Paint it Another Colour

Chapter 42

Almost as soon as he got into the building, Emil found himself separated from the rest of his 'team'. Matthew freaked out and curled up into a corner, Joao trying to comfort the whimpering nation who was currently rocking himself back and forth. Wendy didn't seem to notice much and just sort of walked. Maybe she'd seen something she liked, or something of that nature, but she never turned around, so Milen ran after her, and Emil followed them through.

The building itself, much as he'd have liked to hate it - to want to destroy it, was very pretty and clean inside with elaborate décor and design. The corridor he was running down was painted a cream-pink sort of colour that made him think of some sort of ice cream flavour, or someone's washed out hair. It was a long corridor, stretching probably the entire length of the building with various other passages and hallways leading off it from both sides. The whole thing was carpeted in a poor imitation of a red carpet, which filled the floor space and leapt up in tufts of material here and there, like some huge damage had come about it. Lining the walls of the corridor, were fireplaces which looked as though they had been thrown in randomly without a care for spacing apart, or location. One faced a door, another was so close to another that they were practically touching. Others Emil would have struggled to touch if he had the help of the rest of the Nordics.

Emil felt himself sink inside. The Nordics. He was the last one.  Of course, there was Berwald, but something told Emil that, even if the Swede did miraculously wake up or recover, he wouldn't be the same again, and he wouldn't really be able to refer back to him if he needed help like he had done before. Tino and Lukas were gone. They weren't coming back. And Matthias... Emil took a huge step along the corridor and broke out into a run. Matthias could be here. He'd vanished, but at the moment, no one just 'vanished'. He disappeared for a reason, and Emil could bet any money it was something to do with their current situation. Matthias could be here, trapped like Francis and Sadiq, and like Feliks assumed Toris and Ravis were too. He could just be another victim of the counterparts. He could be saved by Emil.

That was a strong enough thought to keep him running.

By the time he'd reached the end of the corridor, he'd lost sight of Milen and Wendy, but that was okay. He had his own thing to do now, which no one else seemed to care about. He turned in the opposite direction to the one that he'd seen them go earlier and started down the corridor.

He wasn't quite sure what he was actually doing there, now he thought about it. Matthias could be anywhere, and so sticking with other people to look for prisoners would be the best option, except, here he was going in the opposite direction. Emil would have liked to claim that 'I just knew' or say something strange like 'I felt it in my bones', but in reality, he was just running in any direction. For all he knew, he could be walking into a trap, the mouth of hell, or to an exit, but it didn't matter. If this corridor proved fruitless, he'd try another. The entire tree couldn't be fruitless.

Every room, hall and door he passed, Emil glanced into or through it, hoping to catch a glimpse at the inside. Once, he'd seen the reflection of someone in a window. He hadn't looked twice in there and had slipped past, hoping he hadn't been seen. As he got towards the end of the corridor he was on, he slowed and sighed, preparing to turn around and go back, but in his turn, he glanced into a room at the end. He wasn't sure why it caught his eye, but it did. It looked like just a room - an empty room at that, with a small white wood table in the middle, matching chairs all tucked neatly under. The furniture set was on an oval shaped black rug, directly in the centre of the room. Next to him as he walked in, was a cream coloured two piece suite with fancy cushions, and on the opposite wall, was a white dresser and a similar case of thickly bound black books. It seemed like a normal room a t first glance, and he would have turned around and walked out again, if it hadn't been for the cloth covered object.

A long piece of red silk draped itself over a tall object sitting centrally on the dresser, perfectly hidden, but not quite matching the rest of the ordered white and black room.

Emil frowned at it and carefully reached up to pull the silk off. When he did, he dropped it to the floor in shock. When he'd gone looking for Lukas' mirror, he hadn't known what it would look like. Now, he knew exactly what it looked like: a large piece of glass supported by gold framework in intricate patterns, like something you'd find in an old hall. The surface wasn't quite as reflective as a normal mirror's would be, but he could make out his own reflection fairly easily. Past the glass, there seemed to be a room, white in colour, and a curled up thing in the corner.

Not really wanting to pick the thing up, Emil tapped the glass hard, only afterwards worrying about it cracking. The thing rolled over and stuck up its middle finger before hesitating and leaping up to run over. As it got closer, Emil started to recognise it more. Sure, the hair was flat as though it had been run over, the face was dry, cracked and tired, and the clothes were now somehow in tatters, but it was hard not to recognise it from the sparkling look of excitement that filled its eyes.

"Matthias" Emil grinned and almost hugged the mirror itself. "And we thought you'd just run off."

Matthias pulled a face and stuck out his tongue, grinning. He tapped the glass on his side and shrugged.

"I can get you out" Emil offered, glancing around the room and towards the bookcase. "I'm sure there's something here. I can remember the spell to get people in, but not to get them out. I might go wrong if I just do it straight away."

Matthias nodded and waited as Emil walked over to the bookcase, scanning the books quickly. After a moment's hesitation, he selected a large one with curvy blue writing on the front.

"Maybe?" Emil glanced at him and propped it up on the surface next to the mirror. He was just about to open the leather cover and start flicking through the pages when someone at the door cleared their throat. He froze and slowly turned around.

Egil leant against the doorframe, arms folded, looking frustrated. "Hope you don't mind my intrusion" he snapped. "You know, it's rude to go into someone else's property without permission."

Emil glared at him. "You know it's rude to trap people."

Egil laughed. "It was only what you were going to do."

Emil carefully picked up the mirror, tucked it under one arm and started making his way around the table in the opposite direction to where Egil was standing. The other laughed.

"You think I'm just going to let you walk off with that?"

Emil had known it wouldn't have come easily, to walk off with the mirror, but he had hoped to be able to, somehow. Egil frowned at his lack of response and ran around to his side of the table so they were facing each other.

"Give it back"

Emil turned slightly side on as though trying to hide the mirror from Egil, even though he knew his counterpart knew he had it.

"It's mine. Give it back" Egil shouted again, lunging at him this time. Emil took a step backwards, just dodging him and then continued backing away.

Egil laughed. "I will get it" he hissed, lunging again, and this time grabbing hold of the edge of the mirror in Emil's arms. He gave a triumphant grin and tugged at it. Emil pulled a horrified face and pulled it back, trying to yank it out of his counterpart's hands. It proved a hard thing to do, as Egil seemed intent on the same thing, and so the tugging went on as though they were meagre children.

"You know" Egil smirked after he'd pulled it. "I seem to be the only one who actually wants to get rid of him." Emil stared for a second and then pulled back, but in that second, Egil let go and sent Emil tumbling backwards from his own force. In an attempt to save himself form any sort of pain, he dropped the mirror. Egil leapt for it, and for a second, Emil was positive he was going to catch it, but he missed and landed just next to Emil. Both watched in horror as it hit the ground and a splintering, smashing noise accompanied its contact. Emil jumped up and ran for it, turning it over carefully. Underneath, the framework wasn't really damaged. The glass itself was another story, splintered into thousands of cracked pieces, still in place, but all looking so loose that they could fall out at any given second, and leaking from in between the shards, was blood.

Matthias was no where to be seen.

Hello!! Just wanted to sort of publicise, I have started a new Hetalia Book, like my other three, except new!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just in case any of you wanted to go and read it or anything ^-^
MiddleEarth4eva