The three volunteers were made of England, Canada and I. At the time, all three of us were taken out of our cells regularly and usually at the same time. This we had to use to our advantage.

At first, we had to memorise the routes we took everytime we were taken out and put back in. It was vital to know exactly where you could turn and run.

After a short period of studying the corridors, we had all agreed to run. I had just been taken out of my cell, Canada was probably on the way back, having been missing the longest and England was somewhere.

I found it frustrating that my hands were cuffed, but it still left me free to kicking. I stopped walking with my captors, the guard behind me walking straight into me. Not too impressed with my sudden halt, he said "Move it." Those two words gave me a rough idea of where he stood and with precision, I did a summersault, making sure that I'd hit the man in his jaw. I succeeded, but I still had the other three to try and escape from.

They were stunned at first, which gave me a couple seconds to quickly attack them too. I tried as fast a possible to knock them out and again succeeded. I was relieved to know that they hadn't been expecting any of the countries to fight back.

I quickly searched the guards as best I could and soon found the keys. I unlocked the cuffs, rubbing my wrists, feeling satisfied. I knew I was far from free, but this was the closest I'd been in years. I quickly rushed away from the corridor. Although it would have made more sense to try and free the others, the escape plan didn't start with merely three countries escaping their grasp.

We needed to make sure as many of us as possible could escape.

In other words, us three were scouts, exploring the facility, searching for as many exits as possible.

Sometime after I'd escaped, they noticed, letting the sirens blare out. They were looking for me. Also, the sirens signaled England and Canada to escape as well.

The first thing I did was run down a few floors and to try and find a map. I had knocked one of the guards unconcious and stolen his uniform, so I could mingle with the workers.

Opening several doors at random, I usually only found offices, littered with different notes. I had once or twice also found a staff room, kitchens in the far corner, stored with food and drinks.

I spent a whole week undercover, and yet I still hadn't found a map of the building or an exit. Things were going awry for us, we still hadn't found an exit. The facility really is large. At a later point we found out that it has fifty-one floors. At the time we didn't know.

Anyway, I soon found other nations (outside of England and Canada).

You see, at the time, we didn't know where the others were kept. There were ten cells along our side. Ten cells opposite us, of course we couldn't contact them, since we didn't share any walls with them.

But there were also countries underneath and above us. In each room with cells, holding countries prisoners, there were in total twenty cells, making it ten floors with twenty nations on them. This is where I made my mistake.

I tried contacting each one and succeeded... I then realised that there were several empty cells. At first I thought it was because seventeen countries were missing from the 'collection', but after counting nineteen missing countries... I asked them, but no one responded... And then I got caught. This all happened three weeks after escaping them.

Canada had found other things, more useful than the knowledge of the rooms we were experimented on, the offices they work in or the places they reside in when they're not busy studying or torturing us.

He had found the Security HQ, a few medical rooms and several weaponry rooms. Sadly, he, much like me, hadn't found any exits.

England... He only mentioned one room he'd found, whether or not he had found an exit he didn't say, we just assumed he hadn't found one. He had gone downwards several levels, to the basement if you want.

There... Well, when he did finally talk about what he had found, he only tapped two words. "Dead Nations." We... figured from his news, that they (the kidnappers) knew how to kill countries... Something even we don't know how to do, other than... Well, you know.

Basically, I got caught talking to other countries, Canada got caught in one of the higher floors and England got caught shortly after having found the... Dead nations... And no Germany, I don't know which countries are... Dead...

The new leader of the place thought we were merely trying to escape and that we'd been unable to escape in the 'maze' that was the large facility. I was relieved to hear this, because that meant that he had obviously not read any of our files...

Did I forget to mention? The group that had captured us had been studying us loooong before they actually came after us. So they practically knew everything about us.

But as said, the leader had obviously not been doing his homework lately.

Sadly, he had planned a punishment for us three. We were kept away from the others for a little while, then...

Japan fell silent, looking at his feet.

It was good to see again, after all this time.
"Then what?"

"I... I'll explain." Italy piped up.

I don't know the exact details of what happened to them, but a week after they'd been captured, they were returned to us. Although we tried to contact them, we couldn't. We tapped persistantly, but no one replied.

Several weeks later Canada started tapping, but it was weak. He announced that they had been physically abused and... They could no longer see and that he had only just recovered his hearing. They were also slowly regaining sight... Soon afterwards, Japan started tapping too, but England, because of the shock he had had, stayed silent for a long time.

We didn't know this at the time, so we assumed he had been roughed up more than Japan and Canada, although this wasn't the case.

Japan and Canada started explaining what they had discovered and their misfortunes on not finding an exit.

So we devised a new plan, a second 'attempt' on escape, or better said, a second scout party. When we had finally set up a new plan, we picked our scouts again. This time it was Liechtenstein, me and Latvia.

