And now we return to the refreshing gore-fest.

On other notes, I finally got 'The Final Descent'. *read it in an hour* Will Henry, you have changed...

Review! :D

The room was dark, and gleams of eyes and light on fangs and slithery noises approached.

At least Germany thought the room was dark, because his eyes were closed and he was stoically ignoring the sounds.

It's just my imagination. It's all it is. I'm imagining something in the dark because the dark is ominous.

The sibilant hissing got louder. His atoms declared there was something next to him. Something big.

Germany continued to sit against the wall. Only his racing breath and the sweat beading on his forehead showed his anxiety. That, and the rapid movements of his heart, as if he'd just sprinted a full mile. The hissing pierced his eardrums, and he wanted desperately to lash out and hit it, make the unknown thing feel intense pain. Or, he at least just wanted to open his eyes.

But his self-control was too strong for that. You can't hit something that isn't there. Don't hit it. That's an order.

Conversely, his instincts screamed danger, danger, danger, move move move do something in his head. He resisted. What's to be afraid of? There's nothing there. It's the aliens messing with my mind, trying to get me to crack. They'll find it's harder to-

The thing next to him gave a throaty snarl, accompanied by the distinctive click of hungry fangs and claws. It's not real, he thought, nearly jumping out of his skin.

When the nation refused to move from his spot, it roared; an eardrum-splitting screech that spewed drool onto his face. Germany did his best not to flinch, or to wipe away the rivulets of beast-spit that ran down his face. One trickled into his now-aching ear.

If the spit is tangible, then it has to be...real.

The thought was terrifying. If there was a giant creature poised to kill him next to him, a creature larger than he was, and it was just waiting for him to open his eyes, then...what can I do? Panic, real panic, soared through him, and he scrabbled for answers. It's just a sound, and a spray of liquid from the wall to fool me, but they can't fool me, I will not move, it is not real...

He kept thinking that until he could stand it no longer. The thing - if it was there - definitely wanted to maul him, but it was being held back. If he moved, it would go away. It was the blanket mentality, he knew, if-I-play-dead-it-won't-find-me, but it was surprisingly difficult to give it up. Or at least that's what he thought until he pushed against it, actual boredom mixing with the fear, and it broke with a snap.

Being mauled would at least be something. The endless darkness, pressing in around him, was wearing him down. So after seconds or hours of the interminable darkness, he slivered one eye open, just enough for his blond eyelashes to brush the lower lid.

There was nothing there. Nothing distinguishable in the darkness surrounding him, and Germany let out his breath in relief. It was only my imagination after all. Dummkopf.

Then his heart stopped as a face zoomed - when he thought about it, that's what it was doing, shooting out of the darkness towards him - at him, darkness like water over its alien features. From what he could see of it, it was a large head, pale gray, near indistinguishable from the strange light it emitted. It didn't make sense how the darkness was tangible around it, yet it emitted light. It was a conundrum.

The head had two pearly, beetle-black eyes soullessly looking forwards, and a strangely small, human-like nose. The mouth was small enough, but fangs bulged from both the top and bottom, thick and needle-sharp. The long gray neck extended further back into the darkness, where the rattle of claws was clearly audible.

He slammed his eyes shut and sat frozen, his heart leaping in his chest. Another bead of sweat formed and inched down the side of his head.

Something went shnk-snick and he didn't realize he was bleeding until he felt his blood, warm against his torso. He was afraid that, if he breathed, it would strike again and puncture a lung, or something just as vital.

It struck again anyway, a lighter blow. Teasing him. His jacket was quickly becoming saturated. Germany realized it would continue this, little brushes with butcher knives until he was bleeding out and weak. Helpless. And that was not the way he wanted to go.

So he fought back. The next snick and the accompanying, barely audible whoosh of air was dodged, and the nation blindly lashed out.

He was lucky. His hand soared past the snatching claws and, with a tiny pop, broke the nose of the beast. It didn't seem to pain it, though, just enrage it further. It opened its wide mouth and shrieked, biting at his hand with those fangs. He barely retracted his arm in time.

Germany tried again, but several quills embedded themselves in his lower arm. He hissed and tore them out, ignoring the pain. I've had worse, he thought grimly. Much worse.

He took a moment to place the quills between his fingers like that Wolverine character from one of America's hero movies and listened for the sound of breathing. When he'd broken its nose, the strange effulgence had flickered out, and he was once again abandoned in the darkness.

This time, the sound he heard came from behind him. Shnk- and he ducked just in time to feel a claw snag in his hair and tear out a blond lock by hte roots. He backhanded towards the sound with the fistful of quills, and was rewarded with a squish as the quills hit the beast clear in the face. Ha, he had the time to think. This wasn't so hard.

There was a shrill squeal, and then a whistling impact that left his head ringing. He stumbled back a few steps and felt the wall behind him. I could try and use this to my advantage.

