Learn the Fear

January 2nd, 2009, I died. I'm not sure how, I was just certain that I had died when the Gate appeared in front of me.

Gate (noun) [gayt] (gates)

barrier across gap: A movable barrier, usually on hinges, that closes a gap in a fence or wall

opening in wall: an opening in a wall or fence

point of access: a means of access or entrance

Yes, THE Gate, in all its oppressive and fearsome glory. It scared me to death: I was in shock, not thinking clearly. What had happened? Was I dreaming? No, I wouldn't have asked myself that if I were dreaming. I stared that the magnificent creation. It was the only object besides me in the place that could only be named nothingness. As the doors opened, I suddenly had an image in my head of Davy Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean 3) hissing, "Do you fear Death?"

Hands sprung out. Still in a state of loss, I didn't resist the pull. Fear reverberated throughout my every bone, and I wondered why it was the Gate, and not Heaven or Hell or something equally unbelievable as this. Moreover, I wondered why I was here in the first place.

Was I going to Amestris?

Do you wish to go to Amestris?

I didn't question why something I couldn't see was speaking to me. What do you mean?

Is that your wish?

Yes.

Equivalent exchange. An eye for an eye…

A life for a life.

Silence. I was dragged into the gate, and the doors slammed shut behind me. The black things—Gate Babies, my subconscious supplied—clawed at my skin, but they didn't rip anything away, like I had thought they would. Like they had done with Edward, and Wrath, and Al…

Am I dead?

Not anymore, child.

I landed on my feet, in the middle of a square looking field full of grass. Trees created the borderline on three sides; the third looked like there was a road there.

What just happened? Did I die? I think I did… Pretty certain. After all, It had said 'not anymore', so I'm alive now…

Just to confirm it, I jabbed a fingernail into my arm.

"Ow!"

Okay, I was a member of the living.

A noise in the closest bushes startled me, and I swung around to watch a large golden god barrel out of the bushes and circle me three times before nudging my leg. Something was off about this dog… but it wasn't menacing. Familiar, almost.

I held in a gasp, and asked, "Cody? Are… Are you Cody?" Cody was a dog that had been with me since I was born. He died by liver cancer in 2003, and my whole family grieved. It had been during a sleepover at my friend's house that he had passed away, and Mom had shown up crying the next morning at the door.

But if I had died—by some yet-unknown means—and appeared here, than there was a chance that this was Cody…

"Sit."

He sat.

"Paw." I held out my hand.

He placed his paw in it.

I hugged him, touching my forehead to his.

'I will be your guide in this world.' A male voice rang in my head. I jumped back in shock.

"What?"

'Apologies for startling you. I had gained telepathic abilities through the Gate when I arrived here. It is nice seeing you again, Young One."

"Young One?! I'm fourteen, you know." I was a little thrown off by my dead dog coming back to life and talking to me, but somehow I managed to gain a steady voice.

'Ah, but I am greatly older."

"How old?" I asked sceptically.

'One hundred and fourty-six.'

"Well shit." I placed my hands on my hips. "A life for a life… does that mean I died to come to… a field?"

'Welcome to Amestris, the place of your afterlife.'

"So I really am here…" I grinned, barely containing excitement. At one point I must have thought that my behaviour was strange for one in such a situation, but it was pushed to the side as I created my story with my 'guide'. "So I need an excuse as to why I have no records, then." I told Cody. "Or else they'll lock me up and claim me to be a Homunculus or something stupid like that. Any ideas?"

'It is good you know so much about this world already. It will make things easier on me.'

I continued to ramble away. "So do you think I'll be able to do alchemy? I wonder if I'll be able to do it like Ed; just a clap of the hands, and voila! That would be amazing!"

'Please pay attention to what I'm saying--.'

"Would it be strange if I suddenly met Ed? Or is that normal? Is this situation itself normal? And what if—did you say something, Cody?"

'Like I said, pay attention to what I am saying, it could mean life or death. First of all, your current placement is a field that marks the midpoint between two cities.'

Cody's voice was there, but then it was not. Everything felt so light and happy, anything he said wouldn't have had any effect on my consciousness. I tried to take a step, but my body felt even lighter than the surrounding air, and I was weak; why? Was it the after effects of the gate? Either way, I fell to the ground, feeling as if I didn't even have enough strength to lay there.

It was in this semi-conscious state that I heard Cody sigh exasperatedly, and trot off. I was certain he'd said something to me before leaving that was rather reassuring, but I couldn't recall what it was. An unknown amount of time later, footsteps crumpled the grass, drawing closer and louder, until it sounded like the person was speeding up. Muffled voices reached my ears, and my eyes captured boots; someone was kneeling in front of me.

All I could do was blink as the person poked me in the shoulder, then rolled me over to check my breathing. My sight was directed towards the sky, and I blinked again, trying to clear the fuzziness from my head.

