Genre: Drama, angst
Rating: T (to be safe)
Warnings: Borderline/mild cursing; sort-of dark themes; unstable/disturbed mentality
Characters: Northern Ireland/Jamie; other nations alluded to but not specified or present
Disclaimer: I'm posting this as fan-fiction—Do you really think I own Hetalia? Honestly, people…

Just hang tight and read, please. Explanations will be at the end.

Synopsis: …Worldwide genocide is inevitably on its way… Northern Ireland may or may not be insane, but he sure as hell is one of the darkest philosophers out there. {I just tell it like it is! No more, no less!}

—Thank You, Psychopathic Terrorist—

It is finally happening.

Some nations have anticipated its coming. They've been sitting on the edges of their seats all this time, anxiety and fear ripping away at them as they've waited for its inevitable arrival. In their tense positions, waiting and watching and letting the paranoia grow, they have allowed their protective skins and flesh to be torn away. All that has been left in their wake is a crowd of skeletons. {So easily bent to someone else's will, they are!}

Some nations have been too trusting in the promise that it'd never happen again. They've acted as if promises have never been broken before. Now they fall to their knees with the heavy realisation that they were so, so wrong. In a hopeless attempt to save face for their crushed confidence and dignity, they allow ignorant optimism to tell them that it will end before it really begins. They let their fantasies overtake them. {Life's not all leprechauns and rainbows, you know!}

Treaties and alliances and promises are never, ever kept in totality. The unlucky ones had known; the unfortunate had not. {You see? We all lose! There's no winner!} In the end, though, we'd all been the ones who'd sworn to prevent the re-happening of history. We've officially broken our oaths. We've proven our helplessness to stop such things.

And somewhere deep in all of our minds—for some, it's buried under centuries' worth of forming and strengthening a talent for painting bright façades onto stony faces—we all know that we have only ourselves to blame here. Even when blaming others, we are blaming ourselves, because when push comes to shove, we are all one and the same. Consequentially, we are all fighting for non-existent reasons. {Ach, but that doesn't stop people from claiming to see unicorns and dragons and Bigfoot, now does it? Non-existence is non-existent!}

Overall population has grown too much too rapidly; our limited Earth-space is cramped. Different peoples are brushing elbows as we try to make room for more yet, and still those differences get in the way and keep us from reaching any real form of peace. {What is this 'peace' you speak of? How do we know it exists? No one's ever witnessed it! If a tree falls and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? There's no way to know!} Petty variances are making us into a not-so metaphorical Tantalus in search of tranquillity.

We are all fighting to be the best. We are all fighting to be equivalent. We hate it when others refuse to help us in our time of need. We hate when they offer a hand to pull us back to our feet. {—because receiving and accepting aid makes us weak—duh!}

The empire have long since fallen into ruin, having left behind New- and Old-World nations alike to keep the fires going. We're only here to cast the fires unto each other, though; at least, that's the way it seems. We're stuck in an endless tug-of-war that can't be won: youthful strength cannot triumph when pinned against such stubborn senses of pride, and adaptable banks of knowledge gained through centuries of experience are stuck at a standstill when faced with newer-age tactics. Our technology has evolved at an alarming rate. Our knowledge has been stored and exposed and is now frighteningly easy to gain access to. {There are no secrets to be kept in a world that wishes to destroy itself. Don't you know that by now?}

And most importantly, we have gained a myriad of grudges to hold against one another. We are the least merciful and forgiving monsters imaginable by the most disturbed of children, and it is the ones who know this that are the real geniuses. Indeed, old grudges have not fallen and crumbled into dust as most had apparently expected. On the contrary, they have only been passed down with each new generation. That ancient fear- and confusion-based hatred has festered and swollen alongside the world's population. {Let's watch as the balloon pops in our faces!}

