Sorry I'm so late, again. I need to get a grip...and this chapter isn't even long. Pfach.
Review! :D
The fire was containable. It'd taken a while, but it was containable. They said it'd be out by tomorrow, if not earlier.
Only a little of Lithuania had burned, and the fire had been mostly extinguished anyway, with the help of a freak blizzard that swept through and vanished. In Russia, however, the flames were still burning high.
Lithuania supposed the close proximity of the alien ships to Earth affected the weather somehow. Estonia would know more.
I suppose Russia kind of deserves it, he thought, then chided himself.
He must be going through hell right now. I shouldn't hate him.
The almost familiar laser specks flickered into existence again, lighting the black sky with a greenish glow. Before the Lithuanian could react, the alien head flickered up and the voice overrode all other sounds.
"We have more of you fools. Give up already. You can't win."
The familiar faces flashed onto the screen. Russia, America, England, France...all of them. Then Spain, Liechtenstein, Greece, Prussia, South Korea, Switzerland, Canada, and - Lithuania felt himself go pale - Belarus.
And Poland.
The blood drained from his head and he swayed backwards. In that moment, there was a very real possibility he might've passed out from shock and horror.
As it was, he stumbled backwards until he hit a table. There was a chess set on it, and it started to fall, bishops, kings, and pawns scattering over the floor.
He remembered almost winning against Poland until Poland invoked his own rule with this very chess set.
They were screwed. There were only four or five days left, if that much. He'd lost track. The black sky and darkened earth all blended into one big blur he couldn't distinguish between.
He sat at the table, putting his head in his hands, shoulders shaking with silent tears.
When Estonia and Latvia came back, they found him playing chess with himself, a few tear tracks gleaming silver on his cheeks. They all stood in silence a moment, a tableau of three young men in a room, and then Estonia gathered up his nerve and spoke. "Uh, Lithuania-"
"Give me five minutes," said the Lithuanian without looking up. "Then I'll come."
Estonia and Latvia left, trading anxious glances. Lithuania finished checkmating the white king and said softly, "I invoke the Poland rule. Every move is now mine!" He began jumbling up all the chess pieces as Poland had, and in a sudden fit of emotion, hurled the black king across the room. It struck a potted plant in a white glass vase, and the vase shattered. Water and glass scattered in all directions.
Drawn back into the room by the noise, the other two Baltics found their companion kneeling in the puddle of broken glass, heedless of the scratches and shards, with a black king clenched tight in a white-knuckled grip.
"Lithuania," said Estonia again, "We're all waiting for you to tell us what to do next."
The nation realized that yes, he was the one that everyone looked up to now, the new leader, sort of. It was entirely up to him what they did next.
"We do whatever's left for us to do," he said after a protracted silence. "I just don't know what that is."
There was another brief silence while the wind roared outside. "I'm not perfect, okay?" said Lithuania suddenly, startling them all. "I don't know anything. I don't even know what we're going to do, or what day it is. The only thing I could think of to do is surrender, and that's impossibly because we'll all die anyway. Sometimes it feels like the only thing left to do is die, slaughtered like pigs." His voice was getting louder and louder.
"But then I think of all the humans relying on us, living on us, depending on us, and we can't just go and die because we'll be dooming thousands, no, millions of people to die as well, but the only thing left is for us to die, and I almost sort of want to die-"
And then the Lithuanian's nerve broke and he ran out of the room, feeling something wind tighter and tighter until he felt like it was going to burst and take him with it.
And would it be so bad, really, to die? Resting in eternal peace...
He found his way to a small, secluded bedroom. Everything was covered in dust. The window was a shade of dark dusk, capturing the meager light form outside and beaming it in. The Lithuanian hid under the covers and let himself cry, really cry, the type with shuddering tears and gasping sobs, a few negative thoughts away from all out bawling.
We're not going to get out of this. We're not. We're going to be doomed and die here.
I feel alone.
Taigi vienišas.
To say Latvia and Estonia were worried would be an understatement. The Lithuania they knew was an incredibly stable person. He wasn't one to explode like that. The air was still ringing with the sound of the door banging off the wall.
"That's not good," said Estonia eventually, staring down the hallway.
"Nope." He paused for a moment. "D'you think it was because of Belarus?" Then he winced. His blunt nature was getting the better of him again.
"It was Poland. They were best friends, almost one person before Russia partitioned them. It must've been like being...brothers."
"But they're very different," pointed out Latvia, who'd dropped to his knees to start cleaning up the shattered glass. "Lithuania's sensible and Poland's...not."
Estonia let out a short bark of laughter. "That's one way of putting it."
