SUSPENSE. Suspense OUT THE ASS.
Warning: Violence, threats, gore, mention of rape and pedophilia, mental torture, angst, fight scene, abuse.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN HETALIA. I have fun manipulating their characters, though
"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
—Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields"
Bright
"Just… stay safe, okay?"
I'm sorry, Al. I couldn't.
Pain seared through his skull, rattled down his neck, his spine, making all of his nerves ignite in a scream of agony. Nothing else mattered outside of his pain, trapping him in an embrace too tight to escape from, even as an arc of ceiling pinned him to the ground, muscles echoing with ache, unable to function, a rain of rock plummeting down to meet him. Dust filled his eyes and mouth, and he was grateful that he couldn't see the avalanche that would surely kill him.
But it didn't.
The sounds woke him up: of pebbles rolling under shoe soles, rocks groaning ominously above him, the low hum of voices. Then he felt the hand on his shoulder.
"Mister, hey Mister. You dead?"
It was a great effort for Matthew to pry his eyelids open, but when he did all he saw was black and he nearly panicked. Until he realized that he was lying face-down. He tried to lift his head, but it was heavier than he remembered. Groaning at how hopelessly feeble he felt, he dragged his arms up to either side of his head, splaying his hands on the dust-slippery floor, pebbles biting into his palms. He gave one great push that squeezed the breath from his lungs and swung his head upward, gulping air and choking at how thick it was.
"Whoa, Mister, you all right?"
Matthew got his breathing under control and regarded the round, young face staring expectantly at him, framed by dusky wisps of frayed, burnt hair that might have been a pretty shade of blonde at one point. He nodded his head—or so he thought he did until he saw that the girl's expression had not changed. "Fine," he croaked, startled at how rough and unfamiliar his voice sounded. He pushed himself onto his ass with a grunt and propped himself up with a quivering arm, hunching over and rubbing at his throat, as if he sought to banish the stranger's tone from his voice. He swallowed, tasted blood, and lifted his hand to his face. He couldn't breathe out of his nose and found out why.
"Didn't you used to have glasses, Mister? I could find them. I think I might have saw them somewhere," the girl said. She was sitting on her knees, bleeding from the head. Both her little hands were spread against the floor, fingers black with soot. Angry red flesh continued up her arms. Blood dribbled down into her eye, and when she went to wipe it off she pushed back her hair and revealed a scorched, shriveled ear. He forgot his pain with the sight of the girl, who seemed to be more alert and unfazed than he was feeling. He snatched his hand from his throat and placed both on his knees, forcing his cramped back to straighten.
"Yeah," he said, forcing himself to form words, however difficult the action seemed. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fingers when he was met with a stinging jab in his lower back. Fuck. "G-glasses… I lost them. But I don't need them, I… I'm fine, really."
The girl smiled a bit and pointed to a place beside him. "You had lots of rocks and stuff on you. They looked heavy, so I rolled them off."
Matthew craned his neck to study the pile of shattered concrete, eyes focusing on a twisted length of steel rod. Is that what got me in the back? Damn… He turned back to her and twitched one side of his lips into an unsteady smile. "Thanks." He observed what was before him: cracks extending spidery fingers across the floor, bits of concrete and piping and metal, piles of dust painted red with smears of blood, black scorch marks where fire swept—and the bodies. Barely recognizable covered in dust, black with burns, missing limbs, some of them partly crushed. They had been thrown back by the blast before their bodies were flattened by falling rock. A child sat crying before a chunk of concrete so large, Matthew could barely see around it. He shifted a bit and immediately wished he hadn't. A hand peeked out from beneath the rock, fingers curled like it had been grasping. Past the elbow, nothing else was visible. Nothing but a splatter of blood, as if the poor woman had been an insect smashed beneath a shoe sole with little effort if any. The image was so sickeningly familiar it almost made Matthew vomit.
He pulled his eyes back to the girl, the only one that seemed to make sense in all of this—as if she held all the answers behind those bright, untarnished blue eyes. He swallowed, trying not to wince when his throat sent aching tremors down to his stomach. "What… what's your name?"
"Olivia," the girl chirped. She sat back just like Matthew had, stretching her legs out and picking the pebbles out of her palms. "But my mom calls me Ollie." She finished ridding her hands of debris and wiped them on her knees. They left smears of red in their wake.
Matthew opened his mouth to ask about her mother, but he thought better of it and said, "Are you okay?"
Ollie nodded. "Yup. But." And she pointed.
Matthew didn't want to turn around, but he knew he had to.
A towering wall of rubble threw yard-long shadows across the floor, snuffing out the small shaft of light that peeked in from the narrow gap in what was once the curved ceiling. Streams of gray brightness trickled over a sliver of the pile, but it was enough. Hands, arms, elbows, legs, feet, joints sickeningly twisted under the weight of the demolished tunnel. When his gaze fell over a head, the eyes blood-filled and bulging, he couldn't help it. He threw up.
"Mister, Mister." Ollie was shaking Matthew violently by the shoulder as he brought up what little food he had in his stomach along with burning bile. "Are you okay, Mister? Wow, you're really sick."
