Chapter 1
Monster

Darkness surrounds everything and I could everything and nothing at the same time. I stood seemingly on nothing when all of a sudden everything was bright. It turn to see a imposing gate. Fear grips me as the doors swing open and thousands of eyes stare down at me. I step back and try to run away when black hands come out of it to engulf me. I fight them but they re too strong. I'm pulled into the gate—

I wake up screaming. Looking around my room I find myself safe and the gate nowhere in sight. Leaning back I realize that I am covered in a cold sweat and the sheets are tangled around me.
My bed is four postered and my room is dark and spacious, yet devoid of any personal touch. I haven't been around long. Only a few weeks. I am still trying to understand my existence.
Mother says my name is Envy and that I came from the gate that plagues my dreams. She told me I am not human like she is. I am a homunculus. An artificial being with no soul. I wonder I can move and think without a soul in me.

I climb out of the tangled sheets and light a lamp. I then wander to look out of my bedroom window. Outside it is dark because I live in an underground city. Mother and I are the only ones here. Sometimes I think we are the only ones in this world and the land above is only a myth she tells me to keep my questions silent. The light from the lamp throws my shadow in the way of my view and my reflection is all I can really see. My blonde hair falls over my golden eyes and pale skin. Seeing it, a flash of memory comes to mind.

A man with blonde hair and golden eyes looks through his glasses at me. He looks fearful. Then he is gone and I'm not sure where he went.

I dwell on the memory for a moment while studying my reflection. After a few moments I turn away and wander downstairs. If anyone else where to look at me they would say I was eight even though I was created not too long ago. Mother dresses me in plain clothing and gave me shoes but I never wear them.
I find her in the library writing something in a book. She looks young and smells of sweet flowers. I don't approach her but instead linger in the doorway.

"Dante?" I ask. She hated to be called mother.

"What is it Envy?" she doesn't look up.

"I had another nightmare. About the Gate."

"You don't dream." She said as if she was simply explaining that a snake can't fly.

"Yes I do." I insisted. "I have the same dream every night. The gate appears and then—"

Her book slams shut and I stop speaking. Mother looks at me and then stands up leaving her book on the chair. She walks over to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. "Don't lie to me Envy, it's unbecoming of you." She then walks out of the library.

Like a lost dog, I follow.

"Who is that man?" I ask.

"what man?"

"The one who looks like me. He had blonde hair and gold eyes. And wears glasses. I have memories of him but I don't know who he is."

"Oh yes. That's your father Hoenhiem."

"Where is he?'

"He ran away."

"Why?"

"Because he thought you were a monster."

"Am I a monster Dante?"

"Yes."

Mother has me learn alchemy. The library is filled with books on
the subject. I tried to perform some once but nothing happened. Mother said it was because only humans can perform it.

"Then why am I learning it?"

"Because humans who do alchemy with try to kill you. If you know how it works then you can counter it well. And because you will help me get another philosophers stone."

"What's that?"

"Find out."

So now I sit in the library reading. Looking at the first line in the book I read it aloud.

"Human kind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. That is alchemy's first law."

I think about that phrase for a few moments. Humans cannot gain without loosing so does that mean I can gain without giving? The idea's exhilarating.

Months filled with alchemy study pass by quickly. Mother drills me constantly. I have to recognize circles. Understand the law of equivalent exchange. Learn what elements can be mixed to make certain others and which cannot. It's tiring but it seems to please mother so I persist to study.

I start to dwell on the first law. I can gain without giving, of that I'm sure now. But what do I want?

I remember mother telling me how my father ran away. He abandoned me. The thought makes me feel angry and sometimes hot water fills my eyes and runs down my face. I'm not sure why this happens. Mother calls it crying.

But now I hate my father more than ever. I hate the way he created me and then left me alone here. I want to stop looking like him but I haven't found a way.

More months pass and I stop learning alchemy and start learning about the world above. I learn history and study battles and politics. One day I am looking at a picture of a governor and decide to try something.

In one of mothers books it said the homunculi have powers greater than humans. So I decide to figure out what my power is and hope that I can use it to change my appearance.
Looking at the picture of the governor I think for a moment of the face and his body and the clothes he is wearing. The image is vividly engraved into my mind……

A flash of light runs up my body and I feel a slight tingle in my skin. Another glance at the mirror and I saw myself as a spitting image of the governor I had imagined. I grinned evilly and then thought about changing back. Another flash of light and I watch with delight as my appearance changed back to the way it was. I think about my new found power with increasing delight. I get up and run to the kitchen where Dante is separated herbs on a table.

"Dante! Look!" I exclaim skidding in. I change into the image of the governor again and then change back. "Isn't it great?" I ask.
She smiles a cruel, secret smile as she bends down and ruffles my hair. "Yes that's wonderful Envy."

After my daily study's, I sit and think of how I wanted to look. I don't want to look like my father anymore so I devise a new me. I change my hair so that it's long and braided in multiple braids. Looking in the mirror I decide I like the way it looks and change the color of my hair to a deep green and like that even more. Next I change my outfit. I decide on a tight black shirt with a turtle-neck collar but no sleeves and a pair of black shorts. Looking at myself in the mirror I see my oroborus. Mother had pointed it out once. She said it was what marked me as a homunculus. I examine my left thigh, amused by the design.
I add gloves with the fingers cut off and a pair of socks with no heel or toe to my outfit. Then a headband to hold my new hair out of my eyes; my gold eyes. The only part of my appearance that I kept. I put an upside-down triangle on the headband.

Mother seems amused by my new look.

I learned about the philosophers stone. Mothers books say that you need human souls to make the stone. She and father used the souls of everyone who once lived in the city around us to make their stone.

Again, I'm not sure if I care or not.

Two years turn into three. Then three into twenty. I age at the rate of a normal human but I seem to be getting faster as I get older. I find my new body to be agile and light. I can jump kick and spin farther than I thought I could.

Mother is aging too. Her body is old and decayed now. The scent of flowers is now repulsive and intoxicating. I start to avoid her until she calls me into the library one day.

"I'm going to jump bodies again." She explains. "you know what this means, don't you?"

"I know. It means your soul is going to be transferred to another body."

"Very good. I should be back in a week."

Then she's gone.

I spend this new loneliness wandering the city. I quickly learn all the nooks and streets in it and find myself very much at home. I brood over thoughts of my mother and father.

My father, Hoenhiem, didn't love me. He wouldn't have abandoned me if he did. But mother doesn't seem to have that much love for me either. She insists that I can't feel. She's wrong. The emptiness that fills me now is as real as any feeling. She treats me harshly and isn't patient with my mistakes. She can't love me…..

But why else would she keep me around? For the simple reason that she wants me to make another philosophers stone for her?

I try to deny the truth of this fact, but I know it's true.

I feel heavy inside. I cry. But no one can hear me.