⚠️WARNING: Depiction of blood and war

(Y/N) POV:

You were finally back home after a long day in college. You sighed when opening your front door, knowing all the chores and work you have to do. Your parents aren't here yet.

Even though it's late, you take a snack from a cabinet and eat it while trying to read your lesson again. You were too tired to decipher everything. After a few tries you put your lessons away and think of what to do before your parents come home.

You knew they always wanted you three to eat properly the dinner together, no matter how late it has to be, so you knew you had one or two hours ahead before eating again. You texted (B/F/N) but got no reply. Surely they got more energy than you and were actually working.

You gaze at your ceiling before you actually think of what to do. You stand up from your chair and walk to your room. There, you pull out your sketchbook from a shelf and put it down on your desk.

You sit down and slide your fingers over the cover thoughtfully. It's been a while since you got that sketchbook. Actually, you were very close to the last pages now but you still wanted to draw on it.

It was full of your countryhumans fanarts. Only this fandom. You used another sketchbook for other drawings. Now that you think about it, it's been a year that you started to draw in your sketchbook. A year exactly. The same amount of time since you stopped having normal dreams.

You open to the first pages. At first you didn't draw actual countryhumans, but more what simple humans would look like in their world. To you, they would look the same as human. Same eyes, same bodies, same hair, same facial structures...

The only thing different is that they would only be shades of gray. The only other colour on them, aside of their clothes of course, would be a little flag mark on their left cheek. It would show what country they were from... What country owned them.

It's an idea that you had, by reading other fanfictions. Countryhumans are the ones leading the countries, so obviously they're respected by humans. But, they would also be invulnerable to any human attack. Humans can't do anything to them.

Only different countryhumans can harm eachother. But at the same time, anyone can harm humans. That's why, as the creator of your own fictional universe, you made it so that the countryhumans deemed themselves superior to humans.

You didn't make them cannibals like some other creators do but you won't deny you liked reading content with that kind of universe. As weird as it sounds.

Anyway, back to the sketchbook. The first pages were just random characters as you trained on drawing realistic proportions or clothes. Even though they were simple «mannequins», you still made an effort to give them an actual personality. You were fond of your little gray characters.

After looking through most of your drawings, sometimes thinking to yourself that you improved on some points, you heard your parents enter the house. Naturally, you closed your sketchbook and went downstairs to greet them and eat dinner.

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After dinner, you went to sleep. As you closed your eyes and tucked yourself in, you prepared yourself for another night of distant and blurry sounds and images like every other day.

However, once you had fallen completely asleep, your ears didn't catch the usual distant spluttering of voices, but were suddenly attacked by the strident sounds of screaming and explosions.

You reflexively covered your ears as you sat right back up in a panic, your heart resonating in your palms. Your eyes jolt open and you almost fainted when you realised you weren't in your room anymore...

-"What the heck?!" You exclaimed, backing away a little as horror and fear started to creep into your soul. In front of you was a large empty field... Empty only of life, since it was filled by tens of dead corpses of soldiers. It was as if no light ever existed, the sun was hidden behind thick black clouds, fog also playing a part in this terrific painting.

Your breathing was quickening as your senses caught more and more details. The smell of blood was too much to bear, the sight of so many gruesomes deaths engraved in your head. The grass was more grey than green, and even red at some places where puddles of blood were consistent.

There was also plenty of debris everywhere. You realised you weren't breathing anymore and you had teary eyes. Panic was getting to you. You desperately tried to calm down. You supported yourself with an arm on the ground, breathing heavily, your chest heaving up and down at a quick pace.

It was too much. Way too much. You couldn't find a distraction. It was everywhere. Anywhere you looked. More corpses, humans as well as horses, bloody helmets scattered around, some old overused wallets were drenching in the mud, staining any left trace of family photos or touching letters. Any trace of life that ever existed in this field.

You now realised how quiet it was compared to when you opened your eyes. Now there was a deafening silence... A dead silence. As you were backing away, you almost screamed when you felt something. Something that was breathing.

Your head immediately turned around as you grimly looked at a soldier on the ground in front of you. He was faintly breathing and was clutching a little photo in his fist against his hand. His head moved ever so slightly in your direction but he has yet opened his eyes. He was too tired to do so.

