Freedom from Immortality
Author's Note: Beware of random plot and weird messes and also a bit of disappointing disaster. Please, I have no idea why I wrote this. It's just… Um, I feel like if I don't do anything about this, I might just swoop into depression. Listening to America singing ERROR could sure drive me into becoming a sad mess…
Disclaimer: No, I do not own Hetalia, or ERROR.
America was strong; everyone in the world knew that. Well, who wouldn't? He WAS the lone superpower in the world.
But even this hamburger-loving idiot has insecurities- something you wouldn't be deemed normal without.
How could you live without slipping into the cold hands of sadness?
Because you see, behind the hundred mega-watt smiles and obnoxious laughter of Alfred Freedom Jones was a sad, heavy heart filled with the tears he cried at night.
It was all so fast, like suddenly the all the colors came into the sky, changing from red, to yellow, to blue, and then to red again. It was too fast for Alfred's immortal soul.
Ah, immortal. What a curse it has been to him. Alfred's vision blurred with the tears that were so tempting to let out, that were mocking him as he mourned all that has left him. Sometimes, Alfred would find himself at night, thrashing about because another soul he held dear has been taken away by time. There was nothing Alfred could do against the rule of life, and he could only scream his sorrows so loud.
Oh, how terrible his wails had sounded. The sadness was so contagious that it had driven people around him into depression, coaxing them to meet death so early.
There were times that Alfred had directed all his hate to Time. Time was responsible for taking all the souls that he had come to love. And he hated the fact that he had to be a constant in time's long and cruel journey.
He remembered a small puppy he had watched grow up into a fine dog. He watched it for years, until the day came that it had to be buried away.
He remembered his first love- a human girl with tawny red locks and a timid persona. Though he knew that he could only watch and love her from afar, Alfred still loved her so much. The day came that she wed another, and the day came when she gave birth to a handsome boy. And the day came that she died a peaceful death.
He remembered a small robin he found trying to steal some bread from his hamburger. He took care of it, but then, it had died a few years later.
It was always the same process over and over again. He watches all of his people come and go. He witnesses God as he blesses a newborn child, and as he welcomes an old soul into his arm arms to lead him to heaven.
No matter how many times he has went through this horrible loop we call the circle of life, it still hurt so badly that he screams in his sleep.
It does not numb him.
It broke him more and more.
It got him asking himself and God the question; why did they have to leave…?
Alfred wishes for mortality. He wanted to live normally, where he would not have to feel the stinging pain of loss as the centuries went by.
More than anything, Alfred wanted his freedom.
Freedom did not just apply to the independence he has gained from England (it still hurt) and what he will help other nations gain. It did not just mean freeing a country from the clutches of its captor.
To Alfred, it had meant being without the curse and blessing that was immortality.
It was like that to all the nations that surrounded him. France mourned for his true love who had met her end by the flame. Prussia used all the beer he could drink in Germany to forget the incompleteness in his heart. England had to bear with Alfred's own independence from him for decades to come. China and Japan, bless them, they have endured deaths for thousands of years. Germany wishes nothing more than to forget what Hitler had made him do. Italy wanted to forget the pain of losing his first love, a little boy clad in black. And Russia- he wants to leave all of the horrible things he had done in the past.
All of them wanted to leave all the chaos immortality put them through. All of them wanted the bliss of mortal memory- to erase what had been embedded into their minds since they first appeared.
America was sure he wanted it more than anyone else.
And he would do anything to get it.
He would try several attempts at suicide. He would jump from the highest skyscrapers New York could offer, and he would bind his neck and hang himself from Washington's beloved cherry trees. He even jumped from Angel Falls in hopes that he would feel the excoriating feeling of Death coming to take him.
Call him foolish, his attempts were as futile as futile could be at its worst. He knew this as well. It frustrated him to no end when he found himself greeted by immeasurable pain.
Nations could only die if their culture and existence were forgotten. Death could also be achieved if there were no longer any people of their kind.
Oh, Alfred, he wanted to protect his people. So he would not be killing off his citizens to fulfill his selfish desires anytime soon.
Most of his people were probably asleep by now, dreaming peacefully. But Alfred would be whimpering in his sleep, enduring the nightmare that was immortality.
It was shameful, he always felt. It felt so wrong. He felt that he no longer deserved to call himself a hero. Alfred felt as if he was abandoning the duties of the hero he always thought he was.
Alfred F. Jones lay on his bed, tightly gripping the faded Iron Man sheets that were covering his body. He panted in his sleep, short and uneven breaths escaping his lips and beads of cold sweat rolling from the sides of his head.
It was yet another nightmare that was yet another memory he so desperately wanted to forget.