"Y-yeah," Matthew rasped, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. His throat convulsed, but he turned away from the wall before he could find another reason to retch. "Um…" He pushed himself to his feet, wobbling a bit, studying those who had managed to survive the rock fall. A middle-aged, gray-haired woman nursing a crushed hand. Two twenty-somethings sitting close together, one sobbing, the other trying to calm her. The little girl, no more than five, wailing and tugging on the hand peeking out from beneath that large slab of concrete. And, of course, bright-eyed Ollie, who seemed to be fresh out of elementary school. Five. Five refugees out of twenty. And that young girl with the baby who seemed to see right through him was nowhere to be found. Matthew felt his throat convulse again.
Ollie was staring up at him, rocking on her heels. "Yeah. They're pretty banged up, aren't they?"
Matthew swallowed and said, "Mm. Well… we need to get everyone together and out of here. Organization men will find us, and that rock wall looks pretty unsteady." He moved into crouch but soon realized, courtesy of a sharp pang in his lower back, that doing so would not be pleasant. Instead, he looked down at Ollie, forcing a smile. "Could you help me do that?"
"Yeah huh!" Ollie chirped before skipping off to see to the girl crying beside the rock.
Matthew made his way over to the older woman sitting with her back against what was left of the tunnel wall, hating the way he limped and how every muscle in him ached. He felt helpless, however unscathed he was compared to everyone else. When did everything go so wrong?
"How are you doing?" he asked as he approached. The woman looked up and a flicker of surprise sparked behind her eyes.
"I thought… you looked dead." She shifted where she sat, cradling her hand more comfortably against her chest. Up close, Matthew could see that she was burned and bruised—but not nearly as badly as Ollie.
"I could have been," Matthew said, leaning down and extending his hand to her. "Come on. I'm sorry to say, but we need to move. These tunnels are crawling with Organization troops and those explosions could easily cause another collapse."
The woman sighed and shook her head, turning it in the direction of Ollie, who was trying to tug the crying girl away from the concrete from beneath which peeked a hand. "Look at this mess. How are we going to come back from this? That poor girl. She won't know anything but war and death. She'll remember that rock fall as long as she lives. That was her aunt under there. She took her in after her parents died. Now she has no one." The woman pulled her eyes back to meet Matthew's own. "Sometimes I wonder how many more orphans will be made before this is over."
Matthew stared, unable to form words for a moment, or at least meaningful words. Guilt gnawed at his belly and he swallowed the bile searing up his raw throat. Then he said, "This will be over. I swear, if it takes every ounce of strength I have left in my body, I will end this for you." He lowered his eyes as the girl behind him let out another heartbreaking wail. "For her. She will remember this day for the rock fall that killed her aunt, but she will also remember this day as the day we took our world back. For now, though, will you take care of her?"
The woman peered up at him, blinking her brown eyes. The depth of the wrinkles on her face made her look older than Matthew had predicted. Then she took his hand, allowing Matthew to draw her to her feet. She stared at him for a long minute, as if scrutinizing his worth. "You swore," was all she said before she shuffled off to help Ollie with the crying girl.
Matthew then directed his attention to the two older girls clinging to each other a few feet away. He hobbled over to them and had barely gotten out, "Hey, I'm sorry, but—" before the thunderous echo of several feet running through the tunnel behind them reached his ears.
He had his rifle out before he could think, aiming it at the intact part of the tunnel, which stretched away into darkness. Forms began to manifest out of the gloom, only their exposed flesh visible beneath pitch black uniforms. At first, Matthew's heart soared, believing them to be Resistance fighters. But when he saw the spiral insignia on their breasts, the red letters, saw the empty look in their eyes, he knew.
The soldiers saw them, stopped, aimed. The girl behind him stopped wailing, and one of the young woman screamed. Someone must have tried to move out of the line of fire, as one of the soldiers shouted, "Stay where you are!" and shifted his aim to accommodate.
Matthew, meanwhile, was all that stood between innocents and the soldiers. Him and however much ammo he had left.
"Well?" one soldier sneered. There were an odd dozen scattered around him, blocking their only escape route. "Go on. Shoot. But for every bullet you spend, we'll give your girls two."
Matthew was shaking, and it was more than obvious with the way he held his rifle. But it was more out of anger than fear. If he had the power, he would gun down every one of the bastards that stood in their way. But there was only one of him and only so many bullets. Clenching his teeth in frustration, Matthew reluctantly dropped his weapon.
The lead soldier grinned wolfishly. "Good." He nodded in the direction of the refugees behind the Canadian. "Tie 'em up. And someone shut that bitch up."
"Heh, or we can give the bitch something to scream about," another said, walking past Matthew without sparing him so much as a glance, as if he was a harmless insect he couldn't be bothered to swat. Matthew's hands balled into fists, his conscience the only thing keeping him from turning around and laying the man out. All he could do was stand there, staring straight ahead, absolutely seething at the sound of the soldier beating the girl, the man laughing as she continued to sob.
The lead soldier approached Matthew as his comrades moved to take the refugees captive once more, pressing the barrel of his Beretta M9 to the Canadian's temple. "Tch, didn't I tell you to keep that cunt quiet?"
There were consecutive whumps that Matthew came to recognize as kicks. "What can I say, boss? She's a fuckin' screamer." He gave another nasty guffaw and dealt the girl another kick, this one producing an alarming crack. Matthew stiffened as the soldier stopped laughing abruptly.
"Well, don't fucking kill her!"
"She's not dead," the soldier said. "Just can't take a fucking hit. Being a fuckin' tramp is all she's good for." And he spit on her.
