The cellar only held a dim light that mostly came from the open door leading to the rest of the house, the light-bulb having gone out a long time ago with England constantly forgetting to change it. Even so, the light allowed rows of old and completely full bookcases to be seen, each and every volume on the shelves being a thick and leather bound and occasionally wearing intricate symbols on the spine. Unlit and neglected candles could be found in almost every corner, and in the very centre of the room a circle had been drawn in chalk on the worn floorboards.

America descended to this room, frowning, the steps creaking loudly no matter how carefully he went.

"Okay..." he said once he had reached the bottom. "This is just creepy."

England was behind him, walking down with much less reluctance. His only reaction to the younger nation's comment was to roll his eyes before turning to one of the bookshelves.

Their reason for entering this room was simple: America wanted to find information on whatever strange curse was affecting England. When England mentioned he had many books in his cellar on, at the very least, similar subjects, America jumped up and ran to the stairs, barely listening when England said that he had looked through those books hundreds of time and that there was a significantly low chance of them finding any new information. Despite this, even when America stopped to actually listen, his resolve was unshaken. He was determined to find some answers, and England could only sigh as he caved in and agreed to look with him.

"That's, um..." America gestured to the room. "That's a lot of books."

"Yes." It might have been his imagination, but England sounded just a little smug. "Many of these books are over hundreds of years old; you wouldn't believe how much time it took to restore half of these while making sure the rest stayed intelligible."

"Oh. Wait, so, will I even be able to read these?"

England waved a hand towards a few of the rightmost bookcases. "Those books are a bit more recent. If you really do want to got through with this, you can take care of the right side while I go through the left, okay?"

And with that, they got to work. England had been exaggerating when he said the books were more recent—it took America more than just a few seconds to get his head around the dated language. Thankfully the task wasn't impossible, but he found himself staring at a page twice as long as he usually would just in case he had overlooked something through mistranslation.

There were many extracts on curses and the like, there even being a few mentions of lycanthropic type symptoms, but none of the books he had skimmed through so far came even close to what England had. Time seemed to drag by painfully slowly as he reached for another book, his spirits dampened by the thought that maybe there really was nothing that could help them here, and by the time two hours had passed America was just about ready to give up.

"This is pointless," he heard England mutter from the other side of the room.

"Hey, don't say that!" America said, ignoring the fact that he was pretty much bored to tears himself. He turned to England. "There's gotta be something here, you know?"

But England only glowered at him.

"And what the hell makes you think that?" he asked, his voice cold. "I already told you—I've looked through these books more than you could possibly imagine. Don't you think that if there was some sort of solution here I would have found it by now? All this stupid idea is going accomplish is to waste both our times."

Though it was slight, America couldn't help but flinch. The harshness to England's words had come out of nowhere, and America found himself wondering just how close to nightfall they were.

The above action did not go unnoticed. England frowned, then his eyes widened and he brought a hand to his mouth. His gaze fell to the floor dejectedly.

"Um, England?" America asked, a little worried. "I-it's fine, okay? I mean, I guess this whole thing was a little stupid. I was just thinking..."

His mind failed to come up with something that didn't sound hollow; he could only trail off in hopes that England would fill the silence himself. When England finally looked up again, it took a few moments for him to actually speak.

"We... we've been down here for a while now," he said with a strained smile. "I think it's time for a break. Let's go back up."


—Chapter end

Short chapter is short XD Sorry; it's been a while since I've updated, well, anything, and I was having trouble continuing this chapter further, so here...? I promise the next one will be longer and probably have more action ^^'

Please review and tell me what you think ^_^