"Lu… Lud… One… Er me…ease…"
Gilbert's head spun, his vision nothing more than an inky blur. He tried to leverage himself up with his hands, but with the world spinning around him he found it near impossible. He tried twice until he finally let himself fall to the ground, relishing the feel of the cool grass caressing his sweaty face.
He couldn't figure out what was going on, and even though a voice at the back of his mind said it was important he couldn't find it in himself care. He was too tired; his limbs were limp and his head was pounding fiercely against his skull. He decided that whatever was nagging at him would have to be put on the back burner, if only for a little while.
"Elp… So dar... Ould jus… Bert… Gilbert."
Gilbert's consciousness finally started coming back when he heard his name being spoken by a familiar static-ridden voice. He gasped and tried to get up again, but he could still not find the power in himself. Instead of trying to stand, Gilbert pathetically dragged himself along the grassy ground, vision still blurry as he reached out blindly for the radio. He needed to get to it, he needed to ask for help.
Gilbert furiously blinked his eyes, trying to will away the dizziness that was stealing his vision. He could hear everything around him clearly despite his feeble vision, and what he heard told him something very bad had happened to them. He could hear a faint crying, somewhere off in the distance, and he could hear moans of pain from all around him.
"Damn it," Gilbert spat out through his teeth, clawing at the cold, dew covered ground to propel himself forward. He laid flat on his stomach and spread his arms out, patting the ground for the radio he knew was nearby. If only he could see, things would be a lot easier for him.
"Someone answer me," Heracles hectic voice filtered through. "Please tell me you guys are OK?"
There it was.
Gilbert reached out to his left and was instantly rewarded as his hand landed on the bulky black radio.
"Heracles," Gilbert said as he brought the damaged radio to his lips. "We crashed."
"I know," Heracles said, frustration present in his normally soft and calm voice. "What I want to know is if you're all OK."
"I don't know," Gilbert said, still trying to calm his wavering vision. "I must have hit my head pretty hard because I can't see anything."
"Damn it," Heracles cursed, "after all that, this has to happen." After Heracles' voice died away, the sound of things smashing and breaking boomed through the radio. Heracles was angry, angrier than Gilbert thought the man could ever get. Just hearing his frustration wanted to make Gilbert scream.
Gilbert brought the radio away from his ear and looked around, trying hard to see through his messy vision. Through the blur, Gilbert could make out the light of a fire, and very faintly, someone's hunched figure. Gilbert built up all of his strength and bit through the pain as he finally sat up, albeit weakly, so he he could approach the figure. He finally got a chance to look down at himself, and even through the haze he could see dark patches of blood covering the front of his pants. And, considering there was no pain in his lower body, this meant the blood wasn't his.
Gilbert tried to hold back the fear and sickness welling up in him as he dragged himself over to the hunched figure on his backside. From where he was, he couldn't make out exactly who it was, he only knew that he needed to get over to check on them. He could faintly see a few others writhing around on the ground and coming to, but this person wasn't moving at all. They only sat there, seemingly staring off into the distance.
Gilbert only hoped that he wasn't going to be the first person to find one of the group members dead.
Gilbert dropped the radio to the ground, deciding that Heracles could be of no more help at this point. It was up to them to get themselves together and leave the site of the accident, Heracles and Roderich themselves would do nothing but hinder them at this point. They had no other cars to drive, and the added presence would probably only attract more of the infected. He listened to Heracles voice blatting through the speaker, but ignored it in favour of dragging himself closer to the hunched figure. With just two yanks at the ground, he reached forward and had his hand on the shoulder of the blurry figure.
Gilbert shook his hand and when the figure didn't move, he felt panic rising up into his gullet like a lead block. But, despite this, he swallowed down his fear and shook again, and as if his prayers were being answered, the hunched figure finally reacted to him.
First, they sucked in a deep breath of air, and second, they started looking around frantically, asking where they were. From what Gilbert could see, they weren't too injured. There was blood dripping down the person's tanned face, but he was otherwise unharmed. He could see, and he was responding to the noises he was hearing from all around him accordingly.