The girl's friend snapped. "Don't you fucking spit on her, you fucking pig!"
She must have lunged, because the next second the soldier was shouting, "Someone get this fucking crazy bitch off me! Fuck!"
Matthew could hear the soldiers rushing to restrain the girl, the lead soldier standing before him watching with perverse intrigue as more whumps followed. Matthew's nails dug into his palms, and his jaw ached from how hard he was grinding his teeth together. He managed to unfurl one of his fists and inch his fingers up to his waist. He kept his eyes unblinkingly forward, hand trembling when it touched the sheath of his knife. He tried to keep his breathing even, but his lungs were too weak to quell the worst of it. This is it, Matthew thought. His fingers curled around the hilt of his knife and refused to move any further. What am I doing? I'm just one person. I can't… do anything. His fingers loosened and his hand slipped downward. Down to his side, where it would be absolutely useless. Just like the rest of him.
The kicking continued behind him, along with the occasional gasping grunt or cry that escaped the girl with every blow. The little girl was crying and the older woman was trying to soothe her. Then the kicking just… stopped.
"Damn, man, what did you do to her?"
"I did it? You dumbasses were beating her too!"
"Whoa, dude, her head is bleeding!"
"Weak-ass cunt. Deserved every fuckin' bit of it."
"You swore." The words echoed through Matthew's head, sharp and more painful than anything Matthew had ever felt. His fingers twitched and returned to his waist. I swore. He swore to fix this. Everything. And it started here.
He couldn't best them. But he could sure as hell distract them.
"Aghh! Sonofabitch!"
The next thing Matthew knew, he was flying backward, grasping at air. He landed on his back with enough force to take his breath away, a spike up pain bulleting up his spine and stunning his muscles to the point of paralysis. He gave a harsh cry and his vision flickered for a moment, but he possessed enough coherency to distinguish the silvery glint of the knife jutting out of the lead soldier's hip. Matthew could still feel the ridges of the man's knuckles against his jaw. The ache seemed to grow worse with every second the lead soldier stared him down, those corpse eyes slicing through him like shards of ice.
Then the man smiled nastily. "Your aim sucks. Unfortunate." He took the hilt of the knife in his hand and pulled. Matthew couldn't help a wince as the blade exited slowly, leaving a dark gash from which red bloomed. That smile twitched grotesquely wider. "Let me show you how it's done." He motioned to one of his men, and the back of Matthew's head exploded with pain. Black bled into his vision and his ears rang, sending painful jabs to his brain. It sounded suspiciously like wailing.
I meant to miss, was the first thing Matthew thought when he came to. His head was pounding and his eyes were so sore it took great effort to open them. His senses slowly returned to him, and he was soon hunched over, whole body aching as if he'd been dragged for miles over hard, rocky ground. His back hurt like hell where the steel rod had hit him in the rock fall, and he attempted to raise a hand to soothe it. A slight burning and an itchy brush of loose bristles was enough to tell him that his wrists had been bound.
Shit.
"Well, it looks like someone's up."
Matthew snapped his head around to see a lone soldier regarding him a bit too cheerily, trying not to grimace from the sting that shot up his neck from the sudden movement. Unwilling to allow the man to see how much pain he was in, Matthew's eyes trailed downward, stopping at the large blot of blood near the soldier's left hip. The wound was bandaged but still bleeding enough to soak through. How long had Matthew been unconscious?
A hand covered the wound, and the Canadian's eyes returned to the soldier's face, split once more with that insane grin. "Saw your little scratch? It was pretty bloody, I can give you that, but it won't do much good with you all tied up. Now you get to sit here and wallow in your shitty shank job."
Matthew's fingers clenched behind his back. I meant to miss, he wanted to say, but he knew that would get him nowhere. I could have killed you. Regret bubbled inside him and he was almost tempted to spit in the grinning fucker's face, but then he heard sniffling from across the tunnel, turned his head to see what had become of his survivors, and remembered why he had spared the monster that sat sneering beside him. The Overlord really does take your brain, doesn't he? If I'd killed you, do you think your cronies would have hesitated killing everyone I wanted to save? He watched two soldiers take turns pressing their weapons to the youngest girl, snickering.
"And what's this, little bitch?"
"M-my, my, my—"
The man pulled the crying girl's hair, and she shrieked as the barrel of his gun was pushed further into her. "Spit it the fuck out, you sniveling little cunt, before I blow the fucker off!"
"I-it's—my l-leg!"
The soldier released her and scoffed when she fell to her side, sobbing and burying her face in her hands. "Fuck, didn't your mother ever teach you body parts? Dumbassed little shit."
If a glare could kill, Matthew's would have burned the soldiers alive. You'd kill her too, wouldn't you? You bastards would kill a helpless, crying little girl like she wasn't anything more than an annoyance. If I could, I would carve up every last one of—
"Her mother couldn't teach her that stuff. 'Cause you guys killed her!"
Matthew's eyes snapped to Ollie—burned, scarred, bruised little Ollie, with her teeth clenched and her tiny fists eager to strike from where they were bound behind her back. One of the soldiers who had been torturing the little girl turned to her, twirling his gun recklessly, nonchalantly, around in his hand.
"What did you say, you fucking smart mouth?"
