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Alphonse Elric saw the world come into view again. He groaned weakly, sitting up slowly. "Wha... what happened?" he said groggily, lifting a hand to his face. Wait... His hand didn't normally look like that. Was he wearing gloves? It didn't feel like he was wearing gloves... As a matter of fact, Alphonse couldn't feel anything.

"What's going on?" he said, panic making his voice crack. He glanced quickly around the room. Alphonse's vision suddenly focused on a blond child... sitting in a pool of blood. "Brother!" Alphonse said, stumbling and clanking over to his brother. Had he ever made that much noise while moving before? And why did it seem as if everything was smaller? As he instinctively cradled Ed like a baby, he noticed there were two stumps where limbs should have been. "What happened to you?"

"I'm sorry, Alphonse," Edward whispered. "The transmutation went wrong. A rebound happened... All I could manage to do... was attach your soul to a suit of armor..." Alphonse sat holding Edward, amazed and horrified at the same time. On one hand, his brother had sacrificed a limb to bring him back! On the other... Was Al even human anymore?

But there was no time for pondering now.

"Brother, you're bleeding too much!" Al said, worried. He stood up, still cradling the small boy in his arms. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Alphonse noted how easy it was to carry his older brother now. He was walking clumsily towards the door when something in the back of the room caught his eye. Edward lifted his remaining arm weakly, placing it on Alphonse's smooth metal arm.

"Don't look... It's not human," he protested, his voice quivering. It was too late—Alphonse had looked, and what he saw scared him.

It was a dark abomination. It was as if someone took a shape that was only vaguely human and twisted it, as if it was clay. What looked like ribs were sticking out of the horrifying creature, moving as the abomination breathed.

"We weren't even close," Al said, horrified. "How could this all be for nothing?" His voice cracked- He had lost his body to create this? He shook his head slightly, refocusing his efforts on the injured boy in his arms. "R-right... I need to get you to Granny," he muttered, now moving away from that... thing. One thing was important right now, and that was keeping his brother alive.

Alphonse ran out of the house as fast as he could, heading straight for the Rockbell residence with Edward in tow. The dark night sky seemed to suffocate him as he ran, and he felt as if he was in a nightmare. For the first time, he couldn't feel the grass brush against his feet as he ran. He sprinted farther and faster into the darkness, looking only at his brother as he ran. He could hear labored breathing as his brother's life spilled out of his small body. He didn't notice that no muscles were cramping, or that it wasn't harder to breathe- Al was too busy trying not to crush his brother in his new, unfamiliar body.

"Please, Brother... Don't die on me!" he said, choking back tears that could never come. He kept on running, the clanking of his armor the only sound in the vicinity. Finally, he could see the light in the windows of the Rockbell residence. Al urgently ran up to the door, knocking so hard that the door almost fell. The door creaked as Granny Pinako opened it. A look of confusion crossed her face, but it was quickly replaced by one of surprise.

"Please, help him," Al said, voice quavering. "He's going to bleed to death!" At the sound of his voice, Winry came rushing up to the door.

"Al, what's wrong?" she said, still coming to the doorway. Her eyes were then staring straight into his face, almost in awe. "Is... Is that you, Al?"

In the rush, Alphonse had almost forgotten about his current state.

"Y-yeah, but Brother needs more help than me right now! Please, Granny Pinako, help him!" The old woman nodded, beckoning Al to follow her. They reached two metal doors, with little windows so that you could peek inside. These were the operating room doors. Whenever Ed and Al had gone over to Winry's, they had spent hours playing 'Doctor' near those doors. For some reason, Winry had always been the automail doctor, and had given the 'injured' boys 'automail' made out of tinfoil. It was hard to believe that one of them had actually managed to lose limbs, and that now he was being treated by the Rockbells as a patient for real.

"Lay him down on this bed," Granny said, pointing to the bed in the center of the room. Al laid Ed down as gently as he could- He wasn't good at judging his own strength right now. Immediately, Winry and Granny Pinako started to attempt to stop the blood from coming out of the two stumps where his limbs should have been. They started speaking in a code of sorts; using all kinds of terms Al wasn't familiar with. As they kept working, Winry turned her head slightly towards Al.

