I rose from my chair lazily, feeling a bit weighed-down after writing that letter to pa, who was out at work for the month. I stretched my arms, and the feeling I received from the right one made me yank it back to examine it.

"Oh, duh . . ." I mumbled to myself as I traced the cool metal with my left hand's fingertip. I winced as I thought of the pain I had experienced on my seventh birthday . . .

I had gotten a bit too close to one of the wires of a small car I had minuets before started to disassemble and, in a split second, was in extreme pain. Then, because I was with pa, we couldn't get to a hospital in time to avoid the wound from getting infected. By the time we did get to one, my entire arm had to be amputated. I stayed there a few days, and when we got back to ma's, she quickly prepared a mechanical arm for me, though I can never remember what she called it, and hooked it up to my nerves.

God did it hurt.

As I plopped down on my chair again, I heard a small moan from below. I looked down to see my twin sister, blond hair messy and gold eyes halfway open.

"Katrina? Why are you here?" I asked. She shrugged and stood up lazily, holding the edge of the chair for support and barely managing to keep from falling right back down again on her metal legs. She glanced over at the clock and then back to me.

"Luke," she manged to get out. "Come on. We're going to Fletch's, 'mkay?" I nodded, knowing I didn't have much choice. She'd drag me along whether I liked it or not. She did this every friday.

Katrina took my hand quickly and fled out of our bedroom and down the stairs, her metal legs clicking with every step. She obviously wasn't afraid of the stairs anymore, despite the fact that that was what had caused her to loose her legs.

"Ma! We're going to visit Fletch! We'll be back in . . . er . . three hours! Bye~" My sister yelled. I barely had enough time to say goodbye to my mother, as I was being dragged off by a pint-sized alchemist, about the smallest out there at the time I'd say. Of course I had no room to talk. We were twins, for heavens sake. But at least I worked on machinery . . .

Fletcher, the boy we were supposedly going to visit, was a year older than us, a thirteen-year-old boy who was quite the romeo for a child of his age. He had somewhat spiky, short stark black hair and chocolaty-brown eyes and was about four inches taller than both of us, my sister and I. I'm pretty sure he had fallen hard over Katrina, as he often flirted with her. It was somehow different than I had seen him do with other girls, romeo or not. Sometimes he'd wear white gloves, enabling him to use fire. Often when he did, he'd shoot at random things around him, whether it be a rock or a rabbit. And boy did he have good aim.

We were quite a ways away from where Fletcher lived, and had to take a train. Somehow, Katrina had forgotten this and had to call ma on the payphone to inform her that we'd be gone a few days. She wasn't very surprised by this as she knew the distance from our home to Central so she let us go easily. Darn. I was hoping to stay home . . .

We sat in the seats quietly, without a word the whole ride. About two hours into the trip Katrina fell asleep and I followed soon after. The seats were padded with fluffy cushions, a dark shade of green that seemed to make them somewhat cold.

About 26 hours later, I was awoken to the sound of Katrina screaming for me to wake up. As soon as I opened my eyes I saw Katrina and Fletcher standing there, Fetcher's arm wrapped around Katrina's shoulders and Katrina staring at him with a pissed look on her face . . .