Chapter 1

Dying was a lot different than she imagined it.

She was certain death would be painless and she would arrive in the fluffy kingdom in the sky to become an angel. Well, maybe not there, considering she wasn't worthy of such a fate. Then again, she didn't do much to earn a place in Hell. What happened to her was not what she expected.

The ticking of a clock was the first thing she heard as she floated back to consciousness. The first thing that came to mind was why it was possible for her to be conscious. Wasn't she dead? The second thing that registered was the softness and warmth surrounding her. But, the third and final thing was the dull ache in her chest. She really wasn't sure if she was feeling a dull burning ache right where she was shot. Thoroughly confused, she opened her eyes.

She took a moment for her eyes to adjust. When they did she was unable to believe what she was seeing. She wasn't in a full white room in heaven or a highly sterile hospital room. Instead, she was lying on a soft fluffy canopy bed inside a large bedroom. The room itself had some of the most tasteful and nicest interior design she's only seen in mansions. The walls were painted a nice blue and the bottom edges white. The furniture complimented the colors well as there was a mahogany dresser and vanity mirror off to the side and two white bedside tables on both sides of the bed. A set of French doors led to a balcony. This was either the nicest hospital she's ever been in, or this was someone's house.

Where am I? she screamed. Straightening into a sitting position, she winced at the dull ache in her chest. Why did her chest hurt? Last time it hurt like this her (ahem!) assets were growing. Except this was ten times as worst. She glanced down to see what the problem was. Her eyes grew wide as she saw white bandages and gauze were wrapped thoroughly around her torso. It was so heavily wrapped her torso had nothing but the bandages covering most of her chest. Huh. No wonder she had no shirt on. Lifting the single sheet covering her, she was relieved to find she was wearing a pair of sweatpants. Okay. Good. She was fine. Well, not really. She was still decent.That doesn't explain where I am. And what happened to me?

All she remembered was getting shot at after deciding to go out for once. That was damn unfortunate for her. She cursed at her luck. This kind of thing always happened to her. Like during a project she had to present in high school, just as it was her turn they had to do a fire drill. Of all days it had to be that one and she had just worked up the nerve to volunteer! She had the worst luck in the world. Eventually, she was certain she was going to get killed one day. It didn't surprise her she got shot. But, getting taken to someone's house was new. Whoever they were took her home and treated her. Why they didn't bother to take her to a hospital to get surgery she wasn't sure.

Now that she mentioned it, she was curious to see who took her to their home. After all, it wasn't every day there was such kindness. People tended to stay out of another's business.

She lifted the sheets and swung her legs off the bed, wincing as she did so. Standing up on the wooden boards, she wandered over to one of the doors. She took quick steps towards it and opened it. The room it led to turned out to be a bathroom. It was a rather large bathroom with an old fashioned bathtub with clawed feet and a shower off to the side. It all looked clean. It was nice to know where the bathroom was, but not at the moment. She was looking for the exit. Closing it, she headed to the other door.

She walked towards the door. As she passed the vanity mirror, something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Pausing, she turned towards the mirror and gasped sharply. What the...?! She approached the mirror with wide eyes to see if the image was real or not.

She had rather bland and plain brown hair with hazel eyes. In her family she was unconsidered unremarkable. While her two brothers (both older and younger) inherited their mother's red hair from her Scottish heritage, she gained the plain brown from their Italian father. With a face that screamed plain she was often thrown into the shadows of her more accomplished brothers. Really, her older brother, Liam, was working as an architect and her younger brother, Joel, had a soccer scholarship. Her? She was still trying to figure out what she was doing with her life. Her looks were plain, so she assumed her life would be plain as well.

Somehow, her rather long and messy hair was the color of wheat in the countryside. Eyes the color of the sky stared back at her in horror. She blinked several times. Then, a loud shriek escaped up her throat and out of her gaping mouth.

"OH, MY GOD!" she shrieked. She gripped at the locks of hair to bring into her vision. Blonde! She was blonde! And her eyes! Why were her eyes blue? They weren't blue! What happened to her hair and eyes?! She almost wanted to cry. What was going on? She didn't understand it. Who would dye her hair while she was knocked out? And why were her eyes blue?

In her panic she never heard the loud stomps approaching the bedroom until the door slammed open.

"Hey! Are you alright? Don't worry! The hero's here!" yelled a semi-familiar voice.

The voice snapped her out of her panic. She snapped her head towards the door to find herself facing the man she rescued. His own eyes were wide in panic behind his glasses. He froze the moment he met her gaze.

The two stared at one another for a moment-one in astonishment and the other in dumb fascination. Finally, the man sagged in relief.

"Oh, good. You're awake," he said with a long sigh. He put his hand to his chest. "Man, you scared the shit outta me! I thought a monster or something got in here and was about to eat you. And me being the hero and all, I came to rescue you! Good thing you're awake, too. I seriously thought we'd have to pull a Sleeping Beauty to get you up. I don't know many princes to kiss you, either, and I can't be the one to do it. Now that that thing happened it's be freaky and weird.

