Name: Glittering Shards

Chapter: Chapter One

Words: 3,410

Beta: None; Is in desperate need of one

A/N

Hello, this is Rabbah. Technically this is my first time with Hetalia fanfiction, but I've actually written/posted this on a different account before. As you may see, I'm in need of a beta, and I'd love you if you offered to be my beta. I apologize before hand for any and all spelling/grammar mistakes.

Anyway, I apologize for the short chapter, it was longer in my head. As a note, this is actually a prologue, and I don't normally write in the style that I used for this chapter, where I have a narrator jabbering about the setting/past while the actual story happens in italics. I promise you that I won't use this style in this story again, so don't worry if you don't like it.

I'm not sure when the next chapter will be out, but I'll try to post it as soon as possible.

Characters: Toris/Lithuania ; Ivan/Russia ; Alfred/America ; Mathew/Canada

The town was a small one. There was maybe a thousand or two people in it, but no one really knew. Keeping track of the population was simply unneeded. People would be there one day, and then simply be gone the next. Questions were never asked, no one really truly wanted to know what had become of their acquaintances. It wasn't like someone could just get up and leave the town; on one side was a seemingly endless maze of trees, and an equally long frozen desert on the other. It was cold in the little town almost every day or every week of every year. All the same, for some, it was a safe haven of sorts, a place where you could keep to yourself. For others, it was an eternal nightmare with no hope of waking up. There was no real known civilization for hundreds of miles around. People always would risk it anyway, venturing out into the forest. Half of them would be found weeks later, starved to the point of near death and disoriented. The others were never heard from again.

The bells rang out twice; a loud clanging sound that lasted for a few seconds. The townspeople paused at what they were doing, looking at each other in confusion. Two bells meant there was to be a gathering, which was a rare occurrence. Regardless of the strangeness, they all started for the center of town.

There were five zones in the town. No one knew exactly why there was five, there had always been that amount for as long as the people could remember. There was no official name for these zones, so they were just named off of where they were according to the compass rose in the middle of town. There was the Northeast zone, the Southeast zone, the Southwest zone, and the Northwest zone. In the middle of the town was the town center. There were no houses in the center, only a tall tower that held the bells and a circular stone stage about a foot high that was exactly twenty feet in diameter. The stage has a huge compass rose painted on it, and the ground around the stage had colorful patterns on it.

After a few minutes, the majority of people were at the town center. There were a still a few stranglers, many of them children who had been playing at the edge of town. The people sat on the ground, waiting semi-patiently for someone to tell them what was happening. In the middle of the stone stage was a large grey sheet that was covering a box-like structure. Every once in a while, a frozen gust of winds would blow through the town, tempting the sheet to dance up in the air. On those occasions, those who were closest to the stage spotted something of a pale grey color. Thinking that something was about to happen, the people quieted down, and those who were still standing sat down.

Each zone had a different amount of families living there. Many people married into the same zone because of tradition, and the fact that it was looked down upon those who marries out of zones. Every year, each zone would vote for eight people to be in the town council. Council members weren't anything special, they still had a family and still had to work. The only thing different about them was that they would make decisions, many of which were very small and simple. The only really big thing that the worried about was the celebrations and keeping the townspeople calm when something disastrous happened.

A man stepped onto the stage and walked over to the sheet, turning to the people when he reached it. He was wearing leather, so he was either from a family who could work leather or he was one of the foreign people who came from the forest. The man stood tall, proud even, as he listened to the people mumbling from the crowd.

"Are you going to say something, or just stand there? I have things to do, you know." A man said irritably from the crowd. He was the local doctor who lived on the border of the north two towns. His normally white-blonde hair had some red tints, a sign that he had been with a patient when the bells went off. The man on the stage frowned, either because of the doctor or because of the small boys who had lept onto the stage. The older one, Alfred, was more of pulling his brother Mathew with him. Both of the boys were from the Northwest zone.

"Because of this, you won't have so many people to heal any more, Ivan!" Alfred shouted at the doctor, pointing at the man . Mathew winced at his half-brother's loudness. Alfred was only nine years old, but he already had the title of "Alfred the Loud' and was only rivaled in being annoying by a strange albino and a loud teen that lived in the Northeast zone. The man scowled and nudged Alfred off the stage, and Mathew jumped after his brother. The man looked to Ivan, who nodded for him to continue.

"As you all know, something happens every mouth. Something horrible. Something that can not be explained with simple words." Hos voice echoed across the crowd. For once, even Alfred was quiet.

"During every full moon, a young lady dies a brutal death."

Many years ago, two girls were tried for practicing black magic. They were found guilty and were to be burned at the stake. The brother of the two girls vowed for revenge.

At first, the people just shook off his words. They didn't notice when he disappeared into the woods at the end of that fall. That winter was a hard one. Many of the farm animals died in the continuous snow storms as sickness spread in the town. Some people didn't see a connection with the winder and the brother of the two girls. Others did, but yet again shrugged off the thought as spring came. They had other things to worry about and spring started on time for once.

