Silence had enveloped them as the two sat motionlessly in the little space. Their breathing, which had been shut to the mute volume in fear of someone coming across their way, had gradually increased to a normal pace. Even without the weird fiasco that took place, Arthur hadn't known to what to ask the other man. Arthur sat, rattling his brain silently, but the English language didn't seem to have enough words to voice his thoughts for the current predicament. What should he even begin to ask when his confusions had further confusions of their own.

"What's your name?" Arthur guessed that was a basic yet rather important question to ask at the moment.

"Oliver Kirkland."

Kirkland, huh, there's no way that he's lying about being a country then. The information of there being personified countries is a secret within the top members of the governments; even then, it's not a foolproof plan to protect the countries' privacies. Leaders change with terms, and you might shut them up politically, stopping them from blabbering on to their spouses and close ones is another matter. There's a reason they were all given rather common names. It might be hard to find which Arthur Kirkland the personification of England is, but it wasn't impossible. To ensure further privacy, only the first names were known to the associates of the government and even the other countries. Surnames were easy to be found and tracked to a certain person with enough investigation, while first names tended to be more common. The only people who knew his full name were Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland (they shared the same last name, so it was rather difficult to hide); America and France.

Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland wouldn't tell because that would also put them in danger, not because they gave a damn about what happened to him. They would gladly spread around his name if it didn't put them in danger as well. America had found out during his colonial days. It was stupid for him to reveal that to the young boy, but he hadn't anticipated the independence at the time so it seemed harmless to him. On the other hand, he also knew America's full name. Alfred F Jones. Alfred given by Arthur after one of his kings 'Alfred the Great', Jones which he chose to call himself after his independence, and F, an extra edition to make the American look 'cool' and 'mysterious' according to his own words. Their names was something they could both use against each other, but it never really came down to that. France, on the other hand, had found out from being close to Scotland. Just like in America's case though, Arthur knew that France was called Francis Bonnefoy. He only remembered that because the idiot had practically blabbered on to him. His name, among other things, was one of the few important information he gave away to the young naïve England who had a memory far above France could have expected. Once Arthur became somewhat of a stronger nation, France had regretted telling him all the juicy details about himself. Let's just say, he held far above France than vice versa, despite some of Arthur's slips in his drunken state. It was a lesson he carried throughout his own life. Never underestimate kids; they will come to expose you when you least expect it.

"What's yours?" Oliver asked, bringing Arthur out of his thoughts. Apparently, he had gone on his inner monologuing again without realising it. The curse of being a lonely man with overloaded thoughts. He had also forgotten the topic of their conversation and looked blankly at the pink haired man for some sort of clue.

"What?"

"Your name. You never told me."

"Oh, sorry, it's Arthur Kirkland." Oliver raised an eyebrow at the answer but kept quiet. It did seem like Arthur was lying, so he wasn't offended by the suspicious look thrown his way.

"Okaaay, Arthur. You have any clue on where we are?" Oliver asked with an emphasis at the 'okay'.

"Yes, I know exactly where this place, that looks it was taken straight out from a noir film, is. I just have a secret kink of hiding between abandoned buildings." He said, and to his surprise, he got a snort like giggle from the pinky. Atleast, someone appreciated his sarcastic sense of humour.

"Sorry, that was a stupid question to ask."

"That's fine. Asking obvious questions might reveal some complex answers. Allow me Oliver, to ask you a stupid question as well." Arthur said, slapping both his hands on Oliver's shoulders and looking him straight in the eye. "Do you believe in magic?"

"Believe in magic?" Oliver repeated dumbfounded, not expecting the out of context question. It was too strayed from their recent conversation. "What kind of belief are you talking about?"

"Do you think magic exists?" Arthur asked, in a stern voice this time.

"Is this a trick question? What do you mean if magic exists, obviously it does." Oliver said, too nervous and cautious of what he was saying. He looked at Arthur to see if he answered what he wanted, but the grip on his upper body hadn't loosened. However, Arthur did let out a thoughtful nod.

"I see, so you must perform magic as well. Which form do you practice?"

"What? No, I mean I know magic exists. I'm not a practitioner myself. Aren't Germany, Spain and Russia the only three countries that can perform magic?" Oliver said, with a confused look. "I can talk to spirits, but that's only as far into the magical world as I'll go."

Germany, Spain and Russia performed magic? The horrors that would have happened to the world if this was true.

Something was clearly not adding up. At first, Arthur had thought that he was dreaming, but with each passing moment, the likeliness of his theory being correct was decreasing. This was a lot more clear and detailed than what dreams felt like, and Arthur definitely didn't remember the last time he questioned himself this much in his dreams. His next guess was that he had summoned himself into one unknowingly. He had done that once. Just his luck that the one time he had tried that, it turned out to be a nightmare. It obviously wasn't a pleasant experience so he saw no need to put himself into that position again. This was definitely not a dream no matter how much he thought about it. His dreams tended to be on the surreal side, and the only thing remotely surreal about the situation was that, talking to Oliver felt they didn't even belong to the same world.

"What's England's position in the political world?" Arthur asked, and Oliver stared at him incredulously. "You represent England, right? Shouldn't you be able to answer that with ease?

"It's alright, I suppose. England has always been one of the weakest countries but we manage." That was not the case at all.

"What about the war in the past several centuries?"

"Pardon? Wah-er, what's that?" Oliver blinked at him and Arthur had to raise an eyebrow at his response.

"You know, big battles where people fight to death and thousands of people die until one side wins." Oliver looked at him in horror for his description for the supposed 'war'.

"That sounds horrifying. Why would you ever take part in that?"

"Nevermind that for now. If I'm not wrong, I think we're both from different worlds. That's the only answer that makes sense to me."

