A/N: Thank you for the attention this has gotten, but on this chapter do any of you mind leaving a comment? It will be heavy writing, and it's a new writing style for me so I would like to know what others think about it. None of the other chapters will be quite this heavy or long, but the setting and situations at hand needed to be set.

~~~
Confused Travels

"You know, I had always thought that I'd be kicking zombie ass in the apocalypse."

"Yeah?"

"Fuck yeah Danish dude."

Matthias sighed and chewed on the end of his unlit cigarette, then offered it to Alfred. "I wish there were zombies. Then we'd know where the bodies are."

He took the cancer stick and bit down on it. "I don't think there ever were any."

"No?"

"Nah. I think that Iggy and Norway cast some kind of a spell on all of us."

"…Bullshit. We've had this conversation before. Artie sucks at magic, but even he isn't powerful enough to send us off into this hell . . . Between you me," He took the cigarette when Alfred handed it back, "We're gonna have to turn around. It's been nothing but desert for four days now, Mattie and Feliciano can't handle too much more of this out here. We don't have enough water to last and we can't keep carrying them on our shoulders like we have. You're Superman, I know, but I'm not."

"We can't turn back!" Alfred narrowed his eyes and glanced across the dying fire pit at his brother and Italian friend, both sleeping. He wanted to add soundly after sleeping, but he could hear their uneven breathing over the harsh winds that carried sand and stung the nape of his neck. "Not…not now!"

"I'm not saying for good," Matthias said softly. "Just so we can go back and scavenge the city again…I know we weren't safe back there, but we aren't safe in this desert with two sick men on our backs either. This air isn't helping their lungs."

"That wasteland has been abandoned for years. I still don't know why the people left so quickly to leave behind so many things…It isn't even my city, I can't feel anything from it. It looks American, but…it's not…anymore…" He looked down and frowned. "Let's put out the fire and sleep on it. We can talk to the two in the morning and decide, huh?"

"Sure," Denmark kicked sand into the pit when the breeze was not directed at the sleeping duo, and pulled his bandana back over his mouth.

Alfred did the same. When they did get back to the city, he wanted to burn these goggles. It was a pain in the ass to have them on constantly, but if they did not then the sand would sting and blind them. "G'night, Den…"

They had arranged their camp in the middle of what appeared to be a complete barren wasteland of what they all hoped was still Earth. Italy and Canada were under the tattered blankets holding each other, and Alfred laid down beside his brother while Matthias got beside the Italian. They were sleeping on a part of the ground that was hardened beside the rad they followed, and during the daytime they could see the cracks lining what used to be solid ground. Maybe it had been grass at one point. It was hard staying on what one could assume to be a highway; they were trying to find any towns that could be identified by citizens or people.

Thus far in their confused travels, there had been no people.

Alfred and Matthew had been the fortunate two to be together when it happened. Neither knew exactly where they had been before waking up here, but they knew that the World Meeting had been held at least that prior afternoon. They both agreed on this when Matthew still had his mind intact, before the illness set in. The brothers were still wearing their business suits. They had awakened here, in this world, under the remains of a collapsed overpass on a highway that neither recognized. There was a haze around them, a heavy fog, and it had been freezing cold that day. Being pioneers the two of them, they had stuck close as they chose which way to follow the road—it was cracked and covered in pale sand that seemed to not belong, yet here it was, and so they decided to head north.

The problem was, they did not know which way was north.

The personification of a nation had several built-in qualities about them that they inherited from their citizens or their caretakers. England passed down his eyebrows to most of his poor colonies for instance, and North Italy had inherited his grandfather's artistic talent while South Italy inherited Ancient Greek customs. All of them had built-in compasses set in their minds, so they could never truly get lost in theirs or another's lands . . . And neither Canada nor America knew which way was north. It was highly unnerving for the two of them, so they decided that since they had awakened on one side of the overpass they would go down that direction of road.

And thank god they did, because Denmark was in the first ruined city, if one could call it that, that they discovered. It was also the only city thus far in several months that they had found.

There had once been large buildings in this unknown city, not skyscrapers, but big enough to disappear into the heavy fog surrounding them. There were plants now growing on several of them, and ivy vines snuck across many of these modern yet ancient buildings to the point that it was as though they were dragging the construction back into the ground. The brothers did not know what to make of it all, other than they thought they had been a victim of Arthur's magic perhaps? Was this the future world?

And if so, where were the people? Animals? It was completely silent.

