A/N: Hello everyone! I'm so sorry for the wait, but here is chapter 12 of 'The Pasta-Loving Reaper and the OCD Nation! A Personality Swap?'
I was hoping to get it out last year, but I ended up doing it the next year. I'm horrible, aren't I? T_T
Due to frustration and writer's block with trying to figure out a good climax and conclusion to the chase in this chapter, the story of this chapter will be a two-parter for now. I may decide to merge both chapters of this Holiday Mansion chase into one chapter later on, but for now, I thought it better to get the chapter out sooner by writing the climax onward in the chapter after that than to worry about the chase being in the one whole chapter and how to write the climax and conclusion so god damn much that you guys don't get chapter 12 until sometime even LATER this year. That would be even more horrible than my lack of updates already is.
(Plus, it's school's back on for me a few days from now, so I wanted to finally kick this holiday's procrastination in the sorry ass so I could upload the chapter before school starts.)
Thanks for the wait and all of your support! I'm terribly sorry to have left you hanging! I hadn't exactly planned the whole chase event out, so writer's block came quickly. I could only write about 200-300 words a session each time I got on here to write the chapter because after that I was stuck (which is totally sad). I think I was running out of ways to use description and make the writing more interesting. Not that I want to bash myself or anything (feel free to actually tell me your opinion in a PM if you want), but does anyone reckon that my writing style in these chapters is getting somewhat slack? I've already rewritten chapter eight once, and chapter nine TWICE to fix up some dialogue and events that annoyed me like it would a normal reader when I was reading it through after a while away from the fanfic, but I still reckon that I'm starting to get a little worse at writing and some parts are too filled with dialogue with not enough description or action narration in between.
(Do you ever read writing you wrote several years ago, and while when you first wrote it you didn't see anything wrong with it, you look at it years later and go "This part of my writing sucked; I should rewrite it because this bit sounds annoying" and promptly fix it? I was just like that with chapters eight and nine of this fic. I read them a year later and was like "The behaviour of the OC's is far too weird and slightly annoying to be of regular people from the 'reality'; I can see why that reviewer who criticised my OC's was complaining. I really need to change them more than a bit!" and decided to rewrite some of chapters eight and nine because I thought that 2013-me's original writing of them sucked.)
Also, another reason I've been bugged lately is because of those unnecessary plot bunnies I talked about in one of my previous author's notes (ones that get you addicted to certain music as the scenes in the fic plot bunny are imagined in your head like an AMV to the song, and sit you in your room for hours spinning on your office chair whilst listening to the music and letting the plot bunnies play out (or is that just me? O.o); yeah, those ones). One way I try to get rid of the plot bunnies is writing them down in the Notes app on my iPod touch in a note I have called "Fanfic Ideas on the Go" and it is basically my plot bunny dumping ground. Sometimes I write out some of the plot bunnies and abandon them, and others I go to write to flush them out but the writer's block hits the moment I begin to write. That's the problem with me and Secret of the New Host chapter 5 right now. I have ideas for the chapter, but I'm not sure how to make them play out and which part will come first. I hate that horrible plot bunnies/writer's block combination. Who knew opposites made such a deadly duo?
Anyway, since some of my "Fanfic Ideas on the Go"-written plot bunnies come back to torment me, and I'm never going to plan on ever writing some of these because of what I'm juggling at the moment, I'm going to have a little section on my fanfiction profile page called "Adoptables", where I shall dump the plot bunnies from my Notes that I don't plan on doing in the future and you can adopt one and write your own detailed story plot for it like it's a prompt! :D (Don't worry, you can use the idea however you like! They're my plot bunnies, but I don't care what people do to them; I don't plan on using them. If you ever write a story of it, all I ask is that you give me credit for the Adoptable Plot Bunny/original "prompt", but the whole rest of the developing plot is your idea and at your mercy.)
If you want to adopt a plot bunny on my profile page, PM me so I know you want to/are going to make a fanfic of it so I can put a notice on the profile that says that certain plot bunny is now taken by you and cannot be adopted by anyone else.
On another note, I picked up and read a dystopian novel called The Declaration by Gemma Malley. It's the first dystopian fiction work I've ever read and I loved it! (It's also a dystopian fiction work that came before The Hunger Games, so it came from the era of not-exactly-extremely-famous dystopian novels!). I would recommend it to a large number of people who like Hunger Games and Divergent, considering the worldwide corruption and entrapment themes.
