My hands run over the floorboards, painting broad circles across the floor. I'm not even sure why I'm doing it; I already know it's not going to change anything. But it's circle after circle, symbol after symbol, a rhythm that keeps my focus on my hands.

Bright flashes of lightning fill the room at random intervals, illuminating my progress. They illuminate other things too, things I'd rather not see. I turn my back on the corner of the room and keep drawing, to the sound of the thunder and pouring rain.

I hear your footsteps, a soft tapping as you move across the room. You stand next to me, gazing down at my relentless movements.

"Brother." You say softly. "Brother, stop."

I don't look at you. I can't look at you, and I don't stop.

"Ed." You crouch down next to me, too close to ignore, though my head is still bowed to avoid meeting your eyes. "It's no use."

My hands slow to a halt, flat against the rough wood floor. They are trembling, clear to my shoulders. I let out a shaky breath, my words coming in gasps. "I'm so sorry, Alu." I press my fists to my eyes to stop the shaking. "This is all my fault. If you hadn't been trying to protect me…"

There is a long, pregnant pause before you say, "Now you're getting it all over your face. Really, Brother, you are an embarrassment."

The statement is so typical of you that I laugh despite myself. "Lay off, you're not my mother."

"No." You reply. "Our mother's dead. And my brother is a monster."

Your words hit me like a kick in the gut that leaves me stunned and unable to breathe. I lift my head to gape at you. A flash of lightning lights up your face, and the golden eyes that drill into mine. I sit in stunned silence as thunder sends the entire house rattling.

"A-Alu…" I finally gasp out.

You let out an exasperated sigh, and fold your legs to sit across from me. We could look for all the world like two brother's having a friendly chat. "You still haven't admitted it to yourself? Boy, you really are thick-skulled."

"I didn't…I never meant…" Every word seems like an excuse, an attempt to thrust your accusation away from me. Even so it clings to me like a shadow, a darkness at my back I try desperately to ignore.

"It doesn't matter what you meant. You fuck everything up. It's just a fact of being you." You tear into me so nonchalantly, though it is nothing but bitter honesty. "Bringing our mother back, bringing me back…I ended up in a metal body, unable to feel anything for years, because you were lonely. Look what I did for you, even now, and look what it cost me. This is how you work, Brother. You're a bomb; you wreck everything in your path, whether you mean to or not. We should have seen this coming, really." Your glance goes towards the darkened corner.

Immediately I am filled with horror and foreboding, unwanted sensations rising to the surface of my mind. Red hot rage, ripping and tearing, thick, red hot that coats my hands and is in my mouth and in my hair and painted across the walls, rage and pain and agony and screaming, endless screaming…

I grip my head, shoving the visions away from me. "No…don't look there…you can't look."

"If we don't look it's not real, huh?" You shoot me a wry smile. "Sorry Brother, but I can't let you run away from this. They'll all see it soon enough, the monster that's always been there. It's about time someone besides me did."

Fear and horror leave me paralyzed, so I have no choice but to sit and listen.

"What about Winry? She loves you." You laugh, and I'm unaccustomed to hearing such a short and harsh sound from my baby brother. "Don't give me that face. You know it to be true, somewhere, or I wouldn't be saying it. Winry always was oblivious. She sees nothing but the good in everyone. This time though, she'll see you for what you really are. Can you see how she looks at you?"

I could see, as though she stood before me. I could see her blue eyes fixated on me in horror, her entire body recoiling from my outstretched hand: automail, caked in blood to the very center. She pulls away, and does not come near me, does not look at me again.

I blink and it's just you, head tilted as you eye the tears I'm barely aware are falling.

"They'll all see the real you, finally. And they'll never be able to look you in the face."

I see them all. Pinako, Teacher, Roy, Riza, everyone I know. They stand before me and gape in disgust, and then every single one turns their back and is gone, leaving me utterly alone.

"This is you, Brother. Your mistakes destroy everything, and catch everyone else in the explosion. How long until that corner you refuse to look at happens to all of them? Everything you touch gets destroyed; you couldn't even save a little girl."

I'm left completely numb, your voice ringing in my ears.

"So desperate to help everyone. You fail every time, though, because you're incapable of making things better, only worse. All the altruism in the world can't make up for what you've got hiding inside you. But it finally came out, didn't it?" Your head turns to face the corner head-on, just as a flash of lightning illuminates it completely. Pain lances once again through my head, and I know you see everything. Your next words reach me in the quiet after the thunder. "Tucker would be so proud of you."

"No." I could not have felt more shocked if you had shoved a lance through my chest. "No no no no don't say that!" I wail. "It's not true!"

You stare into me with an unwavering gaze, and then I know, without a doubt, that every worst fear about myself is completely and utterly true.

I truly am a monster.

Agonized screams rip their way out of my body, one after another. I'm bent double, unable to stop, clutching my hair at the roots. Scream after scream fills the room, drowns out the rain, drowns out every sensation but that of my own self-loathing.

A hand clamps down on my braid, cutting off my shrieks as you yank my head up. "Crying won't make this go away!" You yell into my face. "It's a stain on your soul that's not ever coming out! You're a monster, you always were and you always will be!"

My entire body is limp as you toss me to the side. I sag to the floor, all strength lost.

Because I am a monster, every part of my soul stained with blood and the suffering of others.

You get to your feet, my little brother towering over me. "You know what you have to do."

"Yes."

You extend a hand and help me to my feet. I rise shakily, until you wrap me in a firm hug. Holding my brother close feels like a taste of the home I can never go back to, and it steadies my limbs as well as my resolve.

"Nothing can save you," You whisper. "But at least you can leave the world one monster less."

Riza found Roy Mustang sitting on the back step, his body bowed against the rain that came down relentlessly. He didn't look up as she came to stand behind him. "Did you see?"

The lieutenant fought to keep her voice from shaking, and lost. "Yes."

Mustang kept talking, his own voice low and empty. "They were ambushed the moment they stepped inside. There were five of them, all alchemists. Judging from the muddy prints on the floor, Alphonse stepped in front of his brother."

"That's what I saw too. He…he was in pieces. The blood seal…completely…" Riza wished she could keep her words as even as his. As it was, she was fighting not to be sick. "Were there five men? I couldn't…I couldn't tell—"

"Fullmetal's arms are covered in blood up to the elbow. He ripped them apart with his bare hands."

She had suspected as much, but to actually hear it made what she had seen in the corner of that room real. Her hand went to her mouth, her breath coming in quivering gasps that shook her entire body. Riza had seen plenty of gore in Ishval, but to see such carnage at the hands of a sixteen year old boy…no, not just any boy, Edward.

"He…he clearly snapped. There are transmutation circles scrawled in blood all over the floor. The runes aren't even alchemic instructions, just words, like he was talking to someone. And then he…" Mustang brought a hand up to cover his face. "I shouldn't have sent them here."

"Colonel—"

"I sent them to investigate a single criminal, I wasn't expecting five alchemists. I thought this would be a breeze for them." The bitter laugh he let out dissolved into an agonized groan. "This is my fault."

The dam broke with a crash and the hot tears that had welled up went streaming down Riza's face. Like the rain it seemed they would never stop again.

"Sometimes I forget how young they are. I sent two children to their deaths." His words were thick and filled with pain, his shoulders shuddering uncontrollably. "This is all my fault."

With a sob her legs gave way, and she fell to her knees. Wrapping her arms around Roy's waist, they clung to each other like people drowning in a sea of dark grief.

The rain and the wind blew through the open the door behind them, and sent swinging, where it hung from the rafters, the blood-stained body of the Fullmetal Alchemist.