Everything was fine until the second month of spring. One night, when the moon was full, a girl was stolen from her room. She was found the next morning with a slit throat and a hole in her chest, her heart gone. Written around her where words made out of the girl's blood.

'I have come for revenge.'

I'm here to tell you that our problem has ended." With that, the man yanked off the sheet from the cube it was covering. People gasped at what they saw. There was a cage with a steel frame. Inside the cage was a pale grey wolf who was tied by its neck to the bottom of the cage. It was noticeably larger than the normal wolves in the area, but it was very bony, as though it hadn't eaten in weeks.

"Is it alive?" Mathew asked in his soft voice. The wolf grunted as though it understood the question. Everyone was silent before Ivan snorted.

"Congratulations, you have caught a wolf." His voice went serious. "It's not the one. I've seen people who've been killed by the monster since I was fifteen. You got the wrong one." And with that, Ivan turned and stormed off to his clinic. A few of the elders nodded in agreement, the doctor might have been young, but he had always been the one to diagnose the attack victims for at least three yeas now, and he had seen the monster wold before.

A small woman with brown hair stood up. "Children, go and play in one of the zones. Toris, Alfred, that means you, too." The children grumbled and moaned, but they could tell that this was an adult conversation and left the town center.

"Bye-bye mommy." Toris looked up at his mother before running off with his friends.

The woman walked through the crowd and stepped onto the stage. "I am just going to make it clear now because we all know that this discussion will come to this sooner or later. I am against killing this wolf. Maybe this is the monster, maybe it isn't,but the chance of it being the monster is too slim." She told the people.

A man stood up and also got onto the stage. He was one of the council members like the woman. "Regardless, there is still a chance." The man argued. "We need to take action, and what if this is the monster?" He pointed to the wolf, who cowered at the movement, and kept his eyes on his fellow townspeople. "And if we're wrong, the so what? No one will miss the loss of a wolf."

It didn't end after that. Every month on the night of the full moon, a girl was killed. It was always a girl who was in the teen age, anywhere from thirteen to nineteen years, never older, never younger, and never a boy. She was always found with a hole where her heart had been.

After five years of living in fear, the people revolted. They started setting up traps near the town in hopes of capturing the monster. Another month, another death. The townspeople started making weapons, and some of them brought out the horrid fire-pipes that their ancestors left them. The fire-pipes had never gotten a use in the town, so they were thrown into storage for another time, and the people suspected that now was the time. They set up a patrol system and crowded all of the electable girls into a single area so it would be easier or protect them.

The wolf came, not even batting an eye at the weapons, and killed half the men guarding the girls, and anyone else that got in its way. Over forty people dies that night.

"All in my favor of releasing the wolf, say 'I'," the woman told her people. A few muttered their opinion.

"All in my favor of killing the wolf, say 'I'," the man snorted. Before he finished the last words, the crowd roared 'I'. The woman made a disapproving noise and stepped off the stage. The man turned to the hunter who had caught the wolf.

"Kill it."

After that day, the wolf became more and more unpredictable. Sometimes he wouldn't take a life one month, and then maybe he would take three or five the next. It would go after anyone now, too, regardless of gender. Only girls would be found heartless.

And, once every five years, he would kill a baby to remind people that it could be much worse.

"Ivan? Why is everyone so mad at that wolf? What did it do?" A small boy asked the doctor. The man looked down at the child, immediately knowing who he was. The child looked like his mother, he had the exact same shade of hair and eyes. The child must have followed him out of the town center.

Ivan shrugged. "Maybe the wold did something bad."

The kid thought to himself for a few seconds, then, "Will they get mad at me if I do something wrong?"

Ivan blinked in surprise, his thoughts jumping to a place he never wanted to think of again. "I don't know," he answered honestly.

Before anything else could be said between the two, a blonde haired boy in a dress ran up to them. "Toris," he puffed, out of breath. "They, like, took a vote in, like, the town center and they're going to, like, kill it! Isn't that, like, so totally horrible?" Toris said something back, but Ivan didn't hear. He had already started storming past the two boys, heading to the center of town.

A few years later they people tried to get rid of the wolf again. Their plan failed. It was like the wolf knew everything that they did, it was always one step a head of them. In the end, they stopped fighting the wolf. There was simply nothing they could do to stop it.

The man in leather took a step closer to the caged wolf. He unsheathed his glass knife. Once upon a time, that knife had been used for ceremonial purposes, but now... Now it was used for killing. The man took another step forward, raising the knife above his head. The glass sparkled in the sunlight, spraying the rainbow of colors out into the clouds above. Th wolf's eyes rolled and it whimpered quietly.

And then there was a growl. It was deep and unwavering, filled to the brim with confidence and annoyance, The people hushed their voices until there wasn't a sound coming from the crowd, and they glanced around at each other in fear. The hunter, on the other hand, didn't stop his advances on the helpless wolf, as almost as though he didn't hear the growl. With a cry of triumph, he plunged the knife into the wolf's back.

It was a stupid idea, trying to rid themselves of the wolf. It was simply impossible to kill. The wolf was as large as a human with sharp claws and teeth. It could easily outrun any dog and the weapons the villagers had didn't seem to hurt it.