Eventually the person lifted me up and put me in a piggy-back position on their back. I felt bad, I was like a dead weight and I knew it. Unfortunately, I couldn't move at all. After another unspecified amount of time, the person had trekked into a town with bustling people, through a small gate, and into a cozy looking house. Muted speech tickled my ears as the man who had found me talked to a woman who seemed familiar, but in my strange separated state, I couldn't place it. He carried me up a flight of stairs. Surely he was getting tired by now? I couldn't be that light. And he was carrying me for a long time.

We reached a bedroom, where he set me down on something soft. I lay there, still unable to move, as the people's mutterings from downstairs faded to background noise. My head remained facing the ceiling. I wished I could see the people's faces, but I still could do no more than blink. But when I blinked, my eyes stuck closed, and my world sat in silence and darkness.


"…Comatose state."

"Eh… I guess we can do no more than to let her sleep for now. How long do you think she'll be out?"

"It's uncertain, maybe we should send her to the hospital."

Ow. My head hurt. I opened my eyes, but immediately shut them, having been blinded by the sun streaming through an open window. Ow. Slowly, my eyes adjusted. It seemed I still couldn't move my head yet… damn. I managed to twitch a finger, though! Yay!

What happened to Cody? All I remember appears like a silent movie, and he had gone off when it started, and then the person found me… could the person have been Cody?

As if on cue, I felt a tugging on my consciousness. Cody's voice seeped into my head. 'I had brought the human to you when you ran out of energy. There was not much I could do on my own.'

"Oh."

Wait.

I just spoke.

Well, let's add that to things I can do successfully! Lessee, we got blink, and twitch a fnger, and speak. Yay! We are on our way to recovery!

"How the hell does a dog get a human's attention effectively?" I mumbled, somehow certain that the mutt would be able to hear me.

'I gave the man a pull on his mind. My telepathic abilities are only clear with those I had known for a long time. With strangers, I can only influence decisions.'

"Oh, you're awake?" A woman asked. "How're you feeling?"

"Uh… how should I answer that?"

"In as blunt a way as possible."

"Okay. Numb."

"No pain?"

"Nope… where am I exactly?"

"My house. Can you move?"

"Who're you, then? And not at all."

"Izumi Curtis, nice to meet you. What were you doing in a field?"

"…uh…Do you know how awkward this is? I can't even move."

There was a sigh, then Izumi Curtis's face came into view as she helped me sit up in bed. I couldn't tell if I were comfy, I didn't even feel her hands on my back as I was positioned.

I suddenly knew exactly what Al felt like in a suit of armour, and what Ed's automail felt like.

Wow.

I didn't like it one bit.

"Man, this is so annoying…"

Izumi Curtis sat down in my sight on a stool, and suddenly the pieces clicked into place. Izumi Curtis was the woman who had taught Ed and Al alchemy.

"You probably have nerve damage. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was semi-conscious when whoever-it-was carried me here, but before that All I remember is waking up standing in a field, then feeling really light and falling over…"

"What about before waking up?"

I didn't want to tell her about the gate. Racking my brain, I couldn't remember what happened previous to the gate—I played over and over my morning routine of getting ready for school, but then realized it must have been a Sunday because I can remember everything from Monday waking up until delivering Friday's papers. I vaguely remember being annoyed at having to get up early on Saturday, but other than that…

"What day is it today?" I asked.

"It's Monday."

"I can't remember anything after Saturday afternoon."

"…That helps, in a way. You must have hit your head. I'm going to call a doctor over to check you out. I'll be right back." She got up and left, and I let out a breath once I heard the door click shut.

The force of what was happening to me still didn't hit yet, though I continued to play what the Gate said in my head. I wasn't dead… anymore. So yes, I HAD died. But how? I had an itching feeling that figuring out how I died would solve everything.

But still… It pretty much meant that I had gone from one world to another, without being able to get home. I wouldn't be able to see my family again. There was no impact on my mind, and I determined that I was automatically shutting out and bottling up any overwhelming feelings that could damage my mental state.

"I'm in shock… and so much trouble…" I murmured, just before the door opened up and Izumi stepped back into my field of view, an unfamiliar man trailing behind her.

"This is Dr. Suresh."

"Yo. Call me Kit, I guess."

Kit. A nickname derived from Kitsune, meaning Fox. My friend had dubbed me so after we had watched a youtube video. She was promptly named Box, and our third friend was Sox. But that's another story.

The name Suresh, though, was almost funny. There was a Dr. Suresh who was a character in a TV show called Heroes. He was pure hearted up until the 3rd season, whereas he injected himself to try and give himself superpowers, and ended up working in an evil person's lab. This Suresh though, looked very German, with blonde hair and sea-blue eyes that were almost grey.