While the man went into a rant, she continued staring. The man wasn't wearing a bomber jacket anymore. He was dressed in a well-fitting t-shirt and some jeans. It all screamed casual. Upon closer inspection, she thought the man was rather (she flushed) handsome. But, his loud personality was a total turn-off. It was kind of annoying.

Once he was finished, she asked the first thing that came to mind.

"Who are you?"

"Oh, right! You don't know who I am!" He burst out into a loud and annoying laugh. Her eye twitched at it. Again, annoying. He finished and pointed his thumb at himself. "I'm Alfred F. Jones, all American hero! But, since we're gonna be close from now on, you can call me your big bro!"

"Excuse me? What do you mean we're gonna be close? I don't even know who you are!" she blurted out in her astonishment. Her roommate often commented she had the most blunt personality she's ever seen and it showed when she didn't understand something. She didn't know the meaning of the word 'subtle' if she got irritated from understanding something.

"Dude, I just told you. I'm Alfred! Oh, by the way, I never got your name," he said, seeming to realize this.

"...Mckenzie. Some people call me Mac."

"What, you mean like Mac and Cheese?" Alfred laughed again.

Okay, she really didn't like this guy. Of course most people would think of that when they heard her nickname. It was still annoying to hear it.

"Yes, like Mac and Cheese," she said through gritted teeth. "Got a problem with that?"

This time, he sensed what she was feeling because he held up his hands in a defensive stance.

"Hey, I'm not making fun of your name. It's nice! I think we can use it as a middle name."

"Middle name?"

"Yeah. For your new name. Liberty M. Jones! It's got a nice ring to it, huh? What d'ya think?"

"New name?" she echoed blankly. What was this guy talking about? What new name?

"Your human name! Duh! 'Cause your other name's gonna be Washington DC or DC for short!" He smiled brightly, pointing at himself. "Y'know, the capital of America-Me? You're my new capital!"

Once again, she stared at him blankly. He lost her at the other name part. She heard the words, but it was like she needed a dictionary to understand them.

"Do you have my cell phone?" she asked, politely.

He tilted his head in confusion.

"Hm? Uh, yeah. Sure. It's right here." His hand stuck into the back of his jeans to pull out her familiar iPhone. He held it out for her, which she took. Once it was in her hand, she unlocked it and went to the Internet app while Alfred frowned. "What are you doing?"

"Calling a mental house to see if they lost a patient," she muttered. She typed in mental institutions in the DC area in the search bar. Surely, they released a patient, who obviously wasn't ready to be released.

"Wh-Hey! Are you callin' me crazy?"

"Since you didn't admit it until now, then yes. You're crazy." She found a couple places on her app by now. Hm...Looks like she was going to have to call them one by one. Before she could even get the number for anyone of them, her phone was snatched away. "Hey!"

"Look, I know you think I'm crazy," Alfred said slowly. He pocketed her phone once more. "But, I'm not. I'm the personified country of America and I made you my new capital."

"See? This is why I think you're crazy!" she yelled, backing away from him. She hid herself next to the canopy bed to put some space between them. No doubt he was violent on top of insane when he pulled out his handgun earlier. "You can't be a country personified. That's not possible!"

He folded his arms, raising an eyebrow at her. His blue, blue eyes were glinting in challenge. They were bright when he was joking, but now he seemed serious. She didn't know which was worse. A joking insane person or the look of a man who's seen every evil in this world.

"Really? Because as a country, we know every single one of our citizens. Well, if we concentrate on a specific one," he added as an afterthought. He took a deep breath. "Your full name's Mckenzie Emma Lombardi. You're eighteen years old, just graduated from high school. You lived with your parents, Eduardo and Helen, with your two brothers, Liam and Joel. As the middle child and only girl your parents didn't really pay attention to you 'cause you're the good girl and they needed to focus on their work. So, you spent more time taking care of your brothers than doing your own thing. It didn't really change when Liam moved out and went to college.

"When it came time to apply for colleges you decided to get away from that and live your own live. So, you picked a college here in DC, nearly a state over from where your family lived. Only problem was you spent so much time looking after your brothers you didn't know what you wanted to do. You weren't really interested in anything and just did what you were told. Your roommate, Penelope Manson, has tried to help you go out and get friends, 'cept you've been making it hard on her. Still, you started considering her your friend. Your favorite color's purple, you're afraid of spiders after a whole bunch of'em fell out of a tree when you were younger, and you like to eat fries a lot."

He finally paused.

"That proof enough?"

Her jaw dropped the moment he said her full name. What...That was impossible. How did he know all those things about her? She never told anyone stuff like why she was afraid of spiders and how she started thinking of her roommate as a friend. That girl was so nice and quite outgoing. It was hard not to think of her as a friend when she went out of her way to include her in activities around campus. Yet, she never told Penelope how she felt. Being too reserved, she didn't talk about feelings much. So, how did this guy know? She held a hand on the bedpost to steady herself as she breathed heavily. She wasn't feeling too hot after he basically said her entire life story.