The next snick of claws glanced off the wall. The creature growled in frustration, the light rekindling for him to see those grotesque mandibles stretching apart. To his horror, the small mouth grew wider and wider to the chorus of the sickening sound of skin ripping. Teeth sprouted through the corners of the mouth, chewing through the light skin, until the mouth was as wide - no, wider than - the face, curling up in a smile.

And then it lunged for him. Germany had just enough time to duck before the full weight of the beast slammed into him.

Did something crack?

The impact was terrible. He felt claws and teeth rip through him, and he felt the fangs nip at the pulsing veins in his neck before switching to an easier target; his hand. His left hand, maybe, as it was hard to tell. The three seconds he'd been pinned against the wall by this shredder had exposed him to enough pain that his nerves had crackled into overload and he'd gone numb, for which he was grateful.

Good thing I'm right-handed, he thought, and then wound up for a devastatingly direct blow to those giant eyes.

His fist met with little resistance, and Germany tried not to imagine what his hand was covered in. The momentum carried by the swing kept his fist going, through the jelly of the eyes, to a fat wriggling snake like the tails of rattenkönig all intertwined and he was up to his elbow in its head. It was a race for his life, his hand, its death, and anything else. The creature was screaming and screaming and gnawing more furiously now as if determined to take his hand off at the wrist. He attributed the reason that his limb was still there to the fact that fangs were not good for gnawing, but they excelled at puncturing and generally peeling all the skin and meat off his bones.

And still his fear and pain channeled into his arm, shooting it into the skull, pushing aside the flesh, ripping through tissues and tendons and all sorts of things he was sure weren't in a normal human head, going and going until he was up to his shoulder and his fingers no longer tangled in the fronds of arteries and veins, and met a new resistance.

Without stopping he cupped his fingers and his nails and cut in, scooping into the brain of the beast. He felt his left hand, or at least a matted clump of meat stuck to his arm, and it was softening and giving in and he kept tearing at the soft organ that gave easily under his fingers and has my hand been swallowed? Devoured by the thing?

And suddenly, a silence like a bell in his ears. A race. The creature with its destroyed brain cells firing like water poured in a fuse box. Shoulder-deep in the massive head, clawing frantically at that most fundamental of organs.

The finish line is broken.

After far too long, the beast fell still.

With a choked noise, Germany ripped his arm out and slid slowly to his knees in the darkness. I shouldn't pity it. It was going to kill me. It doesn't deserve my emotion.

The lights came back on, and the German saw the carnage he'd wreaked on it.

There was a gaping hole in its face, edged with blackish-purplish-reddish flesh bubbling outwards like a failed science experiment. A fairly straight tunnel bored through to the brain, with violently bright blood vessels bursting through and hosing down the exposed areas. A necklace of strange blue orbs flickered with a fading glow, and beyond that, he could see the mind he'd ravaged. Lumps of tissue oozing black fluid, big gashes carved out of it, and worst of all-

He looked away, but the image was already embedded into his memory.

The beast suddenly sank through the floor with a slurping sound. Germany scooted away from the site, not wanting to go down with it, and then rested his head on his good hand, the gore-caked one.

I've become a murderer.

It was a silly thing, really, to be worried about. By all accounts, he already was a murderer. There were the wars, the battles, all the things back until he woke up, and, for the first decades, was blameless. But now, centuries (millenia?) old, he was soaked with death. It shouldn't bother him, but it did.

He sat up and pressed both hands against his eyes, too late remembering the state of his left hand. He nearly cried out as the fresh blast of pain hit him. Germany steeled himself, took a few quick breaths, and glanced at his hand.

It was still there, thank Gott. But then the details sank in.

Just because it was there didn't mean it wouldn't get infected or bleed out. It looked like uncooked meat, red and raw, with bones and skin and all those things inside your body you're not supposed to see poking out and mashed together. In short, it wasn't pretty, and all the blood glopping out didn't help him either.

With a dull surprised feeling he noted a few teeth were entangled in a large flap of his skin hanging free.

I'm going to die, he thought vaguely. There's no way I can live through this.

Then he laughed to himself. Pull yourself together, man, tis only a scratch. You can wrap that up in a tourniquet, easy. He turned to the remains of his jacket, pulling it gently over his hand and wincing when cloth brushed skin. With his good hand, he twisted the cloth up and around and pulled it tight with his sticky friend, rediscovered a few hours before the aliens invaded. Hopefully this would cut off the bleeding.

Germany felt very alone, and he was unconscious even before the white powder fell from the ceiling.

Two translations: The chapter title means 'The Beast' in German. (At least according to Google Translate, and we all know how trustworthy Google Translate is, anyway.)

And a rattenkönig (rat king) is basically a bunch of rats with their tails all stuck together and they're said to move and think as one. They're bad luck.