You're hurling your guts into the toilet bowl as soon as you've shot up from the bed. And you tore at the Tylenol and ate, at least, a pill, or three.
The hangover was writhing, so utterly painful that the headache was like a blade dragging against your brain, a slice that left blood sputtering and gushing. You felt like exploding, feeling a little lightheaded and weak, too.
Either elbows rested on the toilet seat while you hurled another time, and another for good measure, then you drank what was left of your water.
At least the water filled your empty stomach even if it pooled at the bottom.
You stood and flushed the toilet, wiping the side of your lip on a face towel and splashed some water on your weary face, rubbing your cheeks so gently as to lessen the might of the headache. A hole swallowed your stomach whole, a deep crevice that ached and sucked in the gut and leaving you gasping and heaving for just a sliver of air.
When lifting your chin all that fuzziness reached your head and left it leaning sideways, frontward. It's so heavy that your head's bobbing and wobbling and dragging itself down. And your eyes' been drooping, each eyelid fell on each other and what's a stirring in your stomach is all your guts turning.
Bile foamed and saliva dripped out down your chin. Your head's pounding and your heart's feeling, and what's bubbling in your stomach is bursting and popping all over. Sick, you're sick. A hand slipped to your abdomen and clutched hard, pressing down to relieve pressure from a tightening squeeze pulling at your stomach, and while this the other hand massaged the temple, rubbing in soothing circles.
The ache you felt from the throbbing head was nauseating, and not only that, but you could barely see the toilet seat. Your eyes were so blurry and the dizziness made maneuvering much harder, and the dryness of your throat scratched up your voice so hoarse and strangled, you could feel the insides of your throat peeling.
When you left the bathroom and plunged back into the sherbets and duvet, and stretched arms and legs across the mattress, it feels like another wasted day has gone by. Productive but wasted day, but even after drinking, you like to think back, even despite a pulsing migraine and despite the pills yet to kick in, and chew over yourself for getting tipsy.
'What happened? Had I fallen asleep in bed? Had I taken myself to bed?' The memories are blurry like a window after the eye of a storm, and so few memories returned to your mind you'd thought you were barely conscious at all.
Then your mouth spoke before your mind could compute its words. "Mr. Morose..?" You'd mumble subconsciously, nuzzling further into the pillow and burying yourself in the duvet. A figure tall as a redwood and a presence like a shadow and a familiar face.
The sun peaked in from eyelet curtains and rested on your cheek, then you turn the other cheek; your back to the window.
But after a second and a deep breath later, the memory was brushed off as a drunken ruse.
Silence was a beautiful thing and much needed, too. It still felt like your head was bashed and thrashed against a wall, not to mention, those pills were still yet to affect, so a stillness was the best comforter. The sun felt warm on your back.
But there was a noise, like a creak in the floor board and a shuffle. You lifted your head from the pillow, raising a brow with lazy eyes, and grimace.
Another shuffle.
"What..?" You croak, then the shuffling stopped, then the door creaked open, revealing the tallest man you've ever seen.
He blinked as he watched you scramble from your sheets and stand, grabbing a brush from your vanity and wielding it like a sword. "Who the hell are you?" You screamed with widened eyes and chucked the hairbrush before thinking. Your heart's beating against your ribcage and threatening to break from incarceration.
Then you stepped back to your bedside, grappling for another closest weapon to brandish like a blade. A textbook was in your hands. The textbook's raised above, high above your head, aiming to slam the side of the cheek, but gave him a little time — and for yourself — to stop and scrutinize.
He wore a uniform, a black one or maybe a dark green, and the buttons and the breast pockets, and the ornaments; a military sash that goes from the shoulder to the waist, a line tied to one button and to another, and mops on either shoulder, looked so respectable and so pleasant sightly, too.
Medals decorated the space closest to his heart and two gloved hands held onto the brush you threw.
'Like a soldier.' You thought, completely unamused.
His head inclines sideways all smooth-like, but he doesn't speak and what's so confusing are his eyes. Eyes? This bitch doesn't even have eyes, he's got pretty eyelashes though.
You raised the book higher.
He was handsome but you weren't a fool. You'd be damned to have a serial killer in your apartment and you'll bash his head in.
The man has an audacity to sigh as if he's the one being robbed here. "Vu do not remember lazt nacht?" He prosed.
A German accent? You acknowledge. It's a nice one, too, like a really smooth one. You'd laugh that you've got a German in your apartment but he was robbing you.
"Last night? What are you talking about? Who the hell are you!" Your mind scrambled for scattered memories to piece, or at least, possibilities and one thought erupted. "Don't tell me I slept with you!" You blanched, so sickened by the thought you lower the book to place a hand over your mouth.
It was a stupid thought, any hungover thought was a dumb one, but there was no other explanation— other than him robbing you, of course. You were completely certain you hadn't left your apartment yet you wanted to set out your possibilities. This man was either here to kill you or slept with you.
Disdain boiled on your tongue, neither made you happy.
Then you've grabbed a pillow like a shield, pointing between him and you. "Did I? Did we?" You gasped.
The man's lips pursed, grimacing. "Nein— vhat?" He grunted only turning to set down the brush on the shelf and you watched him do so.
"Then who are you?" Then you add, discomforted by a detail you'd just notice. "And God where are your pupils?" You're circling him and hiss, leaning your head so sideways what's touching your ear is your shoulder, then continuing. "And why are you black, white, and red?" Your eyes lasered on one medal, one built like a four-leaf clover with triangles and outlined with black and white.
It was your history obsession that turned on now, not the defensive system, and your mind returned to the lectures and the image of the Kaiser with his mustache and hard blue eyes sparkled inside your head, and your jaw drops.
