I should, like, change the title to Klapper und Wiege, but I don't trust my German. XD
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Hetalia: everything belongs to Hima-papa. Though I have some resources, none came from any story written in . Plot and dialogue are mein wassermelone!
Warnings: Gore, horror, strong language and some scary shit that could discourage people. Some hints of shounen-ai, I think. I also need to constantly remind you guys of jumping POVs.
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Rattles and Cradle
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It was supposed to be a field day of a city named Milchreis where a plague mysteriously shrouded weeks ago. There lived Roderich Edelstein and Gilbert Beilschmidt who decided to take in a baby they named Max.
Upon assuming that his parents are indeed dead, Roderich and Gilbert went to the department store to pick up some things they will need to take of a baby- and for Gilbert to see a weird shadow lurking behind the shelves.
Soon, they arrived home to eat dinner. The night seemed to stretch longer as they bore witness to a very terrible and strange crime that happened next door- just when they saw the monstrous figure that killed the neighbors.
Despite the experience, will the police believe them? What will they learn from this strange case?
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Rattles and Cradle
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Ten minutes had passed since Gilbert made the call to the police. We were told that they will come here as fast as they could, and that we should keep an eye to the house. Gilbert was peering from the window the whole time, and I was seated here to feed Max.
He was old enough to eat baby food and old enough not to hate the veggie-flavored one. He was eating peacefully in our relief, but the tension still hadn't broken up yet.
The door buzzer went off thrice before we heard a male voice called for Gilbert. He then hurried to the door and cautiously opened it for the police officers. He let them in and towards the lounge which was joined with the dining room. I was pretty sure that they could see me and the baby from there- since the lady officer reacted differently upon seeing the baby.
"A-A A baby! You have a baby!"
Everyone was silent; none of us knew why the lady officer- wait!
"Sorry for the confusion, officer, but he isn't ours. He's not our baby, and we're not a couple." I spoke in monotone, and then Gilbert pressed his palm against his face, "Eli, of all the things- anyway, we should talk about the- the neighbor's house."
"Eli? Elizabeta? Sorry, I didn't recognize you."
Elizabeta, or Eli as how Gilbert calls her, was a friend back in high school. She and Gilbert would always end up bickering louder and more frequently than Gilbert and I did, and she would always be teased as his girlfriend. But some people did say that she was head over heels in love with me- which was more credible than the first assumption. But then again, I never thought she would join the police after hearing that she wanted to be a fashion designer when she grew up.
"I can understand, Roderich. I was just surprised. Why would you want to have a baby with this jerk anyway? Setting that aside, we had operatives investigating the house now. Why did you guys see? What do you mean by- monsters?"
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Rattles and Cradle
Rei Haruno- Sakura no Imooto
Chapter 2: The Milchreis Plague
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I caught Gilbert frown first before getting serious with Elizabeta's real questions. She did apologize first to me before getting all rude towards Gilbert and then professional to the two of us. Sometimes, Elizabeta is quite a hard thing to understand.
"Okay, we were about to eat dinner when I felt something was wrong. I walked to the window and checked it- then Mr. Heinz started slamming on his window for help. He then ran off, and then blood came out." Gilbert started narrating to Elizabeta while the other man was inspecting the view from our windows.
"You saw a man beg for help. Why didn't you go to him? (That's so not like you.)" Elizabeta asked which was answered by Gilbert after a hum, "Well, I would, but Roddie said I had to stay here because whoever did that might hit our flat, and I won't be here to protect him and Max (-the baby; we call him Max). I just called the police, and then Roddie saw red paint covering the windows, and some things running out the door."
Gilbert then sighed and whispered before proceeding, "You might not believe me, but we knew what we saw was real. The running things were like human-shaped shadow-colored monsters- they have these big hands, broader shoulders, longer legs and shorter torsos! One stopped running; that's how we saw one of them."
"Like this?" Elizabeta seemed to draw something on her notebook which she showed Gilbert. Gilbert-
"A word, mother?" The other officer tapped me, and I had to take my attention off the other two. I faced him, but he called me away from the child. I had to ask a moment from Max before getting up to talk to him.
"Is there something wrong, officer?"
"That kid? Where did you get him?"
It was indeed suspicious for him to ask, but I had to entertain him anyway.
"I saw him walking- well, crawling- along the streets when I opened the door this afternoon. Was someone looking for him?"
However, he would just shake his head and dismiss the matter. I walked back to Max who was looking straight at the male officer. I sat down next to him and prepared for a next spoonful of his baby food, "Max, don't worry, it's nothing really." Max would look back at me before eating again.
