Red is everywhere. It's on the ground. It's on my skin. It covers my hands. It flows between every crevice, pools in every shadow, spills from everything I touch. It stains my entire life. It drenches my heart. And it's spread to him. To my brother. Red soaks his very soul. His house is filled to the brim with red. He let it consume him. He let dark black and crimson shred through everything he holds dear. Even through me.

I tried for so long to keep it away. I begged him to let his hate go. I tried to convince him that soon he would be great again, and those that had wronged him would regret their choices and beg for forgiveness. But I couldn't keep it back. The thirst for revenge is like a fire. Once it sparks to life, nothing can stop it until it's burned down the entire world till nothing remains but ash and smoke and regret.

He let his mind be twisted. He followed the orders of a madman who should have been locked up, not placed in charge of a struggling nation. So under his new orders, my brother played the allies like a chess game. He signed their Anti-Aggression Pacts. He acted like a good little dog ready to bark for his masters even after having its tail stepped on. He even joined their League of Nations, a thing promised to bring hope and light to a recovering world.

"No more war", they said. "There will be peace", they promised. They, who believed themselves above my brother, left torn and ruined after the first World War, above me, who could have crushed them all in a blink of an eye before they burned my country and split me from my brother. "It's for your own good." They said, as they created the Polish Corridor, a strip of land tearing my country in to. It had been my land! With my people! Given to a country barely existing, which had done nothing more than cause us strife. The entire organization was built by people nearly swimming in red as well.

It was America, the self-proclaimed hero, who had slaughtered thousands of his natives under rule of Andrew Jackson, and forced half his people into slavery because of their color. He, who had overthrown his care taker in his weakest hour, who left the man crying and bleeding in the rain all for the sake of freedom. And what a joke that freedom is.

Then England, the ancient Empire who had promised he had retired to a tea drinking old softy, a shell of a man filled with self pity at the loss of his poor precious colony. But the problem with Empires is that they still think like Empires. They like war, not politics. And you can see the glint of a killer behind his eyes, of a pirate waiting to cut a throat. He sailed a warship through seas of red.

Next was France, the player who was the very vision of love. A country of romance. He who would never turn on those he swore were his allies. It's nearly laughable. Yes, the country of love, who had murdered a child, my brother, in cold blood back before he became who he was today? Who had started a war with me, his best friend, and expected me to step down and let him win? His clothes, his lips, they're coated in red, like the roses he loves so dearly.

The list goes on and on. But no matter. They made the mistake of thinking that such a powerful country like my brother would switch sides so quickly, would let them trample him in to submission, and expect him to do as they pleased just because they had beaten him once. We would have won, if not for Italy changing sides, for America joining the side of the allies after promising neutrality, or for Russia storming my country.

Yes. Russia. He has more red than almost everyone else. He, who killed my men and women, burned my towns, slaughtered my children, he who had left me barely alive on my brothers door step, promising he would no longer fight, and paying my brother off to leave the war after nearly destroying all that was left of my beautiful kingdom.

And yet I almost daresay I respect him, in the most morbid way. A way filled with a hate so deep it could drown the sun. After the month that my brother snapped, withdrew from the League, fell under the power of Fascism, and in the dark of the night of the first September laid siege to Poland, it was Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, who had joined him, and by the end of that month they were sitting happily in command of a newly ruined country. I was given back my land for a few months, and I was happy, except the very earth of my poor countryside was overflowing with red.

And thus started the Second World War. We would have won this time too. He would have crushed the Allies. They would never have known what hit them. But my brother made mistakes. I made mistakes. His started when he betrayed the Soviet Union, which drove that insane country to switch sides. They ended when he, in an attempt to rally his troops and his people, targeted my civilians, my helpless, and massacred them, blaming it on the Union, leaving me unknowing of what he done until we lost, and he, in the pain filled stupor, told me the truth.

My only mistake had been joining him.

My mistake was that I loved my brother until the end. And he betrayed me.

I, who had stood by his side when he was a tiny little Empire. I, who had raised him during a time of war. I, who had held his broken body when he fell to France. I, who had given him my land, and a part of my kingdom to bring him back. I who had given him everything!

And so now we kneel, side by side, our uniforms torn, our bodies broken, our spirits killed by red. Italy stands behind the five Allies before us, bandaged, avoiding our eyes. He made the right choice for his people. For himself. He left. Japan is not present, he lies unconscious and unresponsive, his country devastated by the bombs.

Each country who fought in this war is injured. France's ankle is bound tightly, his arm held in a sling. England's chest is stitched together, the Air Raids having left their mark. America's back is torn and scarred by the events of Pearl Harbor. Russia is the only one who seems unaffected, but beneath his coat his body is riddled with bullets.

But none are as hurt as me. Pain shatters my very heart as the Allies, one by one, sign the thing taking away my life. They are destroying thousands of years of building, fighting, and bleeding in a matter of minutes. My Kingdom is gone. My people are no longer mine. I am nothing. An Ex-Country. Meaningless. My land is sold away piece by piece. Prussia is gone. I am gone.

They begin to make a deal, to split Germany between itself, where he will be West, and I will be East. I will live a lie. I am not East Germany. I never will be. But it is not my choice. Nothing is anymore. I am about to consent, when they say that West shall go to the Soviet Union.

Russia, who loathes my brother for his betrayal, who wishes for nothing more than to beat him down, to bruise him, to kill him. Russia, with his childlike expression, his laughter as he murders. My brother would never survive. My brother would never see the light of day again. My brother, who's head is turned down to the floor, tears sliding silently off his cheeks, begging for forgiveness from the god he killed for.

My brother whom I love.

I beg them to take me in his place. They consent. I know the Allies will take care of my brother, and in time he will recover, go back to being what and who he really is, and again he will be strong. I am dragged away in chains by the beaming nation, as my poor dear brother struggles against his bonds, yelling for him to bring me back, telling me he'll get me out. Empty promises.

But it is better me than him. He, who could wash away the splatters or red, and find a light to drive out the darkness. It is much, much better that it is me. He will live on. I will fade to that but an old whisper of a land lost. A dying scream in a cold winter land. I will stay strong for now, I will take the pain that Russia deals each day, I will live as long as the wall that now separates my brother from me, and as long as I remain the Soviet Union's little pet. But when the Iron Curtain falls, and I see my brother, it will be the last time, I will fall as he unifies and Germany rises again.

For it has to be me. I am the most red of them all. Red is spilled so deep within my heart, my bones, my flesh, my scars, it kills all that it touches. Red puddles where I step and trickles down the whip marks, the stab wounds, the bullet holes, and tears in my skin that are all that remain as a sign that I am still here, locked in a room with no light where I belong to a sadistic blonde haired Soviet demon.

Red is everywhere. I was born drained of all colors but red, and I will die drenched in red. Oh yes, red is everywhere.

It's even in my eyes.