Okay, I really need to stop passing out. It needs to stop being a thing. Waking up once you pass out is not a very fun experience and I would appreciate never having to experience it again, thank you very much.

But there are some upsides to waking up after passing out. I mean of course everything gets all fuzzy and the world seems to be moving in slow motion and nothing seems quite right, but sometimes that is what is great about it.

At least from my experience.

Somehow I always, at least these last two times, lose consciousness right about when I would have had a heart attack. Or at least seriously freaked out.

Why was I freaking out anyway in the first place?

See that is what is so great about passing out. For a moment, just a moment, your brain is far too jumbled up to remember why you passed out in the first place.

And then it all comes crashing back in with the force of a tidal wave.

I may be a human.

I shoot straight up from my position of lying down on the couch. Some part of me realizes that the sun is still high in the sky and that I am surrounded by more people than those who were there than when I passed out. Somewhere in the back of my mind I notice that everyone is staring at me like they have seen a ghost and that my parents are sitting/kneeling next to me within moments.

But as I said all of that is happening without me really noticing. Most of my brain, most of my entire being, is trying to find that connection that only us nations have. The connection to our land, our people, our basis for who we are.

I am searching for proof of my existence.

And I can't find it as easily as I thought I would. It is like it is buried behind something, so close yet so far from my reach. I can feel echoes, like whispers, bouncing around in my head but nothing like how it normally is. I can normally feel the thoughts, hopes, and dreams of my people with ease. But now it is like trying to listen to a conversation through a wall. The connection I have is weak and frayed and I can't get the firm grasp on anything that I normally can when I try.

Is this what it feels like to be a nation who has become a human?

It has to be the worst fate ever if so, and I may have just been condemned to it. To be able to know that your people are there, and that they need you, but to not be able to help them. Of course they don't know they need you, but you will as you have to watch the government crumble, the economy go up in flames, and the country go down in smoke.

I have to know for sure though. I have to grit my teeth and bear it and just ask if I am a human or not. And as I open my mouth to speak I realize something.

I don't want to know the answer.

But I need it from the very basis of my being. I need some kind of confirmation about my place in this world.

Am I still like them, like my parents, family, and friends? Will I stay with them as the centuries pass? Will I continue to watch my people grow and develop as they have these past years? Do I still have the right to say that I am a valid representation the people of Sparentano? Am I even Sparentano anymore?

Or am I now an outsider? Am I just Nadja now? A girl who has more knowledge than the normal human, and only a high school degree? Am I the girl who is surrounded by the supernatural but not one herself? Who am I?

Oh yes, I need to know the answer.

"England" I say, though quite shakily "am I a human?"

The room becomes alive with a flurry of voices at the question. I struggle to make out what is said but only certain things rise over the exuberant outcries of the nations around me.

"-Like totally not possible-"

"-Have you ever heard of such a thing-"

"-That poor girl-"

"-Hn-"

"-Brother. Is she going to-"

"-Iggy what did you-"

"-This is just horrible. I can't-"

"Ve/Verdamnit will everyone be quiet!" I hear Mom and Dad yell over the noise, and suddenly the room goes quiet.

"England. Answer her." Dad manages to growl out. His face seems to be hard set in stone but I can see the worry lines on his forehead and I know that he is not taking this well at all. Neither is Mom for that matter, as he is clinging on to Dads arm for dear life. He also has one of my hands in a death grip. Both of their eyes, though Moms more noticeably than Dads, are filled with unshed tears.

"There is only one way to know." England says while trying to keep a straight face but it is obvious he is worried. I don't know if he is worried more about my actual well-being or the fact that if looks could kill Dad would have killed him by now.

England turned to look at me and continued. "You just have to reach inside yourself and see if you can make a connection with any one of your people. The spell should create some blockage there, as it was meant to take away the cause of your stress. You should however be able to connect with your people despite this because you are a country."

"So I just have to make a connection. That's it?" I ask, because surely the test cannot be that simple.

"That is it." England replies.

Or maybe it can.

"Okay. Here I go." I say more to myself than anyone. I close my eyes, take a deep breathe, and reach.

I will try and describe the way I feel but it is kind of hard to if you are not a nation. Imagine you are in a room full of string, okay no not a room more like three football fields full of string. And each string is very fine and thin and yet each one is different. They are different on color, temperature, length, weight, and they slightly vary in thickness. Each of those strings represents a person.

What I am trying to do is gab on to one of those strings, but it is much harder than I thought it would be. Before they practically called to me like sirens singing to sailors, each of them wanting my attention. Now their voices are muffled and some don't even seem to be there at all anymore.

And when I reach for one? It is like I am a ghost and they continue to slip through my fingers. But I cannot give up. Not here, and not like this. I will not abandon my people if I have any say in it. So I continue to try and the longer I do the closer I get to holding one. I am starting to feel the strings and I am not gliding through them like air anymore. I am more like water, touching them but not containing them.

And then it happens. I can see here clear as day with her waist length brown hair and her hazel eyes. She is a junior in college and studying to be a psychologist. She has 2 older brothers and a younger sister, but is the first to go to college. She is walking down one of the many side streets of my capital on her way to an out of the way coffee shop that I visit on occasion. She is going there for a blind date her friends set up, and she hopes that the person there will be her soul mate. When she opens the door she locks eyes with a man in the corner booth, the man she was supposed to meet. Her string shakes in my hand as another is pulled towards it and the strings meet. That man is her soul mate; their strings of fate are finally connecting for the first time. Feeling like I am intruding I let go of her string, this is their moment, so I let them have it. I leave them there in that coffee shop, knowing full well that their ending will be a happy one.

As I let go of the string I slowly open my eyes to greet the world around me once again.

"I felt them." I say as soon as I am able to. "It was really hard at first, but I was eventually able to make contact with a girl in my capital."

This time the room is filled with sounds of joy instead of ones worry and grief.

"-I just knew that-"

"-Of course she was going to be fine. I mean-"

"-Thank goodness that-"

"-And you all doubted-"

"-This is really good news-"

And I just sit and smile as I take in all of the people who around me. These people, these nations, are my friends and family and it looks like I get to stay with them for a little while longer yet. I don't have to be alone, in fact I will never be alone. Not as long as I am surrounded by the people with me now.