Chasing a Memory
Chapter 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.
Arthur really liked his job at the library. It was not the most eventful job, but Arthur rather liked the peacefulness of it all and it gave him a chance to read some books himself. When he first got the job he was not too sure on what to think about it, but he was quick to discover his love of books and when he got that the job soon turned into a dream job. Another nice thing about his job was the fact that most of people working in the library where very kind people and he got along with everyone their rather well. The job itself did not pay a whole lot, but it gave him enough money to pay everything off and still have some money left over so he was happy.
Arthur's job was only about ten minutes away so he usually walked their and he very rarely ever drove his car to work. Arthur had walked to work today like always and when he walked into the building he was quickly greeted by Mary, one of the workers. Arthur smiled when he saw the elderly woman. Mary was the very first person that he met when he started this job and she was very kind to Arthur.
"Good morning Arthur." Mary greeted.
"Good morning Mary. How are you?"
Mary just smiled at him a little as she said "I'm good, but Arthur how are you doing? You look tired."
Arthur just shook his head and sighed before he gave the elderly woman a week smile.
"I'm fine Mary I just had a strange dream last night."
The woman just frowned at Arthur and gave him a worried look.
"Arthur is it that dream again?"
Arthur was about to say no, but the look that she was giving him told Arthur that lying to her would do him no good. Arthur just nodded his head and Mary immediately started to give him a concerned look. Arthur knew what that look meant, it meant that Mary wanted to talk about it and that was something that Arthur really didn't want to do. Luckily for Arthur one of the workers, Jack, noticed he was there and Jack was quick to call out to him.
"Hey Arthur can you help me get these books back to their shelves, there are why too many for me to handle on my own."
"Alright I'll help."
Arthur then looked over at Mary and gave her a small smile before he said "I must be going now Mary, I'll talk to you again soon."
And before Mary could even utter a word Arthur was running off to Jack. As he ran Arthur quickly made a mental note in his head to try his best to avoid Mary today. He knew she was just worried about him, but this dream was something that he didn't want to discuss…..
Sometime during the evening Arthur started to get bored and due to his boredom he started to think about his dream. It was a very slow day today and Arthur was bored out of his mind, but that did not mean he wanted to think about his dream. He tried to read to help amuse himself, but even reading didn't seem to help relive him of his boredom or help Arthur get his mind of his dream. Eventually Arthur got fed up with trying to read he just placed his book down in front of him and crossed his arms. Why was this dream bothering him so much?
It was just a dream nothing more nothing less and yet it was the only thing that he could think of. Arthur looked around the desk that he was sitting at in hopes to find something that could help get his mind off of the dream. However, fate seemed to want to work against him because his eyes soon landed on a book called the 'Dream Dictionary'. Arthur could not help but roll his eyes at the title, but he still picked it up and started to look through it. Who knows maybe the book could help him figure out something about his weird dream. After flipping through a couple of the pages Arthur ended up finding a section on recurring dreams.
The message in recurring dreams may be so important and/or powerful that it refuses to go away. The frequent repetition of such dreams forces you to pay attention and confront the dream. It is desperately trying to tell you something. Such dreams are often nightmarish or frightening in their content, which also helps you to take notice and pay attention to them. The repetitive patterns in your dream reveal some of the most valuable information about yourself. It may point to a conflict, situation or matter in your waking life that remains unresolved or unsettled. Some urgent underlying message in your unconscious is demanding to be understood.
Arthur just raised a brow at this in slight interest. So the dream was trying to tell him something? Well Arthur was kind of able to figure that out on his own and he currently didn't need a dream to tell him that. His dream was constantly telling him to remember his past, but that was a lot easier said than done. Arthur had yet to remember a thing and three years have already passed so what hope was there that Arthur would ever remember anything at all. Arthur just shrugged his shoulders and continued to flip throe the book only to land on a page that talked about what it means when you dream about places in a house. One of the places it talked about was an attic.
