Tʜᴇ Pᴀᴛʜ Tᴏ Hɪɢʜɢᴀᴛᴇs

Tʜᴇ Oᴠᴇʀᴛᴜʀᴇ

Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 44

You stared straight ahead, the empty chair before you stared back. The horror across your face expanded until you could almost feel your pupils shrivelling in your eyes.

"What the hell is going on."

You called aloud. Expecting one of the three men sitting with you to answer. But Reich, smaller and younger than how you knew him just stared at the table, his hands fiddling with themselves, a frown across his despondent face. Beside him, German Empire stared into nothingness. His white eyes bared at the void before him, his face expressionless but his hands gripping themselves tightly, anger bubbling under him until it swirled with convection currents.

Neither of them answered you, neither acknowledged you. Not even Prussia looked your way, he stared at his son with a look you had never seen on him before. He looked almost afraid. But you didn't care how he felt, you were sick of this, sick of being here. It was like a purgatory, that every night you returned to, though each night it changed, each small subtle difference driving you mad.

Your lips opened, you began breathing from your mouth. The drag of your chest beating in the air. You could have screamed aloud and still none of them would look at you. Why were you here, what did it want from you? Had you gone mad? You were sure of it, it felt so. You could feel the desperation and the burning need of freedom eating away at you like maggots under rotten flesh. The disturbed need of bliss sending you plummeting over an edge you hadn't realised was there until you were pushed to it. How could you leave now? How could you escape this place? Maybe you created this world, maybe it was for you and you alone. There was no exit, as there was seemingly no entrance.

It was just here. And no matter how badly you wanted to ignore it, to just sleep soundly and wake up feeling refreshed, there was nothing you could do.

You felt the insanity drain from your body. You felt the desperation fleeting. Your eyes popped from their sockets the wider you drew them. Their slick squishy surface drying out and scraping against your skull. Until tears built up and bathed them, slowly flowing down your cheek.

No one said a thing. There were no noises at all. The total silence freighted you. You wanted to wake again, in the arms of safety. But there was nothing to wake up to. You didn't feel as though you were dreaming. You could pinch yourself all you'd like, but it wouldn't wake you up.

A tear splashed below you. You dropped your gaze to follow it.

Your reflection stared back, blurred and alone. It was just you, the same as you had always been. Only now, you looked tired, you looked ill. The weight of being a part of three worlds at once was finally taking its toll on you. Another tear fell, then you looked slowly back up. No one cared to look at you.

The room was getting much darker now. The Sun was slowly dying. And with it, you shut your eyes, and left whatever existence there was behind.

All was dark now. Your paranoia quelled. You felt sanity come back to you, gently easing into your lungs like a breath of fresh air.

Then your eyes opened again.

You weren't where you usually were, the room you were in was barren and empty, only a few collections of furniture lay scattered around— a desk, a wooden chair, a bedside locker and a bed. The curtains were still drawn, the room dim and blurry. You sat up slowly and rubbed your eyes, pulling strings of sleep from your tear ducts.

Beside you, Prussia let out the smallest of snores, his arm outstretched from where he had been holding you while you slept, his hair dishevelled and stiff. You thought it was funny, how he had been so confident the night before, only to look much like a humble boy as he slept— with his parted lips and long eyelashes that fluttered every time his eyes moved under their lids.