Latvia failed early on, having escaped only long enough for the alarms to kick in. Liechtenstein and I managed to stay out for a long time, in fact, we both discovered quite a lot of exits... Liechtenstein got caught shortly after having found a few of them.

I followed a while later.

... Like... Japan, Canada and England... We... were tortured... During the torture, the boss mentioned that there were too many countries trying to escape for his liking (which hinted that the countries below and above us were also trying to escape), that they needed a way of permanantly blind us or to permanently keep us quiet. He muttered that he didn't mind me or Liechtenstein, since we both didn't show much rebellion, but he complained about how Hungary and several others had refused to give in.

I, Latvia and Liechtenstein were blinded and... Um... The... muscles needed to speak... Um... were cut off...

When I was returned, I didn't know where I was. Although the cell felt identical to my old one (once I could see again, I also noticed it looked the same), the route which lead me to it was completely different (each country had started learning the routes it had been taking to different rooms).

I asked Greece about this, only to discover someone else entirely.

I found out I was now neighbouring Austria and Iraq.

Austria explained that our captors had moved us all into different cells.

I was the filled in on who my new neighbours were and slowly felt sadness, especially after having grown fond of my old cell-neighbours. Luckily, Austria comforted me, so it wasn't so bad.

Chad* started to devise a plan with Mexico once the news of being in a different place and surrounded by different people had disappeared.

I then told them all the information I had.

Our first priority was to figure out a way for all nations to communicate with each other, other than tapping on walls. Luckily, France, who wasn't neighbouring any of us and wasn't even on the same floor, had already solved the problem. Australia had found a note in his tray of food when breakfast came along. It was written by France and in it, Frace explained that he had seduced several workers into helping us pass messages.

We were very relieved, because it made things a lot easier (quite a few were also disturbed by this).

Now planning an escape route was a lot easier, but we were running out of time.

Many of us were simply disappearing and we didn't know where and honestly we still don't.

Then the next thing happened. We started being taken out one by one and returned shortly afterwards. We tried to ask those who had been taken what had happened, but they never replied. Eventually, I too was taken out.

I was brought to an experimentation lab and was afraid they were going to try and figure out how our healing abilities work again, but to my surprise, all they did was inject a substance into me.

At first I didn't understand why. I hadn't got a good look at what they had shot into me, so I prayed it was just water...

It wasn't. A couple minutes after having had the serum shot into me, I felt dull ache coming from my chest. I put my hand on my heart, wondering why it ached so badly when the feeling suddenly spread throughout my body.

I soon figured out what they had done. They had found a way to stop us being... Connected to our landmass and people. I couldn't feel Italians in my blood any more, I didn't feel my city bustling with life in my heart and.. Well... I just felt emptiness.

I had let a yelp out in surprise at the lack of being Italy (although I was still Italy).

I was then taken back to my cell and I understood why everyone before me fell silence. We countries, after all, only very rarely stop feeling our people. And we had never stopped being our landmass before.

Most of us were very upset by this, but our connection started coming back a couple hours after the injection.

Several got to terms with this problem fast and Ukraine announced that she had heard from several guards on the day we were caught, that they had been able to track us through our connection with our landmass and people...

She wasn't sure how that worked, but it did. If we were unconnected when we escaped, the people wouldn't be able to track us down and we'd be able to find the other countries with one problem less.

Shortly after that, we realised we didn't know which countries hadn't been captured and spent a while figuring that out.

Then we found out what they had found out about us. They knew how to block our memories and also that we, as countries, have two different sets of memories, the historical memories and our personal memories. They were now figuring out ways of permanently harming us...

They tested permanent blindness on Japan, England and Canada, inability to speak on Liechtenstein, Belarus and Ukraine.

And after the blindness, England finally talked about that one room he had found.

We panicked as a result, the idea of dead nations horrifying us.

We hurriedly finalised our escape plans...

A lot of these plans took a very long time to make. Everything had to be explored, every route had to be planned, everyone had their own task to carry out during the escape. We also had to wait until the people controlling us thought we had completely given in and surrendered to them so to speak.

So, because of these different things, we had no idea how much time had gone by by the time we were ready to escape. We just hoped it wasn't too much.

We then set our escape in motion.

It started simple similar to how our scouting worked. One nation would escape, the alarms would go off, those still about would also escape. The difference was that those further away from the cells would go to the weaponry rooms (hopefully without getting lost) and arm themselves. Those closer to the cells would let the prisoners out.

We all had different tasks. My task, for example, was escape. Russia's job was to attack the group holding us prisoner with all that he had. Just as examples.

France was helping me escape, because I... was admittably a bit scared of escaping by myself and... Kept getting lost...

We both ran upwards, because I had found out that the whole base, apart from the top floor, was underground.