With fright.
The person panicked for a while, and Gilbert allowed the person that liberty for a moment. He didn't want to shake the person too much, so he allowed for him to come to his conclusions and remember on his own grounds.
"Oh my god," the person said when he turned toward Gilbert, sizing him up carefully. "Your head," he said, hand reaching out and pressing against the side of Gilbert's head, causing him to cry out.
It seemed that Gilbert was more injured that what he had initially thought.
"We need to treat that," he said. "Can you see right now?"
Judging by the concern, and understanding in that voice, it was obviously the nurse that had escaped the hospital that was talking to him. Only a nurse would be worrying about someone else before themselves like that. "Yeah, I'm having some trouble seeing," Gilbert said. "I can still see the outline of things, but my vision is really poor."
"OK," the nurse said. "You have a pretty severe concussion, but at least you're able to speak properly and move around."
Gilbert felt the nurse grabbing his hands, and pressing into the palm. He then felt the nurse grabbing at his knees. Gilbert only realized half way through the examination that the nurse was testing his muscles.
"We crashed," Gilbert said, still squinting his eyes as he tried to see around himself. "It was another van."
The nurse stopped his examination at this, dropping Gilbert's hands back into his lap. It seemed as though the nurse was finally realizing what had happened, and where exactly he was. He looked around himself one final time, and took to his feet in a flurry.
"Wait here," he said as he ran off into the darkness.
Gilbert blinked his eyes a few times, listening to the sounds of the dying world around him as he tried to gain his bearings. He wanted to at least be able to find his brother. However, his concussion wasn't allowing him to do so. He would be forced into letting the nurse see for him when he got back. If he got back.
Gilbert heard a shuffling from behind him, and turned to see what it was. He had assumed it would be his brother, or another survivor, so he began talking. "Are you hurt?" Gilbert asked, reaching his hand out for the figure he could not quite see through his weakened vision. "I'm kind of blind right now, so if you could make some noise it would be great."
What Gilbert didn't expect was a loud groan, and the sound of something wet slapping against the ground. Gilbert backed up; using his hands and his feet to carry himself away from whatever was coming his way. The last thing Gilbert needed in his state was an infected person attacking him and taking him down. He had barely been able to hold one back when he was perfectly healthy, he highly doubted he could defend himself very much in his weakened state. He couldn't even stand up without falling to the ground in pain.
Gilbert backed up further, panicking as he listened to the sound of the infected steadily approaching. He should have known this would have happened after the crash, after all, it was night time and a lot of blood had probably been shed. Gilbert himself had blood pouring down the side of his face like a river, dripping against his shirt in a steady rhythm If anything they would be surrounded in no time. With the stench of blood so thick in the air it would probably even attract the ones as far off as the hospital and the highway.
Gilbert felt his vision wavering, and he cursed his own weakness when he felt his legs giving out underneath him. They could no longer support him so he had to resort to dragging himself with his hands away from the threat.
Gilbert eventually found his arms weakening, and he had to strain to drag himself. He was lucky for the asphalt underneath him because he wouldn't have been able to drag himself away so quickly had he still been stuck in the high grass. However, with his arms even beginning to shut down, and his eyelids becoming heavy, he didn't think he had very long anyway. 'sorry, little brother,' Gilbert thought as his arms finally gave out.
He was lucky that the infected wasn't coming at him fast.
He heard the sound of flesh rending from behind him, and for a moment he thought it was his own. He only started understanding what had happened when he heard another person from behind him.
"Are you OK?" A soft voice asked from behind him, it almost sounded as if he were whispering. Gilbert knew that this person wasn't part of their group, and that they must have been from the other van.
Gilbert opened his mouth to answer, but found that he couldn't get anything to come out. He was so exhausted, and he had lost so much blood that he was barely able to keep his eyes open.