The medal glinted from the sun and shined with honor.
You stopped and reached out a weak— since your head still pounded— finger. Curiosity supplanting fear and controlled the body and roused without the permission of your brain. "Is that an Iron Cross?" He altered the direction of your hand, pushing it to the side, in attempt to preserve his medal from smudges or sebum.
He was quick to react. "Don't touch." The man asked with a frown with edges strained alongside a chin held high.
And you account the caution and keep your fingers creasing the sides of your shirt. "That looks authentic. Shines like gold." You examined the medal from all sides, angling your gaze from behind and in-front and above and below, wanting to prove a hypothesis true. "Is that real?" Asking for clarification.
For a moment his eyes flashed with offense, your inquiry disgruntling his prestige as if you were accusing him of a con-artist— a sham, but he was more than honorable and honest and was indeed genuine. "Ja. Vhy vouldn't it be?"
You leaned in so close your eyes reflected off the iron."I mean I've seen pictures, like documents and such, but never seen a real deal. Are you sure that's authentic?" You asked for a closer look and he backed away shielding with his hand yet too proud and boastful to completely block your admiring eyes from gaping at his medal of bravery, so he let's in a little movement to stare.
The man lifted the medal with a thumb and finger, so he could look at it himself, and clicked his tongue. "Das ist not a fake." Said the man, meeting your eyes again. He knew that what he wore was righteous and earned this honor of bravery, and he wasn't going to let a stranger squander his admirable-self.
And the irk grew at the sight of some uncertain eyes.
Keeping distance, the book was lowered. "How'd you get your hands on one? Was it your father's? Grand-father's? Or their father before them?" You interrogated and crossed your arms. "That's an antique. You can't come across those easily." Then you pause and humor yourself. "I mean I want one too." He didn't speak for a minute, just staring at you bewildered like a you've conquered an army.
"Vu cannot. Vu are not a zoldier und vu are a voman." 'Woman' was spat out, his expression contorting in reluvsion at your boldness; your words leaving a bad taste in his mouth. "Vu couldn't possibly underztand zhe importance of zhis medal."
A twinge of disgust appeared then disappeared and you lifted your hands in defeat, pursing your lips. "A joke. A joke."
He said nothing.
You then lifted your textbook again, pointing at his direction. "Now how did you get into my apartment? And no lying. I promise you I can smell your bullshit." And as an attempt to reason for him was made, you breathed in really nice and deep. "And what do you mean by, 'don't you remember what happened last night'."
He leaned further, keeping himself low and bowed with a curved back to avoid brushing his hair with the ceiling. He was obviously too tall for a eight foot ceiling. "Ich... myself aren't zure how I got here. I vas vorking like uzual und ending up here." He solicit in a stiff tone, keeping polite. "Lazt nacht vu zaid Ich could ztay after Ich explained mein situation."
Your person's lips tightened, sneering. "Stay? Did you say stay? And situation? And in what world would I let you stay with me! I don't even know who you are!" More and more did your insides curl around each other and squeeze.
As if a point was made recognized, the man leaned every further, surprising you, and reached out for your hand and fingers like claws, like sharp-ended razors, grasped onto your hand, and hooked on. "What are you doing!" You try to shake him off, threatening the man with a slap of a textbook if he didn't release his hold.
He lowered his lips to kiss the backside, introducing himself with a hand clasping to your palm to keep you still. And his brows furrowed. "I am zhe German Empire." Said he with a penetrating gaze, his voice plummy like a king, and his medals clinking when he raised himself.
"Do vu know me now?"
And you stared at the backside of your hand, the lingering coldness from his lips buzzing on your skin. "The German Empire..?" You repeat, much too stunned to wipe your hand on your shirt. But you swear there's a déjà vu without you realizing that shocks you. That this, this situation, has already happened.
The sun started to pour from the curtains and brightened the flag on his face even more."Like that... nation in Europe..?" You looked to him.
Your mind, now that painkillers were kicking in, could think more clearly, and it seemed an entire web of thoughts were stitching itself together. 'Hadn't the German Empire been abolished? Yes. After the Great War, it saw itself in unfair treaties, and collapsed soon. Yet, a man stood in front of you, claiming of the reign of the German Empire.'
"Ja." Confirmation. And you stare at his face again, studying the flag of the Empire.
Then you reach over to take your phone, unlocking, swiping. You've raised the phone next to his face, darting from him to the photo that popped up, and you looked back and forth with a new revelation.
While you found such a revelation, his eyes scrutinized the block you held and was taken aback when a glow emitted from the frontside. A bright light unlike to the stars or the lampposts on the streets of Berlin, or the headlights of a car, or like a bulb.
"And..." You glanced once more from your screen to him, comparing with the image of a German soldier from the Great War; a rifle sitting in his arm, his country's flag behind him, while he stood with great pride. "Your name is the German Empire..?" A little irresolute, "Right..?"
He carried the same disposition of the man, shared the same outfit, too, but what you couldn't find out was the alien-like features of him not like the soldier, but the empire shared a feature with the flag in the back.
Because while the empire stood like a human, had his hair pulled back like one too, and had a uniform of a German inheritance he was definitely proud of, his eyes were nothing like your's and your face wasn't colored black, white, and red.
A stance proper and the height of a column, and a glower of a thousand daggers, and an orotund voice, you understood immediately that this man, unlike the solider, was higher in rank from how he looked, how he was, and how he held himself up.
The man was his own person, unlike to anyone.
And you, what was a feeling in your stomach like a knowing beyond anything else, so weary, like a old human nature and instinct, you knew this German Empire fellow wasn't one of your kind.