Unexpected love

Chapter 18: Where?

                                                    Alaska's POV

     "Are we missing someone, dudes?" I looked up from my hands and toward my brother. Now that he mentioned it, the world meeting did seem a little smaller, but that was only because it was composed of the Axis and Allies right? Not the entire world like it usually was.

     "Hold on now, let's just do a head count before we start losing our heads." England rationalized. "Let's see, America."

     "Here, dude!"

     "China?"

     "Here, aru."

     "Alaska?"

     "Right here." I put my arm up, trying to figure out just who was missing, if we really were missing a presence.

     "France?"

     "Present~"

     "Russia?"

     "I am here as well, da?"

     "And I am present. All of the Allies are here." He turned to the axis. I looked over as well to see that Italy was unusually quiet. He had his head down and he ran his fingers through his hair.

     "And from the axis. Italy is here, Japan's here, Germany, yes..." England mumbled, an eyebrow raising. "Monte! Monte Carlo!" He looked around, eyes widening slightly.

     "M-Monte!! How could we have forgotten!?" Germany looked toward the Italian male and nudged his shoulder. "Italy, where is your sister?"

     "I-I don't-a know!!" Italy cried, tears in his eyes as he finally revealed his face to us, it was red there were shiny streaks where his tears must have slid down his cheeks.

     "Y-You rost your own sister?!" Japan asked, slightly amazed Italy could be so careless.

     "I didn't lose-a her! Yesterday, she came back in her pajamas, then-a changed and went to go see Austria to work on her-a music! I thought she stood there late and just spent the night!! I called her and left a message about the meeting but-a she's not h-here!!" He explained through tears.

     "I'll call her! Maybe she just slept in or completely forgot." I tried reasoning before pulling out my phone to call her up. I even put it on speaker so everyone could hear if she was alright.

     "Hey! You reached my voice mail! Leave your name and number and I'll get back to ya as soon as I can!" I gasped to hear Monte's voice play on her voice mail, everyone else just seemed to stare at my phone like I was. She usually always picked up, it was so rare that she didn't that I hadn't even heard her voice mail recording before!

   "I-I'll call Austria, maybe he would have some information on her whereabouts!" Germany suggested as I ended the call. He seemed to follow my lead and put the call on speaker.

     "Hello?" Austria's voice came from the speaker after a few rings.

     "Austria! Monte was supposed to visit you yesterday! Do you know where she is?" Germany didn't waste time trying to find out where my friend could be.

     "Monte Carlo? Ja, I invited her to come over yesterday so we could practice a bit, but she never showed up at my house so I figured that she was too busy or something. Why? Has something happened?" He asked, making me stand from my seat.

     Germany ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. "Nothing has happened. Don't worry about it." He sighed before hanging up.

     "S-She left to go see him, Germany!! She's still-a out there if she never-a came home and never got to his house!" Italy started panicking, his waterworks starting up again. "W-Where can my baby-a sister be?!" He cried.

     Looking toward the Allies, I noticed England was gone. Starting toward the door, I looked down the hall to find the blond sitting on a chair outside the meeting room. "England? Are you okay?" I asked, approaching him.

     "I like her a lot, Alaska... Now she's gone." He whispered, burring his face in his gloved hands.

     "Hey, don't say that. No one said she was gone for good." I tried to comfort him. "All I know, is that we should go looking for her if we want to find her."

                                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Searching the distance between Italy and Austria seemed like a logical way to go at first, but it hadn't turned up anything yet. Germany split us up, sending Italy home just in case Monte did return on her own, setting me with my brother to search around the distance between her house and Austria's, England, Russia and China broke up into a group to check out near Austria's home, and that left Japan and himself to search around her home with her bothers.

     "I think we should...call it a day, Alaska." I heard my brother sigh.

     "C-Call it a day?! Monte's still lost somewhere! I thought you were a hero, heroes don't 'call it a day'." I turned to him, slightly frustrated that he had given up on Monte, he wouldn't know! She was my close friend!

     "Alaska, it's getting dark. I want to be the hero and save her as much as the next guy, but it's no good looking for someone when the moonlight is our only source of light." He tried to reason with me.

     Before I could respond, we both turned our heads to a weak, raspy breath near a few bushes.

     My older brother was immediately on me. "L-Let's just g-go home to our, n-non haunted, house!" He whispered, trembling some as he tried tugging me away from the place.

     I shook him off my shoulder and started toward the bushes, unsure of what I would find. I looked back at him, his fear literally visible on his face and shaking figure. "1..." I whispered, taking hold of a branch to try to pull it away to show what lay underneath. "2..."

     "REEOWWW!!!" A cat shrieked before I could pull the branches away, darting from the bush.

    America was screaming just by the sound and surprise of the cat, screaming so loud and girl-ish that he needed to rest his hands over his knees to regain his breath. Finally looking up, he swallowed hard. "That was scary..." He panted. I only face-palmed before shaking my head.

     "You know, sometimes, you can be a huge pus-"

     "Why'd you scare him away...?" I jumped back when I heard a hoarse voice from behind me. This time, America jumped forward to find the culprit. Gasping, he kneeled, and I followed, my eyes widening at the sight. There she was, my dear friend sitting against the trunk of a large tree. There was blood in the corner of her lips, her clothes, on her flesh. In some places, her skin was broken, cut or bruised. There were various tears in her black and white striped shirt and black skirt. Her glasses laid beside her, some blood on the lenses.

     "Oh man...We need to get you back to the other dudes..." America whispered to her, reaching out and pulling her to him. She was lifted into his arms, he carried her like a groom would carry his newlywed bride. I leaned over and picked up her glasses, too scared to say anything. America bolted, and I ran behind him, occasionally looking at Monte's blood stained face, her eyes shut. I couldn't help but worry for her... But she was found.