/AN
This is just a one-shot for the moment, but depending on what people think of it, I may or may not continue it. This may also end up being a fallback story for me to work on when I hit a writer's block on my other two stories…
SUMMARY:
Life in an orphanage isn't everything it's meant to be. Especially when the matron is a cranky old woman that could care less about what happens to us kids and turned us into a way for her to make money.
Why don't the police do anything? Because our 'services' are restricted to those who know about it and, as our matron so bluntly puts it, who would believe a bunch of orphans? Orphanage by day, hell by night…and we want nothing more than to escape this hell. Once and for all…
WARNINGS: Romano's language
NOTE: This is written in first person, from Feliciano's point of view.
/AN
"Ve…I hope Ludwig's all right now," I muttered. We were huddled inside the small room Fratello and I shared. Alfred, Arthur, Yao, Kiku, Ivan, and Lovino were in here with me, which made the room pretty crowded. We looked outside and gave a group shudder as we watched another day pass by.
"He's got to be doing fine," Alfred replied. "The family that took him seemed really nice."
Kiku nodded. "But, he seemed so sad to leave."
"That's because he didn't want to leave us to this torture…" I muttered as we heard the door open as the first stars lit the night. I grabbed Lovino, whimpering. "I don't want to suffer anymore!"
"Arthur, how's the escape path coming?" Alfred asked.
Arthur sighed. "I hit another cement wall. It's like that old witch anticipated it and sealed us in."
I started crying. We couldn't escape, if we ran while we were at school we were simply caught and taken back, why couldn't this suffering end?
"That bitch is coming," Lovino hissed.
We were quick in setting up in our normal positions. Kiku acted like he meditated in the corner, Lovino and I pretended to be sleeping in one of the bunk beds, Arthur and Alfred played chess in the center of the room, and Yao and Ivan sat on the other bunk with a book between them as they discussed a story. The story varied dependent on which book they happened to grab, but it helped to keep up the façade of what we did.
"No, her going to Wonderland is simply an illusion to show that anyone can make up their own worlds to escape from," Ivan stated.
Yao replied, "That's not true. How could she go inside her own imagination by falling down a rabbit hole?"
"A rabbit hole big enough for her? It was just probably a cavern below the tree roots," Ivan argued. Sounded like they were pretending to read Alice in Wonderland.
My grip on Lovino tightened as we heard the door open.
"Ok, you brats," the matron said. She was an old and overly fat lady that lost her interest in taking care of us a long time ago. As always, she was holding a slip of paper, no doubt with a list of names on it. Ivan was almost certainly not on it, after he managed to grab the faucet pipe from one of the sinks and used it to beat the crap out of one of our 'customers' everyone avoided him…unless they wanted to die. I only hoped my name wasn't on that list. "Tonight, Alfred is going to be in the downstairs bedroom, Kiku, you're in the bedroom on the other end of the hallway, and Feliciano, you're in the upstairs bedroom."
Lovino's grip around me tightened. "Fratello, let go. She'll hurt you again," I muttered dejectedly.
"We'll finish later," Alfred muttered to Arthur as he got up. Kiku followed silently and, even though Lovino's face showed he didn't want to let me go, he pulled away and curled up on the far side of the bed while I got up and followed Alfred and Kiku out of the room. No doubt our 'customers' were already waiting in our assigned rooms to do whatever they wanted to do to us.
For each of us, we have some kind of story. We all arrived here because our parents either died or couldn't take care of us. Lovino and I arrived together, so we knew we were brothers, but once the matron grew sick and tired of taking care of us, she turned us into slaves. I rubbed the purple bruise on my shoulder I got from one of these times. She didn't turn us into the slaves of old America, but rather turned us into sex slaves. We had each been raped multiple times, though some of us had spent the whole time just getting beaten up instead of raped. I was one of the kids that got beaten up more often than raped. We thought it was because those people liked to hear kids screaming, which I was very good at, no matter how much I hated it.
