Hola, amigos! And amigas...I think most of you are amigas. Anyways, enough Spanish practice. I'm BAAAACCCCCKKKK! Yeah, you knew that. Enough randomness.
Well, here's the semi-promised sequel to "Latvia's Absence". Considering it's called "Insanity", I think you can probably figure out where this is going. But I'll say nothing more about that.
Random thing: If Estonia's scene doesn't make sense...it's not supposed to.
Chapter One:
"I know they don't care about me."
The thought kept running through Estonia's mind, and no matter how hard he tried to distract himself, to banish the thought, those words wouldn't stop haunting him.
"When you leave-and you all will leave me someday, because everyone leaves me-they won't want you with them. Lithuania always goes out of his way for Latvia, so maybe he will take him along wherever he goes. But you? You are just the third wheel, useless Estonia. Smart, but not so very useful to them in the long run. They will leave you behind."
The things Russia had told him, just before…
He cut the thought off, not wanting to remember what had happened that night. It had been a week since Latvia had returned safely from his imprisonment in the attic. Three weeks since that long, painful night when Estonia had realized that his only friends didn't care about him, or want him, or need him. And a week since he had decided it didn't matter if they cared or not.
And they didn't care. He was sure of that now. The facts were etched into his mind, along with Latvia's solemn, frightened, sorrowful face, along with echoing footsteps that faded into nothing as Latvia ran back, back to the place he had been ordered to stay, back to comparative safety, abandoning Estonia, leaving him alone…
At that time, Estonia's greatest fear was being alone, because after the dark, painful, lonely days and nights he had spent locked in Russia's basement, he was afraid to ever be alone again. Alone, the darkness was terrifying. Alone, the darkness told him things that weren't true…or, at least, he had denied the truth of the dark's malicious whispers, and it was so hard to block the voices out…
But he was done with that fear, now.
It didn't matter anymore, because if he was always going to be alone, he might as well get over the fear before it became irreversible. And he would always be alone. Lithuania and Latvia didn't seem to want him around, not when they had each other. He would always be the third wheel-or the sixth wheel, or whatever else he might be. He would always be alone, there but not wanted. The voices in the dark had told him the truth.
So, if his fate did not matter, there was nothing to stop him from doing anything necessary to protect the others. If they didn't care what happened to him, then if he was hurt, it wouldn't hurt them.
And he didn't want them to be hurt. Even if the other Baltics had never cared about him, Estonia cared about them. He would protect them, whether or not they cared about him, whether or not they thought they needed him. Estonia was tired of hiding, and even more tired of letting Lithuania protect him. He was going to go through with his plan, whether or not Lithuania approved.
And Lithuania most definitely would not approve of what Estonia was going to do. No, if Lithuania found out what he was planning, Estonia knew that the other nation would be absolutely appalled.
But he would do it anyways.
Lithuania's day started out in a perfectly normal way…but most of his worst days were the ones that started out nicely. On the days that didn't start out nicely, he was usually unconscious, or, worse yet, awake and trying not to let anyone know how hurt he was.
He was alone in the kitchen, cooking breakfast, when he first realized that this would not be a normal day. It was early, and he was fairly certain that he was the only person up. All was peaceful.
And then, suddenly, the peace evaporated. The kitchen door flew open, and a very irate-looking person stormed in. It was Belarus, who did not look pleased at all.
"Um… H-hello, Belarus," Lithuania stammered, rather terrified and very confused by the other nation's unexpected entrance, "I-is there anything I can h-help you with?"
Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been this afraid of Belarus, but there was something very threatening about her demeanor this morning.
"Yes, there is," said Belarus, and Lithuania began to wonder what he had done to incur the girl's displeasure. However, Belarus's next words were nothing that he would have expected. They were far worse.
"I want you to tell me what has been going on," Belarus said, glaring at Lithuania in a way that seemed to imply that she would murder him if he did not answer her questions, "Most specifically, I want to know what happened on the night that I found you locked into your room, and you rushed off without explaining the situation. You will explain that situation. Now."
Lithuania froze. This was definitely not something he wanted to discuss. To make matters worse, he wasn't allowed to discuss it, especially not with Belarus. It was absolutely forbidden for the Baltics to even mention Russia's mistreatment of them around his sisters. That would result in further and even more brutal punishment, and none of them wanted to pay that price.
And, even if he had been allowed to tell Belarus about it, Lithuania didn't want to. He never wanted to revisit his memories of the night Latvia had gone missing, the night Estonia had stormed off to confront Russia. The night that had been the first time Lithuania ever remembered having seen Estonia break down and cry.
No, he most definitely did not want to think about that night. But now it looked as if he would have no choice but to tell Belarus everything.
However, when he was on the brink of telling her, of letting the secrets and all the bad things that came with them out into the light, he was stopped by a deceptively innocent voice from just outside.
"Belarus? Little sister, are you down here so early?"
Both Lithuania and Belarus instantly went into action; Lithuania darting back to the stove, Belarus turning toward the door. But just as Belarus reached the doorway, she turned back for an instant, and whispered:
"Sometime later today, I will come to your room, and you will tell me what's going on!"
And before Lithuania had a chance to argue, Belarus was gone.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the first chapter of "Insanity"! *resists urge to sing Vocaloid song*
Chapters should be up fairly quickly, but, as usual, I'm not going to stress about it. Reviews will most likely inspire me to write quickly. ;)
One last thing. Belarus is really CONFUSING to write about. Taking her seriously is...hard. *dies* What have I gotten myself into...?