"I wouldn't doubt it." Oliver agreed with a nod. "You look and talk very different from the people I'm used to. And this place is really peculiar from what I've ever seen in my life. It looks like someone washed all the colours away."

"Indeed. It seems like we have ended up on some estranged world different to our own. Now I'm not sure about the magic assertion I made before. I've never heard of magic that allows you to travel between different worlds. In my world, that is."

"It's the same where I'm from. Magic is limited to what you know. Travelling between worlds would mean you have to know beyond the unknown, and a solution to that hasn't been found out yet, despite the numerous researches on it. I'm not too familiar with the magic stuff, so there might be a loophole to that."

"Atleast, it couldn't be your doing." not from what he just told me. He could be lying but I have bigger problems to solve. I'll just have to chose to believe him for now. Arthur thought but didn't utter the words. "Our worlds seem to have something in common. And somehow even with all the differences, we are perfectly able to communicate with each other. Very strange"

"It's kind of weird." Oliver said, and spoke out again after a moment of silence. "You just said you can perform magic, right?"

"Hmmm? oh yes."

"Can't you do something about our situation so we don't have to hide here anymore? I'm slightly tired of crouching if you couldn't tell." Oliver said, pointing towards his current state.

"I was thinking somewhere along those lines. Although,It's been a while since I've performed magic so it might be a bit wonky. I might have to perform a couple of spells to get the right effect. Do you remember how the people looked like?"

"They were black and white?"

"I mean in detail. I need you to describe it to me step by step so I can turn you into a replica. Make sure the person you are describing is a male."

"Where should I start then? the hair?"

"Wherever you do, just don't talk to me in the middle of it; I need to be in complete concentration for this. Try to not mess up in your describing or we're going to be in serious trouble. "

"No pressure." Oliver said, letting out a shaky breath. "Well, I'm not sure the person I saw was a male or not. He looked pretty manly to me but they could've been a masculine lady. Maybe they don't even have sexes here, how am I supposed to know. it's a different world, anything's possible."

"Oliver, not the time" Arthur said, stopping the pink haired from his frantic babbling. "We need to get serious here. You can think about their genitalia after we're done. Just define the manliest looking person you saw in the crowd."

"It's your fault for putting this much pressure on me. I'm not good with talking in the first place, and now you're telling me that I've to get this down perfectly or we're screwed?"

"I shouldn't have made it sound so intimidating, my mistake. We'll only have to start from the beginning if you get it wrong. It's better if you don't, but nothing serious is going to happen. Relax and let's do it from the start, shall we?"

"Well, the man I saw had a big face with a broad chin. His skin was silvery grey in colour with dark grey to mark the rough patches on his cheeks and around his nose. His lips were grey and chapped, black in the middle with streaks of white splattered in some places. His eyes were small like beads, and I imagine they were black. I didn't get to see it clearly, but it certainly was a dark colour. His ears were small and pointy: Light grey at the ends and dark grey in the middle. His nose was pointy and sharp. He had thin eyebrows. His hair was black and slicked back. The rest of his body was hidden underneath a black suit with grey stripes. His shirt was white and adorned by a black tie. His boots were black, and oh, I think he had short and rough hands."

That was more than Arthur had anticipated. "How long were you even looking at him? There's no way you got all that from glancing at him for five-six seconds."

"I was really shocked so I did end up analyzing him way too much. I can be very observant when I want to be."

"That's good. The spell should be taking place any second now." Just as he finished his sentence, Oliver started to change into the image he just described. There wasn't any magical aura surrounding him, but his form started to change in the order he had described the man: from his face to the hands. Within a few seconds, he had changed into a complete different person, slightly intimidating looking to Arthur.

As Oliver opened his mouth to say something, he changed into his previous self completely and fell back at the sudden body mass change.

"Are you okay?"

"I think so." Oliver sat up and as soon as he did, he started going through a transformation again. His face started to change, just like when Arthur had initially performed the spell, and it made Arthur concerned. 'Did I do something wrong?

When the transformation was complete, instead of turning into a different person, Oliver had turned into a monochrome version of himself. They both sat for a minute, staring each other down in confusion at what just took place.

"Was that supposed to happen?"

"No. That's strange. This has never happened before."

"I turned back into my normal self, didn't I? I feel the same." Oliver said, opening and closing his hands and looking at his feet, legs, his stomach and finally his face by feeling it around. "What a pity, I didn't get to see how successful I was at describing the man perfectly."

"I'm more confused about what happened. However, it did turn you into one of them, so I think our job here is done. Let's hope the magic isn't faulty at other places." Arthur said, as Oliver kept staring at himself. "Stay still, I need to replicate myself into you. "

Oliver did as he was told, and Arthur quickly copied himself. They really did look alike, didn't they? Oliver thought as he saw the colours on Arthur fade away.

They waited for a few seconds but nothing happened this time.

"Unless the people here had observation as sharp as yours, we should be safe for now. Let's look around and possibly find a way to get out of here." Arthur said, standing up and moving out of the small space he was sitting in for, what, hours now?

"You think it's safe for us to get out there?" Oliver asked, looking out of the alley "Nobody's around, it would look pretty suspicious if we just appeared out of nowhere."

"You're right, we need to find other people as soon as possible and merge into them."

"Ummm Arthur?"

"What is it? You don't think that's a good idea?"

"No, nothing like that. It's actually a really random question but I was wondering what a noir film is. I remember you mentioning it before, but I wasn't sure whether to ask you or not."

Arthur turned towards Oliver, and looked at him straight with seriousness in his eyes.

"Once we figure out this mess, you and I have a lot to talk about."

Author's Note: Thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to follow/favourite or review, it makes my day even if you don't know it. Seriously, you guys have been so supportive, I love all of you.