It was hard to tell how long the day was, but Matthew did still have his watch. It was cracked, and he didn't know how it had gotten cracked, but it worked. It began to get dark and colder around eight, so they stopped in a trashed store to sleep. There were many businesses here, all buildings one to hidden-by-the fog stories high, and they were either directly beside each other or, depending on the street, had narrow alleyways between them. There were trashcans in these allies that were empty, every single one of them.

The brothers noticed how quiet this abandoned city was. The buildings were overgrown with plant life, yet they found fairly recent cans of food that had not passed their expiration dates in the trashed store they stopped at (thus dispersing the future world idea). They still did not trust this canned food and left them there. They also remained quiet, only whispering to each other instead of talking outright. Something besides fog hung in the air, and they could feel it listening to their movements like a hidden malevolent presence.

It did not scare Canada or America so much as unnerve them. Ignorance is bliss, America realized later.

Matthias had been rummaging around in one of the many stores, and after two days of quiet traveling down blocks and various streets Alfred and Matthew found him sleeping in there when they wanted to find food that was not growing right in the city. Berry bushes were growing between ivy vines and other weeds—raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and some nuts. There had been a confused yet excited reunion as Matthias said that he had woken here in this ruined store that had empty shelves and mushrooms growing in the corner (he was not brave enough to eat them, so they were deemed inedible), but he was almost terrified to leave. He said that the heavy fog brought with it an unsettling silence and even with his fearless personality, he was dressed in what used to be clean winter clothes that did not allow easy movements or much protection aside from the cold. Denmark didn't dare explore to find anything that could actually protect him besides an emergency axe he found in the back of the store. Anybody could be out there and this was unfamiliar territory; he had only been awake for one day and wanted to prepare for going outside. Alfred and Matthew had been awake for two days in this place and also scared at the lack of people in this empty city, as well as the fog that had not lifted (Matthias was unsure of whether it was really fog or something else, but by this point it was too late).

Matthias pointed out that they were lucky to have each other. The last thing he remembered was going to the bathroom in his hotel room alone; his Nordic family had dinner plans after the meeting. He had no service on his cellphone, which was cracked in his pocket and turned off until he could find a charger and outlet…Or some wire and a potato. There was no electricity in this store, but he would still be helpless without a charger.

They had set off that same day to scavenge this new world they did not recognize together, and the heavy fog never lifted so there was maybe fifteen yards of visibility around them at all times. They talked about what could have happened and where (or when) they could be, and Matthew mentioned the pale sand that could have been ash, but there would have been bodies, bones.

There would have been people. Even dead people would have been welcomed by now.

After four days of scavenging the city, they discovered that the insides of stores were really not as barren as they initially thought. There was still plenty of food to be found. That scared the trio. Terrified them. It meant that there were no survivors in this city to scavenge everything that remained; something had made the people leave before they could take anything. Stores had been ransacked, that was for sure—TVs were gone, computers were broken in many places, one jewelry store was obviously broken into and left in a hurry. There were still necklaces and rings on the ground, some beneath a thin layer of the unidentifiable sand that dusted the ground through the broken windows.

And in grocery stores, the stench of rotting vegetables and fruit was overwhelming. Things had been left behind. They filled two carts with absolute treasure from one store in what they thought was outside the center of the city—four fucking bottled water cases (the only source of water previously had been from the juice in canned foods) and twenty-eight cans of food—and they made a base camp in the back of the same grocery store they found Denmark in since it did not reek of rot.

There had been arguments—Alfred wanted to move on to the next city and travel through this one, but Matthias and Matthew wanted to find out where they were at least. Nothing in this city told them or gave any hints of a location. There weren't even street signs. There were sometimes signs above store windows and doors, but not all of them.

But labels in the stores were English, that was obvious, and used American spelling…Yet Alfred felt nothing of where they were. It was obviously American, but it wasn't his country they were in.

Eight days after finding each other, they felt comfortable enough to leave by themselves so long as the one man exploring had the emergency axe. It was eight days later than they wanted to be there, but it could not be helped at this point. They needed to survive until they found out what happened in this world to make it so damn quiet, and theirs for the cause of them waking up here. Alfred wanted to make a map, if he could ever find some goddamn paper. He found a package of pens, but nothing to write on.

