A month later...

Norway paused. Their group of three had been walking for a while now, maybe two and a half hours. He was getting tired. The other two stopped as well after a moment, glancing back at him. Finland called, "Lukas?"

The Norwegian answered with only silence, words failing him. He fell to his knees, shaking. Tino stared at him, perplexed. He wasn't sure what was going on or what to do, and in all honesty, he was a bit scared. This was extremely unusual, and he wasn't a huge fan of the unusual, especially when he didn't have access to a shotgun or rifle of some kind. He stepped back. Emil, on the other hand, had an idea what was going on. A vague idea, but an idea. That did not make him any less scared; he was, in fact, horrified at the idea that even Lukas was breaking. He had only seen his brother do this a handful of times before, all of which when he was a child. He tried to recall the last time this happened.

June tenth, 1940, he clearly remembered the date. He'd known that it had been significant for some reason at the time. He wasn't completely sure about what was happening at his brother's house, or most of Europe. Yet, he had to stay with Denmark in Germany anyway- he couldn't remember why. But he knew he should remember the date. He was about twelve.

Emil huffed, pulling his hand out of Mathias's grasp. "I'm almost a teenager, Dan," he complained, "I don't need you holding my hand!"

Denmark sadly looked down at him. He'd seemed awfully depressed for the past two months, and though the Icelander tried to cheer him up occasionally, nothing seemed to work. "Emil," he mumbled, "I don't want you getting lost with all these Germans around. I don't trust these guys not to hurt you."

"But you let Mister Germany come in without even complaining, why'd you do that if you don't trust him?" Emil asked.

Mathias pulled back a bit, a look in his eyes like he'd just been stabbed in the heart. "E-Emil... I did it to protect my people, we couldn't resist if we tried. I didn't want anyone dying in vain."

Yet Iceland was having none of it. He was almost thirteen! He didn't want to be treated like a child anymore. "Or you did it 'cause you're a big wussy and you can't say no to people! I don't wanna stay with you anymore! You're just as much of a big stupid idiot as Big Brother says you are!" He pushed him away just for good measure, before running off, tears in his eyes. Denmark was too shocked by his outburst to run after him.

Emil only stopped when he ran into someone and fell backwards on his butt. "Hey, watch where you're going, stupid!" He shouted, before looking up at who it was.

There stood his Big Brother. He looked awful, to say the least. He was extremely skinny. Emil could even see that, under a large tear in his shirt, his ribs were sticking out. His whole body was covered in bruises and cuts, and there was a cut cloth being used as a bandage around his leg. Blood was running from his nose, and he had a black eye, the other eye red and puffy as if he'd been crying. Iceland instantly regretted his choice of words. Denmark had finally caught up to him, helping him up. Then he looked over to Norway.

Denmark's hand started shaking in Emil's. His lip quivered as he processed what he was seeing. After a long moment, he finally forced himself to speak. "N-Nor... they didn't... you... he..."

Lukas didn't respond, backing up a bit, before running off. Emil ran after him. "Big Brother," he called, "wait for me! I miss you, Big Brother!"

Norway stopped in his tracks, before falling to his knees, trembling. Iceland slowly walked up to him and... and... what did he do after? Emil growled, trying to remember what he'd done. Nothing came to him.

He sighed, approaching his brother. He got no response, so he dropped to one knee, so he was at face level with Lukas. He gently lifted his chin so he could actually see his face. He gasped at what he saw. Norway was... crying?

"Noregur...?" He whispered softly.

Lukas simply averted his gaze, embarrassed.

Iceland sighed. They couldn't stop walking just because of this. "Fin, help me pick him up."

Finland nodded, walking over to the other two nations and easily picking the Norwegian up, slinging him over his shoulder with little effort, as if he were lighter than a sack of presents, which he was- it's presents for every kid in the world, after all. It gets heavier than most would think. Looking at you, Stacy, with your heavy ass Barbie jeep. Um... anyway, back to the story.

Emil watched him in slight disbelief, before shrugging and continuing onward. Finland is full of crazy surprises, after all.

Later that day...

