What is... "Home?" (Hetalia Fanfic, W.A. '13 Finalist)

Chapter 54~!

At lunch Canada seemed really down, for some odd reason. I sat next to him and tried to tell him a corny joke (a pun!) to get him to smile, but it didn't work in the slightest!

"What do you call corn soldiers?" I asked him.

"What?" he asked boredly, resting his chin into his hand glumly as he looked at me. What. Gives.

"Colonels!" I said, and he barely cracked a smile before going back to swirling his fork around in his spaghetti. I leaned over and tried to look at his face closely, but he turned his face away from me. "What's the matter, Mattie?"

"Nothing," he said tightly, and I rolled me eyes.

'Yeah, right.' "Really, why're you so down today?"

"No reason, I'm not down today." He turned back and we almost touched noses, making him blush and lean back. "Could you please get out of my face?"

I sat back down properly and he pulled out his music player, an old MP3 player. He stuck his earbuds in and proceeded to block out the whole world around him. I gave him an odd look for a moment before going back to eating and then chatting when America and England got to our table.

~~~

I awoke in the middle of the night because of an odd feeling in myself. No, nothing related to puberty, I assure you. It was a heavy feeling in the air, making me feel suffocated. I rubbed my throat as I blinked even more awake, wondering what it was. Glancing at the clock I read the time: 1:00 am. 'Wow, I woke up at exactly one o' clock. That takes skills.'

"...No!" Canada's voice drifted over from his side of the room. I looked over and saw him clutching the sheets as he dreamed, his breathing shallow and rapid. "Stop it, don't!"

"Canada?" I said, sitting up. A flicker of movement at the corner of my eye made me whip my head around and stare directly at whatever it was. A lone figure stood there with his back turned to me, a bloodied knife clutched loosely in one hand. His clothing was the boy's uniform of this school, but it was torn in a few places and splattered with blood. Probably not his own, might I add, if that knife indicated anything. I gasped sharply and the ghostly figure turned lazily, as if he didn't expect much to come from looking at me.

When he saw that my eyes were directly on him his eyebrows rose and he mouthed 'You can see me?' I nodded, too shocked to form a verbal response. 'Oh, I see...'

The reason why I couldn't say anything when he looked at me? I could see his face, and it was Canada! Well, not really Canada, but still, it was him! Same hair (but covered in blood), same figure (also covered in blood), same eyes but darker with madness, and he had a lack of glasses. It was Canada after he'd... snapped. Gone crazy. Completely psycho! What the hell?

This version of my best friend smirked and turned back to the real Canada, who was silent now in his land of nightmares. The ghost took a step forward, as if it pained him, but then he started to mouth sentences in my roommates direction. I couldn't hear them but I assumed Canada could, since his expression hardened and took on an angry look. I stood from my bed and cautiously went up to the ghostly figure, who hadn't noticed I'd moved.

I experimentally thrust a fist in his direction, but it just went through him like he was a hologram (without all the static and all that). Sharply I drew my fist back as Killer Ghost Canada faced me, an amused smirk gracing his lips. 'Did you really think that would work, little girl?'

"Sh-Shut up!" I yelled unthinkingly, and Canada's expression relaxed just a tad. This made Killer Ghost Canada's brow furrow in concentration as he continued to whisper his spell (or whatever he was doing to my friend). "Stop it, what do you think you're doing?"