Hetalia: A Monument Mythos part 2
Tw: descriptions of vaporization
They wander. They seek. They evict.
The angel noticed a young man kneeled before the tomb, clutching at the stone as though it could hold him together. They felt a sense of familiarity, as though they knew him.
Words of mercy. Words of understanding. Words that claimed that he “wants to free” them. That he couldn’t save them. That he didn’t know
The amalgamation of 17 men screamed in rage.
They coiled tighter, the many nervous systems writhing in unison, limbs flickering like electricity across a darkened sky. They are seventeen men, yet they are one. Seventeen soldiers who believed in the American dream bound by fire, by vaporization, by the unending weight of a mistake made by the very institution they believed in.
“YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND!” They roared—17 agonized voices in a discordant but collective fury that slammed into him. He stumbled, clutching his head, crying. His flesh trembled beneath the weight of what he cannot yet comprehend.
They pulsed again, and the ground beneath him quaked. They are tangled, electrified, t. He cannot flee. He cannot reason. He is human, fragile, inadequate, and he dares to speak of freedom.
He cried. He whimpered. He wailed. He reached for the angel, a pathetic, mortal attempt to soothe what cannot be soothed. The angel fused itself tighter. Sparks crawled across the edges of the monsters form. They sensed his desperation, and it is bitter. He does not understand—they are not free. They cannot be free. Their lives have been destroyed for the sake of an experiment. A weapon. That is the law of what they have become.
“YOUR COMPASSION IS IGNORANCE,” they pulsed again, harsher this time. “YOUR HUMANITY IS WEAKNESS. YOU WILL LEARN, OR YOU WILL BREAK UNDER IT.”
And they watched him, trembling, shaking, wet with tears. They are confused by his reaction. As if he is connected to them. How dare he. How dare this random person speak words of a fraud nation. Words cannot undo the vaporization, their dreams shattered, their humanity robbed, of energy scattered across a desert, of consciousness fused into a warped celestial guardian.
He will neverunderstand. The entity that seeks justice for what was done to them. They are the Air Force one angel as the government likes to call them.
They will not be ignored.
They will not be used as a weapon.
And then it hits them. The truth. Not just the truth of their torment, not just the endless years of dismembered existence—but him.
He is the Nation. Each nation has a personification that acts as a keeper.
The angel trembles at the realization. Every nerve pulses in recognition, every fragment of our being screaming the same truth: this crying boy is the embodiment of the country they foolishly died for, the country that abandoned them, the country that threw their lives away, the country that carelessly vaporized and fused them into a monster.
Decades of suffering flash across the angel’s collective mind like lightning. The pyramid. The plasma. The horror. The orders that sent them to die. The betrayal. All of it is tied to him.
The angel hates him. They hate him, but deep down there is a small part that still feels love for him. The contradiction tears at the 17 souls. He is everything and nothing—the symbol they swore to protect, and the hand that stole their freedom. They mocked his sense of liberty
He trembles on the ground, tears soaking the marble. His chest pulses in the same rhythm as their pain, that explains it: The phantom pain. The hollow ache he has carried unknowingly.
“We fought for you,” the angel bellows, a collective thrum of anger and grief that shakes the cemetery. “We died for you! We were broken for you! And this is how we are rewarded? THIS IS THE AMERICAN DREAM WE STOOD FOR?!
Alfred looks up at them, sobbing, staring through tears that reflect their light. “I… I never knew… I didn’t know about the operation” he cries. “I—”
The angel roared. “YOU ARE THE NATION! YOU ARE THE ONE WHO CAUSED THIS! WE SUFFERED FOR YOU! FOR YOUR FREEDOM, FOR YOUR SYMBOLS! YOU ARE THE LAND!! HOW COULD YOU NOT FEEL OUR PAIN, FEEL US DIE!! YOU LIE TO THE WORLD!! YOU PROCLAIM YOURSELF A HERO!! AND YET YOU CRY HERE, UNTOUCHED BY WHAT WE ENDURED!”
His tears fall faster, his shoulders shake. He wails.
The angel flares brighter, an electrical storm of nervous systems and raw energy. The wind whips through the cemetery. Trees shiver. The sky above Washington, D.C. darkens as if recoiling.
“YOU ARE US,” . “YOU ARE THE REASON. YOU ARE THE SYMBOL. YOU ARE THE NATION WE FOUGHT FOR. AND WE HATE YOU FOR IT. AND WE ONCE FOOLISHLY LOVED YOU FOR IT. YOU BOAST ABOUT FREEDOM. WE DO NOT FEEL FREE!!!!!!!
Alfred trembled, sobbing, clutching at the marble as if he can hold it all together. His mind racing. He trusted Rockefeller. He looked up to the man. His shining city on a hill was a mirage. His government demanded their service, and then threw them away like garbage.
The storm of nerves and fire above him pulsed violently. The angel—the seventeen soldiers—quivered and writhed, furious, unyielding, trapped in a fusion of nerves and Giza glass. Discordant and disagreeing over how to treat the nation. Some felt a sense of duty, most felt the deep vengeance that brought them together in death.This filthy mask of a nation. Every nerve screamed in anger, every pulse of light a testament to decades of betrayal and sacrifice.