It all had the same end result. We were broken, scared of what people might do to us. It showed on some of us more than others. Fratello and I couldn't have a family adopt us because of how much trauma this nighttime service placed on our lives. Ludwig was one of the lucky ones, though we agreed that part of the fact was that the single father had a biological son that wanted to take Ludwig in as his little brother.
"Bye, America," I muttered.
"I'll see you both in a few hours," Alfred replied, sorrow and worry dripping from his voice in waves.
That was another fact. Once we started receiving an education, we became deeply involved in history, to the fact that we had a special history class at our school all to ourselves were we were the countries, and we acted out what happened in history. We loved the feeling of freedom that it gave us so much we would refer to each other by our country names in these times. It gave us a small bit of hope.
"Italy, don't forget," Kiku stated as we came to the stairs leading upwards.
I nodded. "Marukaite Chikyuu," I muttered. "Don't worry, Japan, I'll remember it."
We separated and I started singing Marukaite Chikyuu to myself. The start of our history classes always had this song. We'd all sing our version that corresponded with the country, but it all had the same effect. 'Draw a circle, that's the Earth' is how the lyrics go, only for us, it gave us such comfort we couldn't help but sing it to one of our friends when they were upset, or if it was just to calm us.
I walked into the room, keeping my eyes on the floor. I shuddered at the tension in the air. This guy was looking forward to what he would do to me.
"What, you're not going to look?" The man asked.
I kept my eyes on the ground, bit my lip, and kept singing Marukaite Chikyuu to myself in my head.
I yelped when my curl was pulled. Naturally, I jumped backwards and nearly fell down the stairs, but this man caught me.
I wish I had fallen down the stairs. It was clear this guy was a heavy drinker, and he had too much of it tonight. He picked me up, his beer breath clogging my nose and causing me to cough. "Now don't be like that," he whispered. "I'll even do you a favor."
With that, I felt him press my neck, hard, and I fell unconscious.
xxx
I came around whimpering, gripping my body as I laid there in the dusty old bed completely naked. The man was gone, but the damage had been done.
The matron wouldn't be around to see if we were going back to our rooms. The only time she would care was if we were dying. That was the only reason she was upset to see Ludwig go. Our Germany was one of her best sex slaves, constantly bringing in people to pay for even just a minute with him. When he was still here, his name was almost always on that dreaded list.
"M-Maru-Marukaite Chi-Chikyuu," I sang to myself through my sobs.
It wasn't until well past midnight, after my tears had dried out and I was forcing myself to stay awake, that everyone else showed up.
"Fratello!" Lovino ran over and started to help me dress, since it was clear the drunken man hadn't held back and had me suffer even more trauma than I had already. I was shaking uncontrollably, and it took a bunch of coaxing from Lovino to get me out of the bed.
Kiku and Alfred walked over next. Their clothes were messily tossed on and it was clear from the shaking in their bodies that they, too, suffered horrible fates.
"Italy," Yao said cautiously, "We've been calling for hours…did he…?"
I nodded. "Yes, China," I replied, starting to sob again.
Everyone was immediately there to comfort me. Alfred and Kiku stood on either side of me.
Answering my unasked question, Kiku winced and looked away, Alfred shuddered. Apparently the man did me a favor by rendering me unconscious.
"They were in the same group," Arthur explained as he helped to straighten Alfred's clothes. "It must have been some special occasion, because they all left together talking about getting more beer."
We all left and went back to the room together. We left the light on and did everything we could to make sure we stayed awake without letting the matron know. If one of us started dozing off, we pinched them until they woke back up. If one of us managed to fall asleep, we stopped at nothing until they woke. This was how our life has been, and it probably wasn't going to change anytime soon. The nightmares that came after being abused were always horrible, and we agreed we shouldn't let someone suffer from them just to sleep.
xxx
"You kids look dreadful!" Our history teacher gasped as we walked in. She went to pick me up but I jumped backwards, whimpering. I was shocked; I had never done that before. If…if I didn't want the one adult I trusted to look after us touching me, then it meant I had been broken to an even worse degree than before. Something that didn't go unnoticed, as a look of concern flashed through the teacher's eyes, and I looked down in sorrow. "Are you sleeping at night?"