The person talking from behind him approached him even though he didn't answer, and he listened as they knelt down beside his head. "You're hurt, really bad too."
Gilbert tried to muster a 'no duh,' but he couldn't quite get it out, only a painful choking noise escaped his tightened throat. It was almost as if this person had rendered him speechless without even looking at him.
He blamed it on the adrenaline.
Gilbert almost shouted when he felt his body being turned over, only to realize that the person from before was just inspecting him; probably for bites or other injuries. Gilbert looked up at the person's face as they inspected him. He was a boy, probably no older than 20, with glasses and shoulder-length blonde hair. He looked incredibly sweet, almost girlish.
Gilbert, deciding that this man could mean no harm, finally let his eyes slip shut.
"Lovino," Antonio said breathlessly as he ran to the fallen form of his patient. "Thank God, I was so worried!" Antonio dropped down beside Lovino and checked his emaciated body for serious damage, and thanked God aloud when he didn't find any serious injuries.
Lovino, however, still seemed pretty shaken from the accident. His eyelids were fluttering madly, and tears made their way down his cheeks.
Antonio checked Lovino over one more time before he picked him up and carried him over to the nearest survivors. Some of them Antonio didn't know, but the burly German, his older brother, and the Japanese man were there, along with one bespectacled blonde man, and another blonde man with thick eyebrows who seemed to be in the middle of a panic attack. They seemed decent enough, but Antonio would not have left Lovino there if it weren't for Gilbert, Ludwig and Kiku.
Antonio leaned over and carefully placed Lovino on the soft grass beside the other survivors, carefully looking them over one more time. They were lucky; so far none of the survivors had any severe wounds on their person.
They hadn't found the others yet, however.
Antonio stood up and stretched his aching arms before he looked over at the others who were awake. "Are there any more," Antonio asked, "survivors, I mean?"
The quiet blonde with the glasses nodded his head, "my step-brother, and two Nordic foreigners, their names are Tino and Berwald. They speak perfect English, though. Als- also Arthur's baby brother, we can't find him."
Antonio felt his heart sink at this, the idea that another baby would die because of him made him want to fall apart all over again. He watched as the man with the large eyebrows sunk to the ground, cradling his head in his hands as he began to sob violently, back shaking. He must have been Arthur.
Antonio ground his teeth and left the site, asking for Arthur to tag along with him, they needed to find that baby, and he needed to find the rest of the survivors before the infected got to them first.
Tino coughed from where he was positioned against a large tree-trunk, Baby Peter cradled against his heaving chest.
He had found the baby, lying on the ground beside Matthew's body after the accident. He knew Matthew was still alive by the quick rise and fall of his chest, but he didn't want to leave Peter with him in fear that the baby would be taken by one of the infected while Matthew was out. However, as soon as Tino had taken the baby only 15 feet away from the scene of the accident, he had been chased down by one of the infected himself.
He should have known better.
Now, Tino was stuck up against a tree, far away from where the accident had taken place. He knew that he needed to get back, to show them that he was fine and so was Peter, but he couldn't quite muster the courage to do so. There were infected everywhere, and it seemed that as soon as he took a step, there was one waiting to chase him down even further away from the site of the accident. Tino huffed out a deep breath into the baby's soft blonde locks, and looked around the tree he was leaning against for anymore of the creatures from before.
There were none; at least, as far as he could see.
Tino gathered his courage and started slowly making his way back to the site of the accident; he needed to find the others.
He needed to make sure that Berwald and the others were all right.
Alfred's cognitive functions took a long time to catch up with his sight, but when they did catch up he realized where he was and what had happened almost instantly. His back ached and the stream of blood pouring from his arm was on par with the Niagara Falls. His head still spun from when the car rolled, and his stomach still felt like gravity had pushed it up into chest.
"Fuck," Alfred said as he realized exactly where he had ended up after the crash. He was lying in the middle of the woods with the motor from the car lying not even 5 feet away from his head.
He had been thrown.