You gulped. This situation was so unheard of and scary but now your attention and concern were more focused on this hurt young man. You properly kneeled down to him and sadly observed him, not knowing what to do. He didn't have a helmet, letting you show his disheveled hair, that seemed weirdly gray with the darkness of the surroundings. You grimaced as you could clearly see blood rolling over the side of his head. The red of the blood was clearly the most prominent colour in this damned place.

You felt tears forming in your eyes. You didn't understand what was happening or where you were... but the person in front of you seemed very real, and his pain and injuries too. His breaths were shallow and distanced, as it painted him to do just that. This man was gonna die. His arm shook as his chest shifted ever so slightly. The young man opened his eyes but he didn't seem to see you. However, a little light turned on in his lifeless eyes, his hand stretched ever so slightly towards you.

-"F-Flora... is that you?" He weakly asked. His voice was hoarse and faint, but his voice held a bit of hope... almost childish. You were just looking at him in shock as your heart broke. It was too much. He inhaled deeply and you winced at how painful it was to do just that. However his voice was a bit louder even though he was hurt. He was still blindly reaching out to whatever presence you held.

-"Flora are you here?" He pleaded, hoping to see his family after everything. You opened your mouth but no word came, not knowing what to say or do. What could you do in this situation? His voice broke and his blinded eyes were slowly crying as his hand stretched out towards you. You dismissed a sniff of your own tears and shakily took the poor man's hand, giving him the lightest comfort in his last moments.

-"...Mom?... Is it you?... I'm so scared..." He quietly mumbles after a few seconds of silence. You looked at him wide-eyed, a little tear rolling down as he silently broke in tears. This dying soldier calling out to his mother desperately. You squeezed his cold hand and wrapped your other hand around it. You shakily closed your eyes and silently prayed to whatever power of nature there was to help him.

-"May you be okay..." You whispered and opened your eyes. His face and body seemed to relax a bit after your sentence, as if his pain was momentarily soothed by your words. After a few seconds, he closed his eyes. Your breath caught up in your throat and you looked up in panic, before you relaxed when you saw he was still breathing. You gave him a pained look at his injuries before looking down at yourself.

What...was going on, you wondered. You then started to feel dizzy, your eyes struggling to stay open. Weren't you technically already sleeping? You looked around, and your eyes caught the sight of a lone figure, away in the battlefield. A man was standing and it was like he was staring at you. You looked back in confusion, the dizziness in your body was increasing before you finally recognized the man's face...or flag, from afar. You didn't have time to react before your body gave in and you fell back down into sleep.

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-"AH!" You screamed as you woke up. You were shaking while staring wide-eyed at your opposite wall. Your ears caught heavy footsteps as your mother rushed inside your room.

-"(Y/N), are you okay?!" She asked, her voice loud enough so it was balancing between a scolding tone and a concerned one. But the scold faded when she saw how distressed you were. You looked at her in shock, having to wait a few seconds before you fully recognised her.

-"(Y/N)..." She muttered quietly, slowly approaching while holding her hands in front of her, so that she wouldn't scare you. She carefully sat on your bed and put a hand on your arm. You jumped slightly. Your arm was full of goosebumps.

-"It's okay... Whatever you dreamt of is over now...okay?" She said and you slowly nodded after overcoming your feelings. Yes... It's right...You were in your room now, in your bed. No war. No corpses. No blood. Only your mother. Comforting you like a child. You felt a bit ashamed. You were an adult now. Young adult but still.

And yet you had your mother still comforting you like this. It's true you never had been this shaken up before but it still reminded you of how many times other people and even just yourself had criticised you because you were still with your parents and didn't have your life together.

-"Thanks mom..." You mumbles, putting a hand through your hair. You tried not to show how much this dream or whatever it was affected you. She nods a little but still looks at you with concern. Before she could ask you came up with an excuse.

-"I've just been really stressed lately... might have been that." You told her with a forced smile. It was a half-lie. Sure, you were stressed. But it surely wasn't the reason why you suddenly got a sudden WW1 immersive dream. You wished to never go through something like that again.

-"Alright..." Your mother says. She didn't want to pry too much but you knew she was still concerned. She told you that she was here in case you wanted to tell her something before she left to prepare herself. You sighed as you knew you had to do the same.

You put your feet on the ground and immediately felt dizzy but you didn't stop and stood up. Surely it'd just go away. You walked the stairs down carefully since you were still feeling a bit disoriented. In the meantime you thought over what happened. You had no idea what that was. But it definitely shook you up and now you have plenty of questions to ask yourself.

Such as why was the German Empire in your dream?