The bell rang before we could lie and say we were, though the bags around our eyes and our thin structures would state otherwise.
Our history teacher was a nice brunette we called Hungary, though her real name was Miss Elizabeta. It was Kiku's idea to start calling her Hungary, and it stuck with her.
We sang Marukaite Chikyuu, and it helped my nerves a little bit. This was the one class in school that could help to calm me from the nighttime horrors. Just looking at Alfred and Kiku told me that they felt calmer also.
"Ok, are you guys ready for today's performance?" Hungary asked.
Oh, did I mention that our classroom was located behind our school's auditorium? We would act everything out, and if we liked a specific event enough, we'd practice it until we had it down and showed it to everyone.
"Hey, don't forget me!"
"Ludwig!" We cried as the blonde ran into the room.
The one we called Germany grinned. "Sorry I took a while, I was telling bruder and Vati were the best seats were!" He seemed to realize I hadn't hugged him happily, or made any move to show him how happy I was to see him, and the grin disappeared from his face, but his eyes asked everything.
The only thing I could do was whimper, shudder, and nod.
Hungary seemed to realize there was something wrong, because she told us, "Come on, let's get ourselves ready! England, Veneziano, Romano, you guys have the introduction."
I smiled at her and followed Fratello and Arthur out onto the stage. The spotlight shone down on Arthur, who started, "Today's story neither comes through the passage of time, or the knowing of space."
Now, fratello and I walked forward until we were at the edge of the stage, staring with depressed gazes down into the crowd. It wasn't hard to pick out Ludwig's new family, since we could hear his brother's little bird chirping in front of us.
"Today's story happens far in the future," Arthur continued. "Something that may happen, or may not."
"But the question isn't whether it may happen or may not," I stated, matching my tone to the one Arthur set easily.
Lovino finished, "It is simply how we choose to perceive the events."
This was actually a special request submitted by the school. They asked us to take the countries and put them in an event unrelated to history, so that's where we pulled the introduction from. We had put so much thought and devotion into this, we were happy to finally see it come to life in front of our school.
"Italy! Italy!" Ludwig ran onto the stage the same moment Arthur left to get changed. At the same moment, I spun to face him with Lovino and turned my head to the side. Ludwig was now wearing an old World War Two uniform that we had specially replicated for this play.
"Germany," I muttered softly. I heard everyone shifting forward in their seats so they could hear me. "Help…" I let myself fall backwards as Ludwig screamed, "NO!"
Yao and Kiku really were amazing, though it was Yao controlling everything at the moment. I felt the wire attached to me shoot me into the air and set off the flash to make it seem like Lovino and I disappeared, when really we were now climbing around above the set, getting our new outfits ready.
Below us, Ludwig was walking around, aimlessly calling out 'Italy' until Arthur joined us wearing his Britannia Angel outfit – complete with wings and halo. I checked his wire to make sure he was secure and nodded.
He jumped off the edge and called out, "You shall not find them here, Germany."
Ludwig turned to face him. "What do you mean?"
"They have been taken by dark forces," Arthur replied, tapping his palm with his wand staring at Ludwig as if he were seeing something else. "Right now, those forces are working their ways into all of our hearts, and unless you do something, all of us will fall."
He fell to the ground and crumpled. The gasp from the crowd was instantaneous, but this was part of our act. Ludwig ran over to Arthur just as Alfred and Kiku ran onto the stage from the right side.
"Germany!" Alfred called out. "What happened?"
Germany stood up and turned, saying, "North and South Italy have fallen under the control of a dark force, and it appears that England's Britannia Angel is wounded."
"Any idea on who could do such a thing?" Kiku asked.
Ludwig replied, "Who else could do such a thing and leave no trace until now?"
"Russia," they both replied.
Germany said, "I'll take the Britannia Angel back. Go on ahead and find Italy, we mustn't let this force hold onto them."
"You're forgetting your sash," Lovino hissed, handing me the sash. I looked at him and realized he wasn't wearing his hat, so I replied, "You don't have your hat."
