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CHINA
"There's nothing here."

America's voice, laced with a disappointing sort of dubiety, echoed around the deep underground chasm. Yes, it was a small room, full with cracked shelves and one depressing wooden desk covered in tangled spiderwebs, but the very contents they had hoped to find in here seemed to be long gone.

Poland's shoulders slumped. "Well, that was worth all of the build up," he said irritatedly.

"Don't be pessimistic," North said, but he too, looked chagrined at the exhilarating path down here — just for it to be nothing useful.

Only South kept his mouth shut amidst the complaints. His brother stared at him, sensing the gears turning in his sibling's head, but made no move to do anything about it. Ten out of ten times, he figured, South defied his laid-back instincts to do something only for personal benefit.

China scanned the letter once and barely stopped himself from ripping it up. "There must be something wrong," he groaned. "Maybe the code was coincidentally to some other underground lab?"

"It wouldn't have opened then," America frowned and massaged the middle bit of his eyebrows. "And I thought we were on a winning streak."

"Let's go home," Poland decided with a cheerful thumbs up, turning to the door.

Russia did a full sweep of the room, looking under the desk and in between the shelves — pausing only to shrug and say nothing was there with his hands in his pockets. Following Poland, their figures disappeared behind the door. 

Then — all of a sudden, just before the last person left the room: "Someone took everything here," South blurted.

China looked back. "What makes you think—"

"Dust collects," South said intently, looking to the group with a sudden blaze in his eyes not many people had seen before. "Look to the desk. There are handprints. Someone's been here recently enough that not enough dust has collected to cover up the imprints."

His eyes widened even more, if it was possible. "On the shelves too. There are small squares where the debris isn't there. It must have been because books take their place. There's no reason for us to believe that the same thing can't apply to the rest of the things here. Someone must have came here, took them all so we wouldn't get here first, and left. And I can only think of UN."

China's jaw was ajar. America gave South a hug. "You're growing up," he sniffled.

"You guys act like my country isn't one of the most, if not the most, academically demanding places in the world," South rolled his eyes, struggling out of his best friend's grasp. "I just have too much of a YOLO mindset."

Russia sighed gratefully, peeking his head back into the room. "It's definitely better than there being nothing to begin with. There's no sign of what they took and what was here before. I guess all we have then is —"

"The impenetrable box," North finished for him, a rather wistful look on his face reserved for his brother. "But god knows what we'll have to resort to, to break it."

"And the signs," China pointed out. "There's been some kind of war, definitely. The leaderboard as well. And this would've been useful, just if we had gotten here a little earlier. I'll get some photos on the way out."

America nodded, spirits lightened considerably. "I need some iced coffee. Let's get out of here."

As they were leaving, China straggled behind with North, thinking worriedly about his dark circles as the growing light from above casted shadows on his face.