New characters! Again!:

Australia - Jett
Cameroon - Mavuto
India - Bharat
Indonesia - Rana
Kenya - Imani
Madagascar - Gisele
New Zealand - Logan
Saudi Arabia - Karim 
South Africa - Zuma
Vietnam - Lin

Logan sat cross legged on a seat in the airport, ignoring Jett as he streaked up and down the confectionary aisle in the open front Rixdorfer Getranke. He'd been there for longer than ten minutes now, and Logan was starting to get frustrated. Not that the German phrase book he was reading wasn't interesting - he'd read it back to front twice already and could regurgitate most of what was inside now - but he was conscious of time passing quickly, and couldn't help but continuously glancing at his watch every minute or so. He couldn't remember what time the meeting they were supposed to be going to was at, although he did know they'd been a couple of hours early before. He was about to go and drag Jett away from the newsagents before someone sat down near him.

"Long time no see"

The person who'd sat down on one of the metal seats on the other side of his suitcase was Lin, someone they used to see a lot due to their countries being fairly close, but now, he couldn't quite clock on the last time they'd talked.

"Hi" he beamed. "How are you? It had been a long time!"

"Good" her face stayed blank like it usually did. "How about you?"

"Good too thanks" he let his smile drop a little. "I heard about your family. I'm sorry."

Lin shrugged. "We didn't really talk much I guess, and anyway, we've all got to go at some point."

Logan stared for a second. "I guess that's one way to look at it."

"It's the only way I want to look at it" Lin said bluntly. "Any other way, and death starts to look depressing, so I prefer to just... almost ignore it. It's best that way."

Logan didn't answer, just blinked, and then went back to his book, only raising his head again a minute later when Jett finally left the shop, running over to them with his arms full of bags of things Logan didn't recognise.

"Oh, hi Lin" he shouted, shoving the bags in Logan's suitcase.

"Why are you so loud?" Logan grumbled, clutching his ears and trying to free his case from Jett at the same time. "Don't you have your own case for stuff like this?"

"Hm?" Jett glanced at him. "No. That's what you're here for."

"Hello" Lin said, standing up. "Apparently there's a car supposed to meet us outside the airport. It leaves in about half an hour, so we should probably get going."

"Why didn't you know this stuff?" Jett asked, glancing at Logan over his shoulder.

"Why didn't you?" Logan scowled.

"You're the one who knows stuff" Jett shrugged and started running. "To the car." He threw his arm out, pointing ahead of him as though he was going on an adventure.

"He's going in the wrong direction" Lin sighed.

"Leave him" Logan said, walking off in the other direction. "He'll figure out soon."

***

"I'm tired" Zuma yawned as he stepped off the plane and dropped his head against Imani's shoulders. "Can I sleep?"

"Get off me" Imani whined, shoving his head and then stepping away so he stumbled in an attempt to regain his balance. "You slept all the way here. How are you still tired?"

"Because" Zuma stretched.

"You're always tired" Mavuto sighed. "I often wonder if you ever even sleep at night."

"Of course I do" Zuma cried. "Night is a goodtime, and sleep is important."

"You sound like someone's mother" Imani rolled her eyes and stepped around him, glancing around the corridor they'd come into. "Great. Now we've lost Gisele."

"She'll be fine" Mavuto said. "She's probably just found the baggage collection, or something like that."

Imani frowned. "You never know. She disappears so quickly."

They continued walking down the corridor, and when they found Gisele, she was pushing herself around on a trolley, getting under everyone's feet and had already knocked over at least three people.

"Idiot" Imani muttered, catching the handles for the trolley to stop it and pull it around to Mavuto who'd found their cases. "What're you doing?"

"I found the baggage thing" Gisele grinned. "Can I sit on it?"

"No" Mavuto said. "You're not baggage."

"It would've been an easier flight if you were" Imani complained, glancing around again. "Zuma! Pop your bag on the trolley. Less to carry then."

"Hm?" Zuma glanced up at her through half closed eyes. "Oh... right."

