Chapter Three: It's Just a Joke

Warnings: Starvation, Torture Implication, Violence, Blood

America's POV

I awoke to a dark, quiet room. The events of yesterday weren't a nightmare as I originally thought. I hoped that I would wake up in my bed all nice and safe, but that wasn't what happened. I'm still in the hellish hospital and Italy has been temporarily killed. I can only hope that things won't get any worse.

My stomach growled. The man never fed us yesterday which was weird. Isn't it common courtesy to feed your captives?

"Yo, I'm hungry!" I yelled. Maybe the weird dude just forgot to feed us. "Dude, you forgot to give me food yesterday!" I'm sure he'll come in here with a sandwich or something in a minute.

Suddenly, the TV flashed on. The guy was on the screen as you would expect. "Hello, captives!"

"I'm hungry!" I yelled at the TV. He looked annoyed after I yelled that so he must have heard me.

"It has come to my attention that you guys were not fed yesterday," he said. "I apologize for the neglect but in all honesty, I don't care. In fact, I've been inspired to conduct another experiment."

I didn't like where this was going. I just wanted a damn sandwich and he's gonna run some crazy experiment on us.

"Now, I'm going to test how nations react to starvation." Goddammit. "I'll have a control group that is fed regularly, a group that is fed one meal a day, and a group that gets nothing. Sound fun?" The man laughed. This man is a sick bastard. Like, c'mon dude! Just feed us!

I decided to yell, "You're fucked up!" He didn't seem to care.

"Let's spin the wheel to see which group you get in!" The wheel was spun repeatedly until each nation was placed in a group. Finally he said, "The nations in the control group are China, England, and Japan. The nations in the group that will be fed once every other day are Germany and America. Lastly, the nations in the starvation group are Italy, France, and Russia." At least I'll get fed at some point. It sucks to not be in the control group, but I'm just glad that I wasn't put in the group that starves. Italy's been having it pretty tough here. He just got tortured to death and is going to starve now. Has he even recovered enough to hear this announcement?

"Currently, it is 12:06 in the afternoon, so I'll go ahead and feed the control group and the group that gets fed every other day. That's all for now!" the man finished speaking and the TV turned itself off.

I hope he feeds me a hot pocket or something. I just started craving them and it'd be nice to satisfy that craving. Honestly, I think I'd be fine with whatever. I'm really hungry.

After a minute or two, I heard the door open. The man came into my room and set a can of something down on the floor. I walked over to it as he shut the door. I picked up the can and saw that it was unlabeled. Curiously, I looked inside the can and saw some strange brown mush in it along with a spoon.

I yanked the spoon out of the solid mush and scooped a bit of it. It smelled terrible, but it was all I had to eat. 'Is this some off-brand spam or something?' I thought. Whatever it is, I'm eating it.

I shoved the spoon of mush into my mouth and immediately wanted to spit it out. "This is fucking dog food!" I exclaimed to no one in particular. "He's making us eat dog food!"

Regardless, I forced myself to eat half of a can. I'll eat the second half tomorrow since I won't be fed that day. That dog food made me lose my appetite from earlier. He must think we're animals! It would explain the experiments too since animal testing is pretty common. When I talk, does it sound like barks to him? If he thinks we're animals, then why did he give us hospital gowns to wear? Dogs don't need clothes. Then again, a dog in a hospital gown would be fucking adorable. I imagined a Golden Retriever in a little hospital gown and smiled. It is fucking adorable! Wait, if he's testing us like animals then why did he refer to us as nations? This theory is stupid. What am I thinking?

Maybe this is all a fucked up prank. Any minute now, someone's going to jump out and laugh at me and I'll be able to go home. With today's technology, it wouldn't be hard to animate a person getting realistically stabbed to death. After all, horror movies have gotten so lifelike these days. They'd just need to get Italy to say some lines and show the animation to me. I bet Canada is the one in the costume! He's just playing an elaborate prank!

"Haha, very funny!" I laughed loudly. "Prank's over, Canada! You can take me home now!" The hospital was silent. "You couldn't fool me forever, bro! You've been busted!" I tried to keep laughing, but it started to become fake laughter. "Okay, Canada, joke's over!" I nervously laughed. Then, I stopped laughing. "That's enough. I know it's a prank so there's no point in going on with it still."

This can't be real, right? It has to be fake! It has to be! Canada just wants to scare me a bit more. It'll be okay… Right? Tears started to form in my eyes. "I want to go back home, Canada!" Silent tears started to spill out and drip onto the floor. It's all fake. I'm trying my best to tell myself that it's fake, but it feels so real. In any minute, any second, any day now, he'll laugh. He'll laugh and show everyone how I got pranked so hard… and I'll laugh too. I just want it to be over. All I need is for the joke to end and for me to be back home.

Romano's POV

It has been a few days since the terrorist attack at the meeting place and we still don't know where the man responsible took all of the nations to. He's probably going to hold them ransom. There have been nations held for ransom in the past, but the terrorist never gets anything since nations can't die permanently unless the nation's body or heart is damaged too far. Luckily, that never happens. Terrorists that hold us ransom are always pussies so they only use guns.

As I was mindlessly watching TV, the doorbell suddenly rang. I looked up at the clock and it was 3:00 in the afternoon. That must be the mailman.

I stood up and opened the door. The mailman had already retreated to his mail truck and left behind a small package. On the label was 'Lovino Vargas' which meant it was for me. There was no return address which was a bit strange. Then again, it's probably another one of those free samples that Feliciano signed up to get. He keeps using both his name and my name so that he can get double of whatever he ordered.

Well, Feliciano isn't around so I might as well see what shit he keeps ordering under my name. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. I cut open the package and opened it up. Inside, there was a small disk that was labeled with 'WATCH ME' in Sharpie. What the fuck am I looking at? It's probably loaded with viruses, but I'm curious.