Ollie screwed up her face further and began, "I said you—"
"Ollie, stop!" Matthew called and the weight of all those eyes on him made his bones ache. "D-don't say anymore, Ollie. Please. I'll take care of this." I swore. His gaze locked with the older woman's, and it was as if she could hear the words knocking around in his skull.
The soldier beside him laughed. "You'll take care of this? That's rich!" Matthew felt something heavy and cold settle on his shoulder, and a few long seconds passed before he could discern that what he was feeling was a hand. A cold, dead, unfeeling hand. And just as frigid breath. "I know who you are, Canada. Meek, little Canada who can barely speak up nonetheless take care of anything even remotely intimidating without pissing himself. So, go on. Tell me you're sorry for that weak-ass outburst of yours. Come on. Go ahead and apologize just like you always do. Let's hear it, Mattie."
Matthew's head snapped around to glare, face so close to the soldier's that he could smell his rotten breath. "Don't call me that."
The man's eyebrows rose into his sweaty fringe. "Oh? And why the hell not?"
"Only my brother's allowed to call me that."
"Is that so?" The soldier leaned in, their noses brushing. "Let me tell you something, pussy-assed bitch. I make the rules and I can call you whatever the fuck I want. You're helpless here, but I thought you'd know that with how often you've been in such a position. So why don't you shut your mouth about your dumbfuck of a brother before I knock your ass out again? It's not like he'll be around to call you that after this anyway. See, I'm doing you a favor, canuck bitch. I'll be taking over for your brother after his skull's cracked open by the Overlord. I've seen him do it, you know. Just like an egg, every time. He'll scream. Probably for you." Matthew turned away and lowered his head, unable to imagine Alfred with the soldier's empty eyes instead of his own bright, lively ones. Dead lips brushed his ear. He stiffened. "Can you hear him?" the man continued, his voice taking on a greasy edge, sliding over his ear, like slime. "Can you hear him calling for you as his brain is smeared across the floor?"
Matthew was seething with rage, on the precipice and staring down into a burning hot pit of wrath and hatred. He entertained a plot to headbutt the soldier's teeth out of his skull, but he felt those cold lips curve upward against the shell of his ear, and he remembered.
"This is how it should be."
"Huh? What are you talking about? … And hold still. It's hard to wrap the bandage when you're squirming like that."
Matthew could see his face, even after all the years that had passed. Centuries had flown by, but the round shape of it, with puffy, pouty cheeks and a little nose that was perpetually smudged with something-or-other—it always stuck with him. The only things that hadn't changed were his eyes. Bright, and just a bit too curious for his own good.
"Well, I go off and fight, and then I come back and you patch me up!"
"You don't have to go off and fight. And it's not like I like taking care of you. You're very disruptive sometimes…"
He was ignored, as he most often was, and Matthew suddenly couldn't imagine how he could have ever been annoyed by it.
"Yeah. I march off to battle and get all beat up, but I don't have to worry, 'cause you'll be ready to fix me."
"The only battles you're fighting are with the rabbits in your garden."
"Hey! They eat up all the vegetables and Artie says it's my job to keep them away. And they bite and scratch!"
"Sure. Why don't you just get a dog and have it chase them off so you don't have to?"
"'Cause it's awesome! You wouldn't understand 'cause all you do is sit inside and read and brush dumb France's hair and wrap bandages around me when I need 'em."
"I… I can too fight! I can fight just as well as you!"
"Oh yeah? Well, where are your battle scars, then? You're not a real fighter unless you have some cool-looking battle scars."
"I… well… it's just that I'm so good at fighting that I don't have any scars!"
"Pfft, whatever."
"I'm serious!"
"Yeah. Just go back to patching me up. I like you better that way."
"Jerk…"
"… Mattie?"
"What?"
"I don't want you chasing those rabbits."
"Why, so you can continue being stupid chasing after them yourself?"
"No. I just don't want you to get hurt."
"You think I can't handle pain?"
"Just don't do it, 'kay? It's my job."
"Oh, and it's my job to tend to you afterward."
"That's right." Matthew now knew why this image of Alfred was so vividly imprinted in his mind. He could not recall a time before then when the boy had looked so determined. That expression would become as much a part of him as that cowlick Matthew had thought about snipping off as a child whenever Alfred made him angry. He had been too scared to do it, though. He was afraid it would make Alfred cry. "My job is to go off and get myself hurt, and you're supposed to be there when I get back to take care of me."
"B-but I don't think I can take care of you all the time…"
"I don't want that to change about us. I know I'm gonna grow up and do amazing things, and I'll probably be hurt real bad. But I want you to make sure I get better."
"But England takes care of you just like France takes care of me. They'll make sure nothing bad happens to us. You won't have the chance to get hurt."
"Mattie, just hear me out, 'kay? I'm the hero and you're my little brother. I'm supposed to protect you. That's the rule."
"A rule from what?"
"Artie… before he leaves… doesn't matter. But you can't change, got that? You're not allowed to."
"I-I can't help it if I change, Al…"
"Don't. I'll miss you a lot. I won't be able to call you Mattie anymore either."
"Why not?"
" 'Cause Mattie doesn't fight. He isn't mean. He doesn't get all scratched up 'cause of those stupid rabbits. He likes to fix people, not break them." A smile. Such a big, goofy, over-wide smile that always spoiled the moment. "So you better not change, or I'll kick your ass!"
"I-I'll try… and I'm older than you, Al."
