Three Deaths
Three deaths mark the end of an era.
Tim Marcoh
Doctor Timothy Marcoh was holding a stethoscope against the back of an ailing child when his heart stopped beating. For countless moments – too long to last, too short to be real – his chest felt tight. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even think of anything but the pain spiraling out from his chest. Something warm and sticky was flowing from a wound – he was in the office, safe – running down his chest and back as his heart continued to pump; once, twice, three times before slowing and stilling – forever.
He drew a shuddering breath, and shook himself as the feeling passed. Little David Barrowman was crying on the examination table, scared by his Doctor's sudden stillness – the contortion of pain and fear that had flashed across his face. Marcoh pulled away from the wailing child, stepped over to the window to gaze out at the London skyline.
Very, very far away, there is another body with a face just like Marcoh's. It sits, dead, against the bed, red blood dried to black, stiffening the pristine white short and worn but well cared for corduroy jacket. As one Timothy Marcoh dies, another stands by and watches cars pass on the road outside.
Hohenheim closes his book and stands up.
Maes Hughes
Maes was thoroughly engrossed in the warm, drunken kiss of an attractive cabaret dancer when a chill ran up his spine. His mouth suddenly tasted like ashes, hers tasted like blood, and his heart stopped.
It stood still for a handful of seconds that lasted an eternity. He reeled as if falling backwards, felt the air rushing past his face. In the stillness he caught the eye of another dancer, over the shoulder of his own. Her face was round and gentle, her eyes soft: she was young. There were no hard edges to the set of her lips or the lines of her shoulders. She was fresh spring and new lambs amidst the burning winter of the cabaret's smoky red lighting.
She is someone's little girl, he thought as he felt the cold concrete beneath his body.
Then the taste of brandy reasserted itself, and he remembered the arms that were still clinging desperately to his shoulders. A few moments later his heart began to beat, and he forgot the innocent woman-child who had seemed his whole world in that single instant when his heart had stopped.
In another city in another world, a man with the same name lay dying and alone on the concrete. He thinks of his daughter as he bleeds out, and Hohenheim begins to draw an elaborate circle on the floor of a dirty, abandoned cathedral.
Izumi Curtis
Ida was halfway through her thirty-fourth pacing of the living room floor when a chill ran up her spine. Something deep inside her soul flew to pieces, then coalesced and congealed, leaving her breathless, motionless, and frightened. In her stillness she looked out the curtained windows into the thick fog now rolling across the hills and saw the morning light just beginning to shine through. This calmed her greatly and she resumed her trek, bouncing the infant in her arms to keep him from crying.
"All right, sweetheart?" her husband asked, looking up blearily from yesterday's paper.
"Fine, Sean," she answered, rubbing her cheek against the soft black curls of the baby in her arms. "Just someone dancing across my grave. In clogs."
In the adjoining rooms, five children began to stir and wake for the coming day. Cathy was up first, rubbing her bleary eyes as she tottered into the living room – still in her nightie - and climbed sleepily into her father's lap. Nick would follow soon, shirt untucked, shoes unbuckled, and then Aidan, with combed hair and a coat free of grass stains. Annie Laurie would have to be dragged out of bed ten minutes before it was time to leave for school, and Bridget would appear just as everyone was walking out the door, her dark hair hanging in perfect curls around her lovely face.
With cold hands and shaking limbs, Ida made her way back to her bedroom, and laid baby Jonah down to sleep through the rest of his cold.
Hundreds of miles southwest of Cork County, Ireland, in Munich, Hohenheim Elric closed the last ring of his elaborate sketch.
A world away, Izumi Curtis passed out of the realm of the living.
AN: Morbid much?