Thanks to Enchanting Grace and Infinite-Hope for the reviews that I got on the last chapter!

This Chapter: Introductions! Some of the main characters are introduced. (One in particular.) Blood, slight gore, fuckin' weird dreams, occasional name-calling done courtesy of one special little snowflake character... (just read it lol)

Stars in Dystopia

Part 1: Chapter 1

Chased

"And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt,

and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth,

nor any grass growth therein."

- Deuteronomy 29:23

Blood gushed from the various wounds criss-crossing Elizabeta Héderváry's body as she ran, her left hand clutching her side in a desperate attempt to clot the bleeding. Tears stung the back of her eyes as she jumped over obstacles, dodged trees, and ran on, each thump sounding as her feet hit the ground, one after the other, like a countdown to her death. She tried to run as silently as she could, but her boots were covered in pitch, there were puddles everywhere, and wherever she stepped she was met with a squeaking squelch as her boots sunk into the muddy trenches and she pulled them out.

As Elizabeta ran, her boot got stuck in a particularly deep hole, and she pulled at it for a minute, shaking in exhaustion. She finally extracted her foot, but her boot had gotten stuck in the puddle, so she had no choice but to run on without it. Blinking furiously as she turned and ran again, she scrubbed at her eyes with her other hand as she ran, leaving her boot behind. She would not cry. She could not cry. She needed to be strong.

She turned right, then left, then left, then right again, before being faced with a small clearing. Looking around frantically, she spun around, looking for her chaser. When she realized that her attacker was nowhere to be found, she slowed her pace to a slow jog, still nervously looking around her for any sign of them and praying that they had given up chase. But they wouldn't give up this easily... right? She heard footsteps behind her, and spun around, only to be met with silence and the steady trickle of water coming from somewhere. There was no one to be seen. "Breathe, Eliza, breathe," She murmured the mantra to herself, trying to calm herself down. "Maybe they've given up chase..." She tried to reassure herself, but her heart beat wildly, and she sped up her pace, just in case.

A bird chirped from somewhere, and Eliza felt a sharp stab of anger at it. How dare it be so calm. How dare it be so happy. How dare it act like nothing was wrong. She shook her frustrated thoughts away as she clutched at the deep gash in her side that was still bleeding. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes as a jolt of pain was shot through her, but she blinked them away again, refusing to cry. She wouldn't give her attacker the satisfaction. Trudging forward, she gripped her dagger with her right hand tightly, hidden by her blood-stained cloak. If her attacker came back, she'd stab them, without a second thought... footsteps became apparent behind her as she spun around again, only to be met with nothing but the blade that had been impaled through her stomach.

Eliza looked down at the sword that had gone straight through her thin armor in shock, and her dagger clattered to the ground. She sunk to her knees, her hands reaching for the blade as she felt her attacker twist it around in her gut. Shaking, she glanced behind her, numerous thoughts going through her mind. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she looked at the completely covered face of her attacker, who was shaking.

"W-why..." She choked out, blood dripping from her lips. It boiled up in the back of her throat as her attacker slowly dragged the blade upwards, towards her heart. She shook with pain as she stared back at the trembling face of her attacker. "W-why..." They only stared back silently at Eliza, gripping the blade tighter. She could faintly hear her breath, it was choppy and uneven, choked up. She fell further forward, leaning on a nearby tree for support. Her attacker didn't respond, but they let her fall forward on the tree, and twisted the blade some more. Her vision went spotty, and everything seemed to flicker for a second. There was a shout behind her as her vision totally went black, and she could faintly feel her attacker quickly extracting the blade and running off as someone else knelt by her, but her vision had already completely went black.

Eliza was standing on a grassy plain, looking around in confusion. It was quiet here, and peaceful, and when her hand instinctively went to her gut, where she was previously wounded, there was no injury there. She looked around, her hands curled together in confusion. It was so green and pretty here, the sky faintly peaked out inbetween various grey storm clouds, and there were a few large willow trees dotting the landscape.