"Go wait outside, Al," she said, her delicate but calloused hands clamped around the stump that was Edward's arm. Al, not being one to disobey orders, went outside. Once the door had closed behind him, he slid slowly against a wall, down into a sitting position. He laid his helmet down between the two arms hugging his spiked knees.

It sounded vain, but Alphonse cared about his appearance. He wasn't constantly preening himself or anything, but he at least wanted to know when he looked bad. He could feel it when his hair stuck up in weird ways, and when he had bags under his eyes. Now, he had no idea of what his face looked like. He couldn't feel the hair sticking up out of his head; heck, he wasn't even sure if he had hair. He stood up, now clanking loudly towards the bathroom; there was a mirror in there.

He stood in front of the sink, large metal gauntlet reaching towards its reflection. "I didn't know I looked so scary," he said in a joking voice that sounded like it was breaking inside. "Winry must... have been terrified..." The sentence ended with Alphonse's voice cracking. He was pulled up close to the mirror, looking for any remainder of his old self.

Insecurities flashed furiously through his mind as he tried to block them out. You deserve it. Ha, you look like a monster! That's what you are on the inside, anyways. None of these thoughts were more troubling than one that sounded like he himself had said it. This is all Brother's fault.

No. No, that wasn't true. It was his fault, too, and Brother had saved him from certain death by putting him in this body.

What good was a body that he wasn't familiar with? Alphonse covered his face with his too-large hands.

What had gone wrong?

Inside the operating room, Edward finally came to. At first, his gaze was groggy. After recognizing where he was, his eyes focused and he tried to sit up as he scanned the room for his brother.

"Where's Al?" he asked immediately, straining against Winry, who was holding him down. "I need to see him! Is he okay?" By the looks of it, he hadn't taken much notice of the fact that he was missing two limbs.

"Calm down, Edward. You're going to bleed more if you panic," Granny Pinako said gruffly. "We just finished closing the wounds, too." A blank look crossed Ed's face. Wounds? He didn't feel anything. In fact, it was almost as if some of his limbs weren't there…

Oh.

Oh. The memories came back to him in a rush, and the dizziness that followed was no longer just from loss of blood. He fought even more frantically against his restrainer. "Al! AL!" he screamed, his voice jumping a few octaves. "Please, tell me he's okay! Get him in here! Did he lose limbs, too?" His memories of bonding Al's soul to the armor had not returned yet, numbed away by shock. Winry pushed him down onto the bed with more force.

"Calm down, and I'll go get him." Winry acted older than usual, as if she were 15 instead of 10. Ed nodded furiously, wanting to make sure his brother was fine. Winry left the room, returning a few minutes later with a giant suit of armor in tow. Edward shook his head, incredulous.

"That suit of armor isn't my brother!" he said, anger tinging his words. Armor wasn't even alive. As soon as the words left his mouth, more memories returned.

As a matter of fact, the suit of armor was his brother. And Edward himself had put Al in that form. Guilt struck his heart, dealing a piercing blow. Alphonse stood, the suit of armor shaking slightly.

"Y-you don't recognize me, Brother?" Sure enough, the voice of his little brother rang through the gigantic figure. Worse, he sounded absolutely heartbroken.

Silence filled the room, and nobody dared make a sound.

For the first time in his new body, Al really looked at his older brother.

In the weak state that he was in, he looked fragile and defeated. Edward had already been slightly smaller than Al; the new and exaggerated size difference made Ed seem even smaller. His injuries weren't pretty, either; the stitches were dark, standing out against his pale skin. In a terrible way, it almost seemed reminiscent of Frankenstein's Monster. Why had Alphonse been worrying about his appearance when his brother's was just as bad, if not worse?

"It's okay," Al said softly, breaking the silence. "You should get some rest." Edward's eyes had glazed over, either from the shock, the shame from not recognizing his own brother, or the realization that they had failed to bring their mother back. Miserably.

Winry turned to look at Al. "We need to stay awake to monitor his condition. Go to sleep for me, Al," she said, already sounding tired.

Alphonse didn't know how to fall asleep in this new, confusing body. He started by trying to close his eyelids, which were nonexistent. No matter how much he tried to drift off, there was nothing to rest. Sleeping was only for clearing out your memory, healing the body, and helping it grow. Because Alphonse's body couldn't do (or didn't need) any of these things, he couldn't fall asleep.

No matter how much he wanted to escape reality.

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