Iceland: What is this...

Finland: Huh?

Iceland: The reviews. They noticed that thing about Sweden.

Finland: Oh, you mean the furniture thing? Kyllä, he does like making quality IKEA products in the basement in his free time. I think he names the tables after places at my house so that he can stare at me all the time.

Iceland: That is rather... obsessive.

Finland: Maybe. He is rather proud of his furniture though. I don't think Sweden ever forgave Denmark for what he did to his coffee table.

Iceland: ...I don't want to know.

Finland: Anyway, tervetuloa takaisin, readers~ Let's start off Chapter Twelve!

Estonia and Latvia leaned against a random wall, gasping for breath.

"We made it!" Latvia grinned.

"Apparently." Estonia agreed. "Latvia, did you bring the key?"

Latvia fumbled around in his pockets and brought out the piece of charred metal. It had been burnt a little by the fire but it was good enough for opening doors with.

"Yep! Now let's find that door!" Latvia stuck the key back into his pocket and started down the corridor.

The duo wandered around the second floor, testing doors at random. Lithuania had already pointed out the three locked doors but it didn't hurt to make sure he was right. Aside from that, vague, impromptu maps scratched out on tabletops couldn't be trusted. Fortunately, Lithuania's memory was accurate and they had found exactly three locked doors- one in the kitchen, one in the left hallway and one outside the Japanese room. The key didn't fit in the first two doors, so they doubled back and stuck it into the third. It fit perfectly.

"Yes! This is it!" Estonia grinned.

Gazing at the door, Latvia suddenly started trembling with fear. "I have a bad feeling about this door..." he quaked. "I think... I think it's waiting for us on the other side!"

"Latvia, I don't need you to freak me out," Estonia muttered, cautiously swinging the door open. It moved easily on its hinges, revealing another hallway. Very carefully, Latvia inched down the hallway and slowly peered around the corner.

The Thing sat there, glaring daggers at him.

"Eep! E-Estonia! It's here! IT'S HERE! Let's get out of here!" he screamed, shoving Estonia away from the door as the Thing barrelled towards them.

"What was that- AHH!"

The two Baltics found themselves running for their lives. They bolted down the hallway and came to a stop at the corridor branching off in two directions.

"Estonia, why did we stop?!"

"We need a hiding place... aha!"

Estonia took Latvia's hand and dragged him down the corridor towards the two bathrooms. He threw the nearest bathroom door open, unceremoniously crammed Latvia and himself inside and slammed the door shut. It seemed like the last place they'd hide from a homicidal, country-killing Thing but... Desperate times call for desperate measures.

"A-are you sure it won't come in here?" he questioned.

Estonia caught his breath. "Even monsters might respect other's privacy, you know."

Latvia still looked rather sceptical. "Are you sure about that? That Thing can go anywhere-"

"Shh!" Estonia hissed, clamping a hand over his mouth, "It can go anywhere but you definitely don't want it coming in here, right?"

Latvia jerkily nodded.

The Thing's footsteps thundered down the corridor. It stopped outside the bathroom door for a moment. Estonia and Latvia held their breaths, the former clamping a hand over the latter's mouth to stop him from blurting out anything stupid. Finally, the Thing moved on, its footsteps fading into the distance, which Estonia vaguely wondered about since there wasn't much distance for sound to fade into.

"I think it's gone," he heaved a sigh of relief, "Let's get out of here."

The bathroom door was opened, spitting the duo back into the corridor.

There was a click somewhere.

"Estonia, I say we should check the other locked doors," Latvia suggested.

"Why?" Estonia found no reason for testing doors they already knew were locked.

"I... I have this feeling." Latvia ran back down the corridor. "I think I heard one of them unlock just now."

"Well, if you say so," Estonia shrugged, following his fellow Baltic.

"See, I told you it's still locked." Estonia twisted the first doorknob a few more times to prove his point.

"There's still one more door in the kitchen!" Latvia recalled.

Estonia grumbled a little. "But I don't want to walk all the way there..."

The door in the back of the kitchen opened up.

"See! I told you one of them was unlocked," Latvia gleefully pointed out. He entered the new room and immediately started searching it.

There wasn't much inside; all it contained were a few shelves and drawers. The only thing out-of-place was a large wooden box in one corner. After pulling out a few drawers and flipping through more empty books, they decided to investigate the box.

"Nothing interesting inside," Estonia muttered, closing the lid. "Let's go."

Latvia pushed the box aside. "Wait! I think there's something behind it!" he called.

The two nations worked together to shift the box away from the corner. Latvia was right- there was another box behind it. This one was made out of some kind of metal and had a four-digit combination lock on it.

"How interesting," Estonia remarked, "Let me see if I can open this lock."

He took out a notepad and pencil (heaven knew where he kept those things) and started testing random numbers on the lock, writing down the failed ones on the notepad.

"0000, 0001, 0002, 0003... Ah, of course those won't work... 1001, 1002, 1003... Come on, it can't be that difficult... 4982, 4983, 4984..."

Finally, he threw his hands up in exasperation. "I give up! There are too many possible combinations! We'll come back here and try again later. Now let's go upstairs and meet-"

"Wait! There's one more thing I want to check," Latvia cut in.

"Not again," Estonia sighed, "What is it?"

"I want to look around that hallway we unlocked just now. We might have missed something important because the Thing was there."

Estonia rolled his eyes. "Here we go again..."

They stopped in front of a pair of Japanese-styled sliding doors where they had seen the Thing.

"It should be in here somewhere," Latvia murmured to himself, opening one of the doors. "Aha!"

"What is it?" Estonia was slowly growing tired of all the walking.

Latvia raised a torn scrap of paper triumphantly. "I found it!"

Estonia took the scrap and studied it. There were two coloured rectangles drawn on it, one yellow and one red.

"I don't see how this is important, but we'll take it anyway." He shoved the paper into his shirt pocket. "Now can we go to the Piano room?"

To his relief, Latvia replied with, "Yes, we can go now."

Iceland: And that concludes the first of Three Paths.

Finland: It's not much.

Iceland: I noticed. Oh, for those who are wondering why NYC isn't around, she is currently suffering from a bad case of sore throat due to the incoming haze season. As a result her voice and attitude have become eerily similar to Sweden's...

Finland: In the meantime, see you next Sunday! Don't forget to drop off a review~