Finland: Tervetuloa takaisin~ I hope our story is still okei for you, readers!
Iceland: Only one review for the last chapter. I wonder if it's only because they don't know what to review about because... you know.
Finland: I get it. I helped a little while writing this one since I was involved... ehe. Anyway, we hope you like Chapter Twenty-One as much as we do!
The trio followed Norway down another corridor and into a smaller room, this one occupied by yet another set of book shelves and a table.
"Something's not right about this one," Norway muttered to himself, scrutinising one of the shelves. "I guess we can come back later to search through it in detail."
"What's wrong about it, Norja?" Finland inquired.
The Norwegian shook his head. "I'm not sure. This place feels... off, somehow."
"We still have the rest of this corridor to explore," Lithuania reminded the pair, pointing at a door on the opposite side of the room. "Let's carry on."
"This is one long corridor," Finland remarked.
"It looks rather unrefined," Norway added, running his hands over the rough stone walls. "It appears like some creature excavated this one right out of solid rock with nothing but its own claws."
"I'd hate to run into those claws," Lithuania shuddered.
The two Nordics exchanged glances.
"I agree," Finland nodded, picking up his pace, "Let's make this a quick one, then."
The trio continued down the passageway until they came across a large hole in the wall.
"Hey, what's this?" Finland wondered, peering inside.
"Don't do that!" Norway quickly pulled him back. "We don't know what is in that hole. It could be dangerous."
"Oh, okei."
The corridor veered sharply to the left. It led into a dead end, with a rope ladder hanging from an unseen ceiling.
"Look! Maybe we can use that to escape the mansion!" Finland pointed at the ladder.
Lithuania's gaze followed the rope ladder upwards. "I think I can see light up there! It could be a way out of this place."
"This seems a tiny bit too simple, though," Norway mused.
"We have to tell the others about this," Lithuania decided, "Who's going ahead with the good news?"
Finland was about to volunteer, but he appeared to remember something and closed his mouth, shooting Norway a look instead.
"Fine, I'll go," Norway sighed, "I can search that smaller room on my way there, anyway."
He promptly left the group, back towards the room with the shelves and table.
Finland turned back to Lithuania.
"You said you wanted to tell me something," he recalled. "What was it?"
"Oh, that..." Lithuania glanced sideways. "You see..."
"Where is it?" Norway muttered, combing through the book shelves. "Where's that object giving off that strange feeling..."
The books on the shelves weren't anything interesting. None of them looked suspicious enough. However, Norway was sure whatever seemed to be drawing him into that room had to be around the shelves.
"Maybe it's behind the book shelf," he figured, checking the back of the shelf. "Aha! There's some kind of seal here. Let's see... Ah, there we go."
He broke the seal and a bright white light expanded out of nowhere. Norway quickly shielded his eyes from the glow with his hat. When he was sure it had completely faded, he carefully put his hat back on.
Lying on the table was a green hardback book. Its title was faded and strange symbols were scrawled over the cover, but Norway immediately knew what it was.
"How interesting." He picked the book up and flipped through it. "This appears to be a spellbook of some kind. It definitely would come in useful!"
"Norway?" Lithuania's voice sounded.
The two nations entered the room.
"What's that?" Finland asked, indicating Norway's new reading material.
"Oh, this? It's a spellbook," Norway held it up for him to see. "I found it just now. With this, I'm sure I can fight that Thing better with my magic."
Lithuania looked sceptical. "Are you sure? Remember how your last offensive spell turned out."
Norway sighed. "I know, I remember. But that was without any kind of assistance. With this book, I can do more damage to that monster. Maybe... maybe I could even stop it from attacking us at all! Two seconds at most, but I think I can pull it off."
"Fine, I'll believe you. For now." Lithuania turned his attention to the book shelves. "Did you find anything interesting in here other than that book?"
"Hey, look! What's that?" Finland called, pointing at something on top of the shelves.
"Hang on, I'll get it." Lithuania felt around the top of the shelf until his hand came into contact with an object. He brought it down carefully.
"It's another clock," he reported, placing a glass-covered wall clock on the table. "Wow... this one looks gorgeous! It's too bad we have to break all the clocks to escape."
"It is rather exquisite," Norway agreed. "There is something strange about it, though."
Lithuania shot him a sideways glance. "You've been saying that a lot every time we find something."
The Norwegian simply shrugged. "This whole place feels off to me."
Finland peered at the timepiece. "Are you sure this is going to give us strange memories if we break it? I won't know how to deal with them if I don't try it myself."
"Quite sure." Lithuania nodded. "You don't want to back away a bit so you won't get them?"
"No. It's our only way out, so I'll have to face them sooner or later."
"Okay, if you say so."so."
"Here goes, then," Norway announced, shoving the clock onto the stone floor.
The clock brought Lithuania back into the corridor he had explored with Norway and Finland earlier, except he was accompanied by the other Baltics and Poland.
"This... It hasn't happened yet, I'm sure of it."
"Ah, we can escape! Finally!" Poland laughed. "Why didn't we, like, find this place sooner?"
Latvia shot him an uneasy look. "...Yeah. I guess we could have found the rope ladder a long while ago..."
Estonia glanced at his watch out of habit. "You're all too slow! I'm going ahead."
Latvia gasped. "Estonia, wait-"
Estonia had already continued down the corridor and couldn't hear him at all.
"Oh God... not again..." the young Baltic muttered worriedly.
