Happy Halloween, everybody! Right now, my thoughts and best wishes are going out to Italy and the Italian people. I hope for a quick recovery from the tremors and everyone's safety.

Now on with the story. Enjoy!

Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya!

Non Temere il Mietitore

Feliciano Vargas had been running for most of his life.

The first time he saw the shadow, he did not realise exactly what he had seen, did not considered a connection to the death of the person that the shadow had approached but after the third time, he knew what the shadow was, what he had seen.

Death! And Death turned and saw him.

Feliciano ran. He took what he could carry and what money he could gather together along with his passport, left a note for his older brother and grandfather and took off into the night, leaving behind everything, running to escape Death. He could never settle in one place for too long because Death would show up and another life ended so he just stayed long enough to work for enough money to continue his life on the run, accumulating some for the time when he was too old to run.

He moved from place to place and from country to country and he was in New York when he finally could not run any more. Using some of the money he had put to one side over the years, he bought a basement apartment and never left it. He would do his grocery shopping online and had it delivered but the delivery man had to leave it outside and Feliciano would only open his door when the delivery man left. He would not open the door to anyone, would only speak to them through it. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew about the strange old Italian man who lived in the basement apartment but never came out of it and the local children heard all the stories. The favourite was he was a retired Mafia hit-man, hiding out from a bounty put on his own head and dared each other to knock on his door but he never opened it and the game lost appeal so the children finally stopped.

In his youth, Feliciano had been a beautiful young man with amber coloured eyes and auburn hair with a big stray curl springing out on the left. He still had the amber eyes but they were framed with lines now, his beautiful auburn hair now grey, almost white. He moved around the apartment well enough but he no longer had the vigour of his younger years. Around his apartment were paintings that he filled his time up creating. Some he hung on his walls, others he sold online to supplement his finances, making a name for himself as the renowned artist whom no one ever saw. He had managed to use his computer to find news of his family and was saddened but not surprised to find that his grandfather had died. His brother, Lovino, still lived and had married a Spaniard and now had a son called Marcello Carriedo-Vargas and it also saddened Feliciano to think that he would never see his nephew but he had made a will, just in case, stating that everything he owned would go to the nephew he had never met after discovering that Lovino had died only a few years earlier.

Feliciano was almost eighty now and he tired easily these days. It was nine o'clock, dark outside and Feliciano had been falling asleep on his sofa so he decided was ready to retire for the night and got up to go to bed when suddenly shots could be heard outside, causing Feliciano to jump in fear and he jumped again when he heard a thump outside his door. He stood, stock still for a moment and then he heard a voice.

"Help!"

The male voice was filled with pain and pleading and Feliciano edged closer to the door but jumped again when he heard someone banging on it.

"Please, help!" There was a hint of an accent in the words but Feliciano could not make it out with only two words spoken and he reached the door as whoever was outside knocked again.

"Please, I've been shot and I am bleeding!" Feliciano recognised the accent as German. He did not want to answer the door but could he really let someone die if they had been shot. Or was it a trick? Was Death trying to get to him?

He opened his front door, just a crack and peered outside. There, at the bottom of the outside stairs, right by his door lay a man with blonde hair that had been combed back but was now somewhat mussed. He was muscular and wearing a police officer's uniform as he looked toward the single amber eye looking through the crack in the door with his own pain filled, pale blue ones.

"Danke Gott!" he breathed. "Please! I needed help! I've been shot and I need medical attention." Feliciano's eye drifted down to the officer's right side that was covered in blood and he wanted to help but what if bringing this injured man in brought Death to his door.

"Ve~ I I can't b bring y you in," he stammered. "I'm sorry b but I c can't do it!" The officer frowned in desperation.

"Please!" he plead. "I will die out here without your help! You're the only one who can save me, please don't leave me here!" Feliciano sobbed.

"I can't!" he cried. "If I bring you in, he might find me!"

"Who?"

