Denmark

As soon as I had seen the news segment revealing a crash, my heartbeat raced and my palms had been sweating. Especially the location of the crash, seeing as it wasn't very far from where Norway works, it was on the route he normally… took… As soon as the news was over I shut the television off and closed my eyes. I did something I hadn't done in a while, which was pray. I prayed to every god I knew of and had once believed in. I prayed to all the gods that I hated, the ones that weren't even a religion in my nation, the ones of ancient civilizations that have long been forgotten, anyone and everyone that I thought might be able to help I prayed to. I swore as the phone rung five minutes later. It was a young Norwegian woman, based off of the fact that she was talking in Norwegian. I responded, and sure enough my worst nightmare had come true.

The victim of the crash that had been hospitalized was Norway.

I had been worried about him, his government was beginning to fall apart, the people were confused and no advancements were being conducted due to contradiction in the population.

I immediately rushed over to the hospital that I had gotten the call from. As I entered I gave frantic looks to the workers, asking where he was. They reluctantly told me where he was and also informed me that I couldn't run down the corridors, so I walked as fast as possible to the room they told me he was in.

When my eyes rested on him my heart felt like it was snapping in half. His head was turned to the side, his eyes shut and his face appearing peaceful. There were bandages wrapped all around his forehead, arms and chest, and probably all over his legs. There were uncovered cuts all across his cheeks, some on his neck and more all over his hands. Some of the bandages had already been bled through, leaving red stains all over his body; at times the color neared black from a high concentration of clotted blood. His chest rose at an uneven, slow pace and the monitor beeped his heartbeat loudly at the doctors.

What ruined me the lost were the tubes injected into him. He had at least three in just one arm, one pumping blood into him from a bag hanging next to his bed, the other attached to a machine and another going to the monitor. There was a tube wrapped around the front of his face, going over the space between the top of his ears and his head, entering his nostrils and forcing air into his lungs. My reaction was nothing more than my knees giving way. I collapsed so that I was sitting on the ground and supporting my torso with my arms, but I just stared at him in disbelief. "This… can't be happening," I said, not dropping my gaze from him. After a few minutes I pulled myself back onto my feet using a nearby chair as support for my weak legs. I sucked in and wheezed out air from my lungs. I sat down in the chair I had pulled myself up in and crossed my hands on my lap, shutting my eyes and calming myself down. When my heartbeat had slowed and I was calmer I reopened my eyes and stood up. I walked over to his bedside, holding a hand over my mouth in subconscious shock. I tentatively reached down and covered his hand with mine. For a second –I know it was just my imagination– I could have sworn that his fingers twitched toward my palm.

I stayed at the hospital with him that night.

If anything happened, if he got worse or better I wanted to know as soon as possible so I could be there for him, and seeing as how long it would take me to get there… it would be much easier to stay. I almost dozed off twice, so I went down the hall and got a cup of black coffee for myself. While I was there I brewed another cup for him, just in case he woke up, putting his favorite toppings in and stirring it. When I got back to the room he was still resting. I don't have any idea what could possibly be going through his mind, but I know that my mind was racing, fifty thoughts flying into my focus by the minute.

The same process repeated itself for the next day. I would stand up and get two cups of coffee, only to come back and set one down on the small table next to his bed. I then dumped the old and chilled cups down the sink in the room's bathroom. I could tell the nurses and doctors were worried about me, but I would blow them off every time they offered any help.

When the count had gone to two and a half days, I was worn down and slightly malnourished. I have a feeling it was about that time when I began to have hallucinations, or something like hallucinations. I started to talk to myself, and sometimes to him.

I know it's crazy, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, he would hear me.

Either way, after talking to him for what felt like a long time, the heartbeat monitor unexpectedly picked up in its pace of beeping. The doctors and nurses ran in, and I could have sworn that my heart plummeted to my stomach.

They asked me whether I wanted them to put Norway on life support or not, but I declined the offer. Tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped onto Norway's face, but I didn't care nor bother to wipe them away. As his heartbeat began to stop, I felt that mine did too. When Norway's heart had completely halted, I knew that he had little more than a minute to live. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his forehead, letting my mouth linger on his pale skin. I pulled away and placed the top of my head against his until one of the doctors touched my shoulder, announcing that the man lying on the bed was no longer alive.

They were announcing that my best friend, someone I had grown up with, someone of whom had been so close to me and so dear to my heart was dead.

Gone.

Lost.

Norway was dead, and he was never coming back.

I shut my eyes, nodding to show that I had heard them, taking a step away from Norway's corpse. My face remained emotionless all except for a single tear that rolled down my cheek, of which I didn't wipe away.

A week later I showed up to an old church that still stood from the Viking era, donning an old black suit. My face was solemn and expressionless as I went up the staircase, holding a rather large bouquet of flowers and a sheathed sword's hilt hitting my leg every now and then. When I entered the church the priest and other volunteers stared at me, probably because I was three hours early. I nodded a greeting to them, moving into the room where later on, people would be gathering and saying their last goodbyes. I leaned against the wall, pulling a single flower from the bouquet.

It was Norway's favorite flower, –or at least had been– purple heather. I raised it up to my nose, inhaling its scent. It reminded me of him, and how one day when we were little I found him in a small meadow lying among the flowers, smiling like an idiot. When he had seen me, he picked a small blossom and held it out to me with a smile still on his face. I had stared right into the center of the flower, just as I was now. I shut my eyes and moved the flower away from my focus of attention, but when I moved the flower the meadow, sky, mountains and Norway disappeared, and the memory faded until it was replaced with the wall of the church. I looked back at the flower and sighed, twirling it between two of my fingers. I had a vacant expression as I put the flower back, right on top.