"Well, I'm the hero, and heroes are always the big brother."
"That doesn't make sense."
"You don't understand 'cause you're not a hero."
"How can I when I'm not allowed to be one?"
"That's the point!"
Matthew's lips twitched into a smile for a moment as the memory faded. He could still feel the soldier close to him, breathing down his neck, icy lips against his ear, but that hardly bothered him now. All those vile words had lost their sting as well, sinking to the back of his mind, barely casting a shadow. Because he wouldn't stoop so low as to bend to the man's wishes. He wouldn't become a monster like him and his comrades. He was Matthew—he was Canada—and he was supposed to be there to fix Alfred when he came home. And he would come home. Alfred always came home, just like Matthew was always there. This soldier, he would never understand that. He felt sorry for him.
I'll fight this my way and no one else's.
No one else can be Canada. That's my job, and I won't let him take that away from me.
It was hard. The girl continued to sob, and all Matthew could do was look the soldier in the eye and say, "I'm sorry that there are people like you."
The soldier blinked and furrowed his brow, unsure of how to respond. Then he snatched up a clump of Matthew's matted hair, pulling so hard his scalp burned. But Matthew stared into those cold eyes, unwilling to let him win.
The soldier licked his lips, and Matthew half expected to see a forked tongue. "Those whores will go back to where they belong, and when they leave I'll cut you open and strangle you with your own guts." His sour breath puffed in Matthew's face, almost suffocating. "Hell, I might even let the littlest bitch stay and watch. Still needs to learn her body parts."
The soldier's words boiled his blood, but Matthew didn't waver in his stare. The man held his gaze a little longer before he wrenched his fingers from the Canadian's hair, scoffing as Matthew's head cracked back against the pile of rock he was leaning against. Matthew grunted and watched the soldier stand, motioning to his men. "Take the cunts away, but leave the whiny—" He paused and listened, the others following suit. Voices found their way to their end of the tunnel, high, roaring voices that strengthened as their owners approached. The youngest girl succumbed to quiet whimpers.
"Deceiver pigs," the soldier closest to the racket announced.
The lead soldier's hand shot over his shoulder, fingers curling around the butt of his semiautomatic. "Tch. Thought we killed all the fuckers." He flashed Matthew a dangerous look. "Move, and she gets a bullet for every inch you move from that spot." The soldier motioned with the barrel of his weapon to the five-year-old who sat quivering and paralyzed. Then he gestured for his men to follow him down the tunnel.
The girl burst into tears at the sound of gunshots ricocheting off the walls, but Matthew couldn't console her. He was busy sawing through his bonds with the sharp edge of rock he had managed to feel out. Something cold and soft was brushing against his hands as he moved them over the jagged concrete, but he couldn't be bothered with that either. He leaned his head back, biting his lip almost in half as he counted each wiry strand that snapped.
One more, come on, one more…
The rope fell away and he sucked in a breath. He looked up and realized that the captives had been watching him. He couldn't bear to meet any of their eyes, especially that little girl's. Guiltily, he snatched up the knife the soldier had pulled from his body and walked over to the captives. One by one, he freed each of them, taking the rope he got from around their wrists.
"Listen to me," he spoke to his knees, braiding the rope together, "when you hear a close explosion, run. Don't stop and ask questions and definitely don't come back. Just run, and don't get caught, okay?"
A stretch of silence passed between them, filled with echoes of gunfire and death wails. Then one of the older girls asked, "What… what are you going to do?"
Matthew finished knotting the rope together and pulled it bracingly, testing its strength. It would do. "I'm going to give you time."
He didn't give them any more time to question. He pulled himself to his feet and staggered as black spots swelled across his vision. His hand shot out to steady himself, hunched over and blinking to clear his eyesight, feeling like his lungs had been squeezed flat when he saw what he had been touching with his back against the wall of tumbled rock. His mouth began to water with an impending retch and he clapped his other hand to his mouth.
Rope. The word shot through his mind like a bullet. He forced himself to bend at the waist and reach past the mangled hand dangling down from between the crags, fingers broken and twisted, the few nails that remained blackened and torn. Matthew held his breath and took the rope in hand, his stomach churning at the sight of blood smeared over the braids from the chalk-white fingers curling out of the pile. He rose to his full height, only then realizing how pitifully small he was next to the wall of shattered concrete. He stretched the entire length of the rope between his hands and wondered just how crazy he had become. Bile crept up his throat as he surveyed the wall, eyes skipping over flesh and shocks of dark red that dotted the expanse as best he could manage. Sanity is just two letters short of insanity, he conceded and found what he was looking for.
He made sure he remembered the spot on the wall as his eyes lowered to the floor. Come on, he urged the gray stretch of scattered debris and dark whorls of red that formed the shadows of what used to be there. Give me something. Anything.
'Anything' came in the form of a heart-shaped gold locket that had caught his eye as it lay half covered in dust, winking as a finger of light bounced off of it. He had it in his hand without recalling having bent down, running the chain through his fingers and weaving the tattered rope through it. He made the tightest knot he could manage and twirled the rope above his head for a moment, giving it a few test launches to see how far the weight of the locket would take it. He could feel the eyes of the captives brushing over his skin as he worked, but most prominent and piercing were the dead eyes of those buried beneath the rocky mound or strewn, limp and puppet-like, across the floor. The locket suddenly became very heavy and he reeled the rope back in, lifting his gaze to the hole he'd previously located in the rock wall not too far from the bottom.