Lovino looked around and grabbed the hat while I got my sash on.
Just in time. Our cue went off and now it was our turn to jump over the side.
"Veneziano! Romano!" Alfred called as we slowed to a stop, looking like we were floating in midair. He stopped running at us when he seemed to realize something was wrong. "Ro-Romano? V-Veneziano?" he stuttered.
I held up my hand and said, "You won't come any farther, America. This is what is meant to happen, and there's no use in trying to change it."
More light, a quick cut to Alfred's uniform and some fake blood made it seem like I had injured him.
"W-what are you two doing?" Kiku asked as he pulled out his kantana.
Lovino replied, "We're just helping to set the future on its correct path, bastard. So you can either join us, or perish like that pathetic angel did."
"Japan-" Alfred looked at him as Kiku stepped back, into the light that would make his clothes black.
"Sorry, friend, but this ends here," Kiku growled.
"No!" We were rejoined by Ludwig, and Yao was close behind him, leaving the controls for our special effects to Ivan.
Yao looked between the three of us, asking, "What do you think you're doing? This isn't what's supposed to happen!"
"Who's to say what happens and what doesn't?" I screamed over him. Just a quick glance at the edge of the stage where Hungary stood showed that I had overcome the hardest part, and possibly made her jump in the process. "We can't predict the future! We can't even change the past! We've got to set the future on a path we feel we can control, can make better for the fate of the human race!"
The look on Yao's face was real. He believed what I said, but he also knew where I got the conviction to shout that with all my belief from, and I could tell he didn't like it.
Neither did I, but we didn't let this hinder our progress.
We had another fight scene, which resulted in Kiku, Yao, Alfred, and Lovino lying on the ground defeated. I was leaning against one of the trees staring at the ground aimlessly while Ludwig stood behind me, looking hesitant to touch me.
I couldn't blame his hesitance, but it was a good thing we set this up with the idea of as little human touch as possible, though this was one of the times he was supposed to touch me.
Only he didn't. "I-Italy?" he finally asked, moving to stand by me.
My head shot up and I looked at him, appearing dazed and confused. "G-Germany. Wh-what happened?"
"We need to go after Russia," Ludwig replied.
I blinked, nodding. I stood up and told him, "I'm coming."
Kiku groaned and sat up, saying, "I'm also coming. He has a lesson to learn."
"Axis Powers," I muttered.
Ludwig nodded, saying, "Axis Powers."
"Axis Powers," Kiku agreed.
The curtain closed for a five minute break while we shifted everything to look like we were now inside a castle. Ivan walked over and sat on the throne while the rest of us moved off stage. When the five minutes were up, the curtain opened. Hungary took up the special effects' controls for this part, so we could all show at once.
We let Ivan sit there for a few moments before walking out on stage. Ludwig was wearing his World War Two outfit, in the five minute break Kiku got the chance to change his clothes so he was wearing a black outfit similar to his white one, and I was still wearing my same clothes with the hat and sash – which we had dubbed my 'pope' outfit.
"Hello, you've come to talk to Mother Russia, da?" Ivan asked, smiling at us.
Ludwig replied, "That'll never happen. Now tell us what you've done and what we can do to reverse it."
"But why should I?" Ivan asked.
"Don't be joking!" I screamed, shaking. "You think this is all-all some sort of game? This isn't a game! This is real life, and this is real emotions being toyed with!"
"You don't like it?" Ivan asked. I had the same effect on him I did on Yao.
And it was clear Kiku did as well. While he was still more soft-spoken than me, he replied with as much conviction, "Yes. What you did to us is wrong and it must be dealt with and reversed. How can we make our decisions for ourselves with you constantly controlling us?"
"Hey, don't count us out!" Alfred called, running on-stage with Arthur, Lovino, and Yao. "We all want to have a little talk with our Russian friend over there!"
"Hm, this appears to be getting to be a bit much," Ivan stated. He stood up and said, "I'll leave this to my pets."
Robotic dogs that Kiku built ran onto the stage.
"Rosario Impale!" I screamed, waving my hand at them and the two dogs exploded.
