QUIET

3

A large room with a big round table surrounded by seats bustled with sounds and lively activity. Countries had started showing up around 10-15 minutes before the start of the meeting.

An English man fought with a French,

A Canadian responded to everyone asking who he was

A Russian smiled threateningly from the corner he was sitting in with the other slavics.

A South Italian clutched a North while cussing at a German man who was holding his head with a look of exhaustion.

A Spaniard tried to catch the attention of said cursing Italian with flirty innuendos.

The Nordics were calmly sitting and observing... jk they were brawling with each other.

And an American laughed and smiled widely.

"Everyone quiet! It is time to start the meeting so as per usual no blurting, no shouting, no fighting, and pay attention!" These rules would be nice... if anyone followed them. At least, for now, a silence settled over the personifications.

One by one everybody got up to present for around 8 minutes. Then the countries discussed the topic, and they concluded on what they might be able to do or in some rarer cases a pact was made which was a more serious way to handle issues, but everyone here understood that the personas didn't have much control over there respective nations, that was in the government's hands. It varied from persona to persona but they did have some amount of influence.

America sat smiling for most of the meeting only speaking when someone asked him something. His head wobbled a little and his eyelids felt like heavyweights. Every now and then his head would drift dangerously close to the table before he had to heave it back which caused him to rock back and forth like he was doing a headbang to some heavy metal band. It was ridiculous and some nations gave him weird looks but he'd just laugh it off, pretend he wasn't about to collapse at any moment.

At last, the meeting wrapped up, just in time for Alfred to treat his pounding headache. He didn't end up presenting today because some things went over schedule, but he was moved to first thing tomorrow. Alfred was both relieved and annoyed. He was planning to get it over with today and then call in sick for the rest of the week.

At least he had time to sleep Alfred thought while crumpling onto his bed not bothering to change his clothes or anything.

Alfred was exhausted and passed out in under a minute, usually, he dreaded sleep but right then he was too tired to care. A thick haze set over his mind and the realm of deep sleep pulled him. Alfred was so close, but unfortunately, nothing goes without a hitch in his life.

Alfred blinked open his eyes to a disastrous scene. The air stung as he walked down the wrecked streets. It was pretty obvious what happened here and Alfred wasn't really surprised at what his subconscious had cooked up. It was the disaster scenario we've all thought of at least once or twice in our lives. That 'what if?" question that we hope will never be answered.

'What if there was a nuclear war?'

This was, of course, was the lovely fall-out scenario that Alfred had visited a couple of times by now. Wow, my subconscious is really uncreative tonight, Alfred thought as he kicked aside what seemed to be a severed hand, he couldn't tell for sure though because it was so charred. Despite Alfred's nonchalant front it still freaked him out. The beautiful city destroyed beyond recognition, the smoggy air, the millions of dead. Even though he knew this wasn't real, it still dug up that old fear etched into him from the cold war era.

"Alf?" Alfred's body stiffened as he listened for the faint voice.

"Al, pl-please help" a croaky garbled voice, but Alfred could still recognize it.