms. So what if he ended up falling and potentially breaking breaking a limb? At least he would have a chance to escape from whatever fate the demon had in store for him. However, the struggling seemed to be futile, as the demon tightened his arms around Alfred and scolded him, "Stop it, or you're going to end up falling into that fire pit."
Fire pit!?, Alfred exclaimed mentally. Well, it didn't seem as if the demon was lying, as when Alfred dared to take a look below them, he could see nothing but fire. Alfred immediately shut his eyes as tightly as possible after seeing this. Then, some invasive thoughts decided to attack his mind right at that moment. Although, one could easily consider them logical, considering the position Alfred was in at that moment, What if I end up falling into the fire pit anyways? What's stopping this demon from just throwing me in?
Alfred tried his best to keep himself together. Considering how things had been going for Alfred ever since he ended up in Hell however, it didn't seem as if even that was going to go well for him, as his breathing began to quicken. In fact, by the time the demon had finally brought him back down to the ground, he was hyperventilating.
As soon as he felt the demon land, Alfred opened his eyes so that he would be able to focus on escaping from this creature. Before the demon was even able to set him down, Alfred had squirmed out of his arms, and was met with a bunch of pain as he landed on the rock hard ground with his arm. Alfred tried to ignore the pain, as he began to back away as quickly as possible from the demon. Not that he was even able to make it far at all, considering the fact that he was still hyperventilating and felt extremely weak.
When the demon tried to bend over in order to wrap his arms around the frightened human, Alfred immediately kicked him in the gut. The demon stumbled back due to the pain, and Alfred spent the demon's moment of distraction to start attempting to flee with more haste; even going as far as to try and stand up on his legs. Of course, his limbs were too wobbly at the moment for him to stand up, but that didn't seem to matter anyways, as he realized that there were a few large boulders that were now almost surrounding him, and that any way out of this dead end was being blocked by the demon he had just kicked. What scared Alfred the most was the fact that the demon had much determination in his amethyst eyes.
It was then that Alfred became completely petrified with fear. That was it, the demon had him. Alfred was sure that he was in for it at that moment. After all, he'd kicked the demon, and surely a demon wouldn't forgive someone so easily for hurting them, right?
Once the demon was near the cowering human, he decided to kneel down so that he would be able to look Alfred in the eye. No anger was present on the demon's face, but Alfred was sure that he was just trying to hide it. When the demon tried to pull him into his arms once more, Alfred found that as much as he wanted to, he was unable to move out of the way of the demon. He felt himself being pulled close to the demon in what could easily be considered a tight, yet gental embrace. However, being held and having his hair stoked while words were muttered to him in a language he was unable to understand didn't seem to sooth Alfred at all. Instead, it only seemed to worsen the panic attack he was having.
Black spots were beginning to dance across Alfred's vision as he became more light headed. The demon only became more persistent in his attempt to comfort Alfred (although, Alfred certainly didn't think that the demon was trying to make him feel safe). Unfortunately, all of the demon's best efforts seemed to fail, as nothing he did could snap Alfred out of the panic attack. Soon enough, Alfred ended up blacking out.
A/N: It's been a while since I've written a supernatural/fantasy (I think it would actually be considered supernatural, but I'm not quite sure). By a while, I mean a few years. I hope that wasn't too disappointing of a start.