In (not exactly) a nutshell, the Declaration is set in the year 2140 and humankind have discovered how to "live forever" through a pill called Longevity. However, since overpopulation became a problem after dying stopped, the Declaration was created and later amended to say that no one could have any children AT ALL unless anyone wishing to have children Opted Out of Longevity (didn't sign the Declaration to say they would take it, thus live a normal human life span because of not taking it) at the age of 16, so they would live what Longevity-takers called "short lives" (compared to their own) and their child/ren wold take their parents places after their parents died (a life for a life; one child per Opt-Out person; the population stayed relatively constant because the Opt-Outs died). And selfish people who both took Longevity and had children were sent to prison and their children were labelled as illegal "Surpluses" (unwanted people wasting earth's resources). England "makes the best of a bad situation" out of the Surplus problem by catching Surpluses and putting them in nasty training halls where they're essentially brainwashed and are trained to become servants for Legal people.
And there's my problem, once I start writing/talking about I topic, I begin to ramble a little too far.
The Declaration is part of a trilogy, followed by The Resistance and then The Legacy, but I still have yet to read the two latter books. The trilogy actually has its own fanfiction archive on this website! But there are only like 6 fanfics in there :( I greatly encourage any Declaration fans with Declaration plot bunnies to try and help fill up that archive! (Unfortunately my solely Declaration plot bunny well has run dry for now, but I've had a few Declaration crossover ideas that I'm thinking of maybe doing… somewhere… in the extremely distant future…when I'm not juggling all of these fanfictions I'm already doing…)
Also, in the time I've been offline, I've gotten myself into a few new anime (Devil Is A Part-Timer, Blood Lad, Attack On Titan, Code Geass and Sword Art Online – in that order. Out of the five, I obsess over Code Geass the most. I love it so much that it is now mentally famous in my mind for being the anime that ended my massive/borderline ridiculous Soul Eater obsession (with the Fullmetal Alchemist obsession on the side) phase.)
And back on track we go!
Here is chapter 12! This chapter will be Hetalia again.
Chapter 12: Holiday Mansion Mishap! The Great Dissection Chase?
Normal POV
"Egghead Austria's trying to kill me!"
…
"WHAAAAATTTT?!"
Germany's enraged shout rang through the house like the sound of a church bell being rung by someone who was new on the job and put too much force in the ring.
"I'm not kidding, West! I need backup – ASAP!"
"What the hell is he doing to try and 'kill you' then?!"
"He's gone all freaky on me! He's giving me this creepy face and he's mumbling about how he'd love to research anthro-whatsit nations and started looking at me crazily! He pulled out a marker and he tried to draw a dotted cut line across my arm! He's coming at me with a scalpel and he's trying to dissect me awake! Geez, he never takes payback this far!"
"…Payback?"
A small, nervous 'eep' came from the older German brother on the other end of the line.
"Oh…whoops. Just pretend you didn't hear that last part…"
"What did you do, Prussia?"
"Nothing!" Prussia hastily objected through the phone, "Well…I did try to…sneak into his holiday house and…sign my awesome autograph in marker all over his clothes…"
"YOU WHAT?!"
Italy and Japan visibly flinched at the younger German's drastic rise in volume. Justin looked confused at the two nations, having his ear phones in and not hearing Germany's shouting. He still couldn't hear anything of their speaking over his earphone music, either; but he glanced at the supposedly-not-in-his-original-personality Italian and picked up his mouthed words…
"Germany is shouting; Prussia must have done something immature again."
"Prussia?" the Death Scythe repeated in confusion.
"Germany's older brother;"the Italian quickly and silently mouthed in explanation, "He is a former nation, and he has this ego problem where he thinks he is 'incredibly awesome'. He also picks on and plays pranks on Austria because he thinks the man is boring; usually Austria just puts his anger out through the piano and just very much essentially lets Prussia off without any of the physical (and sometimes also the verbal) abuse. However, something happened to Prussia this time. Perhaps he played a prank too far and now Austria is bringing on some physical punishment?"
"Alright," Germany answered his brother on the phone with a sigh, "We'll be right over." He turned rather suddenly back to the two other nations and the demon guillotine, making them jump in surprise. "Come on; we're going."
"To where, exactly?" Japan inquired.
"To Austria's house;" he answered, "my immature older bruder seems to have gotten himself into a tight spot."
"What happened?" Italy asked, deadpanning.