Come on, Canada. You've been hunting for centuries. There's no way you can't do this. Matthew took a deep breath, feeling his lungs ache as he exhaled shakily. You can do this. You have to do this. He ran a dry tongue over his parched lips and positioned himself below the hole, which lay a few feet above his head. After a few more adjustments, he flung the rope and locket above his head, gave it a few twirls, and swung it toward the gap.
He held his breath, but it missed, the locket clinking off one of the rocks surrounding it. Quickly, he pulled it back and twirled it again, tossed it. Again, it missed. Each gunshot sounding down the tunnel behind seemed to coincide with his rapid heartbeat. Minutes ticked by, but it was as if with every toss the hole seemed to shrink smaller and smaller. Gritting his teeth, Matthew whirled the rope with all his might, his back screaming, and launched the rope as hard as he could at the gap once again.
The muscles in his right arm convulsed on the upswing, and he nearly lost his footing. He huffed as he groped for the tail of the rope, the haphazardly braided lifeline slipping from his hands for one breathless, stupid moment. Damn!
But just as soon air was rushing out of his lungs in a disbelieving laugh, and he gave a triumphant "Yes!" as he watched the locket shoot through the hole, pulling the rope along with it. The tink of it hitting the floor on the other side echoed louder than even the gunshots at his back. Now all he could do was finish the job and hope against hope that his logic hadn't fled with his luck.
All the while, the captives had remained silent, clearly aware that what he was doing was too important to interrupt. Their growing presence made his lungs constrict with the weight of his mission. They had been through more than he could ever imagine. The least he could do was get this right.
But he needed something else, and, scanning the entirety of the tunnel in one sweep, he only then realized how difficult it would be to obtain it.
For a moment—a desperate, choking, insane moment—he thought that all of his efforts were for naught, and that he would have to come to terms with the fact that he would be tortured and killed to the cries of that little girl he wanted so much to save but couldn't, how was it even possible… and then the light streaming in from the sliver of sky carved in the shattered concrete overhead flashed, the clouds parting for just an instance to allow a shaft of sunlight into their otherwise dark prison. But it was enough.
Matthew whipped around, a flicker of amusement trickling through him at the sight of the captives jumping back, as if expecting him to launch into some sort of psychotic rant to explain all of the anxious activities he had been engaged in for the past five minutes. It was weird to indulge in such an emotion, so far out of reach for so long that it felt almost foreign and wrong. But he pushed the feeling away and fixed his eyes to Ollie. "My glasses—Ollie, you said you might have seen them earlier."
Ollie immediately perked up, so eager to move from her spot but smart enough to know that doing so could be detrimental to whatever half-baked plan she thought Matthew must have been carrying out. God bless her unusually acute perception. "Yeah! They're by that big rock over there. The one with the…" Her eyes darted to the youngest over her group before nodding to indicate her specified location.
Matthew followed her gesture to the large slab of concrete across the floor. Matthew rushed over to it, noticing too late the hand that peeked out from beneath it. His heart plunged.
His glasses lay a foot or so away and he snatched them up, guilt churning within him as he turned his back on something so preciously tragic. He examined the spectacles for a moment; the frame had snapped, the bridge holding it all together, swinging, shorn almost in two. But what Matthew was truly concerned with were the lenses. His fingers trembled when he found the first one that he studied was shattered. The second one, however, was cracked but for the most part intact.
Yes! Matthew ran back over to where the tail end of the rope hung down from the gap he had tossed it through. But he had only just grabbed it when he realized that he could no longer hear gunfire.
His heart shot up to his throat as he slid back to the spot where the soldiers had left him, making some last-minute adjustments to be sure that the scene was just as convincing as before with seconds to spare.
"No need to fear," one soldier chortled, strutting in covered in blood and soot, though Matthew saw no wounds on him, "we fed the rebel shits plenty of lead. They were ravenous for it."
More overloud guffaws, unnecessary brandishing of weapons, and venomous threats followed, but Matthew had his eyes pinned to a patch of floor in front of him. He knew that such a situation was dire, but he had always been a bad liar. As brainless as the brutes seemed to be, if just one of them possessed enough of the Overlord's senses they would surely see that the Canadian was suspiciously flushed and wide-eyed and supremely different from when they had last seen him. Matthew fought the urge to chew his lower lip as his trembling fingers grazed against a sharp edge on one of the broken lenses behind his back.
At the crest of his vision he saw the men hauling the captives to their feet, shoving and kicking until the young woman who had previously been knocked out settled into an unsteady stance. With a wave at their leader and a few more boorish swears, they made an especially rough show of pushing the women and girls down the tunnel they had just painted with Resister blood, barrels jabbing at the youngest one's head when she fell behind. They were too busy degrading them and too stupid to see that all that was keeping the captives' hands behind their backs was their own free will. Matthew could feel Ollie's eyes trained on him until she rounded the corner out of sight, but he refused himself the comfort of reassuring her. He couldn't risk it. Not when all of their lives hung by a thread quite literally.
