Chapter One (Alphonse's POV)
I woke with a start, cold sweat running down my face. I awoke to our small darkened room. My heart was racing. My senses were sharpened and high off of adrenaline. I instinctively grabbed at my limbs to make sure they were all still there. I took a series of deep breaths to calm myself down.
Just a dream. A terrifyingly real one. Of that night. Still shaking, I rubbed my face and turned to the clock on the nightstand. Six thirty. I got up and walked to the bathroom. As I did so, I called to Ed over in his cot, sleeping in a heap of sheets and snores. "Time to get up, Edward."
I washed my face, images from the dream still flashing before my eyes. It had been about that night again. But that was then. That was what I kept telling myself. I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was getting long. Almost long enough to put in a ponytail again. I was looking a bit rugged, but I didn't care. I was just glad there was flesh on my face. At one time there was nothing but metal when I looked in the mirror.
I walked back into the room where Ed still slept like a rock. I pulled back the curtains and let the sun in. "Up, Edward." He groaned at the light in his face but made no attempt to wake up.
We had lived in this small apartment for about a year now. After we had destroyed the gate, we hitch hiked on the side of the road and ended up in London (London, what a strange name for a city). In order to pay for the apartment, we had both taken up jobs. I became a bus boy at a local coffee shop. Edward had taken a job in mechanics.
Edward had also started taking classes at the University. In physics, mostly, which came as no surprise. Perhaps he thought there was still a way to get his missing limbs back.
I took a glass and went to the sink. It was mid-November, so of course the water was freezing. I took the glass to Ed's cot and dumped it on his face. He shot up, spitting and thrashing about. "AL! WHAT THE HELL!?" He yelled.
I chuckled. "It's time to get up, brother."
Yeah, a day like any other. But little did I know that was the day I would meet her.
