My Prussian godliness expands... What IS light, though?

Here is the only angsty thing I'm going to say to you today!

Dying feels awesome.

Have you ever puttered along at 80 kph behind some squarish minivan, and, and you decide, well, fuck it, might as well cruise right up to 120 and pass that guy's ass? You know that sensation. Your own ass is plastered to your seat, and as you blast by that guy's ass, you're hit with the slightest feeling of impending doom, characterized by the numbness you start feeling in your ass when you see how fast you'd be hitting that grassy median if you crashed.

Dying and flying to 4-space is like that, but like… you're also high, and when you slap your ass on the gas, you don't stop accelerating at 120. You're on the cosmic Autobahn, and the guy's ass you're about to pass is the speed of light. Hyperspeed. That's the next level up, if you want to actually rip a hole in space-time.

Don't call me wrong — light is the lightest, and somehow came to be the massless thing we call the fastest in the universe. No mass? Ass to the gas. Got mass? Go screw yourself. You can't go faster than light. Oh, you're dead? No more mass, but you've got some important archetypal information we can recycle and use to make more infinitely loveable Prussias? (Or Preußenoids, because really, there is no one in existence or nonexistence more loveable than the Awesome Me.) Then you are certainly welcome to pass that lighty guy's ass and go Hyperspeed. Welcome to the 4th Dimension. Please take your seat over there, and Socrates or Gary will come to get you.

But I'm digressing.

Here's the scary thing: I don't just defy the known laws of physics. I openly disobey them. It's not on purpose. I disobey them while I'm eating and sleeping and staring at the wall wondering why my feet are so cold. But the speed of light? Not even a concept I can relate to anymore. The universe is constantly trying to reject me. The 3-D universe said, "Nope." The 4-D universe said, "No way." The other dimensions are like "Toilet, what is this?" Well, I wish they would tell me! I'm having an identity crisis here! What dimension am I naturally? Am I all of them? Am I none? Oh, Gott… oh Gott…

Some people see monsters in sleep paralysis. I see the Void. And the Void is me, and I am the Void. It's my true form. Nothingness and everythingness, just kind of mashed together in a nonspecific cake batter splattered all over the perfect gridwork of space-time. I say there's nothing to be afraid of, but that's because I've experienced all the human fears that are out there.

There's no way I can tell Germany I'm afraid of one day becoming the Void… letting go of my infinitesimal little puppet of mass I call a body and embracing my true form as… Prussia… the living concept… But living nations are born from concepts. If I'm becoming a concept, it's as if I'm beginning to age in reverse and wondering when the earth will swallow me up again, transforming me from the greatest kingdom on earth to the seed of an idea… the thing that is Prussia, that might be Prussia…

What is Prussia? Just another meaningless word, a subjective word.

No! Shut up! I said I wouldn't be angsty! Come on, now. I've done this before. I just need to remember who and what I am. I've done this before!

Prussia. I think the word so dearly and tenderly out into the Void. Show me Prussia. Billions of bright pink bands of light stream into my faceless vision. A while ago, I just took them as my cells or atoms or some shit, but now I know they're the love bands representing me. All are connected through the shared vision of a person called Prussia, who is loved and cherished.

This person called Prussia. I reach a formless tentacle arm out and touch one of the bands. Sensation! I can see! I see physical being! A little creature of three dimensions! It's a man! He's the Nation of Prussia! Dissolved, but still living! Not living… living somehow. Because he's me! I live! That man is me! I scream at myself. That body is mine! I love that man, and he loves me! We are the same!

I awaken.

My eyes roll back in my skull, and I gasp in a huge breath of air before coughing and beating my chest. I'm existent! I… mean… I'm alive! I'm on my floor! In my bedroom! The lamp is on! The beautiful lamp!

A headache comes on, stabbing. My body splits and puffs into a Prussian steam, separating into quarks and atoms, the most basic constructions of a 3-D world. Time slows, and I check over each one, making sure it's stable. A few hundred thousand are bloating and stretching into hypermass. They warp through the fabreality and emerge in a higher world. I shoo them back and focus in on the deflating molecules, deconstructing from quarks into Platonic concept-matter — massless, but still sensitive to vibewaves.

I push everything back together. Shaking hands appear before my eyes. Then I'm bloating again. Shrinking again. Phasing into, holy shit, was that 11-D? Or the Void? No, not today. I need a body. I have a body. Prussia is not a concept to the people who love him. He has a face and a voice, and he can always put himself back together for the ladies who dream every night with butter knives beside their beds and prayer shawls, complete with 26 fringes.

My body stops tingling. Space-time stops thrashing and relaxes around my form. I exhale and hold my left hand out for Gilbird. He floats down and perches on one pale finger, shivering and fluffing himself. I kiss his head, and he nips at my nail as if to say, "Stop scaring me shitless every morning."

Literally. There's bird poop all over the floor, and Gilbird knows he's supposed to go in the toilet.

"Seven in the morning. Germany should be awake by now. I'd better go act like a normal big brother and make him some pancakes. I'm sure he felt my EP signature when I sneaked in the house last night."

