Nightmares [Austria]

[Austria]

Again, for the fifth time that week. Waking up with cold sweat running down Austria's back, making his shirt stick. That sickly feeling. And the nightmares.

The nightmares. To this day, they haunt him, but not as much as they had been haunting him that week. He didn't know why they were so common that past week. It just was.

It was as if this was a cruel joke, as if someone didn't want him to forget what he had done.

And he wasn't going to forget. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't forget. And he didn't want to forget what he had done, all those years ago.

For a human, sixty to seventy years ago is a long time. But for a nation like him, it seemed like it was just yesterday.

And yes, those events haunted him like it was yesterday. And it was for that very reason that he couldn't forget anything, no matter how much he wanted to.

Of course, he always wished that things never happened, that he had acted differently than he did. He had regrets. Regrets that he knew he couldn't do anything about, for he couldn't bring back time. No one can.

So far, he had escaped most of his wars through power marriages, tying himself to people he didn't love. Spain, Hungary, to name a few. Of course, he fought a few wars before and after those marriages, but he had escaped most wars through marrying people he didn’t love. And as in the course of history, he had experienced love, betrayal, pain, people walking into his life as allies, then walking back out as enemies. The course of history has hardened him; not so much physically, but more emotionally and mentally.

Yes, he was aware of the fact that nothing lasted forever. Peace, war, stability, depressions and recessions, strong economies, weak economies, none of them lasted forever. There was always change. One time, someone could be his enemy. The next year, they could be allies. He really didn’t care about anything anymore, didn’t want to attach himself to anyone anymore, for fear they were going away again. He had closed his heart, made himself devoid of any emotion, any sense of wanting to be attached to someone. He knew life, and life is cruel. He knew that no matter how much he loved someone, no matter how much he hated someone, they were all going to go away. Therefore, it was only logical that he put a lock on his heart, and swallow the key, so that no one could ever open it up again.

Except… except, he had broken that promise to himself. Ever since World War I, there was one person who had always stayed by his side, being completely loyal to him no matter how bad the events got. Even though he had technically started World War I and plunged the world into chaos, that person took all the blame, the responsibility, in silence, just so he could save him.

Germany. He was the one person who had stayed by his side all these years, and he was grateful for that. His heart… he could feel it open again, slowly. It was as if light was again shining through the cracks, giving him the hope that he might fall in love again, and this time, it would be real, and something that didn't need to go away.

However… he couldn’t bring himself to allow the love. While he had opened his heart a little, he felt like he couldn’t ever open it up fully. He had been so broken by everything that he had experienced, and so attached to the notion that nothing lasted forever, that these prevented him from giving Germany the key, so that he may unlock his heart.

And nightmares, nightmares of that time again. Really, the 1940s-1990s was not a good period for him. For anyone. When he thought that everything was over in WWI, and that everything would be peaceful again, the whole world was plunged into another bout of chaos, misery, pain, killing. And he knew it started from him again.

Hitler. While he was technically Germany’s boss for he had disowned him, declared the nation of Austria as being inferior to the Germans because of their mixed ancestry (which made him a complete hypocrite for he was Austrian himself), he couldn’t help but feel responsible for everything that that man had done to the world. He was from Austria, his ethnicity was Austrian, and no matter how much he wanted to be German, he couldn’t change that fact. And yet… and yet, when he saw his people, completely brainwashed and taken over by anti-Semitic thoughts, when he saw his people allow Hitler over the border without so much a fight, in fact, even pledging allegiance to him… he made the stupid decision of uniting with Germany without a fight. He didn’t agree with anything Hitler spouted. He never did. But when he saw that it made his people happy, that it was what the general populace wanted, he just let it go, even though he knew that everything was going to lead to his downfall.

And he regrets it, to this day. He still regrets the day that he put on his Nazi uniform without saying a word. He still regrets the first time he had killed one of his own people, just because he was a Jew. And most of all, he still regrets the day he had decided to shut down his feelings completely and become an obedient killing machine, going on around his city, rounding up Jews, and sending them off to labor and death camps. Jews he had personally talked to. Jews he had personally helped. Jews that knew who he was, and couldn’t believe what he was doing.

In his mind, there was nothing he could do. Even if he raised his voice in protest, even if he went against Hitler’s wishes, he knew there was nothing he could do. Hitler was Austrian. He had control over his own people, over him. There was nothing he could do but obey.

And to this day, the horrified faces of those he killed… children, women, young adults, efficient workers; their faces as they went down on their knees, clinging to his ankles, begging him to save them… he could still remember them. And most of all, he could still remember himself lending a deaf ear and a blind eye to all the cries and faces of anguish, and firing that pistol that he held fast in his hand seemingly without end. He could still remember himself calmly putting bullets in his revolver, because he had run out of them by killing Jews randomly. He could still remember clearly all the atrocities he had done.

He knew that those atrocities weren’t forced. He did them of his own will, wanting to prove to his boss that he wasn’t as weak and worthless as he thought him to be. He knew that at that time, he had shut off his feelings too closely that there were no cracks for light to shine through, no room for his conscience to say that what he was doing was wrong. He killed and killed, fired and fired. He dreaded that he wasn’t sent to the front line of anywhere. All that he had to do was to kill as many Jews as possible. And he loathed, detested, abhorred, hated at how good he was at that job.

And to this day, it haunts him. All the killings that he had done, it haunts him. Being an emotionless killing machine back then, it haunts him. He remembers it as if it was yesterday, and it might as well be as it wasn’t so long ago. If there was one war that he couldn’t ever forget, one war that he would never allow himself to forget, one war that he fought dirtily, one war that he would think about for as long as he lived… it was this war. It was this war where he had killed and murdered and slashed and burned and shot more people than he ever had before. It was this war where he had literally and figuratively bathed in blood. It was this war where he had voluntarily turned himself into a killing machine, targeting one group of people just because of their race.

Sometimes, he hated being a nation. Nations were always involved with these things, and more often than not, they had no choice but to do what their bosses wanted. He couldn’t understand why some people wanted eternal life, as living forever is definitely not fun. He had been involved in numerous wars despite the marriages, and he always hated brandishing a sword or gun at an opposing soldier just because he was ordered to kill him and his people. He had been betrayed, numerous times, by people and nations he trusted and loved. And of course, he had seen the birth and death of many of his great leaders who he greatly admired and dearly missed.

As he lay in his bed, now wide awake, the covers pulled over him, Austria stared straight at the ceiling, contemplating on his nightmare and his history before lulling himself to sleep again.

And he knew, he knew, that it was going to happen again the next night.

His only wish is for those nightmares to end. But unless time turns back itself and gives him an opportunity to correct the wrongs he had done… he knew that wasn’t going to happen.