I grab my personal laptop and put the disk in it. My work computer would run much faster, but that computer has important government shit, so I shouldn't use that. I wouldn't want to fuck it up like my brother did. That dumbass used his work computer to download free versions of popular games and ended up giving it malware. He put our government in danger just for some shitty games. I hope that bootleg Minecraft was worth it.

After the disk finished reading, it started to play in Windows Media Player. In white text, "Experiment #001, Pain Endurance of Nations," flashed on the screen. Afterwards, the video showed a hospital room. On the operation table was…. Feliciano?!

The man injected my brother with a syringe and he went limp. The man must have paralyzed him so that Feliciano couldn't run.

"Please don't hurt me! I'll do whatever you want, just don't hurt me! I'm a virgin! You wouldn't want to kill a virgin would you?! I'm just a weak little country that can't defend himself! You wouldn't kill someone who's defenseless would you? I won't bother you at all, I just don't want to die!"

Feliciano wouldn't stop begging while the man kept being a dick to him. Eventually, the man seemed to have enough and he sliced up my brother! As he screamed, I struggled to keep myself from vomiting. It was painful to watch my brother getting tortured. I wanted to believe that this was fake, but those entrails were too real for it to just be special effects. Feliciano was crying immensely. Tears were flowing rapidly down his cheeks and there was nothing I could do to help him. All I could do was watch as he got tortured for the sake of "science".

Eventually, the torture got to the point where Feliciano was begging for death.

"Kill me. Kill me, please," my brother begged. Feliciano, my dear little brother who was always smiling, was begging for death. It absolutely broke my heart to hear his voice go completely emotionless and beg to be killed. A man like him should never have to utter those words. It felt like Hell just to watch so I can't even try to imagine the pain that he's in.

"I still haven't finished the experiment though. I need to know how much pain a nation can bear."

That sick bastard! I can't believe what I'm hearing. That sick fuck is calling this horse shit an experiment?! It makes me want to dig my nails into his throat.

"This is all I can take," Veneziano seemed like he was too weak to talk. His voice was so hoarse and weak. His face that was normally soft and happy was now filled with agony and desperation for death. "Kill me."

Eventually, my poor brother got his wish. The only problem was that the man used a scalpel to stab his lung so Feliciano would not be dying swiftly. Veneziano started to struggle to breathe. He coughed and choked as his body tried its best to keep him alive. He continued to beg for a faster death until the man started to stab him in the abdomen. More blood flowed out of him in an endless stream of crimson.

Eventually, Veneziano's body had enough and my poor brother finally got to immerse himself into the death he had begged for. My chest was in pain as I watched his eyes lose their liveliness and his body relax.

The footage stopped and went to a black screen. In white text, the video said, "This is only the beginning of my mission for a better world. All of you have done wrong. You all ignored me and acted like I was nothing. I will no longer allow you to mistreat me that way. Each of the nations I have in captivity will be experimented on and they will be put to good use. If you want Italy to remain alive for another week, I demand one million euros. If you do not meet my demands, he will be killed permanently. Leave the money under your doormat and one of my associates will collect it for me. You have 72 hours to decide."

The video stopped. I let out a shaky sigh and picked up my phone. With trembling fingers, I dialed Spain's number. After ringing a few times, he picked up.

"Hello, Romano! How are you?" Spain said.

"Have you gotten today's mail?" I asked.

"Yes, I have."

"Did you get any weird packages?"

"I only got a little cardboard box with a disk in it. I thought it was kind of weird, so I decided not to watch anything on it," he replied. "Did you get the same thing?"

"Yeah, that's why I called you. You really don't want to watch what's on the disk."

"Why not, Romano?"

"You know how all those nations disappeared during the attack?"

"Yes."

"Well, the disk showed Italy. He was being tortured and the video states that I have to give the man ransom money or else Italy will die," I said nervously. I never want to think about what I watched again.

"You don't have to worry, Roma! Nations can't die!" He quickly tried to reassure me.

"We can die and you know it!" I yelled into the phone.

"The man probably doesn't know how to permanently kill us. Humans wouldn't know any better."

"He knows, Spain! He threatened to kill Italy permanently. That means that he knows that there's a difference between temporary death and permanent death. Also, he temporarily killed Italy but still made the threat on Italy's life. He knows."

"That sounds serious, Romano! We need to call an emergency meeting!"

"Who do we call, Spain? Germany is usually the one that organizes meetings and helps arrange emergency meetings."

"You can host the meeting, Romano. It doesn't matter who comes, as long as it's enough people that can help out," Spain said.

"Alright, go call as many people as you can. The meeting will be tomorrow at 3:00 pm in the International Meeting Place in Rome. Hopefully, we'll be able to do something to save them."

AN: I finally finished a chapter. Forgive me for never publishing new chapters. Russia's Crazy Dinner Party hasn't been updated in forever and I'm still barely publishing chapters for this story. Who do you guys think the mystery man is? I've left some clues in the story, but I've kind of been misleading you guys to think it's someone else. Either way, you won't get to know who the mysterious dude is until the end of the story. I already have this story almost entirely planned out. I just don't know what to put in the middle of it which sucks.

You know what else sucks? Being a guy in the Hetalia fandom. Whenever I read a Reader Insert fanfic, it assumes I'm a girl. I gave up on Reader Insert fanfics. Also, everyone in the Hetalia fandom will assume I'm a girl when I'm online. Why must I always love things with a fan base full of girls?!

Just to let you guys know, I have a headcannon that most of the nations have an International Meeting Place in their country. They use a different building every different session. I feel like they probably have monthly meetings.

That's enough rambling. I'll see ya next chapter!