Half Life: Hetalia

Unforseen Consequences

It happened in the blink of an eye. One moment everything was fine, and the next, hell was raining from the sky. The world tore open, and out came harbingers of pain, destruction and death.

Nations, torn apart. Civilizations, crumbled. World order all but lost in a span of a few weeks. One accident, one miscalculation, one overstep was all it took. Those with the best of intentions, meddling with power which they did not understand.

All he knew was pain these days. The ache of loss and tragedy pulsed through his veins. Nothing could replace the lives that were lost from the initial invasion, the portal storms...

Or the combine.

His nation was destroyed. A baren waste land of flattened cities. Littered with millions of decayed bodies, and that's not even counting the ones buried underneath structures that had once been their homes.

His once beautiful empire, now layed at his feet. His limbs are always numb, his eyes always sting, his stomach always churns and his heart always aches.

It's a miserable existence. He wishes he would just disappear already. Fade away so he may finally be at peace. But that day has yet to come, so all he can do is curl up and weap. Even as he has no more tears to shed.

Weap for his people, weap for his land. His beautiful, glorious land. Once home to mountains and plains. To deserts and countrysides. For they were a thing of the past. Now all that remained in the United States of America, was scorched earth.

And the little of humanity that remains basks in these unforseen consequences.

He often forgets the last two decades when he sleeps.

When he rests soundly, and dreams of days before the Black Mesa incident. He'd dream of spending time with his brother, Mathew. They would cook pancakes together, or hang out on the beach after a stressful work week. Dream of joking around with his bosses. Dream of sitting in a grass field, twirling blades of grass between his fingers as he watches the sun set over the horizon.

But then a pang of agony would shoot through his chest, and the illusion was shattered before his very eyes, and he'd wake up where ever he had fallen asleep and the crushing realization would break him all over again.

He still remembers that fateful day.

Ironically, he had been there at Black Mesa the morning before it had happened. (In most stories... the hero is often powerless to stop such a tragedy from happening, but blames himself regardless. This was not the case for him. He could have stopped it. He could've. he could've. He could've.)

He was there for a routine inspection.

Every year, on the same day, he'd ride the transit down to the underground facility and he'd check in. Make sure no unauthorized tests or experiments were going on. It was somthing he had personally begun doing.

He had some of the best scientists in the world there, working to fix the problems of the world. But even the greatest minds can be ambitious, careless. He wanted to oversee everything that went on in Black Mesa. It was an American facility and thus is to be overseen by him and him alone.

He remembers the day so clearly. He dreams about it practically every night in such clear detail. Nothing ever left out or forgotten. A horror movie played on repeat inside his skull.

He got off the transit, went through the inspection. And he was on his way.

He had left, assured that the tests that went on that day were completely authorized and legit.

(He should have listened to his gut. Listened when his mind screamed that somthing was going to happen, When he got a glimpse of the crystal they were going to run tests on that day, When he saw the man with an HEV suit pass him in the halls on the way to the test chamber, When he stepped onto the train and the doors slowly shut and he gazed back at the facility that was slowly shrinking into the distance.