"DEATH!" The officer looked at him like he was crazy. "If you're dying, he'll come here and he'll take me too. I saw him and he saw me. He's been chasing me all my life and I've always managed to stay away from him but I can't run any more. If he finds me now, he'll get me!"

"If I die on your doorstep," the officer gasped painfully, trying to reason with the crazy old man. "Death will come any way. If you bring me in, he won't find me and we can both be safe. Please, don't let me die!"

Feliciano bit his lip as he considered his next course of action. He wanted to help the man and what he said was true. If the officer died at his door, Death would come so perhaps hiding the man would be better. To the officer's relief, Feliciano opened his door wider and put his hands under the officer's arms and began to pull him into the apartment.

Which was not easy as the officer was a large man and Feliciano was old and frail but he managed to get the man inside and shut the door. With a bit of a struggle, and some help from the officer himself, he managed to get the injured man on to the sofa. He took a moment to catch his breath and then went to get some first-aid supplies and warm water.

He brought them back to the man on the sofa and helped him remove his shirt so he could clean the injury. As he gently washed the blood away from the bullet wound, the officer spoke.

"I'm Officer Ludwig Beilschmidt," he said. "What's your name?" Feli looked up from his task.

"Ve~ My name is Feliciano Vargas," he replied. Ludwig stared at him.

"I've heard of you," he replied. "You're that artist that no one knows the location of. Your paintings are world famous and you have everyone curious about why you stay hidden. All anyone really knows is that you're from Rome but you disappeared in your twenties, leaving a note about how Death was coming for you." Feliciano lowered his eyes from Ludwig's but said nothing, continuing to work on Ludwig's bullet wound.

"And clearly you still think that," Ludwig commented. "Why?" Feliciano shook his head.

"Ve~ You'll think I'm crazy," he replied, checking the wound now that the blood had been washed away. He had had to clean the exit wound as well which meant that the bullet had gone straight through and he applied pads to the injuries and put a tight bandage around Ludwig's waist to stem the bleeding.

"Nein," Ludwig replied as he settled back on to the sofa. "I would really like to know." Feliciano sighed, poured Ludwig some water and gave it to him.

"The first time I saw it," he began. "I didn't think anything about it. I thought it was a just a fleeting shadow and then I was distracted when someone near the shadow collapsed. The poor old man died of a heart-attack and I never thought anything of it. A few months later, I was out walking and there was a accident. Someone was hit by a car and, as the young man lay on the ground, I saw the shadow again. It went over to the man on the ground and the man died."

"I remembered the shadow from the first time," he continued after taking a breath. "I thought it was just a coincidence but a year later, there was a house fire near our home. The firemen pulled a girl out of the house and the ambulance people tried to save her but then the shadow came again. It bent over her and she died and that was when I knew the shadow was Death. Then Death turned and saw me looking at him and I knew I had to get away. Knew that Death would come after me! I couldn't stay with my family in case Death took them too so I ran. And I kept running."

"And you've been running all your life," Ludwig commented. "Why did you think Death would chase you?"

"He saw me," Feliciano replied. "And he knew I'd seen him. I had no choice but to run and he's followed me all around the world. I ran to Austria, Germany, France, England, many countries until I came to America and always he followed and always, someone died." Ludwig hummed.

"It looks that way," he said. "But people die all over the world. Perhaps he was simply going where it was time for those people. He may not have been chasing you at all, why would he, Feliciano? What would he gain?"

"My silence?" Feliciano suggested. Ludwig shook his head.

"The fact that Death walks among us is news to no one," he replied. "What could anyone do about it any way? Our time comes, we die. If Death wished you dead, you would be dead by now, no matter how fast you ran. Death was not chasing you, Feli. You were simply there when he was."

"Ve~ If that's true," Feliciano said. "I ran from my grandfather and brother and never saw them again. I've wasted my life!"