He dragged himself over to the nearest tree and propped himself up against it, sighing into the cold night air, watching as his breath danced with the breeze. He knew that if he followed the car parts he would get back to the crash site, but part of him didn't want to get back to the crash site. Alfred was afraid of what he would find when he got there. If the car was so destroyed that the motor was lying all the way in the woods, then that couldn't mean anything good for any of his friends. He would much rather settle for not knowing anything than seeing the broken and bloody bodies of the people he had come to see as his own family.
Alfred was about to let his eyes slip closed when he remembered what kind of situation they were really in. There wouldn't be any ambulances and doctors rushing to save them, there wouldn't be curious individuals coming to make sure they were alright, there wouldn't be any kind of help. The only person, or rather, thing that would come to check on them would be the infected, and they would not be there to help them.
At this point, they could only help each other.
The thought of the infected picking at his friends, ripping them apart as they were still alive and incapacitated, finally got Alfred moving away from the large oak tree he was leaning against. Even though pain ripped through his body, he pushed on through it. If a little pain was all it took to save his friends, then he was more than willing to put up with it for their sake.
Alfred walked past the broken motor, hoping that he was heading in the right direction. He made a deal with himself that if he didn't see a car part in 5 minutes, he would turn back and try the other way. Alfred was lucky, however, as he was only a few feet away from the motor when he came across another car part. A van door lay in a crumpled heap, the only semblance it had to the van door was its colour, and a handle that stuck out of the side like a weird mutation.
Alfred looked at the crumpled piece of the vehicle for a long time, looking for blood, hair, or anything that would tell him someone was injured by it. But, lucky for Alfred, there was no trace of the door having caused any damage to anything or anyone but itself.
"Good," Alfred whispered to himself as he staggered further on, hoping to finally break out onto the street soon. Even the familiar moans and groans of the infected would make him feel better at this point. Anything that would help him take his mind off of the possible death of his friends.
That was when Alfred heard it, a voice, completely unfamiliar to him. However, despite this voice being unfamiliar to him, it wasn't the voice of one of the infected creatures. This voice was talking clearly, and whoever it was sounded like they were distressed.
Alfred realized it was probably someone from the other van they had crashed into.
Alfred ran, ignoring the protesting in his limbs as he made his way over to the voice, only slowing to a crawl so as not to scare the person away.
"Who's there?" A small, heavily accented voice called out to him from behind a tree.
"It's – it's alright, I was in the van that hit into yours," Alfred said, "at least I think that was you in the other van."
Everything grew silent as the voice took in what Alfred had said.
Then, suddenly, almost causing Alfred to jump, the person came out from behind the tree. He was a slight man, no taller than 5'5", and he had light auburn hair framing a gentle looking face. However, his face was the last thing Alfred could focus on. This man had a huge gash on his chest, running from his right set of ribs to his left set of ribs. And though the wound was clearly shallow, it still leaked blood like a waterfall. The front of his body was almost drenched in blood.
Alfred swallowed hard, tensing himself as the man got closer and closer.
He stopped, "why did you hit us?"
"Wha-" Alfred started; confused by the question the boy was posing.
"Why did you hit us?"
Alfred felt his heart speed up; he hadn't meant to hit them. He hadn't meant to cause all the damage he had, but he had done it anyway. He had been reckless, and he had caused harm, and possibly death to some innocent people. The only thing he could the tell the – presumably – Italian man in front of him was that he wasn't paying attention to the road.
However, before he could even open his mouth, the Italian man began shooting more questions his way.
"I can't find my big brother," he sobbed, holding his blood stained hands up to his face. "I just got him back, and now I've lost him again."
"I'm sorry," Alfred said, trying to calm the frantic man.
"I can't find anyone," he said, hands clenching into fists before his face. "Everyone is gone, I don't even know where I am. The infected people could have already eaten them all."
"No," Alfred started, waving his hands in front of his chest frantically. "Look, if you follow me, we'll get back to the crash site and look for everyone."