About an hour later others began to arrive. Sweden, Sealand and Finland came, Sealand serious and calm for once. I tried to smile, but it was strained and pathetic. The others all felt the weight that I was feeling, although I most certainly felt it the most. Iceland arrived shortly after, but when I went up to him he was unresponsive, his eyes open to the degree of permanent shock. I rest my hand on his shoulder for a few moments in an attempt to be greeting/comforting. Both of us had that vacant look in our eyes, the only window to our soul that showed just how much was missing from it.

Just how much had been lost from it, exactly how much had been stolen from us.

"I… I never said thank you…" Iceland whispered, more to himself than to me. "I only blew him off and pushed him away…" His eyes were widening in shock, more with himself than with what had happened. I kept my arm around him for a moment longer before removing it from his shoulders.

"I'm sure you didn't need to tell him, that he already knew." I whispered back before leaving him with Sweden and Finland.

Norway's corpse arrived shortly after.

I had to take deep and long calming breaths before I was able to approach him. He was in his finest bunad styled suit, his hair pristine and exactly like he would always style it. The only thing that was missing was his hair pin. I was the first to approach him, so I brushed the hair on the left side of his face back, searching my pocket.

I had found it in the hospital in the bag of personal belongings that had been removed so they could work their doctor magic on him. I set down the bouquet as I opened the pin with my teeth and slid it into its proper place. I reached over and plucked the purple lilac from the bouquet, taking in a short breath before I lifted Norway's arms, of which were crossed over his stomach and placed the flower underneath them.

After the services the body was taken outside and to the nearest open water source. As the sun was setting we took a large rock and carved in Norway's many aliases in the ancient Nordic runes, Kongeriget Norge at the very top, then again in the modern day lettering. The dates of birth and death were carved underneath the names, and I then stepped forward, offering an additional carving. I leaned down and took the tools in my hands. I thought for a few moments before I began carving what I felt expressed the matter correctly.

Therefore, I carved in the words "If I could reach out and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hands."

I stepped back and blankly stared at the words, not breaking my focus on them as I handed the carver his tools back.

Soon enough, Norway's corpse was being sent off inside a longship that he and I had made together not too long ago as we reminisced. The longship had been filled with purple heather and other flowers people had brought for Norway, surrounding his body in petals. The sword that I had put in the sheath on my waist was put in Norway's hands, the hilt facing his chin and the blade his stomach.

It had been his, and no true warrior would dare die or be buried without his sword, after all.

I watched the ship sail off into the ocean, the small flame that we had sent him off with catching fuel and spreading. In a matter of minutes I saw the wood of the ship creating a bonfire that reflected itself in the water beneath.

I swapped my attention to Iceland and saw him watching the engulfing flames with a blank expression. I slowly put my arm around his shoulders, merely for him to sense someone familiar. He didn't move or shove me off, just stood completely still, his gaze unblinking.

"Things'll never be the same again, will they?" He asked softly and I turned my eyes to the ground.

"Never." I said, and the flames burned on, their smoke joining the dark sky above. He would never know, but on the day that Norway died, a part of all the Nordics died along with him.

We would never recover.

We would never forget.

Most of all however, we would never cease missing him.

One day I went back to the grave with a wreath of weaved wheat, tied with a ribbon that brandished the Norwegian flag. It had been a year since his death, but the gravestone engravings were just as fresh as the day they had been carved. I ran my fingers over the letters, letting my eyes stare at them without truly reading them. Ever since he had died, I hadn't been the same. I stayed inside my home or in Norway. In addition, I had not smiled, laughed or even enjoyed living since that day. I had visited Iceland occasionally, but he was struggling and rarely left his home, only to get the occasional trip to a store to get barely enough food to last him until the next time he would leave home. He was a shell of who he used to be, exactly like me. I watched the waters roll in, crash against the shore below and fall back again. Ever-so slowly I walked down to the water, taking off my shoes and socks, laying them higher up on the path. Then I went to a place where the water washed up around my ankles and shut my eyes. These were the waters that held him. They were the ones where his body had been burned and his ashes had sunk.

For a second, I could feel him next to me and almost heard him say "I miss you, but don't want to see you become weak. Stay strong, Denmark, and never let the world forget me."

They say one of the reasons we people are able to see ghosts or hear them is when we miss them so incredibly much that they appear in the form of hallucinations. I didn't want to think of Norway as only a hallucination, I wanted him to be real, I wanted to stand next to him, I wanted time to go backwards to when we were young and careless and were so strong that England and France couldn't take any of us down.

I wanted Norway back. More than anything, I wanted him to still be here. The ground beneath my feet and the waters splashing around my ankles, all the fjords and mountains and cliffs that Norway used to boast about, they had lost their beauty. The nation was becoming less and less patriotic, more and more people were emigrating. Of course, that had most likely been what had caused Norway's death, seeing as us nations are more so the spirit of the country we represent.

But if the world never forgets Norway, and its fall is as remembered as the fall of Prussia, there was a chance, a slim, slim chance that he would come back.

I pledged, "The world shall never forget my best friend" on that day, and stuck to it.

And, well, while it hasn't been long, I haven't gotten to the point where I can say Norway has come back yet or not, seeing as I added these last few paragraphs the day they occurred.

In other words, the future is up to your imagination.

Therefore, please, never forget Kongeriket Norge.