Germany sighed once more, "Prussia tried to sneak into Austria's holiday house to pull a prank where he wrote his 'autograph' all over Austria's clothes. However, he was caught; but instead of just 'letting his anger out through the piano', shouting a raging diatribe or dealing out a smack upside the head, Austria has apparently pulled out a scalpel and is trying to dissect him, mumbling something – according to Prussia – about how he'd 'love to research anthro-whatsit nations'; I assume what Prussia meant by 'anthro-whatsit nations' was 'anthropomorphic nations'. Anyway, my bruder is counting on us to save his reckless and childish behind from Austria."
MEANWHILE, AT AUSTRIA'S HOUSE…
Prussia put down the phone receiver and sighed a breath of relief. His little brother was coming to get him. He should be fine. He glanced around the black-and-white checker-tiled room in Austria's holiday house; he was in a darkened ballroom – although what Austria needed a ballroom in a holiday house near the German coastline for was beyond his (rather limited) fathoming. Thus, he did not take into suspicion or account a possible reason for why on earth a telephone would be inside a ballroom either; he just silently jumped at life's apparent mercy and enjoyed the convenience of a help-call. There was no way Austria would find him in there!
Suddenly, Prussia felt off and his whole body became wracked with nervous shakes as he felt the eerie, long creak of a door opening, and the sensation of light pouring into the immense room from the doorway as the entrance was slowly opened…
He shivered in fear as a bitter taste entered his mouth and the silhouette of a man in frilly fancy-dress could be seen in the doorway, the glint of silver metal in the light giving away the presence of a bladed weapon that the Prussian knew was small but most definitely, in no way at all, blunt or harmless. Immediately, he shrunk into the corner, retreating to any shadow that was left behind after the opening of the doors, as the figure stepped closer. Eventually, the albino former-nation was backed into a corner, and he looked up at Austria.
The scalpel drew closer with a hand shaking with dark excitement. A glare tinted the sides of the Austrian's glasses, but not significant enough to hide the sadistic glint spiralling deep into the violet eyes that made Prussia's stomach twist and writhe. Sweat trickled slowly down the forehead of Germany's older brother as Austria moved slowly closer, the eerie clicking of his slow footsteps echoing in the otherwise silent room. The scalpel inched further towards the proximity of its victim, and Prussia edged back, hands feeling for anything behind him to grab, to squeeze, and hopefully from thereon find his miraculous salvation from this moment of fear, but alas, all he felt was the smooth texture of the empty walls meeting together at the corner behind him. He felt his heart rise to rapid speeds, pounding in his chest, and his breathing quickening; Austria's armed-and-dangerous hand reached down and the glinting, silver scalpel brushed lightly across Prussia's cheek, collecting drops of the latter's sweat and blood on the deadly, sharp tool.
The Austrian's mouth contorted into a wide, sadistic grin that made the Prussian's eyes wide and his whole body shiver more violently, the bitter taste flooding his mouth in a torrent. Austria's voice rang.
"A very fine specimen you are…I shall take the privilege of studying you very gratefully…"
The albino's ear-piercing scream echoed throughout the house.
ON THE WAY TO AUSTRIA'S HOUSE
It took about a ten-minute drive from the training house to Austria's holiday house, up a coastal road. There were barely any cars around, so Germany could afford to safely hurry with the vehicle.
The ride was mostly silent. The nations and the Death Scythe just listened to the waves crashing, and let the tangy, salty air invade their nostrils as they hurried to Austria's holiday house. After the ten minutes, the road veered from right on the coastline and went a little further in, to a green area surrounded by trees. Germany pulled the car into a stone-paved driveway, and they all got out of the car. Their gazes fell upon Austria's beach house.
They froze in utter shock and their mouths hung to the ground under their feet.
Austria's house wasn't a holiday house.
It was a holiday mansion.
An immense manor, reaching a height taller than the trees; it was painted in a creamy, off-white hue with the roof, window sills and awnings coloured a scarlet red. There appeared to be about a maximum of six floors, each with eight to ten ornate windows on each side of the mansion around the height of each level of the building.
Germany strode up a small set of front steps and rapped his knuckles on the door.
"Hello? Prussia, Austria, are you in there?"
After a proceeding lack of response, he initiated a second attempt. His knocks were harder and louder, but no one still came. Annoyance began to poke at the tempered German.
"Oh you're kidding me! How far can they be from the door!? Honestly, they should get a doorbell."