Then a gas was suddenly released. At first, no one knew what it was, but someone figured out, that it made us forget. At first, no one believed it, but when we started thinking of our earliest personal memories or historical ones, we couldn't remember.

And then I got shot. I thought it was a bullet, but it wasn't. It was a dart with the syrum which blocks your connection in it.

"France, I've got that syrum in me!"
"Don't worry, that's actually good Italie. It means they won't be able to track you once you esca- Duck!" He then pushed me out of the way and shot the person who had almost shot me again.

France was getting rid of most of the people in our way, often shooting in several other directions in order to help other escaping countries. I caught glimpses of fighting nations (such as Russia or Belarus) and other small parties heading upwards to escape.

France soon ran out of bullets, so he stole one of the warden's guns.

I got shot a few times, but for each bullet that embeded itself in me, France shot ten times and hit the bullseye every time.

We had finally fought our way up to the top level and found an exit with ease, since I'd found quite a lot. The only difficulty we had, was that we were forgetting memories. By the time we were at the exit, we had lost all memories that happened before the second world war and even those were fading away.

I threw the door open, hoping to escape before completely forgetting everything, shivering... The base was surrounded by snow.

France urged me to hop away, but then I realised something.

"I-I can't!"
"Of course you can, you idiot!" France snapped back.

"No, I really really can't!"
"Why not!"

"I- I can't feel the part of me that's a country!" I tried to explain. How do you explain yourself, when you feel the abilities that come with being a nation, such as nation-hopping, disappearing?

"What do you mean?" France asked impatiently, looking down the hall.

"I-I... They've stopped my ability to nation-hop!" France looked at me with disbelief, but then found he suddenly knew what I meant.

"Merde, that gas did more than stop our memories..." France hissed. "Italie, you're going to have to randomly nation-hop. The gas doesn't take immediate effect, so you should be able to do that still."

"B-but... I..." He gave me a stern gaze. "Yes Francia..." I replied. I spun around on my heels, facing away from him and tried to hop. I started running and the snow landscape faded from view.

But it went wrong, the hop. Halfway through it, I lost the ability completely and... I blacked out.

"I then woke up in Mexico, got a job up here and um... And now I'm here..."
"Hai. I woke up in Mexico too, but met Italy as Feliciano several weeks after I was found there."

"I woke up in Cuba."

"Sir, the countries are just filling the others in on what has happened to them." A spy said into a communicator, cringing when quite a few of the countries burst into a fit of rage, questions and demands.
"Anything else?"

"No sir."
"Good. Keep an eye on them. I want to know what they're up to at all times."

"Yes si-"
"WHACK!"
"Spy 1? Spy 1, what happened?"

Crunch. End communication.

"What the heck do they think they are doing, aru?" China asked himself, his fingers stroking the smooth metal of his wok.

He leaned forwards, examining the three men he had found spying on America. Honestly, these people were complete amateurs.

They were wearing uniforms. Black jacket, black tie, black slacks and a white shirt. Unsure on what to do with the unconcious men, China quickly tied them up to the nearest post, relieved that no one else was around.

He put the wok down and walked over to America's house, ringing the doorbell. Right now he was frustrated, probably due to jetlag or something. Also, discovering spies near a countries house always put a nation in a bad mood (unless the spies were there's and doing it because they were ordered to)

"Hello?"
"I can't believe you America aru! Do you know what I just found? A bunch of your people spying on you aru!"

"Oh, thank God it's just you." America said relieved, now opening the door properly, while putting a gun he'd been holding into one of his jacket pockets.

"I thought it was someone else..." The American explained. "... Wait, what do you mean, a bunch of my people were spying on me?"
"Just that aru! I tied them up to the post over there. I think they were listening in on a conversation you must have been having-"

America paled at this information. "They were what?" Germany asked, his head popping out from one of the doors in the hallway. Really? Germany? An eavesdropper in reality? And at America's house? Now that wasn't something China'd been expecting.

Then again, it'd explain why no one picked up the phone at his home.

"Germany, what are you doing here!"
"You mean there are some of those damn bastards here?" Romano asked, surprising China further more. Romano and Germany and America at his home?

"What are you-" China began, only to be cut off again.

"We can't assume they're one of them Romano." A Spanish-accented voice scolded, also turning up from behind the door.
"What are you all doing here aru!"

"Well, I sort of live here..." America explained himself.
"What did you do to them?" A new voice asked.

"I whacked them behind the head and tied them to a post aru. If you'd been listening..." China began, when something in the back of his head went click.

"J-Japan?"

*Country in Africa for those who don't know.

So, now we know what those missing countries have been doing for the past century, although we still don't know much about the organisation that kidnapped them in the first place.

Also, what're they gonna do with the other nations and why can't England remember anything? Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. :3

Sorry for the late update, I'll try to update again soon.

Review?