It was so vivid; as if he was living it. He heard the strangled cries of people around him, and the ear-splitting sound of bombs hitting the ground. He had been walking around, and he saw the fear-stricken faces of several humans around him.
It was one of those nightmares; the ones where he relived World War 2. This time, it was in Sulu Bay- that one bay in an archipelago named Philippines where he remembers fighting the Japanese navy.
Nightmares never go as anyone remembered it if it was derived from a memory, and it could tear the poor soul to shreds at its worst. Alfred had reminded himself of this.
He had come across himself. But it was not him.
The America in this dream had a freakishly mocking grin plastered onto his face, dirty blonde hair dirty and flying in the wind as he stared down on the two nations in front of him.
Alfred gasped as he made out who they were.
Japan, kneeling with his head facing the ground, looked so dirty in his torn black imperial uniform. He was shaking, from fear, resentment, or anger, Alfred wasn't sure.
Beside him was Philippines, who was glaring at the American before her with the most terrifying passion he had ever seen emit before. Her hair was all tangled and the three white flowers had adorned it, were gone. Her green uniform was as just as dirty as Japan's, torn and covered in muck.
The America in the dream still held that steely, emotionless gaze and that grin that jeered the island nations. Alfred was about to lose himself as he tried shouting at the other him to stop. His attempts were ignored, and the other America pulled the trigger.
The last thing Alfred heard before waking up was a loud obnoxious laugh that mirrored his own.
Alfred woke up with a start, shaking violently.
"No… Not again…" He muttered in between his shivers. His electric blue eyes were coated with the distress and suicidal sorrow he always hid from everyone.
Alfred hated these nightmares as much as he hated war. And he hated war quite a lot.
Try as he might, he could not erase this image from the depths of his mind. His everlasting brain would not allow that.
Alfred then got up from bed, and traveled to his kitchen where a knife was sitting on the kitchen counter, almost as if it was expecting the pain Alfred was about to inflict upon himself. Grabbing the knife, and holding out his bare arm, he readied himself.
Suddenly, as the blonde nation had but grazed his skin, something clicked inside of him. He suddenly remembered the screams of his people, and the frightened looks they had upon their faces. With a sudden jolt, he dropped the knife, and he made no movement to pick it up.
It was as if a message from the motherland ignited a new fire inside him. Something called… hope…?
Alfred has been suffering from his mental instability for so long, and all these years he only focused on getting rid of it. It has been so long… he almost forgot what hope meant.
Hope… hope for what, exactly?
And then, it hit him.
Hope that he could pull through all of this… this depression that immortality bestowed upon him. Hope that no matter how much pain and suffering it had caused his sanity to dwindle, he would keep going.
And that he always had the other nations to be there for him, in the best and worst moments he would have in the future. It didn't matter that they were miles away, like England and France, or that they were just next to his borders, like Mexico and his brother Canada.
They would always be there for him…
Hope that he was not alone in this.
Hope that he would get over his endless, no-victor battle with immortality.
And hope that he would forget all about his and simply look forward to tomorrow.
Alfred worked harder than ever to try and accept all those who have left him in this hell many called Earth. Since then, Earth didn't look too much like hell anymore to him.
And though he became louder and even more optimistic than ever at each world meeting that came by, the other nations couldn't help but catch this brilliant energy of his, and chuckle. Even England had trouble holding his smile down.
Soon, Alfred was getting his own little freedom. Though he knew that he could never truly be free from the curse that was immortality, he did his best to pull through. He felt what it was like to be free from it.
Further away, Japan watched his superpower friend grow restless and poke England on his shoulder. He chuckles a bit. Next to him was Switzerland, who looked at him in question.
"Is there something funny, Japan?" The trigger-happy nation asked him.
"No, I'm just glad for him." Japan replied.
"For who, America?" Switzerland glanced in America's direction, and saw that he was too busy toying with England's and France's hair.
"Hai, I'm glad that he has finally matured." The Asian says. Switzerland scoffs.
"Mature, him? He looks the same to me. In my opinion, he's mature when Italy runs through my house fully clothed." He says as he rests his chin on his hand. "Speaking of opinions you better work on yours Japan,"
Japan didn't hear anything else from Switzerland. He was too busy feeling proud for Alfred.
He had wondered when the superpower would let go of all his troubles. Even Canada was ahead of him. Oh, no matter, Alfred has finally accepted immortality like the rest of them, and that was what mattered.
~The End~
Author's Note: Sorry for the mess, the next thing I wanted to write was supposed to be something else. But I came across ERROR, and this happened.
Please excuse my love for explanatory fics, I'm usually not like this. I prefer more talking than words, but it was all in the name of saving myself from depression, so that's gotta be a legit excuse, right?
I feel so wrong doing this to America…
Anyways, hope you enjoyed this… Please read and review! :D