Author's Note- Hey everyone, I was planning on writing a completely different story for this month but then the flu hit campus around November 11th. The holiday reminded me of one of the darkest aspects of WWI and one of the reason why quarantines still used in arctic communities.
Disclaimer- Don't own Hetalia, but after researching this story you better believe that I got my flu shot…
Flu
The village smelt of death.
America thought nothing could have been worse, then the bodies stacked like cord wood in Philadelphia…he was wrong. Here in his nation's muddy arctic frontier he was forced to witness the full effect of this deadly illness on his largest territory.
To be honest, America hadn't believed Alaska when she had come to him begging for assistance last fall. After all, summer was ending in the United States and as the days had shortened so had the cases of the flu. Convinced that the worst was over, congress thought that the territory's requests for aid were unrealistic and had scoffed when she had begged Canada and Russia for help.
Now he felt ashamed when Alaska looked up him, her eyes dull with fever. When she turned her attention back to the sick beds she was assigned to tend he couldn't help the shiver that shook his spine. From the doorway he could see patches of skin black, frostbite, represented the many communities that frozen to death when the residents had been too weak to tend the fires. A once sleek figure was now nothing but skin tight over bones a sign of the starvation sweeping across territory cause by so many citizens being too sick to hunt the moose, caribou, seal, and salmon which kept Alaskans alive.
Alaska was little more than a ghost of the formerly proud territory. Yet despite the fact she had lost approximately a quarter of her population in the past year she was still moving. Even though she smelled of death, her head was held high. America had no doubts that she would continue to fight for survival as long as an Alaskan citizen still breathed. Yes, the territory had a difficult road in front of her, but maybe with the coming spring hope and life would return again.
Historical Note- The 1918 flu pandemic is considered to be the worst medical disaster in human disaster. Between the years of 1918 and 1920, when the virus was most it is estimated that 20% of the globes population were sickened and at least 3 to 5 % died from the illness. To put that in perspective the 1918 flu, killed more people in the first 25 weeks of the pandemic than HIV in its first 25 years; it also killed more people in the first year of the pandemic than were killed by the Black Plague in over a century. Researching this period of world history has been really interesting and I will admit I kind of want to write a story about it.
End Note- So what did you think? Was the story interesting? Did you learn something new? Really, I would love to hear your feedback.