He held up a finger and flicked on a flashlight, which he shone in my eye.

"I want you to follow my finger with your eyes."


"She has no physical damage. It is all in her mind. This can sometimes happen when something traumatic affects the person, and is generally the brain rejecting reality. The side-effects—not being able to move, and such—will wear off after a day or two, but who knows what her mental state will be in by then…"

Dr. Suresh tried not to let me hear him, but I heard anyways, through the thick wooden door. I had guessed it had something to do with my mental state, but it was reassuring to know that I'd still be able to move. My current predicament, however, was whether or not to tell Mrs. Curtis about the Gate, me dying, my memory blacking out a good 24 hours or more.

I wouldn't tell her. I knew from the start that I wouldn't. It was the way I had survived; I never told my dad, or my mom, or my brother or friends anything. Micah—the friend dubbed Box—was probably the one who knew the most. Other than that, I had always been a masochist, wanting to shoulder the family's grief.

When people say that talking lets the listener take on a bit of the weight, I would always instinctively think that I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want to take on someone else's pain, so why let them take mine? It just wasn't fair.

I had always thought I was a bit like the Elrics in that aspect. I had constantly done things on my own, feeling that other people slowed me down. Every time I had felt I was better off on my own; people made me feel awkward when talking to them. I couldn't understand them, and would try too hard to figure them out, which was continually causing me to subconsciously shove people away.

I was happy in my own little world.

Or was I?

What was happiness, anyways?

"Kit…?" Mrs. Curtis popped open the door and sat on the stool again.

"Yeah?"

"Do you have any relatives in the area? We could contact them…" She seemed to notice something about the way I looked or something, because she suddenly looked almost as sad as I did. "Is something the matter?"

"I have none… in the area…" I mumbled. I hated being paralyzed. I couldn't hide my tears, couldn't pull a shadow over my grief.

I cracked.

And with that crack, the whole wall came tumbling down. I grasped at the bricks, trying my best to rebuild it, but it wouldn't work… It continued to crumble.

Mrs. Curtis leaned over and wiped my tears away, pulling me into a hug.

"It's… horrible," I told her. "I can't feel anything right now. I know you're here, but nothing registers… Cody…" My voice fell as I said Cody's name, calling him to me for comfort of a sort.

'I cannot get to you right now, young one. I cannot enter other's houses without permission. And before you make a fool of yourself, the Telepathy goes both ways; I will hear you if you call me in your mind.'

'They were just wondering about my mental state, and here I am talking to dogs in my head. Wonderful.' Through my tears, I managed a hiccupped laugh, which received a weird look from Mrs. Curtis. I didn't acknowledge it.

I quieted down, and Mrs. Curtis placed me back up against the headboard. I felt like a doll, having someone shift me around like this. At least I don't get uncomfortable…

I suddenly felt like I was in one of those old movies, where the bad guy would say something along the lines of, "Despair and Die!" And the hero would despair, thinking that he'd lost, but eventually he'd pull through and wouldn't die.

For me, I'm certainly despairing, but I had died, and was brought back to life by the bad guy.

I guess my movie is a little more messed up than others.

"Are you hungry?" Mrs. Curtis inquired.

"Not really. I guess that joins in with the numb feeling… I'm going to be extremely bored, not being able to move…" I sighed.

Mrs. Curtis stood up. "You can stay in my house as long as you want. If you want something, just give a shout, okay?"

"…Yeah." She was a nice woman, even though she beat up Ed and Al continuously, it was only because she cared and didn't want them to get hurt. I wondered what would happen if the military found out that a person appeared out of nowhere, no family, no relation whatsoever to the area, and no records of any sort. I thought of the fanfics where Colonel Mustang found out, and Hughes researched it, and discovered the person didn't exist, and then Fullmetal would have to keep an eye on them. Hell, they'd probably think I was a homunculus. If I could move, I would have checked myself over for an ouroboros, but I was pretty certain I wasn't one. After all, I'm not named after a sin.

Do you have to be, though?

I wondered for the rest of the day, sitting there, staring at the wall, or out the window. Mrs. Curtis came in every now and then, to check on me, but other than that I was left alone. The woman had told me that it was Mason, whom I haven't met yet that found me in the field. He was on an errand, and would be back by tomorrow. Dr. Suresh had said that I would be able to move by tomorrow, and would probably have some feeling back, but it was recommended that I stay in bed to regain my strength. I didn't protest to this, thinking that it was for the best. The sooner I recover, the easier it will be for me to begin research about the Gate.

I wasn't planning on going back home. I just needed to know what happened.

I was sure as hell not joining the military to access their library, though.


A/N: I've been writing this story in the background for the longest time. I like FMA. It's a good anime. And because you're reading this, you probably agree with me.

Review, and I'll update.