To see an attic in your dream represents hidden memories or repressed thoughts that is being revealed. It also symbolizes your mind, spirituality, and your connection to the higher Self. Alternatively, it signifies difficulties in your life that may hinder you from attaining your goals and aspirations. However, after a long period of struggle, you will overcome these difficulties.
So the attic represented his old forgotten memories? It was a little strange to think about, but if the dream was telling him to remember the past then it fit in with the dream. The difficulties in life thing also concerned Arthur a bit, but he tried not to think to deeply about it. Since the book talked about attics Arthur briefly wondered if it would say anything about hallways. Sure enough after a bit of searching Arthur was able to find a section that talked about hallways.
To see a hallway in your dream, symbolizes self exploration. It is the beginning of the path that you are taking in life. You are going through a transitional phase and journeying into the unknown. It also signals spiritual enlightenment, emotional growth physical prowess, new opportunities and mental passages in your life.
Self exploration? Journeying into the unknown? That sounded a bit weird, but his mysterious past was kind of the unknown in a way. Arthur just sighed a little before he started to flip through the book yet again. There was only one more thing about his dream that Arthur wanted to have explained.
However, after looking through the whole book Arthur finally gave up and placed the book back down on the desk. It figures the book would not tell him what it meant when he saw strange albino guys in his dream. Just who was that strange red eyed man anyway? Was the man just something that Arthur's mind imagined or was he an actual person? The more Arthur thought about it the more his head started to hurt and the more frustrated he would get.
It was just some guy in a dream and yet he could not get his mind off of him.
"Hey mister?"
Arthur quickly snapped out of his thoughts and looked towards the source of the voice only to see a small brunet girl looking at him.
Arthur just smiled at the girl before he asked "Can I help you?"
The girl just smiled at him before she held out a book full of fairy tales and asked "Can I check this book out?"
"Of course you can."
Arthur quickly set to work on helping the girl check the book out and soon enough he ended up helping a lot of people check books out. However, even though he now had work to do Arthur still could not push that dream of his out of his head….
Arthur had finished yet another day at work and decided to go straight back home. However when Arthur reached the door to his apartment he found a small brown package lying there waiting for him. Arthur didn't remember ordering anything recently and even after looking at the package he was able to figure out nothing about it. The package had his name on it and his address, but that was it there was nothing else on it. Arthur just shrugged his shoulders before he picked the package up and opened his front door.
"I'm home!" Arthur called out into the house before he closed the door.
Arthur immediately heard a loud thud and before he could even blink a white cat came running over to him.
"Hi Mischief." Arthur said as he knelt down and scratched the cat's head.
Mischief just started to purr as he closed his eyes and rubbed his head against Arthur's hand. Mischief was Arthur's pet cat and the only 'family' that Arthur really had. Mischief was a white cat with crimson eyes and a scar over his left eye. Arthur had found him sitting in front of the apartments soaking wet about a month after he moved into the place. Arthur ended up taking the cat in and Mischief had been with him ever since.
Arthur stood up and walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a knife so that he could cut the tape off of the cardboard box. Mischief followed after him and jumped up unto the counter. Arthur had long since given up on trying to keep Mischief off the kitchen counters so he just shrugged his shoulders and cut the tape off of the box. Once the tape was off Arthur opened the box up and looked inside. Inside of the box was an envelope and what looked like a DSi.
Arthur took the DSi out of the box and looked at it. The front of the DS was decorated with the Union Jack. However, the back of the device had the words 'Trace Memory' imprinted on it and the words 'made by Japan'. Arthur had to wonder what Trace Memory was, since it was on back of the DSi then that would mean that's what it is called. Arthur also had to wonder why it said made by Japan and not made in Japan, but he figured that was just a typo.
Arthur decided to not think about it too much and instead chose to take out the game that was in the DSi. The game was blue and it had the words Trace Memory on the label. Arthur decided not to mess around with it right now and instead turned his attention over to the envelope. Arthur opened the envelope only to find a letter and a map inside. Arthur placed the map down on the counter and started to read the letter.