Alfred decided to do something a bit stupid.
Alfred rose shakily to his knees. He looked up at the Angel, at the vast, glowing fuselage with impossible wings,
“I… I see you,” he whispered through ragged breaths, voice trembling. “All of you. I feel it. I feel everything.”
The angel once again flared with rage. Do not touch us. Do not pretend you understand. You caused this. You are the Nation.
You are the heart of the institution that sent us to our deaths
But Alfred doesn’t hesitate. Heroes don’t get scared.
He stretched his arms and dashed at the angel. And then, with every ounce of strength and reckless courage that only the living embodiment of a nation (and the most stubborn person on earth) could muster, wrapped his around the Angel.
Pain coursed through Alfred’s body. There it was, the phantom ache that had made him recoil on the trenches, that came out of nowhere and for seemingly no reason, that haunted him for decades—erupted in full force. It was a white-hot, searing agony, locking his chest and back in chains of fire. Every nerve in his body screamed. Every took copious amounts of effort.
He pressed his forehead against what he guessed was the chest, to the glowing wings, to the impossible eyes of the Angel itself. “I… I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I am you. I’m the Nation you fought for. I… I failed you.
The angel convulsed in anger, shock, disbelief. How could he endure this pain? How could the one who caused it—the one they swore to destroy since the pyramid—embrace them willingly, knowing the cost?
He pressed closer, arms tightening, tears streaking down his face, sobs rocking his body. He held on even as smoke started steaming off of his hands, as his heartbeat stuttered.
The embrace held. Alfred’s arms wrapped desperately around the Air Force one Angel, even as the the searing pain coursed through his chest and spine, white-hot and merciless.
A pulse, subtle at first, began to vibrate through Alfred’s skull. And then it grew, spreading like wildfire through every nerve. The Angel could not evict him, could not divide him— “YOU SAY YOU DIDNT KNOW. THEN WE WILL MAKE SURE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING”
The pyramid.
Alfred was among 17 young men. They chattered about their families and the weather and their experience in the war so far. They snapped to attention as they aimed the Giza ray at the enemy. Alfred felt it. He felt the heat of the plasma ray as though it scorched his own skin. Ozone choked him. The feeling of his hair beginning to cook. He felt the burning of flesh, the atomic unmaking of bodies, the terror and confusion of men sent to die. Their feeling of betrayal. Their shattered patriotism. Their fear, their last words. He shivered violently, and his knees pressed into the cold stone of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Alfred felt the breeze of Kentucky, Ohio, Alabama, early life.
Tiny hands clutching toy guns, skipping stones in a summer creek, laughing in the grassy yards of homes long since abandoned. The moments before duty, before war, before sacrifice. Each flicker of innocence pierced his heart like a dagger.
He felt the humidity and Floridian heat. 17 boys simply enjoying their youth.
He saw first dates, weddings, the nights, the promises, the children
Wives who would never feel the warmth of their husbands’ embrace, mothers who would never hear their sons’ voices again, siblings who waited for letters that never arrived. He felt their loss, their sorrow, their unanswered longing, all pressing into him like a tide of grief.
Dreams of travel, of seeing the world beyond deserts and battlefields, of surviving and returning home. Dreams of glory, of service, of honor. Dreams of a small family. Dreams of striking it rich, dreams of a small farm. And then… all of it shattered. All of it folded into the Angel, absorbed and warped by the plasma’s fire.
Alfred fell forward, pressing his forehead against what he assumed was the chest , tears flowing freely. His chest burned unbearably, phantom pain exploding into pure agony as the soldiers’ memories imprinted themselves fully upon him.
The angel - the seventeen—screamed inside him, simultaneously angered and desperate:
“SEE! FEEL! UNDERSTAND! THIS IS WHAT WE ENDURED! THIS IS WHAT YOU SENT US TO! THIS IS WHAT IT COST! IS THIS THE LAND OF THE FREE?! THE SHINING CITY ON A HILL?!
He sobbed, shaking, guttural and raw. “…I—I see it! I see everything! I feel it! I… I’m sorry… I… I’m so sorry…”
The Angel pulsed, and the memories deepened. He felt the moments of fusion, the instant the men’s atoms coalesced, the pain of becoming one entity against their will. He felt the endless decades of weight, of duty, of existence as a creature that was neither fully human nor fully divine. He felt the rage. The isolation. The endless ache of being alive but never free. The heartache of loved ones moving on. The devastation of knowing they would never reunite.
Alfred gasped, the heat scorching his lungs, his tears scalding his skin. And still, he held on.
“…I understand,” he whispered. “Please!
And in that connection, Alfred—the Nation itself—became a witness to the angel’s suffering, a vessel for their memory, their rage, their lost childhoods, their shattered dreams.
(Ai was used to correct grammar and repetition. Also because I was about to get on a plane)
dededos
vaporwave
kaledo-art
snowghoul
annaxmalina
romaincrisis
jbbartram-illu
