We Are Zodiac (Hetalia Fanfic)

Chapter Eighteen

"It makes sense..." Arthur muttered as they were on the road the day after the pair Gemini had attacked them. His side wasn't bleeding anymore, but it had taken quite a while for the flow to stop. He'd had to eat quite a bit to get his strength back, and even after that he was riding on Alfred's back again.

"What does?" Alfred asked curiously.

Arthur jumped a little. 'I-I didn't realize I was speaking aloud...' 

"Why the Gemini attack in pairs," he answered. "Since they're the twins, after all. And why we found them the way we did."

"I'm still not so sure about that," Al admitted. "What'd you come up with?"

"If they're the twins, and they're bonded so closely, then if one died, why wouldn't the other?" Arthur posed. 

"Huh... The second one had to have committed suicide," Al agreed. "It looked exactly like that's what happened."

Yup. When they'd set off on their way earlier that morning, the crew had stumbled across two Gemini and finally got to see what they looked like in the daylight. Their skin was pasty, almost as if they'd lived underground (though they clearly did not), and their hands were entwined. The one that had grabbed England had bled out from the two knife wounds in his shoulder and the side of his neck, respectively. 

The most macabre part of their appearance was the extra faces on their bodies.

"Oh... Oh my gosh," Mary had breathed in horror when she spied the closed mouth on the chest of the Gemini that had been stabbed. "What is this...?"

"This is-a twisted," Romano whispered too softly to be heard by anyone else as he averted his gaze and just started to walk away. Relieved at the fact that they didn't have to stay, the others hurried after him eagerly.

Back in the present, Arthur frowned thoughtfully. 'Why did the Gemini have extra parts of faces on their bodies? That almost makes no sense... Sure, they could be trying to imitate a twin that was absorbed in the womb, but what is the purpose of the extra mouths or nose? Does it heighten their senses?'

He really yearned to know more about these creatures. They were interesting if you could get past how terrifying and deadly they were.

"Spokane's a little ways ahead," Mary stated as she pored over the maps. "But there's road 231, and we should probably turn on it and travel north for a while. We can cut across the countryside after we avoid Spokane."

"Alright, sounds awesome to me!" America agreed. "Let's get outta here."

~

A day later, on road 292, they planned to walk that road's length and keep heading east toward Highway 2 yet again. What they'd encountered earlier was Springdale, a small town that had been more or less deserted. It seemed, to them, that once the Zodiac had killed and devoured everyone near them, they ventured out into the countryside with their own kind if their own kind tended to stay in packs.

More gnawed-on bodies were what they saw in vast quantities in the streets and inside private homes all around the town. The only good thing that came from running across this town was the fact that they found a drugstore whose medical aisle was relatively intact. Toris put it up to everyone to grab at least two rolls of bandages or a couple boxes of painkillers and fever reducers.

It took another day to get across road 292, but from there it was off-road trekking. The cars they'd discovered in the town all had something wrong, whether it was internal work or no gas or a part needed replacing. 

"Va can't spend time on zhis. Ve have to keep moving," Germany had stated.

"But if we have a big car, we won't have to keep wearing our shoes out!" America had argued while pointing to his worn boots. They were most definitely looking a little worse for wear.