"Unbelievable" Imani sighed.

"You're the one trying to keep us all in order" Mavuto pointed out, taking hold of the trolley and starting to push it across the floor. Gisele jumped on the front as it started moving, tucking her legs up and giggling.

"Someone needs to" Imani said. "And with Ghazi and everyone else not around anymore, that leaves just me."

Mavuto shrugged and gave the trolley a huge shove, spinning it slightly as it went so it spun in small circles, making Gisele laugh. It only lasted for a second though as the trolley collided with a woman reading on a tablet. The luggage toppled off the trolley as did Gisele, and the woman dropped her tablet in shock.

"Oops" Mavuto ran ahead to pick Gisele off the floor from underneath the cases. "I'm so sorry miss. Are you alright?"

She didn't answer for a minute, simply busying herself with adjusting her headscarf, picking up her tablet and checking the screen carefully. Then, she looked up and smiled. "Oh, I'm fine. It's not cracked, so no harm done. Are you alright?" She glanced as Gisele, who nodded sheepishly. "I think I recognise you. You're for the counterpart meeting, right?"

Mavuto nodded. "Mavuto. This is Gisele. You're... Rana?"

Rana smiled. "Yep."

By this time, Imani and Zuma had caught up with them after retrieving the last case. Imani clipped Mavuto round the head and then smiled weakly at Rana. "I'm so sorry. They're uncontrollable."

"No, it's fine" Rana waved the apology away, tucking her tablet back into her bag and offering a hand. "Rana, personification of Indonesia."

"Imani, Kenya" she shook her hand and then glanced at Gisele. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"I'm fine" Gisele grinned. "It was fun!"

"It wasn't supposed to be fun" Imani sighed and glared at Mavuto, who glanced away as though suddenly interested in something else. "Did many from near you make it?"

Rana shook her head. "There's just me and Lin really, unless you count Jett and Logan, but that's it around me. What about you?"

"Just us four" Imani said as they started walking away towards the exit. "I heard that we're doing better than the counterparts, but it doesn't feel like it when you look at a map of the world now."

"I haven't seen one" Rana said. "All I know is that the Indian Ocean has definitely become a lot bigger all of a sudden. We stopped off in India, which is something that's never happened before and, although I have no problem with it, obviously, it was a bit weird."

"More than half the world is gone" Gisele said.

Rana stared down at her. "Really? Will they show a map in the meeting?"

"I'd find it hard to imagine that they wouldn't since that's one of the reasons we're here" Imani shrugged. "You never know."

"I didn't know it was that bad" Rana stared at the floor.

They left the airport, walking outside to where a long, black car was waiting in a layby for them, the door wide open, a man with a keffiyeh leaning against the vehicle.

"Good morning" he said, waving slightly, then offering a hand to them. "Karim, personification of Saudi Arabia. How are you?"

"Good thank you" Mavuto shook the hand. "Mav, representative of Cameroon, Imani of Kenya, Zuma of South Africa, Gisele of Madagascar."

"I have lemurs" Gisele shouted, grinning.

Karim laughed and ruffled her hair. "I'm sure you do." He glanced back at Mavuto. "Bharat's just appeared. We're just waiting for the others."

"Jett, Logan and Lin?" Mavuto suggested.

"Yeah" Karim nodded. "Them. And the ones from South America. They'll be here in a bit though. Their plane was delayed. Do you want to sit down now?"

"Yes" Zuma drifted into the car and flopped down in one of the seats closest to the door without even saying hello to Bharat. No one had to look to know he was asleep.

Most of the characters I researched as well as I could before writing them up, although some I sort of improvised on. I couldn't find a name for Indonesia, so I used Rana, as I have a friend named Rana from Indonesia, so her personality is mainly based of Rana's. Zuma is based off my friend Rachel, who was born in South Africa, but had to move to the UK, and Gisele is mainly based of Feliciano, as I sort of imagined a colourful country like Madagascar having a sort of hyper personification.