The Italian finally pulled his hands away from his face at this point, gritting his teeth as he looked at Alfred. "Why, you remember where you hit into us?"
Alfred swallowed hard; the face the boy was making didn't suit him at all. Just from looking at him Alfred knew that he wasn't a person who got angry frequently. He had caused this, he had made this gentle spirit a vicious one. "Look," Alfred said, hardening his voice so that the Italian would hear him. "I really didn't mean to hit into you guys, I mean, I had a lot of people in the van with me. There was a baby in there, man; I wouldn't have recklessly put him in danger."
The ferocity in the Italian's eyes seemed to settle, but he still looked wary of Alfred.
"And really, why would I purposely crash into a van with possible survivors in this kind of world? If anything, I would have tried to communicate with you guys. The more survivors, the better. Right? "
The Italian man was quiet after Alfred had finished speaking. All semblance of his anger had disappeared, and now he only seemed depressed, lethargic, like he had completely given up. His shoulders were hunched forward pitifully, and tears continued to race through the blood on his face, creating gruesome tracks on his skin.
"I'm sorry," the Italian man said, "I'm just so tired of all this."
Alfred awkwardly took a few cautious steps forward, clapping his hand on the Italian's shoulder. "It's OK, I think we're all tired of this. It seems to be one tragedy after another."
The Italian sniffed and brought the back of his hand to his eyes, trying to wash the tears away but only managing to smear more blood. "I'm Feliciano," the boy held out his bloody hand to Alfred.
Alfred grabbed his hand despite the blood covering it, figuring there was no point in worrying about touching other people's blood any more He was covered in at least four different people's blood, another wouldn't hurt. "I'm Alfred." Alfred let go of the hand, "now come one, let's go find our friends before those things get to them first."
"Berwald," Tino called out, racing to the tall blonde man's side. He dropped to his knees beside his fallen form and immediately checked for his pulse. It was steady, normal, but Berwald's eyes remained closed despite this. It was almost as if he was in a deep sleep.
Maybe a state of shock.
Peter gurgled something under his breath and reached out for Berwald, hands gripping his matted blonde locks in two tight fists.
"Peter," Tino whispered harshly, "stop that."
Tino's mistake – which could arguably be seen as a good choice – was scolding the small child. Peter had never taken well to being scolded or being kept from doing something, so when he was scolded, he would cry. It started first with Peter's bottom lip sticking out in a prominent pout, then it went on to Peter's chin quivering.
Then the sobbing started. Low bursts at first, but quickly turning into loud, blatting sobs.
"Oh no, Peter, not now," Tino begged, gathering the child up into a tight embrace, rocking him back and forth in an attempt to calm the hungry, and tired child. However, his coaxing wasn't going to help the child, and he knew this right from the point the child started crying. Not only did Peter not like being scolded, but he was tired and hungry, all of these factors would make it almost impossible to stop the child from crying his eyes out.
While he had expected this right from when he pulled the child out of his crib, he didn't expect it to happen at such an inopportune moment.
What he also didn't expect was the child to bring him good fortune when he began crying.
From behind him he heard the sound of trees rustling, and at the same time, Berwald's eyes finally opened, looking up at him incredulously. Tino looked over his shoulder at the approaching sound, and began frantically speaking to the still somewhat dazed Berwald. "We need to leave, those things are coming and Peter is crying really loud. They're going to have us surrounded in no time."
Berwald looked around himself, blinking the dust out of his eyes and wiping his glasses with the hem of his shirt. Although he seemed to be completely confused, he still listened to Tino's words carefully. He reached his hands out and grabbed the colicky child from Tino, cradling him close to his chest and standing up without any warning. The baby's cries slowly degenerated into nothing but small, occasional whines.
"Where are they?" Berwald asked, looking around them for the threat.
"The woods," Tino said, keeping a steadying hand on Berwald's shoulders.
They both grew silent as they listened to the sounds of the leaves on the trees rustling.