Arthur Kirkland
We know this letter is rather unexpected and you are probably rather confused as to why you got it and the Trace Memory, but please bear with us and read this whole letter to the very end. This letter has to do with your past and who you are. It has been three years since you have lost your memories and you must think that this letter is long overdue, but please understand that we wished to contact you earlier but there is something that was stopping us from doing so. This something is preventing us from saying anything in this letter. Unfortunately this something is also stopping us from meting you face to face right now, but we will (hopefully) meet you soon.
Now then on to business, inside the envelope was a map to a mansion. The mansion as hard as it may be to believe is yours and hopefully by being in a place of your past will help you remember some things. Your Trace Memory will come into play at the mansion a little as well. The Trace Memory may look like a DSi and that is in a way what it is, but it has been modified a little so it can be of more use to you. Like any normal DSi it can take pictures, but it can also read the Trace cards that are in the mansion (the cards only work for your Trace Memory, it's one of a kind).
We know you must be wondering why you even have to use the Trace Memory and why you can't just read letters or something, but trust us when we say that if he left out letters that anyone could read they would get destroyed before you could even so much as look at them. There are some people who don't want you to remember anything and they will do everything in their power to make sure you don't. We know this is a lot to take in, but please just follow the instructions and go to the mansion. Also, if you are still unsure about this try looking at the photos in the Trace card that is in your Trace Memory. We don't know how much you remember (if you even remember anything at all), but maybe some of the photos will help you remember something or someone. We hope that we will be able to see you soon.
Signed, The Nations of the World.
The nations of the world? What in the world was that? Was it some type of special group or something? Arthur was not sure, but it sounded weird to him. Heck, the whole letter sounded weird to Arthur.
Why where their people who wanted his past to remain a mystery? Just what kind of person was he? Arthur had more questions than answers and it seemed if he wanted any of the answers that he so badly wanted he would have to go to this mansion. Arthur sighed a little before he grabbed the Trace Memory and turned it on. He might as well look at the photos before he goes off and makes a decision on if he should follow the letter's instructions or just ignore it and pretend that this never happened.
Once the machine was on he chose the Trace card button and waited for the pictures that where on it to show up. Soon enough the pictures appeared and when Arthur looked at the first picture his eyes widened in shook. In the picture where two people standing side by side looking straight at the camera. The first person was Arthur himself and he had his arms crossed and a very small smile on his face. However, it was the person standing next to the Arthur in the photo that really captured the blond English man's attention.
Standing next to him was a white haired man with crimson eyes and a large confident smile. That white haired man was the very same man from Arthur's dreams and Arthur knew right then and there that the crimson eyed man was real and not just a figment of his imagination….
Info Time!
The Dreams: I actually ended up looking up a dream dictionary to figure out how I wanted Arthur's dream to go and to kind of hint at teh things that Arthur would have to go through. It's in this chapter that Arthur actually figures out what the dream means.
Mischief: Mischief is Prussia cat. I just had to put Prussia cat in here some way so I thought why not give him to Arthur. Since Prussia cat is in here England cat is also going to be in the fanfic, but he probably will not show up untill later on in the fanfic. Also I named Prussia cat after one of the cats that I used to have.
Trace Memory: I was playing Trace Memory (also known as Another Code: Two Memories) when I came up with this idea and Trace Memory is what this fanfic is sort of inspired by. For those of you who don't know what Trace Memory is it's a DS game. In the game memories are a very important thing and it's that thing that kind of helped me start thinking up this fanfic. In the game you get a DS lookalike device that is called a DTS which is where I got the idea for the Trace Memory machine that Arthur has. I decided to call it Trace Memory because the game itself was the inspiration for this fanfic so calling the machine a Trace Memory was more or less a shout out to the game.
Anyway, I will try and get the next chapter out as soon as possible so please review and don't flame.