Ludwig looked Ivan straight in the eyes and said, "If you don't want to be killed, I would suggest you tell us what to do to reverse this."
Ivan sighed and conceded his secret.
And then the bell rang.
xxx
That bell was like a cruel wakeup call and reality crashed down on me again. Hungary walked out onto the stage and said quickly, "I'm sorry, but that's all we have time for today. Give a round of applause for our little stars!"
The crowd was in an uproar, and we all stopped to bow and wave and act like it was all an act.
Only it wasn't. We had put so much truth into that story, only it wasn't in the way people expected the truth to be written. With countries instead of people, we felt the message could be made all the louder, though no one seemed to know the truth behind this story.
We went back to the classroom and talked about how it went. We specifically avoided the topic about how well Alfred, Kiku, and I did on making it sound like we believed what we said.
"Bruder!" An albino crashed into the classroom, a little yellow bird following after him, cried, laughing, and hugged Ludwig. "That was awesome!"
The elder blonde that followed sighed, saying, "Yes, that was quite amazing. I'm guessing you're the teacher?"
"I am," Hungary replied. "Why don't we talk in my office?"
Ludwig's father nodded and they walked into Hungary's office. Hungary turned and told us, "I've gotten permission for you guys to stay here for a while to clean and get changed back into your regular clothes. You're excused until lunch."
"Ok, Hungary," I replied.
The albino sat down in our circle, and I moved away because of the proximity. "Hey, is everything all right?" he asked, going to reach me.
"Don't!" I squeaked, jumping upwards and retreating.
"Gilbert…" Ludwig muttered, looking at him like Gilbert should know what the problem was.
Gilbert seemed to put two and two together. "Oh. Hey, I'm sorry," Gilbert said to me.
I sat back down as Ludwig explained, "I told him exactly what happens in the orphanage."
"I tried to get Vati to adopt the rest of you, but he said dealing with Ludwig is hard enough," Gilbert stated. He looked at us and continued, "Though I think I may know a few people that might be willing to help…"
"Anything to get us out of there," I whimpered.
"I'm not sure how long it'll take," Gilbert stated, "but I'll do my best."
Hungary and their father walked back out at that moment. "Come on, its best we were going, Gilbert. Ludwig, I'll be here at the end of the day to pick you up."
Ludwig nodded. "What about-?"
"I talked it over with Miss Elizabeta and we agreed it will be fine for you to continue in this class," he explained.
"Yay!" I cheered, smiling.
Hungary looked at me in concern. She knew that I would've hugged him at this announcement, but…
"Bye Prussia!" I called.
Gilbert looked surprised, but he grinned and said, "The Awesome Me shall return!"
His new name immediately stuck, as the rest of us were calling him Prussia as he left.
We got up and set to work clearing the stage and putting everything away. We were about to go and put our costumes up with Hungary told us, "You guys can keep those. You deserve them."
We all cheered and went to put them back on, and we spent the rest of the day wearing them instead of our regular clothing.
Though I was sad to see Ludwig leave at the end of the school day. "The orphanage is really lonely without you," I told him. I grinned and added, "But I'm glad you don't have to go through that anymore."
"I may not have too, but that just means you guys suffer all the more," Ludwig replied solemnly.
"It's good you're out of there," I argued. "You were suffering more than any of us."
Ludwig looked ready to argue back, but Alfred called, "Feliciano! We've got to go!"
"Yea," I replied. "Bye, Ludwig."
"Bye, Feliciano," Ludwig replied. He turned and went to where Gilbert and his father were waiting for him, while I turned and walked over to where the rest of the group was standing.
And it left me wondering: Would we ever be able to escape, to have a home like Ludwig?
/AN
If it's any consolation, I was depressing myself just writing this. Depending on how much you guys like it, though, I do already have an idea of where I want to go with this, but I want to know what you thought of this.
NOTE: The matron isn't really anyone; she's just a random sideline character, not from the series. And for those of you that don't know where I got the idea for the 'pope' outfit from, it came from RomaHeta.
R&R Please!
AN/