"See," Tino whispered harshly, "now let's go, we shouldn't just wait around for them to come out of there."
Tino started backing up away from the trees, getting ready to leave the scene when Berwald's arm shot out, keeping Tino from running away. And, judging by the lack of haze in Berwald's eyes, it seemed like he remembered that they had been in a severe car crash.
Tino didn't know what Berwald was thinking.
"It might be one of our own," Berwald said.
"We can't take that chance right now, Berwald," Tino said, indicating his leg. "At least, I don't think I can."
Berwald looked down at Tino's wounded leg with shock; he had completely forgot that Tino had been shot.
"OK," Berwald said, grabbing Tino by the arm as he got ready to leave. However, they didn't have time to even get their feet working before whoever, or whatever was in the woods, came bursting out on the other side.
"Thank God," Alfred said through gasping breaths, chest heaving violently as he approached the two blondes. "I was so scared that something bad had happened to everyone."
Tino and Berwald both let out a sigh of relief as Alfred approached them, only to look cautiously at the young man following close behind Alfred.
"Who is that?" Tino asked, taking one step back as he stared at the man with the large gash in his chest.
"He was in the other van," Alfred said without skipping a beat. "I found him in the woods when I woke up."
"You ended up way out in the woods," Tino said incredulously, "and somehow you managed to not have anything broken?"
"I guess not," Alfred said, laughing as he scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. "But I'm glad none of you are hurt either, now it's just a matter of finding the others."
"I know Matthew's alright," Tino said. "He was unconscious when I left him, and he was holding Peter. I was afraid that because he was unconscious he would hurt the baby, or something would happen, so I took Peter away. Sadly, I got chased off, so I don't really know where he is right now."
"Shit," Alfred said, looking down at the debris covered ground as he chewed on his bottom lip. "What about any of the others? Francis?" Alfred seemed to consider something for a while. "Arthur?"
Tino shrugged sadly, "sorry, I don't know. I just found Berwald now, actually." Tino looked past Alfred and back at the younger man again, still worried about his presence. Sure, he looked safe enough, but nobody really knew him. The thing Tino really wanted to know the most was why that van had crashed into them in the first place, and how they hadn't seen their headlights coming or heard the sound of the car approaching them.
It was a cold, quiet night. There was no way they hadn't at least heard them.
However, before Tino could even ask the young man the questions on his mind, the sound of someone – no, a few people - approaching from down the road caught their attention. They all looked up, only to see two familiar faces walking out from the shroud of darkness.
"Antonio," the young man with the cut on his chest said.
"Arthur," Alfred said, voice overlapping Feliciano's.
"Ah, Feliciano," Antonio said happily, running over to the young man's side only to pull back quickly at the sight of the man's gored chest. "Oh my God," Antonio said, squinting as he tried to see the wound through the dark. "Please tell me that's not as deep as it looks from here."
"It's not deep," Feliciano said, reassuring the panicked dark haired man. "It's only a flesh wound, it doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter?" the dark haired man asked him incredulously. "It's still dangerous and it could still get infected!"
Tino, however, had lost track of their conversation halfway through as Arthur started approaching them, a look of relief present on his face. "Oh thank God, Peter."
Tino smiled at him, "I found him with Matthew, but he was passed out so I thought it would be better to take Peter away."
"You made the right choice," Arthur said, rubbing his little brother's head, putting a smile on the child's tear-swollen face.
"We've found everyone now," Arthur said. "We're all safe."
A/N: I don't know guys, I didn't originally plan to have PruCan in here, but I accidentally PruCan'd a little bit because it seemed kind of cute.
Anyway, it's really up to you guys at this point. Do you want me to continue the love triangle between Prussia, Austria and Hungary? Or, do you want me to continue on with the Prussia/Canada dynamic? Do you want me to involve him in both? Remember, there are very few pairings that I dislike in Hetalia, so I don't really care what you guys decide.
You need to comment, though, and choose wisely because whoever you choose decides the fate of the Awesome Prussia!