"Do I even want to know how you found out about all that?" she muttered.

"Well, part of it was from concentrating on what you were thinking while you were knocked out," he admitted. He rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish smile. "And the other part I had to look up. Since, you know, you're my capital now. I gotta know all about where you came from before."

She sat down on the bed again and touched her forehead where a headache was forming. This was really too much. She didn't understand what he was saying.

"Okay, new question. Let's say I believe you for one second. One. How did I become your capital? Like, how does that work exactly?"

Alfred took a seat on the bed as well from across her. He hummed thoughtfully, looking at the ceiling like it held all the answers to the universe.

"To be honest, I don't really know how it works. All the other guys in the world told me it had to do with blood and stuff. But, I remember one thing from how they all got their capitals. A regular person had to be, like, two seconds away from keeling over. Then, the nation has to give a bunch of their blood into the person. After awhile, their bodies adjust to the blood, adapt to it, and eventually become the capital. They start getting all the physical traits of the national majority and stuff." He frowned. "Or something like that. I dunno. I was kinda falling asleep when England explained it to me a few decades ago. That guy can bore people to death. Well, if his shitty cooking doesn't first."

She took a moment to think over his (terrible) explanation. A regular person...? Assuming she believed his claims of being the personification of America, that meant a mortal human. So, that human had to be dying in order to be a capital? And with a blood transfusion of a nation within that regular human's body, their appearances would change to the major percentage of the citizens and they would become a...capital. Her eyes widened.

"Wait...Wait!" she exclaimed. She began to tremble at the new conclusions she made. "You're-You're saying I was dying?"

"No, you died," he stated, casually and bluntly. The way he spoke was as if he were commenting about the weather. "For, maybe, five minutes? They had to revive you before I gave you a bunch of my blood. Man, was I dizzy after that!"

He laughed again. His hand was rubbing his left forearm subconsciously as if he were remembering the moment.

"I died?" Her voice sounded far off when she spoke. She was stuck inside her mind, which shut down from the information. She died. She DIED. Oh, God. It was only five minutes, but she still died. How did Penelope feel when she found out she was in the hospital? A jolt went down her spine at the thought of her roommate. What did her parents feel? Did they even know their only daughter got shot and almost died permanently? "Why am I here instead of a hospital? My parents must be worried sick! Do they even know what happened to me?"

"Um...About that..." Alfred took a moment to glance at her before bringing his focus to the vanity mirror where he examined her new reflection critically. "Since I made you my capital, you can't really go around using your old name anymore. It'd be too suspicious if you used your name and kept living your human life. So...My boss, once I told him what's going on, had Mckenzie Lombardi declared dead. That's why I mentioned your new name was Liberty M. Jones. Your family was told you were declared dead and I had you moved back to my place to recover. That all happened two weeks ago."

She stared at Alfred, utterly horrified and astonished. Her family thought she was dead? No...That couldn't be. She may have wanted to get away from them and live her life, but she didn't want devastate them! She was dead. She was dead. To everyone and anyone who ever knew her, Mckenzie Lombardi was considered dead to the world. A numbing sensation ran through her body and her body began to shake.

"Why?" Alfred blinked in confusion at her single question. He met her eyes, ones that were shining a bright blue on the verge of creating a sea, and winced. "Why did you make me a capital? Why didn't you actually let me die?"

"I dunno." He was back to rubbing his neck. A nervous habit, perhaps? "When you shoved me out of the way and took the hit I was shocked. You didn't even know me and you got shot instead of me. I was gonna be the hero and you doing that was pretty brave. Except, when you said you didn't mean to be the hero..." He shook his head. "I just did it, alright? I thought you'd thank me for saving your life."

After his voice faded, silence blanketed them. She kept staring at Alfred with wide, blank eyes. He sat there, avoiding her eyes and feeling them no matter what. It made him fidget with hands tapping on his legs and eyes darting all over the place except around her. They sat there for awhile before she spoke.

"Can you get out, please?" she asked in an incredibly small voice. It wasn't as loud as a shout, but Alfred flinched all the same.

"Yeah! Sure! Totally!" he agreed, too enthusiastically. He sprang up to his feet, forcing a bright smile on his face. He inched his way to the door with his body continuing to face her. "So, yeah. I'll, uh, be right downstairs. Give a shout if you're hungry or something."

She said nothing, looking out the balcony doors to the trees outside. Without another word Alfred slipped outside. The moment the door clicked shut the tears she had been holding back finally flowed. Without warning she began weeping for what she now knew was gone: her very identity. She didn't doubt what Alfred said. Now, she could see he was telling the truth. Her hair and eyes were enough proof. Her whole life story told by a stranger was enough proof. It was all too plain like the pain in her chest. That moment when the bullet pierced through her chest Mckenzie Lombardi had died. With a new appearance she didn't know who she was anymore.

And for that, she wept for poor Mckenzie Lombardi and this new girl forced into something she never chose, Liberty M. Jones.