"Ah," the lead soldier sighed, plopping down beside him. He smelled of blood and dirt and sweat and corpses. "That little one's aunt was a perfect little slut. She'll grow up to fill her shoes someday. Maybe sooner than later." When his words failed to elicit a reaction from Matthew, he pulled out his glock and loaded it. He did it slowly, removing the cartridge that seemed not even halfway empty and replacing it with a fresh, full one. It was all for show, and the soldier saw fit to address that. "Gonna use every last one of 'em. Nothing less than a piece of shit like you deserves." He locked the magazine in place and cocked the weapon more loudly than needed. Matthew couldn't smother a flinch. The soldier smiled nastily. "Hmm, where should I shoot you first? Can't be in the head. Nah, that would end everything too soon." Matthew hoped the man didn't see him swallow when the gun was pressed to his shoulder. "Here? No, how about here?" The barrel slid down to his thigh. "Or how about here?" It took everything Matthew had not to jump five feet in the air and reveal that he was no longer tied up like he was supposed to be. The gun was now digging into his crotch ominously. Although Matthew's gaze hadn't shifted once from the floor in front of him, he could see the corner of the soldier's lips twitch upward. "That'd be good. Canada with his balls shot off. That is, if you have any left to shoot." The gun lifted from Matthew's lap, and the Canadian let out a slow breath of relief. The soldier sat back and waved the gun casually around in his hand, always making sure it was pointed right at him. Matthew could hear his finger tapping the trigger. "No… you know what? I have a better idea." Matthew didn't like the glee that crept into the soldier's voice, but it wasn't as if he could do anything about it. He just prayed that the man would be too busy toying with him to remain unaware of the rope dangling down the rocks feet behind him. If he happened to see it, Matthew could very well be in for torture far worse than what the soldier had originally intended.
The soldier's next words made him remember that unless the man left for a minute at least, Matthew was no closer to escape than he was tied up. "I'll fuck you with it. Good and hard. I'll make you bleed, and I bet you'll get hard, you little fag. I'll fuck you up the ass with my gun and slice off your dick while I make you moan for more. Then I'll plant a whole cartridge of lead in your gut and stuff your prick into mouth as you lay with your insides blown across the floor. Although, I'd better be careful. No doubt your cock is as small and pathetic as you. You might end up accidentally swallowing it. Wouldn't want you choking on your own junk before you can watch yourself bleed out."
Matthew suddenly felt very hollow, as if his insides had been scooped out and placed before him to see. Please, don't let him see. Don't let him see, please. Matthew couldn't fathom a worse death, but he didn't want to give the soldier any more excuse to probe his imagination for something even more horrific.
"You're lucky I let that girl go," the soldier went on. "Didn't want the bitch crying all the way back to her cage. Besides, she'll have plenty of time to learn what fucking is, and you'd be a poor example. Her aunt would have been a better teacher, but seeing as she's dead…" Matthew crushed his thumb into a broken shard of the lens, trying to stem his anger. His emotions must have risen to his face, because the soldier began to laugh. "Eager to begin, are we? Well, I'll have to find something sharp to remove your cock with. Can't do with something dull—takes too long, and I want you to be awake for the whole thing. It'll be fantastic. Like nothing you've ever felt. Guaranteed. In fact, that knife you stuck in me felt sharp enough for the job. Now, where the fuck did I leave it…?"
Matthew's heart thudded against his ribs and his stomach did sickening backflips. He had used the knife to cut the captives free. And it was now laying far from where the soldier had left it.
"Ah, there it is." Matthew stiffened and lifted his head just a bit to see the soldier stand and cross the tunnel, stooping to pick up the knife. "Hunh, coulda sworn I dropped you over—"
The man suddenly jerked rigidly upright, head snapping toward the dark end of the tunnel. He stared for a long moment, and Matthew held his breath. Then the soldier pocketed the knife and with an oily, "I'll be back," slipped away down the tunnel.
Matthew watched the darkness swallow him and waited longer still before he leaped to his feet and ran over to the rope. He brought his glasses in front of him, almost dropping them in his haste. His breathing seemed unbearably loud despite forcing himself to take shallow breaths, and he was sure his heartbeat could be heard echoing down the tunnel. But he clenched his teeth and angled the one remaining lens over the frayed end of rope without pause, holding his wrist with his other hand to keep himself from shaking so much.
Come on, catch, catch, he urged. He could hear the soldier's footsteps approaching, he knew he was coming…
The clouds shifted, the sun emerged for a second, but it was all that was needed. The lens glinted and the end of the rope began to smoke. Matthew removed the lens from over top of the rope and blew until the rope lit up like a taper. Then all he could do was back away and watch the flame slowly make its way up the braids, praying that a sudden breeze didn't extinguish it before it reached the end.
The flame had just disappeared through the gap when Matthew heard boot soles scrape over concrete behind him. He froze.
"Little bitch. How in the fuck did you get free? When this shit is over, I'm gonna—what the fuck?"
Matthew didn't want to do it, but he turned. He turned and saw the soldier standing a yard away, glaring daggers, face flushed a dangerous red. And, with her hair balled up in the man's giant fist, was Ollie, eyes bright as ever.
What were you thinking? Matthew wanted to shout at her, but the soldier shoved Ollie so hard she fell onto her side, and then he charged toward him. The Canadian didn't know what to do. He was cornered, his back against a pile of rubble, with nothing but a pair of broken glasses to defend himself with.
Oh God. He had seen it. The soldier had seen the rope, and a spark of confusion crossed is face for only a second before he had a fistful of Matthew's collar, wringing him viciously and knocking his head against jags of rock.
