The Phantom of Hetalia:Prussia: Learn to Be Lonely

I gazed sullenly at the dungeon that surrounded me, enshrouding me in shadow and misery.  My life—no, existence—had a heavy pall of gloom cast about it.  The candlelight that provided soft illumination seemed dull and lifeless and even the music I clung to seemed insipid and hollow.  I stroked the parchment in my hands longingly, as though I could humor it to bring me some joy or fanciful emotion, but the leaves remained inert and unsympathetic.
 
I sighed quietly as I slouched down against the stone floor.  My heart ached dully in my chest as it was wont to do these days.  Grimacing, I pressed my hand over the pain, trying to lessen it.  The pain spread through my heart and pervaded my whole body.

 I felt my head hang to my chest as the waves of hurt battered me once again.
 
Heavy tears rolled sluggishly down my cheeks.  I let them fall unheeded onto my precious sheet music.
 
How had I once existed like this, alone and lonely?

‘I never existed back then,’ I thought bitterly, ‘I was only half-alive.’

My mind wandered back to those days.  How blind and shallow my existence seemed looking back!  My whole life had revolved around my music and pulling little pranks about the opera house.  I had never a grand or glorious thought until that day, the day that __________ came into my life.  My heart’s aching increased tenfold as I remembered that moment that forever altered my destiny.
 
I was perched in the flies, watching from the set pieces as the pitiful figures in my opera house attempted to perform proper art.  It was all I could do not to laugh at the woefully inadequate display.  Feeling that they deserved a little “motivation” from the Opera Ghost, I shimmied soundlessly down the rope to hide within the shadows of the stage.  As a gazed over my shoulder to the stage, I suddenly felt my knees grow weak beneath me.
 
There was a young woman, barely past girlhood, standing on the stage next to Madame Giry.  I was entranced the second I saw her.  Though her heavenly face had a melancholy cast to it, her whole presence—from her enticing figure, to the gentle slope of her lips, to the shimmer of her sad, sad eyes—held me in a spell.  My heart beat frantically beneath my breast, as though it wanted to fly to this angelic figure.
 
At first, I did not understand these feelings.  I thought I had grown ill or that I was faltering in my resolve.  I shook myself bitterly.  What was this child to me?  Another chorus girl to frighten, nothing more.  But then, I heard her sing.
 
My whole body was seized by the innocent, flute-like tones of her voice.  I could not move if I wanted to, but why would I want to not listen?  It was not perfect.  I could her some amateur mistakes in her voice, yet I had never felt such emotion from a voice.  For all of its inexperience, I could hear the seeds of beauty buried in __________’s undeveloped voice.
 
I found myself sneaking around stage and in the dormitories more and more, looking for the little figure that owned that lovely voice.  I learned her by heart in those days.  I poured over her as I poured over my music in the past.  I learned her name, ________, I learned that her father had died and left her orphaned, I learned that she was called Little Lotte by some in the chorus, I learned that she had an Angel of Music that she was waiting for, and I learned that she was a trusting child, easy to persuade.
 
My heart moaned in longing for those days.  Those days were filled with ebullience and excitement as none in my existence had ever known.  Every part of me was brimming with life and vigor as I grew to know my dearest ___________.  My very fingertips trembled with frantic excitement when I thought of meeting her for her lessons.  My love for her was so profound, so deep and pure.  I desired her as I had desired nothing else in my life.
 
Surely, I thought in those days, heaven would be merciful and grant me this one lasting happiness, this angel that had entered into my dark and dismal life like a burst of light, bringing illumination and warmth to my miserable existence.  From a lifetime of hate and persecution, I had found someone that actually loved me.  My whole life was full and complete when she was a part of it.  I felt, for the briefest moment, the loneliness that had plagued me my whole life leave me.  And for a brief, oh-so-brief moment, I was happy.
       
I pressed my hand to my shattered heart.  The pain I now experienced was at least tenfold the joy I had felt when I held __________ in my arms and begged her to save me from the miserable, lonely prison in which I was trapped.  There could be no going back to those days, I knew.
 
Never again would I hear that angelic little voice call out to me for salvation.
 
Never again would I see that radiant smile that even in memory set my limbs quivering.

Never again would I feel so human.
 
‘You were alone before,’ I berated myself callously, ‘you can do it again.  You’ve survived.  You shall do so again.’

For a moment, I looked back on my days before the little angel flew into my life.  Insipid, hollow, days of cruel, childish pranks upon the Opera-goers, writing music for days on end, and singing to myself in the catacombs I called both home and hell were all that came to mind.
 
I fell back against the stony wall, utterly powerless against the sorrow that filled my limbs with lead and left my heart hollow.  ‘No,’ I thought dejectedly, ‘I cannot live again, not like before.  I’m not the same as I was then.’

I closed my eyes, savoring in masochistic pleasure the image of my departed angel.
   
A heavy tear fell from my eye and traced over my hideous, deformed face.
 
I should have always known, I was destined to be alone.