Still open to your opinions, dear readership.

To be honest lately I have been feeling a little bit discouraged, so I won't be surprised if this chapter doesn't end up published on the same night I started it which is Monday night. I have a great deal of schoolwork and the 6th form applications to contend with, as well as an upcoming move to Australia. Yeah Australia. I'm moving from Britain to Oz in 7 months, which is gonna be an almighty transition so there are quite a few things I have to take care of for that. For example bleaching the kitchen cabinets. I don't know where all these annoying little jobs have appeared from but they're here and taking quite a bit of time outta my writing time, so forgive me if this appears late or is written sloppily.

I disclaim this. These boys are not my sons. These girls are not my daughters. Forget disclaim, I disown the entire story of Hetalia. Not mine, no matter what they tell you.

Later (same day)

There was trouble at the perimeter. One of Security had busted out the semi-automatics they're not supposed to touch unless there's an emergency and started firing it into the barricade of furniture we have made our perimeter. They fired sporadically for a couple of minutes. Holes popped into the wood of the desks furthest from the desks closest to us. The bullets only hit wall. It's lucky it did too because we don't need someone else shot. Suzy is already nursing his old gun injury (hell that was less than two weeks ago wasn't it? No wonder), Ven has been shot twice and probably permanently scarred on his chest, Lili hasn't got a left hand anymore, Feliks was shot in his arm, Liz was shot in the leg…there are too many injuries to list, so I'll just say we're a mess and we'll have a hard time weathering a prolonged attack. Luckily for us that is exactly what we're facing.

Whoever had the gun went away eventually, seeing they couldn't do any real damage. On the bright side they wasted bullets and they don't have many. We're trapped near the store rooms where the ammo is kept. Now all I need to do is remember how to aim and I'll be Rambo in no time.

I lead Ivan and Luddie and Suzy to the boxes, but I didn't go back in with them. I couldn't really bring myself to knowing what was in the boxes. Just…bleh. I feel sick just thinking about it even though I've seen worse. They came out pale and disgusted. Suzy asked me how soon I wanted to go. Soon as possible, I told him. So we spread the story among our peer group, making them swear to keep it a secret to anyone but the people who were leaving.

The guilt I feel for the people I didn't think it fit to tell, the provinces and capitols, the people I could afford to lose…it's like weights have been stacked on my back. One-by-one they are added each time I remember a face or a voice or a snatch of conversation. They're gone. I don't know exactly what my logic was…maybe that if we told too many people Security would figure us out quicker than we could escape. They were a sacrifice so we could live. We, the nations- the most important people in the school. The future we had been working towards our entire lives no longer existed but the mentality certainly did: our survival was still the most important outcome in our minds and for sake of the continuity of our own lives we allowed many others to perish. Fuck.

To comfort myself, I'll say attempts to save everyone would have resulted in the deaths of the whole student body. Yeah. There's a nice fall back. Now I don't feel like a murderer. I feel like I endured.

A couple of days ago I thought we had all time in the world. Time would freeze itself especially for us because we were young and innocent, and the real stuff would only begin at our heels, too far behind to hurt us but close enough for us to marvel at our lucky escapes. Didn't work out that way of course.

One night and a few hours into the morning after we had made our discovery public to our group we were discovered. At this point it didn't matter too much; we had quietly packed the essentials and planned an escape route. Originally we planned to leave at night, but it was during the day we had to go. I still cherished the childhood belief bad things were forbidden from sneaking up on you during the day because there was light enough to see your surroundings, despite the virus that debuted during the day to bite us all in the ass. It was during the night the covers went over my head and the only comfort against my nightmares was the breathing of the boys in the beds on either side of me. I was safe as long as I could see. If I could see I could defend myself. But again, it didn't work out that way.

It was during the day Ivanova walked into the hall and announced there would be an orientation on the 6th floor and all students should attend. Her expression was the one a homeowner might have before a totally filthy item of furniture was removed from their perfect lawn. A single look between Kiku and I decided we would not be going to the 'orientation' and if there was ever a time to get off our butts and haul them to the nearest exit, it was RIGHT FUCKING NOW. The students from the other halls came through our corridor to get to the 6th floor. Some looked relieved action was finally being taken, others apprehensive at the prospect of having to work again.

Asal Amirkhani, the girl who represented Iran asked me if I was coming. I told her I would meet up with her later because I wanted to check on my sick friends first, so she went on blissfully unaware. The memory of her back as she walked down the hall will forever be one of my biggest regrets. I could have called out. It would have been so easy to save Honey. That's what her name means, the Arabic translation. The opportunity to save a life was literally in my hands. She slipped through my fingers so fast. They all did.

I had to fight against the flow of students. Faces jumped out at me and disappeared into the crowd, but I no longer recognised them. They were already the faces of the zombies lurching outside on the grounds to me. I was slogging through a river of mud and somehow in no time at all I was in the designated 'emergency checkpoint', the med bay, where familiar, living faces awaited me.

Kiku ,Sadik, Mo, Hera, Luddie, Lili (pale and sweaty, leaning heavily on her cousin for support), Suzy, Peter, Tino, Matthias, Emil, Lukas, Bella, Ivan, Liz, Roddy, Antonio, Gio, Ven, Ed, Toris, Oscar, Feliks, Raivis, Nikos, Mei, Audrey and a partridge in a pear tree.

I was the last one to arrive, fashionably late.

"Are we sure we wanna do this?" I said.

"Alfred Francesca (it's Francis) Jones do you really think I'm going to back out of this after packing the whole goddamn dorm and the kitchen sink, seeing those boxes and losing an arm?" replied Lili, making a brave attempt to appear prepared "Let's get out of here already."

A mutter of agreement shivered around the room. Audrey jumped up on a table "Now that Al's here can we run the fuck away?"

Suzy chided her for her language with a light cuff. "We have to ch'ck th' ou'side."

"What is there to check? There are zombies. We can just sic our Russian on them."

She pointed to Ivan and everyone laughed, including him. He held the pipe he wrenched from the ceiling on the first day. He seems to have adopted that thing. The duty to check the exits fell to Ivan, Bella, Kiku and I. We checked the exits near the garage and were back after a three minute round trip. On the way back, Kiku gave me this smile. For a second I genuinely thought the power had been cut, he was that bright.

"Paranoia pays off sometimes, huh Al?" he said.

My tongue tripped over itself. I managed "Hells yes." I meant to say 'yes it does, thank you for supporting me' but I'm grateful words came out at all.

I should mention escape was totally impossible from the exits we checked. The floor was obscured by an ocean of bodies. There were too many to even consider moving our group out that way. If it were just me I might have tried using the zombies' heads like a carpet, but I imagined little one-handed Lili facing that crowd and mentally struck it off the list of escape routes. We were going to use the cars to get out- it would be hard to move Lili on foot and people would tire quickly if they weren't caught by the zombies I am absolutely certain are swarming in the woods.

Only at the beginning and we were already running out of options.

Oh for fuck's sake, really? They're at it again outside. I have to go take care of this. At this rate by the time I finish filling you in, we'll be out of the damned school already. I'll be back if I can.

See you next week then people.