"I felt it," Germany says. He's got my door open a crack, to where he's got a full visual of me lying on the floor, body still glitching and discoloring in places.

My hands are trembling, so I shove them in the pockets of my sweatpants and float over to the closet to pick out a new shirt.

"That's… rendering yourself, right? It looked like… you were just this swirly galaxy thing, and then you morphed into yourself." He spins his finger to demonstrate.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Sometimes when I fall out of the Anticanon after a dream, my body deconstructs itself, and I have to re-render. Basically stabilize my physical presence, so half of me isn't traveling at the speed of light somewhere off in another dimension. Do I look good?"

"You look as good as you normally do."

"That's good." I say it without looking at him, then float down and set my feet on the floor.

"It scares you," Germany says.

I give a huge huff, fiddling with a hanger and noticing the clunk of it back on the rod when I've spent so long changing my outfits by magic. "Nothing scares me. I'm awesome."

Germany blocks me from exiting the room. A firm hand seizes the front of my shirt and pulls me close, so our foreheads are touching.

"That's a lie."

The huff turns softer. Germany's gaze isn't cold. It's concerned. But I can't make fun of him this time. He's concerned even after I left home for a few days. After I thought he was mad at me…

"Okay. I'm afraid that some day… maybe it'll take an eon, but… I'll forget who I am and kind of… turn into this formless void of Prussian goo. I won't be able to render this shape anymore. It'll just… vanish."

"I think everyone's afraid of that."

"Yeah, but it's more real for me. I know I can't die anymore, but I still see it happening. I know what it's like to embody irrationality, and I hate it. If there's no real Prussia," I stress, gesturing to myself, "then what is Prussia? Gott, Germany, we're the same, deep down. Can't stand the thought of anything too general. I want to be Me forever. But I keep having this nightmare that I'm not me. I'm the Void, and the Void is me—"

"You're not the Void."

"Then what—"

"Prussia of Several Dimensions! Prussia of the Grand Scheme of Things! Don't make me sick, brother. The way you describe it, you're the most awesome being in the entire universe. Why would that make you a blob of vague void-ness? Isn't there some Prussian Relativity? All awesomeness is relative according to the observer and Prussia? Nothing is more awesome than Prussia? Prussia isn't the Void. Prussia is…"

"What?"

He crosses his arms. "Well, um, I was going to say 'God,' but… you're not supposed to be able to describe God."

"You couldn't totally describe what it looked like for me to render myself in 3-D, could you? Pretty freaky, right? I actually dissolve into subatomic particles and warp myself like a million different ways. And yet for some reason, I can't figure out shapeshifting. I want to turn into a cockatrice!"

A moment of silence passes between us. Then Germany cocks his head and says, "Are you God, Prussia? Be honest."

"No, I'm not God, you boulder-bodied bilgewhistle! I was once a priest! Why would I go and say I'm God?"

"Then what is God? Is God really… everything… nothing… the Void…"

"God's what you entrust your heart to when you don't know where to turn," I smartly tell him, poking his chest.

"Like what?"

"The thing you put faith in. The thing you want to devote yourself to because you feel connected to it. God is your inspiration."

"That's not concrete enough. You've seen everything. What is God? I'll believe you if you say it's Bob Boyle—"

"No, he's the Messiah. What's this?" I ask, schlorping out under his armpit and snatching the envelope he's keeping behind his back.

"Oh... " Germany sighs with utmost resignation. "Prussia, we have to go to Berlin immediately. That's why I came to get you up. We got a PAMNAC summons."

I stare at the official black envelope until my ruby eyes are bulging from my skull and my jaw is literally stretched down to the floor. Then I float up and explode into subatomic particles, luckily reconstructing myself before I'm trapped in the Void again.

"WOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEEE! PACK YOUR BAGS, BROHAUS! PAMNAC! PAMNAC! PAMNAC! PAMNAC!"

"I never understood why you find it so exciting. It's the most incredibly annoying thing, and it keeps sneaking up on us—"

"WE'RE GOING TO BERLIN! WE'RE GOING TO BERLIN! GOD MAKES MIRACLES! PAMNAC! PAMNAC! I LOVE PAMNAC!"

"Well, pack your stuff, then. We have to leave after breakfast. I've already invited Italy to watch the dogs. He went to Pam last week."

I throw my arms around my AWESOME little brother and shove my beaky nose against his chest, nuzzling and breathing all over him like Aster after a walk.

"We get to spend time together! Let's get gummy bears for the road! And we… we can talk! About… you know… anything you want to know. You can ask me anything you want. Your awesome and godly pan-dimensional brother is here for you."

"Did you summon a demon in Romano's apartment?"

"No, I summoned the Face-Eater."

"Brother…"

And that's the awesome story so far!

~N~

What is God? What is PAMNAC? What is the Ultimate Fate of Prussia? Let's believe in him! Say you believe! (Also, does anyone know the best yarn for a prayer shawl? It needs to be soft drapy but it can't fray. I need to make mine…)

Updated by Syntax-N FanFiction . Net August 30th, 2020 Reposters more cursed than this.