It was way past midnight. But Liechtenstein couldn't sleep. Not only was there a loud thunderstorm directly above them, accompanied by heavy rainfall, loud thunder and bright lightning, but ever since finding out that Switzerland may be... Concious, the urge to see him, despite the horrible state he was probably in, became bigger and bigger with each passing night.
She climbed out of bed, careful not to wake up anyone she was sharing her room with. Hungary, Belgium, Ukraine and Seychelles continued sleeping peacefully, unaware of her sneaking out of the room. None of the four snored, so she had to be extra quiet. She finally reached the room's door and opened it gently. She frowned when she heard loud snoring in the corridor.
Obviously, not all nations bothered closing their bedroom doors and obviously didn't know they snored loudly. She closed the bedroom door and sneaked down the corridor. She was going to visit Switzerland. With the elements outside trying to tear the skies apart with lightning, she doubted she'd be able to sleep anyway.
She was a light sleeper and so she usually wasn't able to sleep when surrounded by loud noises, directly above her. She held the edges of her nightie nervously. What if Switzerland looked really bad? The others had mentioned that some looked pretty bad, due to the really bad treatment they got before being... Frozen. But... But she couldn't help her self! If Switzerland really was concious, she had to tell him personally that she was OK and that she'd figure a way for him to be alright too, eventually.
She snuck down the stairs, flinching at every single squeak they made. Why was the house covered in old, wooden floorboards? She felt like someone would catch her sneaking around at any given moment. There were other nations which slept lightly, so it wouldn't surprise her if the squeaking floorboards did wake them up.
Finally, she was on the ground floor. She crept through the empty corridors again, reaching the basement. She turned the light on. The tiny bulb above her flickered and she gave a shudder. She was in a big, old house, in the middle of a thunderstorm, in a basement with a flickering light and with barely any decorations in absolute silence.
It was like something out of a horror film. She snuck over to the bookcase. She so badly wished she hadn't joined the horror-marathon with the other nations. The thoughts of monsters jumping out at any given moment, to devour her, clouded her mind, as she pushed the bookcase away with difficulty.
She took a deep breath. It's OK Liechtenstein. This is real life. Not a horror film. Everything is perfectly fine. Just go in, find Switzerland and go out. Easy.
Sure, the others won't be happy if they find out, but I must see Bruder again...
With as much courage as she could summon, Liechtenstein pushed the door between her and the dead wide open. Just then, the lights failed. There was a loud clash of thunder. Liechtenstein frowned. Of all the times for that stupid bulb to go out...
She relaxed a little and entered, making her way down the stairs.
As she made her way down the few steps, she realised she couldn't see a thing. Where were the lights in here? She slowly got off the last step, only to quickly withdraw her bare foot.
She had felt something wet... Was it... Was it raining in here? No, of course not... But... Why?
Cautiously, she let her foot hover above the presumable water. She carefully dunked it in. It could be rain water. It was so cold... She gasped, realising the water was several inches deep. That's a lot of water.
Why... Why was the floor wet? Why was it covered in a few inches of water? She picked up her nightie and bravely took a few steps into the water, carefully making her way over to the lights. Why was she so frightened? Her instincts were screaming at her to run far, far away and forget the dead nations existed. But she ignored them. She turned the lights on, then turned around to see the rows and rows of pods, in which the frozen nations were kept...
Or at least... Should be kept. She paled. All the pods were... They were all empty. Not only devoid of nations, but of ice as well. But... Where... Where were...? Her eyes slowly looked down to the floor, at her soaking wet feet. The water was cold. But it wasn't normal water.
It was thinned-down red.
She screamed the house awake.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Six years later, after World War Three and after the surviving nations regained their status as the representations of countries...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The ex-leader of the HCS had made it quite good for himself in the last few years, having left the world to live by himself in his secluded mansion, somewhere in China.
He sighed, stirring his drink. Despite his riches, he was still under a lot of stress. He'd been keeping tabs on the ex-members of the HCS, waiting for when they could become a group again.
Assuming there was anyone left that is.
You see, there was a reason why he was stressed. The HCS ex-members were all dying. Or, as he knew it to be, they were all being killed.
While it wasn't always obvious someone had murdered them, some were brutally and often cruelly obvious. He gulped. Someone knew where every member of the HCS was living and was killing them off one by one.
It was only a matter of time until they finally reached him. And that was what was unsettling him. He had already installed as much security as he could, but he still found no rest.
They had killed Alex Knöpfer, who was fourth in command, and the rest of the HCS high command, just two months ago. Most of the HCS was killed off. In five years, that was more than a thousand people murdered.
And now... Now there was only the "unimportant" HCS members left (the ones unaware of what they were even doing there) and... him.
They were coming after him next. He took another sip of his very fine wine. His hands were shaking, as they had been ever since Knöpfer's death. He was heavily armed with machine guns, hand grenades, swords, shotguns and other small, miscellaneous weapons. And even with his security put on high alert, his anxiety still wouldn't be calmed.
It never would be. Not until they attacked him. He sat in his living room, staring blankly at the computers surrounding him. He was so scared. He wished he had never gotten involved with the HCS. He wished he had never become curious. Damn his stupid curiosity.
As said, curiosity killed the cat. For a while, he had always laughed at that. But now he realised how true the words were.
Curiosity took the biscuit, killed the cat and left the nations broken.
And now, it had reduced to him to a shivering mess, that would probably be dead very, very soon.
He had already made his will and planned where the money would go. But having done all these preparations didn't make him feel any better.
There was a knock on the front door. The man shot out of his chair and ran to the head computer, controlling the security cameras. He checked who it was. A tall man was standing in front of the camera; scarf tightly wrapped around his neck and iron pipe in hand.
The man looked up at the camera and gave it an almost childish smile.
"I do not appreciate being killed, da?"
The End. :(
I'd actually put a long list of thanks to everyone who supported/read/enjoyed this story, however, I'm too scared to. I'm not used to writing endings (because half the time I abandon them, before even finishing), so I'm pretty bad at it. :(
Hope you enjoyed it, despite the ending.
... Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to hide in my nuclear bunker. I think I may be safe there from all my wonderful readers, favouriters and subscribers... I think... I've got a 5% chance of not being gruesomely murdered there anyway, so...