Suddenly, to their surprise, the familiar sound of a lock clicking made itself known among the whooshing of the gentle breeze coming through. However, as the door creaked slowly agape, the very front interior was shown as but an empty space of detail obscured by darkness; there were no possible traces of whoever had opened the door for them. Tapping his hand lightly on the doorframe, Germany felt a cold sensation creep its way up his spine. Italy and Japan shivered behind him. Standard, wooden doors didn't just open on their own like that. There was something wrong with the house; something eerily wrong. Justin, on the other hand, was scarcely bothered. Perhaps it had to do something with his "Death Scythe" job?
'I must remind myself to ask him finer details about his "Death Scythe" position after we get through this…'
Sighing, the German spoke aloud.
"Well, here goes nothing…"
He proceeded to step inside, the other three following suit. Their pupils dilated as they entered, the only light source illuminating the elongated area being the light streaming in through the open door.
"It's still dark in here; is there a light switch somewhere?" was Japan's voicing of everyone's thoughts in eleven words, fumbling clumsily at the wall around the doorway for a light switch.
"I've found it." Justin called, flicking on the lights. As they recovered from the sudden, harsh change in lighting, they were able to take in the finer details of their surroundings. They were situated in an elegant foyer leading to a living room on either side. Conspicuously contrasting the apricot walls were ornate, western vases of cool blue, violet and green hues standing on oak wood tables with intricate swirls dancing around the legs. The group's noses tingled pleasantly as a soft fragrance of cinnamon wafted through the room.
"This is a nice place Austria has here." He commented, awestruck, letting every nook and cranny of the walls and floor sink into his head.
"Ugh! Dammit!"
The others turned around to the source of the frustrated grunting.
"Italy, what are you doing?" Germany asked, deadpanning.
"Look at this despicable placement of the vase on the tabletop! It is asymmetrical and hideous!"
The only thing it earned from the German man was an exasperated sigh as the currently-symmetry-obsessed Italian continued to vent out his frustration with the vase on the small stool or table which sat against the wall in the foyer.
"Well, looks like this causes for drastic measures!" the Northern half of Italy declared seriously, fishing a tape measure out of his pocket and proceeding to lean in very closely to the vase. He began to measure the distance of the vase from the table's edge and moved it gently to one side, before measuring again and moving again, constantly repeating the compulsive process.
"Italy; we need to focus on finding Prussia." Justin reminded seriously, "We don't exactly have time to be turning the whole place into symmetry."
"Exactly." Germany agreed, "So come on alre—"
His speech was cut off as an eerie creak sounded behind them, and as they turned around, the door slammed with an abrupt, deafening bang, prompting the visitors' automatic reactions of jumping out of their skins like a group of cats having heart attacks. The hair on their backs prickled as the sound echoed down the labyrinth of halls of the massive mansion.
"That was not good…" Japan pointed out, unease tinging his voice.
"The classic door slamming on its own without being pushed by any wind; just like in a horror movie." Germany muttered sarcastically, pivoting on his heel to face the door, "I'll bet you twenty it's locked itself, too." not to his surprise, turning the smooth, bronze doorknob resulted in a repetitious click and the inability to turn the knob any further than ninety degrees.
"Well, talk about typical." Italy remarked blankly, "At least be glad this is your typical American horror movie occurrence."
"We've already seen what sort of horror movies everyone else makes." The slick-haired blonde agreed, "I'm never watching your Italian horrors ever again; no offense."
"That's alright." The former pasta-lover assured, "I get that from quite a few people. Maybe, though, you should still give them a chance; we did watch them at a horror movie night so it gave things a creepier atmosphere."
"If it is not so rude to interrupt, I believe we should be moving on." Their Asian friend interjected calmly, before ushering them further down the foyer.
Japan's eyes, however, blatantly betrayed the calmness his voice had withheld. An eerie, ominous feeling sent shivers up and down his spine, and his blood ran dead cold. Every shaky step he took further into the massive manor felt heavier and heavier, slowed by his fears, which tried to pull him back out into the broad daylight outside. He did not have any strange sixth sense, but the underlying ill feeling that bled from the walls of the mansion's immense structure put him on a worried alert. It was nothing that could really be controlled; it was like a woman's intuition – it was a feeling that came up at the possible presence of danger or an event which prompted one to act upon their instincts. The house, however, had a grand but homey feeling to its lavish interior, and the Eastern country mused how it could be possible for something so comfortable to be so jeopardous at the same time; his brain was falling to pieces in his mind, clawing for an explanation to the dangerous feeling surrounding him.
It didn't take too long, however, before his request for an answer was granted.
One mistake, one slip up, one hole was all it took.