"It's sad that you never saw your family again," Ludwig replied. "But your life was not wasted. The entire art world has heard of Feliciano Vargas. Your paintings graced the homes of some of the finest families in the world and some of the finest Art Galleries. Even The Louvre has some of your paintings on display and your name is said in the same breathe as Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Botticelli and Canaletto. You've made your mark on the world and you'll be remembered long after you're gone!"

"I still missed my family," Feli muttered, sadly. "And I've never seen my nephew." Then he brightened. "But if you're right, I can finally go and meet him." This time, Ludwig looked sad.

"I'm afraid not," Ludwig said. "Feli, has it not occurred to you that I've been in your apartment for sometime now and I haven't once asked you to call an ambulance for me?" Feliciano looked at Ludwig, confused.

"Ve~?" he replied. Ludwig stood up without any pain, no indication that he was ever shot.

"I remember you," he said. "I saw you when I came for the old man. I thought you had seen me then but then you looked away and I thought I was mistaken. Then I saw you when I came for the road victim and you were looking at me with a confused look on your face and then the fire and that was when I was sure you had seen me. The look of fear on your face was clear and you turned and ran. It surprised me, you know. I'm normally visible to people only when they're close to death, it's strange for someone who's not about to die to be able to see me, even as a shadow. You're an unusual person, Feliciano Vargas!" Feli's aged eyes widened as realisation dawned.

"Ve~," he gasped, standing up and looking for somewhere to run. "You're Death!" Ludwig/Death smiled at him.

"I was never chasing you, Feli," he said. "I'm sorry you thought so but even if I wanted to hunt you down, I couldn't! It wasn't your time so you were beyond my reach. I have no power over the living, only the dying and that wasn't you. Not then!"

"Ve~ Not then?" Feliciano asked.

"You've begun to tire of late, haven't you?" Ludwig said. "Things are harder for you to do and you rest more? No one lives forever, Feliciano, and I'm sorry! But it's your time now." Feliciano looked scared and Ludwig held up a comforting hand. "Don't be afraid, Feli! There's really nothing to be frightened of, you know. Trust me, you'll see."

"Ve~ Will it hurt?" he asked, fearfully. "Dying, I mean?" Ludwig smiled.

"You never felt a thing," he replied and looked down on the sofa and Feli looked with him. There, on the sofa, Feliciano saw his own body, not breathing but peaceful with a slight smile on his face. Feli thought his body looked younger in death.

"You died in your sleep, Feliciano," Ludwig said. "Peacefully. But you've been running so long that it was hard to reach you so I had to trick you to get close to you. Even in death, you feared me so much that you still ran."

"Ve~ And I never needed to, did I?" Feliciano muttered, looking back at Ludwig. Feliciano had changed. His face was unlined and his hair had regained the beautiful auburn colour it had once had and Feliciano looked the same as he did before began running from Death. Ludwig held his hand out to Feliciano.

"Come with me, Feli," he said. "He won't see you but I can take you to see your nephew and then we'll go to two people who are waiting for you. Your grandfather and brother have been wanting to see you for a long time now. You don't want to keeping them waiting, do you?" Feliciano looked at Ludwig's hand, not moving.

"Please, Feliciano," Ludwig plead. "Don't fear the Reaper!" Feliciano looked up at Ludwig and blue eyes held amber and Feliciano slowly put his hand in Ludwig's. Ludwig smiled.

"Feli, this is not the end," he promised. "It's only the beginning."

"Veeeeee~," was the last thing heard if there had been anyone to hear it as they both drifted into the air and vanished.

Non Temere il Mietitore, I hope, means Fear Not The Reaper in Italian. It was the closest I could find to Don't Fear The Reaper and if I have this wrong and any Italian speakers out there read this, please let me know the real translation and I'll change it. I gave it an Italian title because, of course, Feliciano and I thought it would give the story away too soon if I put it in English.

So that was this year's Halloween story. If I haven't made you want to kill me for bumping off Feliciano (dodging flying objects), please feel free to leave a review. I'm going to sit in the corner now and cry over our favourite pasta-loving nation. :'(

Hasta la Pasta!