Sanity Overload

---

Everything was fading away.

My sanity.

It was fading away.

The doors were slowly closing. The doors to reality were closing.

There was only one person that stopped the process and kept me sane.

I stared at Al's sleeping figure and smiled softly.

The only person that kept me sane.

The only person that stopped the doors from closing.

It was three in the morning, and I decided to go out, even though I knew no one was awake.

As I got out of the hotel room we were sleeping in, I passed a sign I should have paid more attention to.

"Warning!" It read. "Escaped murderer from Central prison attracted to hotels. If seen here, please contact authorities."

Little did I know that the said murderer was waking up in the room next door.

---

When I returned to the hotel, I found it crowded with police officers, detectives, random military men and other people.

I walked up closer to hear what they were saying.

"Poor boy, if only he knew..."

"They say he was trying to escape before..."

"He was stabbed five times, three in the stomach area..."

'So there was a murder.' I thought. 'I hope Al wasn't involved...'

I decided to walk into the hotel when a police officer stopped me.

"Um, excuse me, but my brother's in there..." I said.

"What room?" He asked.

"Room 29."

"Boy, I have bad news..."

My eyes widened.

"What..."

"There was a murder in that room, boy. Your brother was alone in that room, right?"

I shook my head in disbelief.

"No... he's not dead!" I shouted.

"If you want proof, take a look at the corpse we found."

I ran to the area where the police took the corpse.

'It can't be Al... no, it must be someone else...' I thought, hoping what I thought was actually true.

But when I got there and lifted the blanket off the dead body, my heart felt like it stopped.

There, my brother lay, his mouth slightly open, and his grey eyes giving off a blank stare.

"No... it-it can't be..." I whispered.

Yet this was the truth.

"Al!" I screamed, shaking Alphonse, trying to wake him up until the officers pulled me away.

And it was this moment that the doors to reality, now with no one to stop them, started closing.

---

"Brother, why are you so depressed?"

I turned my head behind me. Did I just hear Al?

No, it was just an illusion.

"Fullmetal," Roy asked worriedly. He's been like that eversince Al's death. "Is something wrong?"

I shook my head. "No."

Mustang sighed.

"Fullmetal, I know how painful it was to lose your brother..."

"Don't remind me, okay?" I said angrily as I walked out of Mustang's office and out of Central Headquarters.

That's when something-no, someone caught my eye.

"Al?" I whispered weakly, as I saw Al in front of me, on the road.

"Brother..." He whispered, than started walking away.

"No... I'm not losing him again!" I cried, as I ran after him.

I didn't notice the speeding car on the road, which was about to run over me.

"Hey, watch out!" Someone cried, pushing me away from the car to the otherside of the street.

I didn't notice, though.

"He's gone again!" I cried, struggling to get up.

'Edward you idiot! A car almost made you road kill and you're still worried about Al's wierd appearance?!' I screamed to myself.

It was just another illusion, one of the series of illusions that will make me lose my mind.

---

I didn't know what to do.

Mustang told me to rest until I feel better.

These hallucinations are driving me crazy.

Once, I even thought I saw my mother.

Her smiling face, it calmed me a little and yet when I followed her, I almost fell of a building.

What could I do?

What would keep me sane?

These illusions were endangering me.

Eventually, I shut myself indoors, trying to think of ways to keep me sane.

I couldn't try human transmutation.

Not only will I have another painful reminder of my past, the homuculus will make the doors shut faster. Plus, I'll be arrested.

What can I do?

---

The doors just continued closing. There was nothing I could do.

The more I tried to keep it open, the more it started shuting me from the outside world.

I ended up cutting myself, while screaming and laughing with no reason.

And I wasn't even aware of it!

The room of my mind continued growing dimmer and dimmer until it was all black.

I felt nothing as the door closed completely, cutting me of from the rest of the world.

All I could here was children's laughter.

I laughed as well. A cold, maniacal laughter.

A laughter that had people call the mental hospital.

I had finally lost my mind.

---

I watched as they dragged Edward's screaming and laughing body out of the room, trying to put a straight jacket on him.

As they lead him into the van that will take him to the asylum, I whispered a question only I could here.

"What happened to you, Brother?"

---

Well, this is something I thought of... I'm not really sure how it would work... How's the ending? (How could I do this to you, Edo-kun?)