...
His face grim, Shou Tucker stares ahead at his shadow against the front bare wall of the empty Guest room. It was once the room his wife raised their daughter, Nina; it was the nursey. But soon after her death, the room was cleaned out and the door was closed shut behind it- as if the simple slam of a door would keep back the painful memories inside.
He places a hand to his glasses, adjusting them against the sweaty bridge of his nose. "Empty spaces," he says softly. He thinks of Nina: Her room will be empty as well.
"What are we living for?" His tone is tight with remorse; he becomes unsteady and braces a hand against the wall. He pushes off and turns, his feet scuffing the wooden floor loudly, and he leaves the room. On either side of the hallway he now walks down, are doors. Many left unopened for months, or even years.
"Abandoned places." A smile jerks upwards at the top on his left lip, "I guess we know the score." His thoughts flicker to his wife. He puts a hand against his face in shame. "On and on..!" he says fiercely. "Does anybody know what we are looking for?"
...
A yellow-haired boy had just grabbed at Scar when he tried to enter the Alchemy building, but he ignored his weak grasp and kept walking; now the sleeve of his right arm was torn off. This forced him to retreat back into the shadows, away from the one place he may have been able to obtain answers from.
He thinks of the yellow-haired boy. He had called himself an Alchemist. Yet... he was just a kid.
"Another hero..." says Scar angerly as he walks down the to the alley, taking favor to his right arm. "Another mindless crime." He slides down to the ground, resting his back on the cold stone. He checks the black markings on his exposed arm with a pained expression. "Behind the curtain, in the pantomime." he muses. He thinks suddenly about his brother; a hand reaches and folds around the black marks in revolation. "Hold the line!" he says. "Does anybody want to take it anymore?"
The markings glow red- so faintly it may have been the trick of the eyes.
Scar then decides: "The show must go on!"
...
"The show must go on!" Shou Tucker tells himself, heading downstairs to where his believes his daughter will be. "Yeah!" he assures himself.
...
Nina is in her Mommy's room, wearing a hat that is too big, and a scarf that seems more like a dress; she stand sin the mirror, thick lipstick on her face. The dog Alexander wags his tail as he watches her from the floor.
She gives the mirror a glamorous smile. "Inside my heart is breaking," she swoons, twiling in the dress-like scarf, "My make-up may be flaking, but my smile-" she shows off her four-year-old teeth- "still stays on!"
The reflection changes; a new shape appears: Daddy is in the room.
Nina turns with a happy squeal, and runs to his waiting arms.
Alexander follows, barkings happily.
...
Shou Tucker takes hold of the little girl's hand.
"What ever happens," he says to himself as he heads down to the lab-room. "I'll leave it all to chance."
The child looks up at him wonderingly, but stays quiet.
Nothing could go wrong this time.
And if it does...?
"Another heartache," Shou Tucker answers bitterly. "Another failed romance." By now, they reach the lab-room; he places his daughter in the middle of the Alchemy circle, in the center of the triangle, and stands back. "On and on..." he repeates, watching the girl and the dog with hungery eyes. "Does anybody know what we are living for?" He picks up the Alchemy book of trasmutation, and begins to chant.
...
"I guess I'm learning." Edward tells his brother, feeling alone, though Alphonse walks in-step at his side.
...
"I must be warmer now..." Scar tells himself, removing his hand from the curse. He scoots closer against the stone wall.
...
"I'll soon be turning," Edward announces, his feet picking up speed, "Round the corner now!"
A boy and a suite of armor- their shadows break the ground silently.
...
The Chimera was a success.
It sits as a flesh-colored dog with a flowing brown mane of a beast. It's eyes are a dried-up-glue white: the glue that no one wants to touch; icky, yucky: Disgusting.
Shou Tucker turns away from his prize, up at the closed door of the lab: light shines through, dim, but surely.
"Outside the dawn is breaking," he informs the creature. "But inside in the dark..." He turns his head to the chimera, his glasses reflecting the after-glow of Alchemy.
"I'm aching..." the Chimera tells him weakly.
...
"...to be free." Scar realizes of himself. He stands, and in the dkarneing world he walks with a new-found purpose.
...