Naturally, everyone is afraid. That much is to be expected. We are preparing for the end of the world, after all—the true Apocalypse, if you will. This is not merely an end to a single chapter, and we know it. This is it. The time between the Beginning's end and the End's beginning has been relatively short to us—no more than the blink of an eye. Only a few decades managed to last in the middle, and I must admit that I was expecting less whilst hoping for more. We now have only a couple decades, if that, left until the End has run its course and nothing remains. {Don't you just love the irony? Our beginning started and lasted almost as long as the beginning of Time itself, and now we've killed ourselves in less than a single century! Go mankind!}

We'll just have to learn to take things in stride and live in the moment, up until that moment becomes the End. We'll have to cherish the time left, no matter how little there is. We'll have to look on the brighter side of things, whether it is there or not. We are imaginative: we can make up our own bright side, if we must. Hell, some of us won't even acknowledge the happenings around us; the denial will run as thick as sludge in some of our veins, poisoning our hearts and warping our minds. {Sounds fun, don't it? But it's okay: most of us have lost our hearts and minds and gotten over it already! I know I don't miss mine!}

In the end, the survivors will learn to live while they can, for that's what they do best. The optimists will find a lighter shade in which to look at the shadows, so as to hopefully make it all easier. The fearful will ignore the goings-on around them, if only to shun the thought of what fate may await them. And whilst we're all counting down the seconds that are quickly ticking away on that clock of inevitability {…Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick… Hear that? It's the sound of my final shreds of sanity slipping!} , we will all be praying to our gods for the apparition called Forgiveness. After all, it is in our nature to want what we can't have.

We will pray for mercy from those we hold as our great Creators and Saviours. We will pray for something that we ourselves cannot give. Some believe that we are created in our Lord's image. How, then, would He be able to forgive and forget, show mercy, and look past differences when we ourselves are unable to do so? {Yes, yes, that is the question! How? How?}

Some of us fight it, rebel against the System, drive ourselves towards that 'pursuit of happiness.' Still others of us simply…give up. Suicide automatically came to mind, nae? Well, now, you're forgetting conformity. Joining forces with demented dictators and liars-turned-leaders—becoming mindless robots of Society—is just as horrible as committing any of those English words that end in -cide, is it not? {Those words exist for a reason! We brought about their meanings!}

All is lost and hopeless. We have learnt nothing from our bloody pasts. We've revealed just how hollow every promise is. We've brought it all on ourselves, as is the case with most things. We've filled the world to the brim with our filth, squeezed the life out of Humanity, left no room for its return. We are too complex, always trying to rise over the rest while claiming a plea for equality. We can never be satisfied. {You see? You see? Do you get it yet? We've been set on self-destruct for who knows how long!}

And now, we can't be reconciled. We can't be saved. Worldwide genocide is inevitably on its way. {Goodbye, cruel world…}

World War III has begun.

It is finally happening.

And I can't say I'm sorry, for I don't much feel like lying. {You're welcome!}

So this was written in my OC Northern Ireland's point of view. Anything in the brackets is what the terrorist-side of him is thinking (he's got split-personality disorder). Yeah, so he's pretty much half-insane {or completely insane!}…

For the most part, I think this was pretty self-explanatory. In case you didn't catch it, the bit about the Beginning's end and End's beginning is actually a reference to one of Sir Winston Churchill's Battle of Britain/WWII quotes ('cause Churchill kicked major ass): "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

EDIT: This was originally written as a sort of prologue to a World War III story and was based off of Pink Floyd's The Wall. I've changed it, though, 'cause it wasn't leading anywhere as it was. Instead, you could say this is a sort of preview to the story.

TRANSLATIONS:
ach = ah (Ulster-Scots)
nae = no (Ulster-Scots)

Anyways…there you have it. Thanks for reading, please review, and take note that your flames will all be promptly ignored.

"An eye for an eye" as the Golden Rule
Just leaves a room full of blind men
~ A misguided fool
I'm not insane,
But I am a liar.
~ Not me [see previous line]
Good news for people who loves bad news
And proof that awesome just got awesome-er:
~ Bleeding heart and artist Captain Coke XP