With a whimper, the captured wolf died. The air went tense as another growl erupted. The man froze for a second and turned to the crowd. All eyes were on him, the people too scared to look anywhere else at this point. The two from the council looked out over their people. The two saw the great evil that had terrorized them for generations.

"What have we done?"

The wolf didn't go after the people closest to it. No, it slowly made its way over to the stage. The people didn't do anything to stop the wolf, only moved out of its way. They didn't reach for the knives at their belts or think of how low the chances of getting away was. In truth, they didn't think at all; their brains had stopped processing in fear. The wolf looked at every person it passed, daring them to act. They didn't, and it continued on its way until it reached the stage. The wolf paused, then stepped onto the stone. The wolf ignored the two men, and went straight for the cage. It looked at the dead wolf for a moment, then at the man who caused its death. It bared its teeth at the hunter and crouched down.

'Look at what you've done,' it seemed to want to say. Instead of speaking, though, it lunged, its sharp claws tearing at skin. There were screams from the crowd of people as they scattered.

It took less that two seconds for the wolf the twist and jump at the other man, not caring if his last victim was still alive. The man hadn't moved from where he had been, so the wolf quickly took him down. The wolf turned to see if there was anyone close to him. It's violet eyes met forest green ones. The owner of the eyes was on the other side of the town center. It was farther than the wolf wanted, but the owner of the eyes wasn't moving.

The wolf hopped off the stage and stalked closer, his eyes never leaving the green ones. When he was about two yards from the owner of the eyes, the wolf felt a sharp pain in his side. It snarled and twisted towards the person who had attacked him. It was a woman with green eyes similar to his prey's and brown hair. She had tears gleaming down her cheeks and was holding sharp stick that she had found.

"Stay away from my baby, you monster," she screeched at the wolf, raising the stick to strike again. The wolf growled, narrowing its eyes and pressing its ears back, and slashed at her with his claws, the massive paws coming in contact with her chest. She fell to the ground as the wolf turned to the boy with green eyes.

"Toris, run..." The woman gasped at her child. Toris didn't move, disobeying his mother's orders.

There was no one in the town center now, just bodies, the wolf, and Toris. The wolf looked into the boy's eyes as he stalked closer. They were beautiful, more so than the woman's who was the bleeding on the ground. Toris looked like he was choking on air, his breath quick and wavering.

The wolf jumped, sending the boy to the ground, but careful not to kill him. There was something about this boy that made the wolf want to preserve his life. He growled and brought his muzzle to Toris's neck, then backed up.

Looking into the green eyes of the child, the wolf realized why they looked so familiar. They were almost the exact same hue of the witch's. The jade color was nerving. The wolf backed up and noticed the cuts that he had accidentally made while on the boy. The wolf huffed in irritation, not knowing weather to kill the child or let him be.

If he killed the kid, then the witch would surly hear about it and mock the wolf. The witch would assume that he had murdered Toris for the jade eyes. The man knew that the wolf would never kill someone for just their appearance, but he was mock him all the same. The wolf didn't like to kill. It was simply forced to do so, like the monthly killings.

There was a loud noise from behind the wolf, towards the stage. "Get away from him -aru!" A teen cried out, running at the wolf with a sword. The wolf, startled, didn't move until the weapon was painfully skimming his side. The wolf howled in irritation, slashing at the sword. His claws made contact with the teen's wrist and he dropped the weapon. In any normal circumstances, the wolf would have just killed the one who had attacked him. But today wasn't like every other day, and the wolf was starting to feel incredibly guilty.

Why there was guilt, even the wolf didn't know. The wolf backed up towards the forest on the far side of town. In the chaos, he might be able to slip away unnoticed. The teen stood up, haven fallen when the wolf had attacked him, and stumbled over to Toris. The teen looked one last time at the wolf, then moved his attention to Toris.

"You're going to be fine..." He mumbled.

The wolf turned and ran away as Toris fainted.

The move to simply run through the town wasn't a smart one, and the wolf passed many people, all of whom were slashed or growled at. The wolf's heart was fanatically racing and his anger and frustration was building up. He was very pissed off now, the fact that he was running away from a nine year old agitated him to the very core. He didn't know how many people he had attacked on the way to the end of town, maybe a dozen or so. And it wasn't like it had mattered, the humans were the reason he was like this in the first place.

The wolf had a sudden vision of jade eyes and his eyes went blind for a second. In his confusion, the wolf tripped on something. That 'thing' was a sticky liquid that reminded him of week old blood that had yet to dry. There was a few slamming noises behind when wolf to his left, then everything was silent. The wolf got back onto all four paws and shook his head. Willing sight to come. It returned. Looking down, he saw what he had tripped over; a barrel of fish heads from a local restaurant. The wolf sighed and started to stalk towards the woods again.

And then, one day, the wolf simply disappeared. The last person who saw the wolf would say that he simply disappeared into the forest. No one knew what had happened, what made the wolf leave.

It was February 16 when the attack happened.

And, ten years later, it was February 16 when the wolf returned.

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