Matthew, the personification of Canada, slowly opened his eyes. His head was hurting, and the ropes keeping his hands tied behind his back were starting to burn again. He moved them a little causing more blood to fall, but that only momentarily relived the stinging.

Matthew tried to sigh, but the cloth tied tight around his mouth kept him from doing so. Looking around, he tried to look for another exit out of the small room. He saw none, not even a door. Only a single cord leading to a small TV mounted on the wall. The cord was far out of his reach, even if his hands weren't tied up. He couldn't move, because of the chain locked on his ankle, attacked to a bolt on the floor. If he could reach that cord, he would have strangled himself long ago.

Of course, it was hard to see through the blood smeared on his glasses. His own blood…but that's how he's gotten here.

Shuddering a little, he remembered what had happened not a day ago.

It was like any normal day, he supposed. Walking out of the meeting after being ignored…again. At least Russia hadn't set on him this time…though he wished someone had at least waved. But, again, no one did. Not even his family. Not Papa, not Arthur, not even his brother, Alfred.

He shook his head a little, setting his bear on the passenger side of his car after he got in on the driver's side.

"Who?" his bear asked.

"I'm Canada, Kuma," he said, just using the nickname he had recently given the bear, since he could never remember his name.

"So, you're Canada?" Matthew heard a voice from the backseat say.

Instantly, he froze his hand still on the door.

"I wouldn't do that," the same voice said. "I mean, I was looking for your brother, but…you're needed too," the man, or he was assuming man by the voice, said, smiling.

After driving to where the man told him, he had been blindfolded and led into a room. When the blindfold was taken off, he found he was in a small warehouse. The door was bolted shut, and there was no sign of the man that had led him in.

After a moment, a small TV, much like the one in the room now, flickered on. There was just static, but a voice came through clearly.

"Your assignment is to escape," the voice said. "You have 24 hours. If not, the consequences…will be disastrous."

After the TV shut off, the lights to the warehouse were turned on. Matthew saw his 'warehouse' was actually a small sawmill. It key to the bolt was on the other side of the fully running equipment.

At first, Matthew did everything he could to smash the lock, or find another way out. When that failed, he tried to find a way to turn off that equipment. When that also failed, he finally tried just doing what the man wanted and trying to get the key. He got pretty far sometimes, be he could never reach it. Not if he didn't wanna die.

By the end of 24 hours, he was exhausted, hurt, and still in the sawmill.

Everything went black.

That's when Matthew woke up in this room. Since then, whenever the TV came on, it was split into four parts.

In one part was static, but the voice still rang out clear.

In one part was Francis, Papa, trying to escape a house of mirrors, where every dead end meant another trap, another way he was almost killed. He had already ran into two dead ends and survived, but he was limping, and blood marked his footprints. He wouldn't last much longer.

One part was Arthur, who had died about 2 hours ago, trying to retrieve a key from an abandoned shooting range where there were motions censors, triggering guns to fire. He was lucky he made it 4 hours as it was…

And then there was Alfred. He was still going strong, trying to get to the bottom of an old hospital. There were 7 stories, only 1 useable door on each floor, and a different key for each door. There was a key on every floor to unlock to door on that floor.

Alfred was on the 3rd level already.

Whenever the voice spoke to Matthew, it would tell him how this was all Alfred's fault. His fault they were trapped in here, his fault this man had grabbed him and Papa too, his fault he had always been ignored, his fault he had never once had a birthday or anything of the sort since he became independent because HE overshadowed him.

After numerable hours of watching all of this, the voice came on again.

"It's all over now Matthew. Only Alfred made it out. He's going to come and get you now. Did you enjoy watching your family die? You can thank your dear brother for that."

"I wish he would die," Matthew said, emotionless.

He believed what the voice had said. Because it was true. Alfred pissed off the voice, Alfred put Matthew in the shadow's Alfred was the reason this happened.

"…that can be arranged."

.:~:.

Alfred ran into a small, abandoned room, panting.

"Matty!" he yelled out, calling for his brother. "Matty!"

"O-over here, Alfred," Matthew called, knowing it was his brother by the nickname.

Alfred smile, a ghost of his old smile, but a smile none the less.

"I'm so glad I found you," he said, kneeling by his brother, who held out his leg for his brother to undo the lock.

"I wasn't sure you would," Matthew replied, not getting up after the chain fell from his leg.

"O-of course I did, Matty!" Alfred said, kinda freaked out by the way his brother was acting. "I am the hero, after all."

"Then why couldn't you save them?" Matthew said, pointing up at the screen, showing their dead parent's.

Alfred gasped, obviously horrified by the images on the screen.

Matthew just smiled, pulling out the gun from behind his back that the voice had left for him, along with specific instructions. He pointed it at the back of his brother's head and smiled as he aimed and shot.

"Sometimes the hero can't save everyone~," Matthew said in a sing-song voice, standing up and wiping off the blood from his glasses, keeping the red off the glass, but it was still all around.

Bending down, Matthew closed the eyes of his now-dead brother.

"Nighty night," he said softly, humming as he walked out of the room, a trail of blood following.