"Hey, Roddie!" I heard Gilbert call me, and he was already in front of us when I lifted my face to look at him. He said in a serious tone, "They're going to the house; want to see what happened?"
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Rattles and Cradle
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I don't know if it was some sort of a prank call, but our hotline attendants reported about a man that witnessed a murder done by monsters. It may not be actually monsters, but it was still a murder.
I was about to sign out for the day the time we received that call. My partner- Det. Pfeife- and I came to answer it, adding more hours in my service time. It was already past eight in the evening when it happened, and somehow, I just wanted to make this one quick.
But it was a murder- witnessed by my friends, Gilbert and Roderich. They said they saw monsters carrying out the murder, but they never really had a clear view of the act, just how they got away from the house. Of course, we had to investigate this one thoroughly- no one knew that was the thing happening all along.
The Milchreis plague was never a plague. It was a series of killings that happened around the whole city. To contain panic and the remaining crowd, it was called a disease. But it was never like that.
Now, I'm scared they will indeed hit my friends' house next.
We were standing in front of house, inspecting the front door and how they fled like how my friends said so. Also, we saw personnel loading four bodies in a car to bring them to the coroner. Gilbert was the only one who was close enough to see the blood blotting on the cloth over them while Roderich had to distance himself because it's something a baby shouldn't see.
"I thought you're doing runways; why are you here doing police stuff?" Gilbert suddenly asked as we waited for Det. Pfeife's return from inside. I only hummed before answering, "People from the university I graduated from were recruiting for police volunteers. The police force was too small now to actually support Milchreis, the new crime capital. My work hours were cut down to- uhh, none so I get to be a volunteer for now."
"I'm kind of scared for my own work now." He sighed and just looked at the window where we could see silhouettes of other investigators, "You think you can catch whatever was doing these? This case is quite the shocker." He said so as he looked behind us- at those onlookers and other concerned neighbors; all were wearing face masks as if to avoid inhaling air from the plague's crime scene.
"That's the thing. They will never know about this. Please don't discuss about the monsters with other people." I whispered to him, which made him turn to me again. He then growled softly and looked back at where the front door was. Det. Pfeife still wasn't on sight.
Roderich came to us, more likely talking to Gilbert alone, "Can we go back now? Max is starting to feel sick." However, he then smiled at me kindly, "Good luck on your job, Elizabeta. After this, you could drop by our flat. It's been a really long while since we last talked to each other."
"Sure." That was all I could answer. I would want to talk to him immediately, but I have a job to do.
From this distance, I watched them walk back to their flat at the fourth floor of the house next to the one we were investigating. The house looked rundown and poor- no CCTVs were installed, the paint was breaking, and the gate was already rusted. But inside was beautiful; or more like, Gilbert and Roderich's flat was the only beautiful place in there.
That made me happy because those murderers never hit such an ugly place before. They wouldn't hit an ugly place like that ever.
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Rattles and Cradle
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It was peaceful, yet there was this eerie feeling somewhere. I was just rousing from my sleep, and I already feel restrained around my neck. It felt like something was holding me down by the neck. It felt like a thick cloth, and it could have been the blanket. I reached out to take it off so I could breathe properly.
But there was nothing there.
Nothing was holding me down by the neck, but there was this pressure of being slowly strangled. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't. I tried to make a sound, but I couldn't. If this was a nightmare, please let it end!
My limbs began to move around to feel anything that could be strangling me. But there was nothing I could feel. Nothing I could take off. Nothing I could use to make it stop. I start to feel like something was covering my head, but I couldn't get it off. All I could do was to get scared and aimlessly fling my limbs around: my heels were banging against the bed, and my arms were either scratching my neck or hitting things nearby.
Moreover, there were voices: whispers echoing and ringing inside my head. I didn't understand what they say, but I knew they were trying to scare me. Multiple voices whisper in my head while something I couldn't touch was trying to kill me. I want it to end. Please just make it end!
I felt like I was dying: no one was there to save me. Tears started to drip from my eyes as I felt my air running low. I was suffocating; my throat was slowly and forcefully being crushed by something I couldn't stop or feel at least. What's happening!? What's killing me!?
Snap!
Pain suddenly flamed from the right side of my face. There was like a snap of a finger, and the whispers and the cloth-like thing were gone. I was able to shoot my eyes open and breathe normally after that. What was holding me down by the neck disappeared, but I now felt someone sitting on me as if stopping my legs from jerking too much. I lied on my bed for a while as I catch my breath and hear someone speak.
