Note: All right, so this turned out to be absolutely nothing like I originally planned. Not that I actually had a plan. I just sort of sat down and started writing. Also, is it just me, or am I purely incapable of writing a long fic?

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia. Also, for the record, the Holocaust was bad. Genocide is bad. Nazis are bad. Communists just confuse me. Got it?

The stench of death hangs in the air around these camps, even the ones not designated for killing. Corpses are rotting, burning. It is a smell that is never forgotten once experienced. The man passed through the camp, passing a critical eye over the soldiers and an uncaring one over the others. There was a reason they always sent him to inspect these camps. He was the poster boy for the final goal of the entire operation – tall, blond, blue-eyed, strong, intelligent. It was a good way to remind the soldiers why they were working here. It was a good way to prevent them from thinking of the others in the camps as people.

There is no pity, no more than would be spared a worm drowning in a rainstorm. Why should he spare any emotion at all? These… creatures were inferior. Pathetic. A detriment to the Aryan race. Just looking at them could prove as much. Every single one of them was the same: skeletally thin, ancient-looking things that seemed to have lost the will to survive even another minute. They couldn't even be described as human.

The man did not care about them. He forced himself to not care, despite the pain that ached throughout his body. It was not his job to care; his boss had made that very clear to him from day one. There could be no progress without some level of sacrifice, after all. He could not pity, he could not care. All he had to do was inspect the soldier's activities, make sure that they were following the rules as well.

"You are an enemy of the state, Mr. Kirov. You must be dealt with."

It is a death sentence, delivered in a calm, measured voice. The man's childlike face holds the same smile it always has, from even before Kirov knew who that man actually was. There was no questioning, no arguing – I'm the leader of the party, how could I be an enemy? – for there was nothing that could change the mind of the nation. For a brief moment, he wondered why he was chosen for this. Who had decided it? Not the one calmly pointing a loaded revolver at him, that much could be seen. The soon-to-be assassin was clearly just following orders.

The man smiled broader, a smile that never reached his eyes. Eyes that were inhumanly purple, reflecting depths of pain and fear and hatred and madness that no mortal could even begin to comprehend. The last words Kirov heard before the gun fired were words that he had heard Russia say before, back in the Revolution of 1905, before he knew the nation for what it was.

"We can't have children who won't play nice, after all."

They hid in basement rooms, behind hidden walls, even under floorboards. They spent their days awake and silent, unable to sleep for fear of snoring. Children could not play. He knew where they hid. He could locate any one of them, if he chose.

He knew everything about his people. He knew their dreams, their secrets, their anger, and their fear. His boss had asked him to reveal the locations of the hiding ones. Something, some part of him that might have been called human – for it certainly wasn't the majority of his people that was aching in his bones, his heart, telling him that this was wrong – held him back. He lied, and made it seem as if he could only sense his people in a vague way. He made it seem as if he did not know. His boss believed him.

Many of them were found anyway. Others fled the nation entirely. He could feel them dying through the pain that constantly tormented him. He could feel as people left, no longer his own.

For some reason, his brother had been suffering far worse from the camps and the war itself. Perhaps it was because he was no longer a nation, not the way many of the others were. Most days, it was impossible for the older one to even leave the house. Even if he could, the inevitable blood would draw too much attention. And despite it all, he seemed to be in a much better mood than he had in what seemed like decades. He laid back on the couch, laughing in his usual, almost manic way as yet another wound opened and blood stained the front of his shirt. "Iron and blood, brother," He wheezed when the younger one expressed concern. "Let's hope it works this time."

Germany smiled bitterly as his heart told him that it wouldn't.

The rumor slowly grew in the way these types generally did, along with the black markets the people needed to survive. The government had a monster under its control. If they decided you were a problem, there would be nowhere to hide. They would send the monster, and it would find you, and you would never be seen again.

Some said it looked like a human. Some said it was like a ghost, invisible until the last second. Some said it was impossible to tell that it was the monster until it was too late. Some said it could be recognized by its eyes, a color never seen on a real human.

Somewhere in the darkness, Russia smiled to hold back his tears.