Deadly Secrets

2. Panic (rewritten)

To my surprise, instead of dropping a metaphorical bomb on us, UN started the meeting like normal. Discussions were started on the usual topics, with the typical arguments and yelling ensuing. I contributed to a few of the discussions but mostly stopped once they became too heated. Today was not the day for yelling, I decided, I was too tired right now, and UN was starting to worry me.

While he hadn't said anything to allude to something awful, his tone was tight and reserved. It reminded me of the times when he, as a child, would try to hide his emotions. He would lock his worries and feelings down and put up what I called a 'stone face,' often with tears brimming in his eyes. There were no tears now, but his stone face remained more or less the same. Something was bothering him, so much that he felt it necessary to turn to an old coping mechanism and all but shut down. Even without the old tell, I could clearly see that he was distracted. He spoke much less than he normally did during meetings, even allowing some arguments to get much more out of hand than he typically would.

Thankfully, ASEAN seemed to notice these things as well, and took a greater degree of control over the meeting, stepping in to break up some of the fights. It was a good thing he did too, as I had already had to mute my computer multiple times to give myself some kind of mental reprieve.

I slumped back in my chair, the muted mouths of various nations moving as they fought about global warming for the millionth time. Colored hands flashed irately across my screen as I watched idly, waiting for someone to stop the argument for what must be the eighth time. Shifting in my seat, I pulled my phone from my back pocket and turned it on, holding it just below my desk. The screen lit up to show I had received a text from UN, the timestamp said it had been sent maybe fifteen minutes before the meeting had started. Odd. Confusion pinched at my face, and I hastily opened up my messages app, clicking on UN's contact.

Heads up, everyone is being grouped up as a safety precaution, don't say anything when your name isn't called.

What the-? I'm not sure what I had been expecting but it certainly wasn't that. Why on earth would everyone be grouped up? I shook my head, this has got to be an overreaction, we personifications have survived this long on our own, there isn't much that could pose a threat to us at this point. We're damn near immortal, for pete's sake! As long as our governments remain intact so do we, and sometimes it takes even more than that to kill us. I, myself, survived several years after my independence without a stable government. A scoff squeezed its way out of my throat, my son rarely texts me, aside from the yearly 'merry Christmas' and this is what he decides to tell me about?

I sighed, whatever, I won't say anything about being excluded from some grouping, I probably wouldn't go along with it even if my name was called. My slightly irritated expression dropped to a deadpan upon looking up, ASEAN and UN were both trying to stop a fight. North Korea and China looked particularly peeved, so I decided to unmute my computer once more to see what the fight was about–they couldn't still be on global warming if China's chihuahua was so upset.

"I will not surrender any of my nuclear warheads, and your stupid analysts cannot survey their storage facilities!" North Korea's screeching was the first thing to blast through my poor laptop's speakers. I had to restrain myself from facepalming, were they really screaming about this again? It's not nearly as relevant as several other topics I can think of off the top of my head that would be way more beneficial to discuss.

"Why don't you ask America to surrender her nuclear weapons?" China leaned back in his chair, looking smug. "We must have superior fire power if you are bothering us about it and not her."

I immediately felt the overwhelming urge to knock the smug grin off of China's face. He's talking pretty big for someone whose nuclear missiles are filled with water instead of fuel. Before I had the chance to start quoting one of my more recent intelligence reports, however, ASEAN's exasperated shouts tore through my laptop's speakers.