Phoenixtalia-Chapter 1
Author's Note: Hey, Chloride here! New Hetalia fanfiction.
Arthur woke in some sort of… terrain, to say the least. The rocks he laid on were thriving with thin and thick tendrils of fire, and he quickly felt the thick, hot stinging sensation along his back and legs. He got up quickly, dusting off the thin layer of soot and ash that had settled on his clothes and looking around, still groggy and confused from the intense pain. Deep pits of darkness littered the terrain, lava flowing into them freely. The intense heat and dryness was what not what woke him up, but a pair of eyes simply staring at him, close enough to touch, but no body to call their own, just a shadowed figure. Arthur fell back onto the searing hot stones, feeling the newly burned skin on his back sear even more, making him cry out in pain and struggle to get back up while not touching the hot stone more than necessarily. His feet had been long-since seared from their prolonged exposure to the fire, but he continued his efforts to get up, resorting to a slow crawl to a cooler area, where the fire was replaced with a blackened water. As he reached the area, he turned to see the shaded figure still there, looking at him with the same nerve-wracking green eyes. Arthur felt another searing pain in his body before his vision faded away from him…
BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…
Arthur woke to see a sterile white ceiling, the smell of aloe and disinfectant strong and a few looming machines around him.
"Good, you're awake. Had quite a scare there, Mr. Kirkland." A nurse said, writing something down on her clipboard with a pencil and adjusting one of the machines.
"We're glad that your friends called us so soon. Said something weird had happened and you suddenly were burning all over your body and screaming…" The nurse trailed off, looking towards the door for a second before turning back to him.
"You won't be getting out of the hospital for a while, Mr. Kirkland. You suffered third degree burns on your back, legs, stomach, and elbows, along with severe smoke inhalation, and a second degree concussion. Still, nobody can explain how one gets such burns while asleep." The nurse explained slowly, so Arthur could hear her more clearly.
"T-The rocks… they had fire in them and I-" Arthur was cut off.
"You must be still seeing things, you were brought in trying to crawl somewhere."
"I'm not lying! I-I saw the rocks an-and the person- they were real! I swear!" Arthur shot back, immediately regretting the decision to shout as a sharp pang from his throat told him that in no way was he to shout.
A banging on the door broke off the chat, as Arthur turned to the frosted glass to see a blurred silhouette of none other than Alfred at the door.
"Ah, your friend. May I let him in?" The nurse asked, making a move towards the door.
"I suppose." Arthur responded, leaning back into the cool, smooth hospital bed. The nurse unlatched the door, just in time for the American to come stumbling in.
"Hello, Alfred. Has everything… else been okay since I ended up here?" Arthur asked, looking at Alfred and his slightly nervous expression, as he held a get-well card in one hand and smoothed his hair back.
"Ehm… not really." Alfred replied, putting the get-well card on the nearby desk and sitting down in one of the available chairs.
"Someone went missing. Right before your burns and stuff began, we think." Alfred explained, looking at Arthur with some more worry than before.
"We thought it was... Matthew, but he was right there when all of it happened so he was out of the question, so we called Toris back and stuff- but he never replied, we think he left to go find him- but anyways, he's missing and you have to get those burns healed and stuff, so nothing's really going that well in the first place." Alfred said hurriedly, completely missing the fact that Arthur still had no idea who was missing.
"Wait, who went missing?" Arthur looked over to Alfred in comfusion.
"Dude, you didn't get who was missing yet?" Alfred rolled his eyes in mild annoyance, but decided to explain the situation anyways.
"Look- Feliks is missing, and nobody knows where he is."