They had neared the end of the foyer, where a grand set of crimson carpeted stairs stood looming over them, and Italy had once again observed a flaw in the symmetry of the expensive décor. As soon as he paced forward to move the criminal, asymmetrically-aligned table, his leg hit what felt like a taut string, almost cutting into the front of his ankle. It was one made of nylon, he observed.
The Italian had minimal seconds to alertly zip to the right just as the almost silence was ruined by the eruption of a reverberating TWANG nearly setting them off their feet.
No sooner than the others twisted around in haste, did he discover the cause of the incident.
He scowled disapprovingly as he wrenched out an object tipped with glinting silver from the now slightly cracked wall.
The projectile's sleek, wooden shaft was so twig-thin it almost snapped in Italy's somewhat tense grip. There was a fair chance it was crafted by deceit; its highly fragile appearance and somewhat weak properties seemed to completely throw common logic out the window as to how on earth it could possibly support the mass of the sharp, metal point attached to the front end and the heavily cut, hardened, starch-white plumage attached to the back as tailfins.
The others gasped upon the sight of the deadly arrow, which had, by a hair's breadth, nearly made a shocking and dangerous mark. Had Italy not evaded quickly enough, it would have painfully driven into his right shoulder.
"Why has Austria set up tripwire traps in here?" Japan asked, shivering uneasily.
"I have a feeling that he isn't in the mood for visitors." Italy supplied darkly, "We should be careful where we tread from now on; it is accurate to assume there will be many hidden around the manor."
Italy's guess was subsequently proven right; as another arrow flung out of the wall from a spot nobody could pinpoint and found itself a destination in the corner of one of the foyer's varnish wood tables, right next to Justin's elbow. Another arrow flew into the furniture near Japan as he stumbled backwards, feet shaking. Numerous arrows began to fire at slow intervals, but still uneven and unpredictable, and harder to dodge each time. Germany voiced everyone's thoughts in one word.
"Shit!"
MEANWHILE
The thump of a rock hitting the wall made itself clear as Prussia ducked underneath an elegant, oak stool table outside one of the mansion's numerous studies. All he could think of was running, and the pounding of his heavy feet on the floor. His heart beat so hard and deafeningly in his ears that he could barely hear anything other than the rhythmic pattern from his chest that was indicating his current survival.
Which meant that rock had hit the wall quite hard if he'd heard it.
He had barely escaped Austria by the skin of his teeth, and now found himself on the top floor, only indicated by the frightening, heart-plummeting height he stared down as soon as he opened the window. Jumping out the window was definitely not an option.
Well, it was…
He'd just have to be utterly stupid or bearing a massive death wish to take said option.
Or insane.
But Prussia was pretty sure he was not insane.
And, at that moment, being chased up and down the winding, almost seemingly endless corridors and rooms of Austria's immense holiday house whilst being half-pelted by tripwire activated stones was not a desperate enough situation to invoke any sort of death wish.
But if that didn't, then Prussia didn't know what would.
He just hoped, sincerely to any god out there watching him, that whatever could possibly fill the death wish criteria was not anywhere remotely near this hellhole.
Taking a sharp turn left at the next intersection of corridors, he ran straight into a study and slammed the door quickly shut behind him. He fell to his knees as he leant against the door, panting exhaustedly.
His spine tensed as an eerie voice made itself clear from the hallway.
"Ah, where has he gone, I wonder…?"
'Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshiiiiiiiitttt!'
His body shivered almost uncontrollably, and his mouth was clamped shut by his hands. The clicking of Austria's loafers on the floor outside the room was slow, as if the man was sneaking. Tears of helpless fear found their way into Prussia's eyes as the footsteps slowly stopped.
This was it… he was going to die, wasn't he?
Suddenly, however, the footsteps started again, in a different direction.
The albino former nation frowned in confusion.
'Why did he not come in here?'
His silent question was answered as the distant sound of crashing furniture somewhere else in the mansion floated to the upper floors.
'Someone else is here…But who? Is it West?'
"Time to go check that out…" came Austria's sickeningly curious voice from outside, as the footsteps continued away from the study.
After waiting a little more for cautious reasons, the Prussian slowly peeped out of the study door, and decided it was safe to head further down the corridor.
Once again, more crashing sounded as he activated every trip wire trap on the floor.
MEANWHILE
Charging down the next corridor, Germany, Japan, Italy and Justin continued to tire as pebbles mercilessly pelted them from all sides, making successfully dodging difficult. Japan let out a startled cry as an arrow narrowly missed his head. As soon as another one headed straight for them with an audible twang, Justin's arm was illuminated with a silver glow, and a sharp, guillotine blade sprouted from his forearm. With one slick swing, the assaulting arrow was sliced in half. It fell to the floor with an almost non-existent thud as the personified nations gaped on in amazement.