They dared not attract whatever had caused this apocalypse (why else would there be no people but plenty of food?...canned and pickled food, anyway), and the fog never lifted once. They started to wear bandanas found in old clothing stores over their mouths just to be safe, and Matthew went out that day with his glasses secured under his own bandana. He had found and saved a package of six swimming goggles in his pack down the street, because the fog did not lift once ever and he was already nearsighted. One could never be careful enough. The goggles were unopened and shoved into his bag.

That eighth day had also been the day he heard noise for the first time.

At first there was happy singing echoing from down the street that was too familiar, and then Matthew broke into a run towards the noise. It stopped and turned into crying, and later Matthew learned that it was because Italy had not heard anything but wind and his own voice for the past month. The poor Italian had awakened on the outskirts of town and made his way inside slowly, just trying to find food and water to survive. It took him a month to get to where they were now by foot, all cars were gone or abandoned in their places (there were no license plates on any of them, and the interiors were stripped of any personal belongings and registrations). He had frozen in his tracks when he heard Matthew running, and when he saw the figure emerging from the fog he had screamed in fear at first before Matthew pulled down his bandana. It echoed and bounced off the ivy-clad walls of the street businesses. Screaming turned into loud weeping, and Italy gave the Canadian the biggest hug he had ever given and pleaded for mercy in Italian, prayed between sobs that Canada was real, or that none of this was real and he would wake up in Germany's arms again, or that Grandpa Rome could lead him into Heaven now.

Matthew could only hug him back and promise him again and again that he was real, and just down the road was the grocery store that he, Alfred, and Matthias had been in for a little less than two weeks now.

Feliciano had collapsed to his knees in the pale sand that dusted the empty streets, devoid of cars except those parked on the side of the road, and sobbed loud enough for the Dane and American to come running out.

"Holy SHIT ITALY!" Alfred had yelled, and both of them joined in on their hug.

The fact that Feliciano's clothes were covered in what was now assumed to be white ash, and Matthew had buried his face in Feliciano's dirtied hair, slipped their minds until the two got sick.

Italy had been cleaned with supplies found in a Bed, Bath, and Beyond store down the road. Despite this American store existing in this odd world, Alfred still felt nothing of the land.

Later that night, between their dinner of cold soup and bottled water, Italy told them that beyond the outskirts of town was a lot hotter than it was in the city, here. It was a desert he woke up in, and the road was wide enough to be a highway. There were no cars. He faced one direction leading into a sandstorm without the wind, a giant wall of sand in the air that blinded him, and it was the same no matter what direction he faced except for one. He had maybe fifteen feet of visibility around him just like they did here in the fog, and he saw that he was on an overpass. He could barely make out shadows of tall buildings in the sand, and he went towards them.

There were large clouds of sand in that air, and even with his shirt pulled up over his mouth he could barely breathe and his eyes that were normally shut constantly stung. The air tasted like sickness and death. It wasn't until he got into the city that it seemed as though a switch had been flipped, and the sand turned into fog in the air, and the sand he had been walking in turned into white ash. It was a very precise line, like he was passing into a different dimension and trading sand for fog (hot for cold).

He had no idea how he came to be here as well, but he had been awake and traveling around the same city far longer than they had. That meant that the city was much bigger than they thought too, because Italy swore up and down that he was only going forward down the one street for weeks, scavenging maybe fifteen blocks a day before it got too dark to see, and he was just as surprised as they had been that the city was not completely empty. He didn't want to stray from his one road though after a while, because Feliciano thought that it was a main highway and if there was anybody else here he would find them on the same path eventually.

And he had. It took him a month, but he found Matthew.

He had explained, "The people here started to break into expensive stores, but something stopped them. Food markets still have a lot of food in them, and I've passed by businesses that have full candy jars in their offices and pictures of families that look weird. But expensive stores are missing a lot more stuff than those places . . . So the people did not know that their world was ending if they wanted to take TVs and computers more than food and water. There aren't many cars around either, but I bet that they were all leaving this place. Wherever the cars are, the people took them out of this city."

He then presented his bag, full of candies, dried pasta noodles, shirts, a pair of scissors, and a stiletto knife he had found. There was only one weapon store he had seen, and it was robbed completely dry. It was one of the few truly empty stores he had seen. He found that knife under a shelf, and he told the trio that the exact moment he found it he thought he remembered something about the night before he woke up here, but it went away. It had something to do with the knife though, he swore!

The last thing that Matthias, Matthew, and Alfred could remember was the World Meeting. The last thing that Feliciano could remember was falling asleep in Germany's arms four days before the meeting took place…The June meeting, he said specifically.