"You—sneaky—little—shit—I'm—gonna—smear—your—ass—"
"You get away from him!" Ollie shouted, pushing herself to her feet. She took a few running steps toward them, waving her hands and scrunching up her round face in anger. Her expression looked so similar to someone Matthew knew, it was almost scarier than being strangled. "Get away! Get away, you monster!"
"Ollie, no!" Matthew yelled, gagging as the soldier dropped him just long enough to punch him in the gut, then snatched him up by the throat once more. "G-get away. Ollie—run!"
Ollie stared, fists shaking at her side. She didn't move an inch. "No! I'm tired of this happening to people. I wanna kill him! Bad guys are supposed to die! I'll—"
"Ollie, NOW!" Matthew screamed as loud as his strained lungs would allow. The soldier took a chunk of his hair and used it to smash the back of Matthew's head into the rock, again, again, again—
But Ollie was no longer there. She was gone, running back down the tunnel like Matthew wanted her to. There must have been something in his voice that had driven her—or the smoky smell now wafting from the gap overhead.
Matthew grunted as the soldier punched him in the jaw and shoved him up against the wall, a crag of concrete stabbing Matthew in his aching lower back. Matthew would have screamed if he'd had the breath.
The soldier thrust his sneering face into his. Matthew couldn't breathe. The man's breath was all he could take in. It was like breathing gas fumes. "You chickenshit motherfucker. I'll beat your ass against these rocks till your bones are so broken you can't even stand!"
The soldier picked him up by his shoulders and threw him against the wall, but that was as far as he got. There was a rumble, then an earsplitting blast that threw them backward. Matthew tumbled across the floor, muscles flaring with pain from the beating, too exhausted to do much more than grasp feebly at anything he thought was heavy enough to anchor him. His fingers found a boulder, but he couldn't hold onto it for long. Another rock, dislodged by the blast, came flying toward him. Matthew couldn't dodge it. He could only turn and avoid getting hit in the gut. It caught his arm instead, and he screamed as he felt the bones snap. The projectile knocked him across the floor, and he slammed into another large slab of stone so hard that his ears ring to the point that he was sure his head would split open from the sound. He was pinned to the rock, splayed and too weak to move against the roll of heat and pressure that was rushing toward him, carrying with it fire and smoke and more crashing rocks. Matthew cried out when he felt flames lick his side, burning up his black uniform like it was nothing more than tissue paper. But his voice was lost among the deafening roar of the explosion, sending more and more of what used to be the wall of rubble rocketing toward him until he was buried up to his legs in rock—his waist—his chest—
Something white-hot collided with his temple, making him see stars. Matthew snatched the object off of him before it could melt his skin, holding it in his hands and, with the sight of it, not caring if his palms were aflame with heat.
It was the locket. Worn, black in some areas, dented, and most definitely misshapen by fire, but still there. It even had a bit of rope still attached to it.
The job was done, and the locket had helped. The weight of it had carried the rope and the fire that had traveled along it to an inactivated defense just beyond the wall of cascading rock that Matthew had noticed earlier. He had done it. He hoped the captives remembered what he'd said about running.
Rubble closed in on him at all sides, crushing his limbs and cramping his body. But he couldn't feel anything anymore. When at last the rocks stopped flying and they tottered to a halt over his head, plunging him into stuffy darkness, Matthew indulged in the fragile quiet of it all. He peeled the now cool locket off his burned chest and squinted at it through the dark, swearing that he could see light bouncing off its ruined, beautiful surface. Because there was a certain brightness about the thing, still present even after having been through so much. Bright—like someone he knew.
No translations
A Word From the Writer: Wow, this chapter turned out longer than I wanted it to. But whatever. At least it's up... finally. And it ends with Canada being crushed-again. Surprise!
So, I apologize again for the delay. Things have been complicated lately and I haven't gotten around to adding to this. My aunt finally left but had us babysit her kids (both under the age of 2) until she moved in, which was a week-long affair I never want to repeat. Ever. After that I visited a therapist (since some weird shit has been going on) and found out I have Social Anxiety Disorder with some OCD, which explains a lot. It also means that I'm getting so anxious about stuff that it's hard for me to sit and focus on one thing without thinking about what if this and what if that. It's very frustrating, and who knows what else I might have. I only saw the shrink once. It's very likely that I might be bipolar too, seeing as both my mother and grandmother are. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me. But now I'm on meds and feel a bit better, but I'm still working stuff out. Whatever it takes, though, I'll finish this fic. It's my baby, and I simply won't abandon it no matter how much my brain craps out.
*A note about the poem at the beginning. It's one of my favorite poems from WWI. I discovered it freshman year when I had to write a research paper on WWI or WWII poets and loved it. I didn't want to go the usual route with Wilfred Owen. But goddamn if I don't make things difficult for myself. You don't know how fricken' hard it was to find him in print. Hard to research a poet who only wrote one poem, but whatever. Liked the poem and I wasn't giving up on it. Somehow scored high, though, so sweating bullets over the research was worth it. Kinda.
I think it'll be easier to write now that I've cleared the POV hurtles. I mean, there are more to come, but these ones will be combined and form a sort of finale. We're standing at the edge people. This is it. Next chapter will probably be monstrously long and a pain in the ass to write, but I can't wait to start it, finish it, and post it. America, England, and Italy are next. Three for one. What a deal! X3