"That was…" Germany gaped in astonishment.
"Be glad you are blessed with a Death Scythe on your side." Justin turned to them.
No sooner than he spoke, did another projectile launch itself at them. The Asian nation stumbled back, startled, and fell on another tripwire. A small pebble smacked into Germany's elbow, and one into Italy's knee. Fending off the assault with his arm blade was not achieving anything remotely useful for the Death Scythe, as he was reminded when an arrow barely missed his head. All of the airborne objects slammed into the walls with sickening crashes, creating dividers between the four of them.
Japan jumped to the side, barely reaching Germany as the two were sent slamming into a wall. Their startled shouts rang out as the group burst into noisy panic. Justin pushed Italy to the side of a pointed arrow, and almost hissed in pain as it grazed his wrist, leaving a slit in his skin for blood to leave his veins and trickle down his arm. At the top of his lungs, Germany hollered the only way of evasion.
"RUN!"
Obeying hurriedly to escape the crossfire, the two halves of the group darted down opposite corridors in separate directions.
Justin's POV
Running was all we could do. I couldn't hear with my headphones in, but I could tell by how much physical emphasis Germany put into the word when saying it that he was most definitely shouting.
The word he had delivered was clear. Even had I been unable to lip-read, I would have still registered what he'd said.
I turned to Italy, who was running next to and slightly behind me, the auburn-haired nation panting with every thud of either of his feet hitting the ground. I grit my teeth as my back began to sting from the assault of a new assortment of smaller projectiles that were barely able to be recognised as rubber; probably pencil erasers.
(How many pencils did Austria have!?)
The adrenaline rushed through my body as I picked up the pace, the long corridor stretched ahead of us like a highway.
Suddenly, I felt a sickening bump as I tripped on a fallen eraser; my feet gave way and I tumbled forward. An apparent weight against my back indicated that Italy had tried to reverse to vacate my tripping area, but had instead resulted in him bumping forward into me.
The cacophony of our shouts rang almost deafening as we tumbled into a hard wall, the end of one corridor in the deadly labyrinth and the start of the next.
I couldn't register if we spent any certain period of time, slumped there in a groaning heap in the corner of the two halls.
What did perk my interest is that, besides our (mainly Italy's) vocal responses to pain, the surrounding area had fallen silent.
Far too silent.
Letting a small hiss escape between my teeth as I freed myself from under my companion's body, I helped him up and pushed ourselves into the nearest room.
It was a bathroom, a large, windowless, black-and-white tiled facility with a sizeable, empty tub, row of basins and several off-shooting doors that most probably led to toilets.
The Italian looked initially impressed, but frowned upon opening one of the doors, which was a confirmed toilet cubicle. His brows furrowed as he exclaimed in obvious distaste, turning a full 360 degrees to gaze upon the whole elegant bathing space.
"What is with this man!? Does he have no common sense that one must fold the end of the toilet paper into a triangle!? He doesn't even keep this bathroom in symmetry! What a disgusting mess!"
'Ah, that's right…the symmetry obsession the others say he suddenly acquired…'
In sudden reminder that his voice was also apparently different to whatever it used to be, I (for once) removed my mp3 player earpieces and listened closely to the nation's voice.
The slightly low sounds and levelled vocal manner filled my ears with a certain familiarity of the son of Lord Death.
In the still silence that followed the Italian's remark, I decided to confront him about this "voice and personality" issue.
"It's strange," I began, finding intrigued nostalgia somewhere in my own words, "you know; I know someone else very much like you. Your voice sounds identical to his, and he also has the most hard-pressed obsession with symmetry…"
In a curious cock of the eyebrows, he turned to completely face me.
Something inside of me still desired to know how on earth he could see where he was going when his eyes appeared shut and why they were shut in the first place. Was he blind? Did he have an eye infection or injury? If so, then why didn't he have eyepatches?
(Well, wearing two eyepatches, one over each eye, would look rather ridiculous.)
"Who, exactly, do I remind you of?" he asked quizzically.
"A boy named Death the Kid," I replied, "Son of Lord Death, the mighty Grim Reaper himself for whom I work!"
"Grim Reaper." He repeated in blunt scepticism.
"A god of Death." I clarified.
"Oh, I see." He remarked, "So I'm stuck in an asymmetrical madhouse with a cult junkie."
The following silence was so thick it could be cut with a knife.