"I wish the others came with us," Lithuania mused, "but Denmark loves adventure so much..."
Poland tilted his head. "Yeah! It's, like, totally more efficient is we could, like, escape all at once-"
"AAAAAAAAAH!"
Latvia jumped so suddenly he looked like someone had given an electric shock.
"ESTONIA!" he screamed, tearing down the corridor towards the cry.
Lithuania and Poland exchanged glances.
"What happened?" Poland wondered.
"It sounds bad," Lithuania noted. "Let's go."
Estonia stood at the end of the corridor, trembling with terror. His knife was drawn but he couldn't seem to hold it properly in front of him.
"L-Lithuania! Run, quickly!" he stammered. "It's... it's here!"
Over by the rope ladder, which was ablaze with crimson flames, stood the Thing. A flaming torch lay burning by its side.
Latvia sobbed loudly. "Oh God... Why? Why does this have to happen again...? Wait! What about the others?!"
Poland drew out his spear. "What are you guys waiting for? Let's, like, attack that Thing already!"
"And just when we'd found an exit too..." Estonia murmured, trying to steady his hand.
"This isn't a good place for a battle!" Lithuania objected, taking hold of Poland's shirt collar, "Let's get out of here first!"
Estonia felt something snag his right leg. He tumbled onto the ground before he could call for help.
"Damn it..." he muttered, as the Thing closed in behind him, "Is this it...?"
Lost Estonia.
"...Is this a possibility after all? A glimpse of events to come...? No. I have to change this somehow. Maybe if I told someone..."
"Poland, wait!" Lithuania called after the retreating figure, "Estonia just fell down over there!"
"What, really?!" Poland grasped his spear tightly in his hand and rushed back down the corridor.
Estonia tried to pull himself up. "No! Don't come back here! Damn it, I think my foot's caught in a vine..."
"What the hell!" Poland dashed between him and the Thing. "Why can't things ever go well for us? And just when we were about to escape too!"
"Poland, just go! Please!" Estonia cried.
Poland stood his ground. "Everyone else is, like, dead! We're the only ones left. You three go back. Let the Phoenix deal with this!"
The Thing grabbed Poland's spear, snapped it in half and lunged...
Lost Poland.
"If I tell him, the others will still die... This place doesn't care that we are countries. The Thing can kill us off anyway...
I... I feel so helpless...
What if... what if I did something before Estonia could trip and fall... I can't let him fall over at all. If I do something before he falls, he won't even fall down and everything will be alright!"
"Ah, maybe if I do something here..."
Before anyone could react, Lithuania surged forwards and slashed at the Thing with his sword. It flinched, backing up against the burning rope ladder.
"Yes! This is the best scenario so far-"
The Thing charged forwards and raked its claws over Lithuania's sword arm.
"Ugh, what the hell?" he winced, trying to stem the fresh flow of blood with his free hand.
"LITHUANIA!" Estonia cried out.
"It's no good... The more memories I see, the stronger our enemy becomes... What should I do...
What can I do...?"
"I knew it..." Latvia sobbed. "I knew we'd never make it. Lithuania... Estonia... Poland... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. It's so much stronger than at the beginning... I can't do this alone..."
"L-Latvia?" Estonia held back a gasp.
"Come on, let's just, like, get the heck out of here already!" Poland yelled.
Latvia shook his head. "I'm sorry... I must have made another mistake..."
"You... LATVIAAAA!" Estonia screamed, throwing himself between him and the Thing's attack...
Lost Estonia and Latvia.
"Gah! I would still lose them all anyway... We might as well not come down here at all, but... I'm just going to get another memory of another version of our doom... right? I'm just going to see the worst possible endings regardless of what I do... What can I do? What's the best thing I can do...?"
"Lithuania! Lithuania! Are you okei?"
Someone was shaking him. Hard. Lithuania felt the cold stone floor under his hands. He must have fallen over.
He blinked. "Ugh... what happened?"
A relieved sigh behind him. "You spaced out for a while and collapsed out of the blue! We were so worried the memories from the glass clock could have..."
'We'?
Present memories came flooding back to him. The rope ladder was still intact. He had just gone and found it with... with Finland and Norway. None of the other Baltics were present. Neither was Poland. Nobody died. Not yet, at least.
"Finland, you can stop shaking him now," Norway's voice floated through the air somewhere to his left. "He's clearly awake. Don't shake him back into oblivion."
"Pahoillani," Finland apologised, gently easing Lithuania back on the floor. "So, um... which ones are real again? I don't know how to sort this out."
"Try to figure it out on our way back to the others," Norway replied. "If you still can't arrange your thoughts properly, check with Estonia. For some unfathomable reason, he is completely unaffected by the false memories."
Finland helped Lithuania up. "Huh. I wonder why," he mused. "Lithuania, can you walk?"
"Probably," Lithuania nodded, stumbling a few steps forwards to prove it.
"Great! Let's go back and tell the others the good news." The Finn clapped his hands together. "We don't have all day!"
"What can I do? The possibilities are too numerous. I... I can't do this alone..."
Finland: "Nobody died"? Are you sure that's okei?
Iceland: Do you have a better way to put that kind of feeling into words?
Finland: Well no...
Iceland: I rest my case. We'd better start collecting information for the next chapter. I have nothing to work with!
Finland: Okei. See you next week, readers, and don't forget to review if you can!