You woke up to the wooden surface of the long table, blinking away the sleep from your eyes. You adjusted your glasses as you took a look at where you were. You were in the familiar UN conference room, empty save for yourself. Was there a meeting just now? If there was, you didn't remember any of it. It must have been really boring, then. You noted that your usual mess of McDonald's wrappers was nowhere to be found. Did someone clean them up for you? But then, why didn't they wake you? Your eyes narrowed at the thought when you heard the doors open from behind you.

"So this is where you've been hiding, is it?"

You turned to find the all-too familiar frown on England's face, his arms crossed to heighten the effect. His death glare would've done the trick too, if he hadn't been wearing shades. You snorted.

"Hey England, what's with the new fashion statement? You trying to make wearing shades indoors a thing now?" you asked as you stood to face him, mirroring his stance.

The Briton merely raised a thick brow. "Hardly. I actually had the heart to look for you before I left, and yet here you are, still lively as you had—" He stopped right then, looking almost agape at you. You could feel him staring at you from behind those shades, and, honestly, it was a little unnerving. It didn't help that half his face were hidden behind those shades.

"H-Hey," you started, and you mentally slapped yourself for even stuttering, "England, you okay?"

England visibly flinched at that. England. Flinching. Unless he was trying to pick a fight with France or hiding from Russia, those two words shouldn't even be in the same sentence. This was worse than you thought. His frown tightened. "You really don't remember…"

"Huh?" It was your turn to frown at him. "What're you talking about? I admit I don't remember having the meeting just now but—"

"Do you know what date it is?"

Your brows furrowed in thought. "April 13."

England nodded. "That is still in the middle of the first quarter; we rarely ever meet outside of the quarterly conferences, what with everyone's schedules as hellish as they are. Even then, the usual number of attending countries is too small to make use of a conference room as large as this." He was right. Normally, you use one of the smaller conference rooms on the other floors. The conference room you were in right now looked more like a movie theater, complete with rows of tables and chairs and a big screen up on the wall for presentations. This room can accommodate all the hundreds of countries, so it was reserved for… Your eyes widened.

"An international crisis…?"

He smiled, showing teeth. "That's right. An international crisis. One that even NASA could never have predicted."

Your grip on the chair tightened. "That's impossible."

"We thought the same. And yet it happened."

All the muscles in your body tensed at the same time. "It already… happened?"

England merely sighed before looking up at the ceiling, as if in surrender. "Without warning, meteors started falling from the sky. Many of them had hit towns and neighborhoods. Some hit cities, but most of them struck densely-populated areas. It was just chaos. There was wide-spread panic. None of the governments in the world could do anything about it since they couldn't even tell where the others were to hit next."

You couldn't help but stare at him. All those people, his people, wiped out in an instant. You felt the blood rushing down from your face. No, you felt cold all over, the feeling of emptiness engulfing you, sucking everything in from the inside. Oh god.

"H-Hold on," you tried, placing a hand on your head if only to level yourself, "Why couldn't any of us predict the meteors from coming? The Hubble should've seen those many from light years away!"

Then, England had the nerve to smirk at you. You suddenly wished that you could punch it off him. "That's because they didn't come from light years away."

"Wait what?"

"The meteors came hurdling down to Earth out of nowhere, just a few hundred miles above the atmosphere. Given that short distance, the impact on their landings were miraculously minimal compared to the destruction of meteors coming from the far reaches of space. But their sheer number was enough to level cities as far as the eyes could see."

By the time he finished, your mouth was gaping, your knees starting to shake. You leaned back on the table. "No way…"

But England wasn't finished. "Then, four other meteors appeared. They were bigger than any of the meteors that came before them, with the fourth almost as big as a comet."

You held your breath. "Where did…?"

"The biggest landed on a private island somewhere in the Pacific. But one of them hit Houston." It was then that the lens of your glasses broke. "The other two—"

"—hit Washington State and New York, right?"

England paused. You took that as a yes. Instead, he said, "So you remember now?"

"Yeah, kinda," you replied as you removed your broken glasses. You could tell that the frame had gone brittle, the lens broken beyond repair. You were also starting to smell something burning. That was probably you. "I don't feel any pain, though. D'you think it's one of the perks of being dead?" you joked, but the smile didn't reach your eyes.

To your surprise, England smiled back. "Well, this kind of death is a little different from, as you say, kicking the bucket back on Earth."

You raised an eyebrow. "It is?"

He nodded. "Come, I'll show you."

You opened your mouth to ask more, but England was already heading for the door. You merely shrugged, and decided to follow him out of the building. You could ask him questions later. You had all the time in the afterlife.

A/N: After so long, I've gone back to writing again! I've been meaning to write this story for a while, but the inspiration to actually write this only came in the middle of my internship (it has its own lull moments too, apparently). Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed reading this!