England froze. He wanted to grab the nearest anything to defend himself and lash out at the god grinning sadistically before him, but his feet were firmly glued to the tiled floor with invisible adhesive. "Francis…?" he whispered weakly. "Francis, it's Arthur…! You know, Angleterre…?"

"He is not going to awaken, Arthur Kirkland," a scratched voice of strained hisses sent a definite chill jolting through England's vertebrae. The force of the ice shards flowing up and ripping open his spine brought tears spilling from his ducts and onto the ground. The clear, salty pool merged with the thick, crimson liquid, creating strangely beautiful yet haunting patterns.

"He will awaken!" shot England through gritted teeth. "He will! Francis would never leave me! It was me who was supposed to die! God damn it! Damn it all to hell!"

Death leaned closer to the Englishman and proceeded to raise his chin with a skeletal hand. Now he could see its face. He gasped. Not the face of a skull, but the face of France was but inches away from his. France's wonderful, flirtatious, sparkling, azure eyes looked as if they had been gauged out and replaced with disgusting, fresh, bloody craters, and in the place of his handsome nose, a horrible, triangular hole. Although his pink lips maintained their appearance, the inside of his mouth did not; two rows of grunge-coated, deformed, razor-sharp fangs lined his black, rotten gums. His rancid breath grazed England's skin, infesting the Englishman's nose with stenches of death and screams and pain and blood. And something else…

… Roses?

"You... Why did you do this to me?! Why did you take Francis away from me, you God damned b*st*rd?!" England spluttered in between sobs and exhalations to avoid breathing in the foul odour engulfing his body. "WHY, GOD?! Why do you hate me so much as to let my only friend die?!" he screamed at the heavens and gave Death an almighty shove to the chest, which propelled it into the wall opposite. CRAAAAAACK. A giant fracture in the wall was created, exposing the evening yonder.

"I would not do that if I were you," cackled Death evilly and slyly as it stood crookedly, clutching its stomach, against the wall that it had assaulted. "I am a god, you know."

"Some god you are! Letting yourself be pushed around like that! Of course you're not a god! God is a god, and the one and only, you hear me?"

Something inside the towering black figure flipped. "How dare you!" it hissed in a hateful, low tone. It lashed out at the unsuspecting England with its claws, cutting a scarily deep gash in his abdomen. He swore quietly, sank to his knees and turned to face his lifeless lover. The mixture of liquids, a sea of heavily diluted scarlet, were absorbed by the island nation's drainpipe jeans. He could feel the wetness seeping through the material onto his knees.

"Oh, Francis… Why is this world so cruel…? That's what I've wondered ever since I was a child, in the times when everyone ignored me… Even my own brothers…" he sighed forlornly, taking a moment to cough up an ocean of blood. "Even Alfred still dislikes me... My little brother… My darling little brother…"

And he collapsed, making sure he fell beside his dear Francis, gazing up at him through blank yet content, teary blue eyes. England's head rested to the right of France's and France's feet rested to the left of England's, but their fingers were intertwined.