Author's Note: Hello! And welcome to my first installment of Adria! I'm very excited to write this story. I have had this in mind for some time now and I finally get to share it with you! I would like to give special thanks to and introduce a good friend of mine with who I am collaborating with on Adria: Deutschamerikaner. I am going to be using one of his OC's: Serbia. I really love this character and I will be shipping him with Bulgaria.

I hope you enjoy this story and review with your comments!

Editor/Co-Author's Note: Hallo Ich bin der Deutschamerikaner! I'm very happy to be working with my friend on this. Please tell me what you think, and excuse my shitty grammar and spelling skills that I lack. Dankeschön! Gute Nacht!

Summary: "My name is Valentin Nicolae. I'm 23 years old and I am currently being transported to St. Luciano's Institution for the Mentally Ill. I'm not crazy; it's all Adria's fault. If he'd only get out of my head..."

Valentin

My name is Valentin Nicolae. I'm 23 years old and I am currently being transported to St. Luciano's Institution for the Mentally Ill. I'm not crazy; it's all Adria's fault. Now that I look back on it, I should have realized it sooner...

His name is Adria Rica. In my language, that means 'Dark Ruler'. But when I met him, he was one of my best friends. What I found odd was that I was the only one who saw him. Everyone simply thought he was my imaginary friend, but I knew he was real.

When I was young, I lived in a small village that straddled the three countries of Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria. There, we all lived peacefully, happily. We worked for ourselves and our families. I had two best friends there, they were older than me, but they were like brothers to me. Aleksander, who was from the Bulgarian section of the village, and Niko, who was from the Serbian section. I was from the Romanian section and I was one of three children. Aleks and Niko were my best friends; they were like my private little family. We were a family, the three of us.

We were all happy to be together, and we played every day. But, then our family fell apart when Niko had to leave. I can remember crying like a five year old girl. (I was a seven year old boy by then) Niko was always the more lenient with me out of him and Aleks. He had to leave due to his father's work. I think Aleksander was the most devastated out of the two of us. I wasn't sure why, but it could have been that they had known each other longer.

When Niko left, Aleksander became more protective over me and seemed a little...depressed. About a year after that, Aleksander and his family moved farther into Bulgaria and I was sent to an institution by the age of ten. My family was more afraid of me than they were concerned for me.

I would sometimes beat up my siblings. Not the way siblings would usually beat up each other, but much more violently. I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I couldn't help it, and I couldn't stop it. That's because it wasn't me. It was Adria. He looks like me, so they thought it was me. My family just wanted to get rid of me because of him. The one who didn't want me to go was Aleks. He wasn't afraid of me. He was my only friend, the only one I had left. And they tore me away from him.

I was sent to an asylum in the very north of Romania. It was the worst experience of my life, and only made things worse. I was there for seven years, strapped into chairs and poked with needles, zapped with electricity and locked in a room. I was in the same room for seven years; locked in there for years with him.

Being in the same room with Adria Rica is the worst punishment in the world. He doesn't just beat you down with his fists. He makes you hate yourself. He makes you believe that you aren't worth it. That you're just a waste of space, time, and life. Even the doctors that torture you are wasting their time on you. Then he beats you. And the doctors tie you up in a strait jacket and chain you to the wall because they refuse to see the shadow in the corner. The showdown descends on you and you can't fight back and it's not like anyone would help you because they don't care.

Like Adria said, I'm a waste...

But there was that one day I won't forget. I was 17 and a nurse said I was wanted in the lobby. You see, us "crazy people" "mentally disturbed" weren't allowed past the double doors of our prison. The doors we enter upon arrival and never pass through again. But I was an exception as I was lead through those doors, into the clean and happily decorated lobby of Hell. I was met with a very distressed looking man. I say distressed because of the irritated way he glared at the secretary.

It was Aleksander. He found me and he took me away from that place. I'll always remember that when he first saw me he hugged me. And he cried. I was scared; I didn't know who he was or what was going on. You have to remember that I was only ten the last time I had seen him, and here I was, seven years later, being hugged by a strange man. When he told me who he was..."Vali. Vali, don't you remember me? It's me, Aleks. From the village. Please tell me you remember..." I held him for so long, I didn't want to let go, afraid that if I did, I'd be pulled away and sent back into that white Hell.

I wasn't. Aleksander took me away from that place and back to the United States to live with him. He didn't know what was wrong with me. And neither did I. I was never diagnosed; the doctors just threw me in there without a second glance. And at that point...I was very worried that there really was something wrong with me. Something that was Adria. I didn't tell Aleks about Adria for years. I didn't want him to get mad at me and send me back to Romania.

and Adria. He was gone. For years, he was gone. Until recently. He came back, and he came back swinging. My life was Hell again, and it didn't need the straps of the chairs, or the stabs of the needles.

Do you want to know why I'm being sent away? Because if you do...I've got nothing but time to tell you...

Author's Note:We hope you all enjoyed this and if so...Let Vali know if you'd like to hear his story... ;D