Chapter 21

"Matthias, you need to stop this…" Peter whined as he followed the Dane out of the town, but Matthias only quickened his pace to avoid the younger ex-nation. "Matthi! You don't really want to hurt Lukas!"

"You don't know what I want, kid. Go play with the other kids. They would rather have you around," Matthias waved Peter away.

Peter ignored the waving hand. "You're just saying that. I know you want to get in so you can leave this place and be with Lukas again. I want that too. This place is scary."

"Don't say that about my people. They are not scary, only desperate. They want to destroy what destroyed them, and I agree. Lukas was trapping me, and then he kicked me out when I did not listen. He despises the imperfect, and that was what I was. I am not worthy to him, and he tried to strip me of my nationhood. For that, he deserves to die."

"What are you talking about? You told me Lukas brought you back to health, and you called him Norway. Why is it Lukas now?"

"Haven't you looked around? You've seen this place longer than I have. Denmark is here, not Norway. He's not a country: he's only pretending to be one by taking it from me."

"Uncle, you're going crazy!" Peter shouted. "Lukas wasn't trying to take anything from you! He was trying to keep you alive. And he never left the house either. He probably didn't know what was going on! That's why these people are mad! Lukas never stepped foot out of his house to help us. They feel neglected, not cheated! Norge only wanted another nation, his best friend, with him!"

"Don't call him that," Matthias' voice dropped to a low rumble. "Get out of my sight."

"You'll realize it soon enough," Peter spat before scampering back to the village. Matthias watched him go, then he resumed his walk towards Lukas' house. In his arms, he carried some wrinkled papers and a variety of oddly colored items he scrounged up from one of Lukas' old warehouses no one else had found. Probably the remains of his magic, Mathias thought as he approached the hill Lukas' house sat on. It looked exactly the same as the last time he saw it a month before. Nostalgia filled him as he suddenly remembered the soft air conditioning of the house that only worked during the summer months when it kept the house above unbearable. Now, heat settled across the once permanently cool nation.

Matthias settled down at the edge of Lukas' property and pulled out the first paper in his messy stack. The handwriting was nearly illegible, but he managed to make out the words. "Weakening Spell," it said across the top. The second paper read "Shrinking Spell," and the rest had similar titles. Matthias shuffled through the papers and pulled out the first two. He then set down the others and pulled out a jar of a purplish powder. Slowly, he sprinkled it in a line across the front yard at the gate as he spoke the words on the paper. The words rose barely above a whisper as the powder began to glow and sink into the ground. Then he poured a blue powder on top of the purple and chanted a new phrase until that too began to glow and disappear. When there was no longer any sign of the powder, Matthias took a step over the line and headed toward the barrier. The day before, he had marked exactly where it was with paint. This time he brought a new color of paint, hoping he would be marking a new spot. As Matthias grew closer, he got onto hands and knees and approached the paint spot. He reached forward with his brush and gollup of paint and aimed to push past the last paint stripe. However, the paint stopped abruptly in nearly the same spot, if not a millimeter farther. Matthias pushed as hard as he could to shift the barrier, but to no avail. The red paint stripe landed with only a smidgen of white sticking out from under it closer to Matthias than the barrier. Although it was almost unnoticeable, Matthias grinned; it was something.

Norway missed having another person. The house was too quiet, and the temperatures this year were higher than before. He was sweating in his own house. When the world was still stable, the heat had only reached this level a couple times, creating a record heat. His average temperature in the summer was in the seventies fahrenheit and rarely peaked in the nineties, but now, in the late spring noless, the temperature crept into the upper eighties and lower nineties.

He watched out the back window, hoping to see Matthias, but after the Dane sat for hours next to the yard weeks before, he had not returned. Norway was completely alone now. Furthermore, his food supply was diminishing, and he would have to leave and find more sustenance or risk dying. But if I leave, I will never be able to come back… he thought. I'll have to find a new home.

He waved his hand in dismissal and slunk down to the basement where he kept most of his food. What once had been a whole wall of provisions was now a measly one foot tall stretch of boxes that only reached halfway across the cramped closet, standing only two feet thick. Norway picked up three boxes of protein bars and carried them upstairs. Within months, he would have to leave. Even if he were an ex-nation, the nation in him still cried for more food than the average human could manage. Where one family would normally eat three large meals a day, nations ate five or sometimes even six, always piling their plates up high and reaching for second helpings.

Norway's belly growled. He hadn't eaten since the night before, and breakfast time had long since passed. He pried open one of the boxes in his hand and pulled out two protein bars, then scarfed them both down within minutes. The rest of the bars he put away in his cabinets.

The rest of the day he spent sitting in his chair and reading fairy tales like he did most other days now. The stories had become so familiar to him he almost did not need to read the words in order to remember every detail of the story. However, it brought him comfort to read these stories over and over again. That way he wouldn't have to think. That way Matthias would leave his mind for just a few minutes.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, Lukas thought about his friend and all the adventures they went on together, with Matthias dragging the Nord behind him. Sometimes, he even thought about the other Nordics, how Sweden would bring them on trips to Ikea, and how not a single piece of furniture in anyone's house (besides the few historical pieces) were bought from Ikea and assembled. Sometimes Lukas would sit on a couch and remember how long it had taken for the group of five to assemble it, and how Sweden was always the one who finished it. Sometimes, he wondered where Sweden was, where Finland was, heck, even where Iceland was, even if Lukas knew he was dead.

Where do dead nations go?

Where do they go when the world is done with them and casts them aside like little dolls?

Lukas shook his head. There was no need to think about these things. Everyone was dead. He was alone in the world now. Once, it was Matthias and him. Now it was only him. Matthias was gone and would not be coming back. He might as well be dead.

Then a loud scream erupted outside.