Someone was chasing him. He could feel them getting closer. How many times had he had this nightmare? Ever since childhood it seemed. He was nearing the dead end alley he always ducked down, hoping to get away.
He would wake up soon, in a cold sweet, having to go to the bathroom. Al would probably be waiting for him, maybe trying to wake him from his troubled sleep. Only this time, he could hear the person behind him, could hear his own mismatched footfalls on the wet pavement, could smell the rain that had just fallen.
He went into the alley and told himself he would wake up any minute, that he had to wake up – NOW! But this was no dream, he was cornered. And there was no way out, no time to think, nothing he could do. All he could do was stare down at the metal hole where his arm should have been if that bastard hadn't torn it off. He turned and watched in sheer horror as the one who had chased him in his dreams as a child was given physical form.
Somehow he was still convinced he would wake up just before this person got to him, that he wouldn't – couldn't – die here, that it wasn't possible for this to happen to him, a State Alchemist, one who had seen the Gate.
But this time, it was no dream.
He saw a glint of moonlight on steel, felt a sharp pain in the back of his head as he heard a loud crack of metal on bone.
He didn't wake up.