Anchorless
Chapter one
Canvas shoes slapped against the cobblestones, causing little droplets of water to splash into the air and shimmer like pearls in the bright moonlight as their wearer carelessly ran through a puddle. The night was so soundless it blotted out everything else. There should be the murmur of late night traffic, the hooting of owls, the occasional sound of running water from the desolate buildings; but the only thing Italy could hear was his own rugged breath and the weird sound of his painfully thin shoes echoing slightly.
It frightened him.
Nothing was familiar about this place.
Yet somehow he knew where he was running: he knew that the pathway was cracked and without so much as glancing down he nimbly jumped over it, he knew that at the next intersection he needed to take a left because the right would lead to a dead end and a bakery, with a fire hydrant covered in chipped bright red paint, and, scariest of all he knew that he couldn't stop running, that to do so would be dangerous- fatal even. So he ran on blindly.
He flew over the broken, sad stones, feet hardly ever touching the ground, tearing across at a speed that Usain Bolt would envy, and at an equally ludicrous speed his mind whirled over possibilities of where he was, why he was where he was, how he had gotten there, why the strange, alien place was so familiar, just what he was running from, why whatever was after him was after him, whether what he was running from was actually after him, if what he was running from was an actual thing and more importantly- why. Why he was here and not curled up taking a siesta or hanging out with his brother.
The window was smashed, from the outside by the way the glass had fallen. With a newfound calmness that chilled the part of his mind he still had complete control over, Italy paced over to the house with a short veranda that he had just stopped short in front of. He moved a plant pot filled with dying bluebells, picked up a silver key that was lying under it and slipped it into the door lock.
Dying bluebells, dying bluebells… Italy knew that should mean something to him. It set off just the faintest of alarm bells, but it wasn't enough to stop him from entering the house. Nothing was. Disregarding the jagged pieces of glass scattered wildly around where the window was once placed, the house was neatly kept; there were no empty
mugs on the table, no dishes in the sink waiting patiently to be polished clean and be put back under the counter by careful hands. The chairs were pushed in, mop and broom in the closet. The only sign that someone lived here was the thick, half filled art book placed on the middle of the table accompanied by a single HB grey lead, a coffee mug filled with coloured pencils and markers and a small pile of pencil shavings. Italy couldn't bring himself to look at the drawings.
Rain began to fall, again, Italy thought. He turned away from the table, catching the sight of the smears of water gathering on the window, blurring the view of smoky street lights and the trees of the nearby park. The pitter-patter increased and grew louder, accentuating the nation's loneliness and confusion.