It had been July when the next meeting was held, and July was the month that Denmark, Canada, and America remembered it being before they came to this place.

Then Italy had been gone for over a month from their world then, and he had spent over a month wandering only one out of many streets in this foreign and supernatural land. The three that remembered the June meeting could not remember if Italy was there; in fact, they could not remember any of the last two meetings. Just that they had attended them. It was unsettling.

Italy had burst into tears again after dinner was done, and asked them to keep talking when it came to the point that they were too exhausted to keep going. They did not have beds in the back, but they had plenty of blankets and pillows stolen from the abandoned stores around them. Feliciano did not leave Alfred's lap, and while the American silently suspected it was because he was toned and probably felt like Ludwig, Matthew waved the Italian man to sleep beside him for warmth and companionship. They stayed up whispering to each other while Alfred and Matthias slept near them, also huddled together for warmth.

Italy had been completely alone for a long, long time. He admitted that it nearly drove him to suicide after the first two weeks, but the thought of Ludwig or anybody else wandering these streets alone like he was kept him alive and traveling.

Canada hugged him tightly to his chest.

Every single night for the past eight days the trio had been in that store, they kept all lights off (somehow, electricity came and went with different stores on different days, so they kept in mind to find a power source) and kept intact doors shut and locked. The front doors of the grocery store were sliding glass and had been broken, and they had not swept it so if there were in fact people, they could hear them enter. The back doors were locked as well, and so was the office they slept and kept their food and other treasures in. There were no lights or windows in the office, and even the hushed whispering of the Italian and Canadian did not carry sound beyond that locked door.

Yet when they woke up only a few hours later, it was because Alfred had jumped up and took the axe.

"Al," Mathew whispered.

Alfred only shook his head to shush him. There was light coming from beneath the door, pale and blue like the fog each day. The other two were not awake yet, although Matthias' eyes scrunched up, but he and Matthew sat there and listened to the sound of glass crunching beneath heavy shoes just inside the entrance to the store. The sounds echoed. It could have been somebody that they knew. It could have been another lost nation like them.

But the air was too thick and tense, and the brothers had long learned to trust their gut instincts in this place.

". . . Zu'u hind wa kippran . . . "

Matthias' eyes shot open at that. It was fucking loud. That voice was a deep, dark growl that one could only imagine belonging to a monster in a horror movie.

"Krent Nahlot . . . "

Even Alfred shook, and the three that were awake stopped breathing as the heavy footsteps came nearer. The only light that they saw came from below the door, and Matthias was still laying down, he saw fucking hooves between the floor and door make shadows as it stood in front of their safe haven, and the inhuman creature stopped moving there. They heard it cough and hack (it was disgusting how wet it sounded), and then it spat onto the door. It sniffed like a dog, they heard that clearly, and then it scratched the door with what they were sure were long claws like a pawing dog.

It scratched again.

And again.

Only after a minute that dragged on like an eternity of continuous scratching, and then another wet hack and spit, did it walk off and away from the door.

They realized that it was not heavy footfalls they heard, but it was in fact the heavy clomps of a horse. Matthias would later tell them of the two hooves he saw against the backdrop of mysterious light.

The three of them laid in silence for a good forty minutes more before they finally heard the glass crunching as it left for good. The light went away as well, and it was pitch black again.

What terrified them all was that for forty minutes it had waited for someone to come out.

The three waited another entire hour before Feliciano woke up, and Matthew covered his mouth and shook his head quickly before he could make any sounds. He realized that they were in darkness, and Italy could not see him, so he brushed his lips over the other's ear.

"Sh."

It barely broke the silence, and nearly was silence itself. Nearly. Alfred hugged Matthias and Matthew close to him while Matthew hugged Alfred and Feliciano, and thanked God that they were in the corner away from the door. Feliciano just sat waiting with them, aware that something had happened but not aware what. He half blamed himself—the Italian had made a loud scene in the middle of the silent road in his excitement earlier that day. Later on they would all agree that the noise probably attracted the hooved figure, or at least helped. Matthew made a good point by saying that they were four people together who needed showers; salvaged body spray, mints, and razors alone were not enough to keep up good personal hygiene. It probably sensed and smelled their presence.

The axe was in Alfred's lap, and an entire hour longer after Matthew's word was barely spoken did he break down and finally begin to cry.

"W-where are we?"


Remember: this is a new writing style for me, so please let me know what you think. I have most of the story written out already, but I can still go back and make changes.