Her eyes came to rest on a figure clearly dressed in white, facing away from her, and her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. The figure clearly meant no harm, she could sense that from her, however, she seemed to be shrouded in something so that Eliza couldn't make out her appearance other than that. From a distance, Eliza could somehow tell that the woman was smiling, even though she was turned away from Eliza. She stepped forward, trying to make out the woman's face, but voices swam in her head, blocking everything else out and returning her to the darkness before she had the opportunity to do so.

"Is she going to wake up soon?" The feminine voice sounded calm, if only slightly nervous. Eliza wasn't there, but she assumed that the slight tapping noise in the background was the girl tapping her feet.

"I don't know, Lili. She was injured pretty badly. Granted, the little bitch has been out for almost a week now, but when she was found, she was already bleeding out from dozens of wounds, scratches, bites, and general injuries, and the sword to the gut certainly didn't help anything. Honestly, it's a damn near miracle that she even survived, what with all of her wounds." The second voice sounded almost exasperated, but the exasperation was heavily lined with exhaustion. Eliza felt a pang of guilt shoot through her. Were they talking about her?

"Don't call her a bitch, Lovina, that's not nice." The first voice- Lili, the second voice had called her. And Lili had called the second voice Lovina. Were those their names? "Besides," Lili started, you don't know her. How are you supposed to know that she's a bitch? For all you know she could be a perfectly nice girl."

Someone grunted, and Elizabeta assumed that that was Lovina. "Lili, darling, when I call someone a bitch, I'm not always calling them a bitch to insult them." Eliza felt a flare of anger boil inside her. "In this case," Lovina concluded, "I'm calling her a bitch as a testament to the fact that she's been a feisty little bitch, fighting through her various injuries. She's been healing faster than a normal person would." Lili only hm-hmmed, humming to herself.

"Sure you are." Lili's voice was lined with skeptical emotion, but her humming was light-hearted. They both were silent for a minute, and Eliza's anger started to cool down slightly. One of them sighed, and a voice spoke up, one that Eliza couldn't determine the owner of.

"Well, I just hope that she wakes up soon."

. . .

With a pained gasp, Elizabeta shot awake.

A/N: Well, there was Chapter 1 for you. Sorry for the delay on it, I was really busy with other things that I had to take care of. So, I mentioned this in the last chapter, but this is a human AU with lots of magic, mythology, stuff of the sort. I want to further clarify that all of the nations that I include here are all going to be humans, not nations, and although I might have a couple of them be able to wield magic, etc., they are still human. As for clarification on names, Elizabeta is Hungary, Lili is Liechtenstein, and Lovina is Nyo! Italy. Also, I will probably in the future refer to Elizabeta as Eliza or Liza from time to time. If this causes any confusion, please let me know, and I will revert to just calling her Elizabeta.

Please, please, please leave a review. I really don't like asking for reviews, but they tell me what you like about this and what you want to see more of, and they tell me about the interest that you carry in this story. How often I update this and my motivation for updating this will heavily depend on this, especially because school starts in a few days for me and I already know that I will be having huge homework loads and stuff to do. Further on that note, because school is starting soon, I will probably have issues getting these chapters out quickly. I apologize in advance! But seriously, I love reading reviews and they really are basically my motivation to write, so please leave a review, and Hima bless the reviewers! I try to respond to them, however, if you are a guest reviewer, I will try to respond in the A/Ns, and if I have a late response, I'm very sorry.

I think that's all I wanted to address... hmm... *thinks thoughtfully* Thanks for reading this chapter, and I hope you liked it! Ciao!

Disclaimer: I do not own the bible. I shall repeat myself, I do not own the bible, nor do I own Deuteronomy 29:23. The version of Deuteronomy 29:23 that I used was part of the King James Version, which I can confidently say is in the public domain.

Next Chapter: Elizabeta wakes up and has a rather interesting discussion regarding what happened.