They worked in silence for a bit.
"You know," said Estonia slowly, "now that Lithuania's...not here, who's going to lead us?"
Latvia looked at him.
"Me?" sputtered Estonia. "B-but I'm not a leader! I just use my computer and take care of my mochi..."
Hearing themselves mentioned, several mochi poked their faces out of a box in the corner and pushed up their flags.
For some reason, Latvia found that incredibly funny. He burst into gales of hysterical laughter, actually rolling on the ground while he did it, while Estonia sighed and poked the protruding heads back into their boxes. "Don't come out," he warned them. "It's not safe."
He wondered what would happen to them when - no, if - the aliens succeeded.
Hong Kong had the hefty job of trying to make his siblings feel better when he felt like 狗屎 himself. It wasn't exactly easy to find anything to cheer them up with. Part of the family was missing already - China, Japan, and Korea. At least a good amount of Asia still remained unclaimed by the aliens. He took a count in his head. Thailand, Macau, Taiwan, and Vietnam... However, Macau was feeling just as crappy as he was. They were once part of China, instead of being independent regions, and occasionally, there were spillovers.
He didn't want to think about the spillovers now.
However, if it was the way it seemed, China was in a lot of pain, and being pursued in his sleep. And that was just a little of what they knew. They didn't tell the others. It was their burden to bear, and there was no use in making the rest of them worry more.
Right onw, they were sitting in the partially empty meeting building. It was a place most of them felt safe in, though he knew the Baltics preferred to stay in their own place, as did a few other nations.
The Nordics were in here, as well as Austria and Hungary. Groups of different nations stood together in groups or by themselves, and some just weren't in there.
We're scattered, he thought. We can't ally ourselves against the enemy if none of us are together.
Hong Kong glanced over at the Nordics. They too were worried. Even Denmark was subdued. He wasn't standing on the tables anymore.
Macau noticed the direction of his glance. "Should we talk to them?"
"Why?" asked Vietnam. "We don't really know them."
"But they're like us," piped up Taiwan. "In a group, and we all need friends in times like this, don't we?"
"Yeah," agreed Hong Kong somewhat reluctantly.
"So who's going to talk to them?" Thailand asked.
They were quiet for a few seconds before Vietnam said, "They're coming over here. Maybe they had the same idea."
And then the group realized that there were only four Nordics.
"That's not good," said Macau softly.
"It isn't."
And then the Nordics were there, standing at their table a bit awkwardly. "Hi," said Norway uneasily.
"Hi. Where's Iceland?" replied Taiwan, deciding to get right to the point.
"He went to feed his crazy puffin," said Denmark. "And it's been a while, so we think the aliens snatched him." He tried to say this with a straight face, but little nervous twitches here and there betrayed his worry.
"You think that," shot back Norway. "He's just been delayed by the weather. He'll be back soon." Finland and Sweden traded dubious glances, but said nothing.
"Oh," said Taiwan at length. "I see."
The Nordics sat down, and there was an awkward silence between the two groups.
Finland nudged Denmark. "Say something," he whisper-hissed. "This silence is freaking me out."
"What? What do you want me to say?" replied Denmark at the same volume.
"Anything! Anything at all," Finland ended the conversation there, sitting back up.
"So, uh, is it true that you people eat jellyfish?"
For a moment the silence thickened before all of the Asians burst out laughing.
Finland glared at Denmark, who shrugged. "What? You said anything."
When it was quieter again, Sweden said, "I've got 'n idea, 't m'ght work..."
"Go on," said Macau, intrigued.
As Sweden laid out the plan, with Finland occasionally interjecting a sentence or two, big Cheshire grins grew on the faces of the group.
"Get the others," said Hong Kong when Sweden was done. This just might work."
Translations: Taigi vienišas. - So lonely. (Lithuanian)
狗屎. - Shit. (Simplified Chinese)
Just so you know, Lithuania is in a random room in his house. In my headcannon, he lives with the other Baltics & Russia's family. It's more of a mansion than a house, really. And they kind of defer to him as a leader, because neither of the two of them want the responsibility. So if you're mad that your favorite Baltic is being submissive towards Liet, now you know. And I meant that entirely non-shippingly.
Also, I think I screwed up the technicalities about Hong Kong and Macau. Eh. I have my own sort of headcannon about HK, Macau, and China that has to do with the way they're independent thingies that I'll explain later...
Speaking of Hong Kong, I know he sort of has the valley-girl thing Poland does, but I don't want to do that. I see him as a serious person and that would make it impossible for me to take him seriously.
Three headcannons in one A/N. New record. :P