"The show must go on!" shouts Edward as he barrles through the door of Mr. Tucker's house. He searches the empty rooms with his brother, shouting the child's name. Alphose shakes his head sadly at his brother.
Edward's face tightens, and he shakes his head fiercely. "The show must go on!" He cries, not wanting to give up on the search.
"Yeah, yeaah!" Alphose says agreeably: he points ahead and nods in the direction.
Edward turns with wide eyes and sees the door to Mr. Tucker's lab.
They begin to run.
...
The pain rattles inside Nina's new body; like a blender full of glass, cutting and breaking every organ in her system. She doesn't make a sound, the pain all-too consuming to even cry. But does Daddy know...?
She steps towards Daddy, and he faces her eagerly. "Oooh," he says excitedly.
"Inside my heart is breaking," Nina tells Daddy miserbly.
Daddy's face pales, and he bends down in front of her.
"My make-up may be flaking," Nina whines, remembering her reflection in the mirror. She sits down at his feet. "But my smile..." She forces a terrible looking grimance which shows her human teeth; a look full of sorrow and lonliness. "Still stays on."
...
Edward comes in and, after seeing and hearing Mr. Tucker's own confession, he screams and begins to hit him; punishment for using his own daughter and her dog to make a creature that would rather die than live.
As he beats him, Mr. Tucker tells him they are exactly alike.
No.
Edward does not agree; he is not like him!
"Yeaaaah!" says Mr. Tucker, believing otherwise.
Edward swings his arm back to land one more punch.
But Alphose holds him back. "Oh, ooh, oooh..." he says, sympathetically.
Then he feels a tug at his jacket; looking down slowly, as if fearing what he would see, Edward notices Nina, the chimera, trying in her own way to make him not hurt her Daddy.
...
"My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies," Scar nears the Life-Sewing Alchemist's house; he knows that the man inside is possibly conducting illegal experiments. Yet he feels good about what he is doing, for it is in God's will that he walks to that house.
...
"Fairy tales of yesterday will grow, but never die!" Shou Tucker tells the two boys as he crawls to his broken glasses, which fell off when Edward was hitting him. He puts his glasses on, and meets the boys troubled gaze with his own, haunting expression. "I can fly!" he explains loudly.
"My friends..." says the chimera softly, watching this display in silence until now.
Edward begins to scream in agony.
"The show must go on!" Shou Tucker emplores, as if his life depends on it.
...
"Yeaaah!" agrees Edward suddenly. He turns and takes Alphose with him; he plans to leave and come back, bringing the military to deal with Mr. Tucker and Nina; then, they will save that little girl.
He exits the house of the Alchemist, racing with Alphose towards their Head-Quaters.
...
It only takes an hour for Shou to arrange the group of his own military men to guard his house. Next, he hides himself and his chimera in one of the empty rooms.
They wait quietly, staring into eachothers sad eyes- waiting for judgement.
Lightning strikes outside the window: A stranger makes himself know in the doorway: Shou looks at him abruptly, fearful.
"The show must go on." says the stranger.
...
Scar enters the room, watches with mild satisfaction as the Life-Sewing Alchemist known as Shou Tucker throws himself out of his chair.
Tucker must know why Scar is here, because he stands up shouting, "I'll face it with a grin!"
Scar appoaches the babbling man.
"I'm never giving in!" cries Tucker. "On with the show!" he shrieks, even as Scar grabs him by the throat.
He lifts the Alchemist from the floor, and breaks his neck in a vivid flow of blood; he drops the body.
Scar turns to the chimera who licks and nudges at the now-dead man.
He takes a step towards it.
"Ooh," he says, thinking more of the situation. "I'll top the bill; I'll overkill." He places a hand on the whimpering creature. The markings on his arm flash from black to red: a creature is returned to the dust.
...
The next morning, Edward, having heard of what became of the girl and Mr. Tucker, hugs himself shamefully on the steps outside the Head-Quaters. "I have to find the will to carry on." he tells himself. "On with the show..." he reminds himself.
"On with the show." echoes Alphose, who sits two steps away.
...
"The show must go on." Scar says, standing in the middle of the street as a single ray of sunlight makes itself known in the cloudy sky; he stands alight in the after-glow of the storm, shining like an angel.
...