The remaining Nordics' spirits had been drained all throughout the rest of that day's walk. Emil and Tino halfheartedly trudged onward, carrying Lukas along with them. They suddenly paused as they heard something falling over, glancing at each other. That had to be another person. The staff things went out of their way to avoid knocking anything over in the daytime, after all. Emil ran toward the sound.

The first thing he noticed was a fridge that had been knocked over, the doors both ripped off. The other refrigerators also had their doors ripped off. A shame, Emil thought, those were probably some very sexy refrigerators. That one has a very beautiful looking freezer. Then he had a very disturbing and embarrassing realization that made him stop ogling the refrigerators. His realization, in case you wanted to know, was not that they were inanimate objects without feelings or sexual organs, but that they were broken and that would be like a normal person ogling a bunch of skinned corpses.

Why was he here again? Oh yeah, mysterious creepy noise that he felt the need to investigate even though it could be very dangerous and he could get separated from his brother and Tino. Cursing himself for doing something so damn stupid, he continued onward.

Eventually, he found a man on his knees next to a refrigerator, one hand stroking its side. The Icelander couldn't quite see his face, but he could tell from here that he was a ginger. The stranger let out a broken sob, letting his head fall and resting his forehead on what used to be the hinge of a freezer door. He whimpered, comforting himself, with a noticeable (yet thankfully not nearly as thick as Berwald's) Swedish accent as he spoke. "It's 'k-'kay, Karl... d-don't cry... he's gone t' the b-big IKEA in the sky n-now..."

Emil briefly wondered if they were already in the big IKEA in the sky, before slowly approaching the man. He lowered himself to his knees, gently rubbing his back. This made the Swede jump, turning to him. Iceland had to do a double-take. This Karl guy looked exactly like a recolored version of Berwald, with green eyes and freckles! The only parts of his face that didn't resemble the Swede were the laugh lines indicating he actually knew how to express emotions. Emil did another double-take as the guy smiled at him. No way in Hell this was real. Then again, this whole damn place felt fake. 'Karl' chuckled at the shocked look on his face, waving. "Hallå! I didn't see y' there!"

Emil just stared at him, wide eyed. "W-Who are you?!"

"I'm Karl! Karl Oxenstierna!" He shrugged. "But sometimes my friends joke that I'm a ladderback birch. And you are?"

Iceland first wondered whether or not that was a stupid reference to something, before realizing that it was because the author was a piece of shit. The author decided not to break the fourth wall any worse and argue with him, because it was true. Iceland then wondered why the hell this Karl guy had the same surname as his Swedish friend, but decided to not ask about it. He awkwardly looked around for somewhere to run in case this guy tried to kill him, because he was getting serious creeper vibes from him. "Um... I'm Emil. Steilsson."

Karl smiled. "I have a friend named Eirikur whose last name 's also Steilsson. What a strange coincidence that is, huh?"

Emil nodded, a bit nervously as he stared down at the ground. "Uh huh... well, er, I have an Oxenstierna friend... he kinda looks like you, actually... but he's blond... blue eyes... odd attraction to lamps... have you... maybe, um, seen him...? His name is Berwald..."

Karl hummed in thought, before sadly shaking his head. "'Fraid not. I know a few settlements in 'ere that he might be hiding in, though."

Iceland looked up at him, his eyes widening with hope. "There are- there are other people here?!"

"What did y' think I was?"

"A hallucination caused by going mad from being trapped in a hellish IKEA for a month and a half?"

Karl laughed as he shook his head. "No, kid, 'm real flesh and blood!"

Emil rolled his eyes, internally cursing him out for calling him a kid. "Whatever. Let me get my friends and you can lead us to these 'settlements'."

Karl nodded, coming along with him to get Finland and Norway, making all of them extremely uncomfortable on the way to the Lockers settlement for varying reasons (Tino because of the uncanny resemblance to his missing husband, Lukas because of the mention of a Loki Bondevik who looked much like him having a new Danish boyfriend, and Emil because their side conversation about sexy refrigerators somehow lead to Karl mentioning that he'd been accused of being a pedophile numerous times).

By the time the lights were out, they had arrived at Lockers and Finland had set off happily to go find Sweden. Norway, fortunately, didn't need to look far to find his own boyfriend. Unfortunately, he found him shirtless and making out with another man.