Al sat against an old decay wall in his room that he was staying in, although trapped in a hollow prison of armor sleep was unnecessary. A heavy empty armor that was bursting with worry, Al hadn't seen his loving brother Edward for months and his brother made an effort to cover his tracks. This wasn't like Ed he would at least let Al or someone that he was going somewhere for some reason but nothing. The last time Alphonse had saw him is when they were at the central library and Edward had discovered something about the philosopher stone that had something to do with chimeras and ran off. That was 3 months ago, only a week after Ed disappeared did Alphonse go to Roy Mustang ,Edwards superior and alert him that Ed was missing. In the beginning Mustang wasn't worried he was convinced that Edward just got lost trying to go where ever he was going so mustang only sent out one or two search parties, but as the days dragged on, mustang and Al were letting fear grow in their hearts as they became more worried eventually mustang alerted the military that a very famous state alchemist has gone missing. Each day more and more search parties were being sent out by hueges, mustang and general Armstrong eventually Mustangs superiors said that Edward is most likely dead and minimized the search parties to mustangs, huegs and Armstrong's men. Months passed with no sign of Edward and dread tortured Al with not knowing where his brother is. Eventually Al on the border of grief and hopelessness Al simply went to an Inn and would wait until mustang would call him. Al did not leave the room for 3 days still waiting for the call from mustang.
Al sat completely motionless for hours deep in thought, creating and playing every situation that ed could be in but all good that did was just making al worried sick. Al then decided that maybe one of his old enemies had kidnapped him to settle the score with him, but the strange thing was there was no one that was alive or on the loose to settle a score with Edward even then there would be a struggle somewhere leaving evidence so it couldn't of been one of his enemies right?...
At that moment when Al had drawn a blank the phone finally rang. Al stared at the phone in awe, hope filling himself once again enabling Al to stumble over himself trying to grab the phone. Al picked the phone up and placed it next to his hollow helmet where a head should be.
"Hello!? Mustang Sir? Did you find Edward!?" Al question relentlessly
"Yes Al it's me" Mustang replied coldly, the phone conversation went quite for a moment before Al said broken heartedly thinking that the dead air was not a good sign for his brothers well being "Is he Alive...?", there was another brief moment of silence before Mustang replied "...Shou Tucker is alive Al".