Finally, I wiped my eyes from all the tears. I could make out the figure above me as a person, but my room suddenly went really dark for me to see who it was. They seemed to move down to reach for something on the floor, and soon, flashed a smartphone to light the room poorly.
"Hey, Roddie. Are you alright?"
"-Gilbert?"
"I-I heard Max crying. What's happening to you?"
Max was crying? I couldn't hear very well at the moment; his voice was actually next to inaudible, but I could understand what he was saying. Soon, he helped me up before getting off and flicking the light switch on. I made a big mess in my room because everything on my table was on the floor now. Max's crib, which we moved to my bedroom earlier, was untouched though- and Max was leaning against its wall as if gawking to see what happened to me.
Gilbert sat down next to me again and asked with an annoyed but worried tone, "Are you having some kind of nightmare? Want to sleep with the lights on?" Even though I wanted to be surprised, I decided not to react much. I just wanted to forget what happened earlier. I couldn't tell Gilbert that.
And Max's stare was terrifying me at the moment.
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Rattles and Cradle
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Ten minutes past eleven, and I couldn't really sleep much. Roddie was sleeping with lights on after that Scheisse that happened earlier. First was the murder those monsters did, and now this. I couldn't actually imagine that there would be one day that I would doubt the things I see.
Four cans down, and I was starting to feel sleepy. I was softly growling in annoyance because beer couldn't make me forget what I actually saw. I couldn't tell that to Roddie- shithead would panic real bad.
It wasn't true that I heard Max cry, but I did hear the breaking sounds coming from his room. I did run there to see what was happening- only to see his curtains drawn and a fucking shadow monster dancing like a fucking tree on a fucking windy day outside. I didn't know if it killed the Heinz that way, but I was pretty sure it was killing Roddie in some sort of a nightmare.
"Gi! Gi! Gi!"
A sound came from the brighter side of the lounge where the crib was. I rolled it out of Roddie's room since Max wouldn't be able to sleep- oh fuck that. I rolled him out of there because this little fucker scared the living shit out of me. He wasn't crying when the shadow was dancing. He was just standing there staring at Roddie- and it continued all after that. I didn't like him close to me for now, but I couldn't leave him with Roddie either.
"What is it? Want some beer? This shit is so tasty." I could only chuckle and raise a can towards him. But he kept on making a sound as if trying to say my name. I brought the can down and looked behind me to see nothing and then back to him. I drank the fifth can empty and decided to go to him.
I got him in my arms, and he started pressing himself against my chest. He seemed to be relieved with his weak grip on my shirt. For the next seconds, I couldn't keep myself from being crept out by the baby anymore. I had this feeling that I was just over thinking because of what I saw.
I went back to the table with Max in my arms. Since one arm was enough to hold him, I used the other to continue drinking. It didn't seat well to me- I really need more beer. The alcohol was starting to kick in after the tenth can, and I feel sleep catching up to me. It was the time to stop, but I wasn't in the condition to actually clean up. I just left the table with Max still in my arm, wobbling along the way as I walked somewhere.
I didn't really pay attention to where I was walking until I laid Max down on the bed. I crashed next to him as I felt my body retiring before my mind did. I would have flicked the switch off, but it would only scare me. I just slept where I was.
I'd clean the cans and table tomorrow. I just wanted this night to end.
My eyes closed, and my consciousness was starting to drift. However, I started to hear the door creaking open. It was slow and long, and somehow, the wind could actually swing the door open.
But fuck that, there was no wind in a flat with sealed windows. I opened my eyes groggily as if just trying to see if it was our door that opened, or if a door actually opened. From my view, I could see the door still closed. I closed my eyes, thinking that it was the alcohol.
Soon, another door creaked open- only having a louder sound. But since I only imagined the first one, I tend to ignore the next one. But things changed when I started hearing voices- whispers that I couldn't make out. One eye forced its way to open, only to regret what I saw.
It was the shadow monster, and it was standing next to the bed, peering down at us.
My body trembled, my other eyes ripping open as well. But it stayed; if anything, it lunged nearer, making a terrible sound like a person trying to gag. That was when I grabbed my pillow and hit it with it. But I didn't hit anything.
The whispers disappeared along with the shadow monster. But those didn't take my fear with them. I sat up from bed and scooted to put my back against the headboard. I held the pillow tightly in my arms against my chest before I pulled my knees against it. Trust me, I'm not going to get any sleep tonight.
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End of Chapter 2
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