We begin this part of the story with an end, and end it with a beginning.
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"Leena, dinner's ready."
"I'm not hungry." The blankets muffled the sound of her voice.
Silence. "Leena, please. You have to eat something."
"I said I'm not hungry." When the girl didn't hear her leave, she added, "I'll eat later."
More silence. "Leena..."
"What?"
"Please, Leena. You're not sick. You're just...in shock. I'm sure you'll feel better after you have something in your stomach."
"I'll puke if I eat anything right now," was her retort. Her mother was quiet for a few moments, then sighed.
"Leena, I know it's painful, but it's already been a week. I won't make you attend school, but you could at least keep your body--"
She gritted her teeth and pushed her pillow harder around her ears. "Go away."
Silence again. "Leena, you have to accept this--"
"There's nothing to accept." Her voice was filled with pure venom, and her mother faltered. Leena didn't usually speak to her in this tone of voice.
Things change.
Usually for the worse.
"...Leena." Her voice was harder now. She'd been lenient with her daughter for the past week, but apparently that lenience was gone now. "Leena, you have to understand. Your friend--"
Shut up.
"--I'm sure you're still in pain, but--"
Shut up.
"--you have to understand--"
Shut up.
"--starving yourself--"
Shut up.
"--isn't going to bring her back."
Complete silence filled the room. This time she didn't try to break it. She had danced around this subject for weeks, knowing that it was a delicate matter for her daughter. Now she stabbed it in the heart, a knife with a poisoned tip in her hand.
"She's gone, Leena."
Shut up.
"I know you're in pain. I know you're sad. I know--"
Shut up.
"--how much you're hurting right now. But please, Leena..."
"Shut up."
The words forced their way out of Leena's mouth, and she said them almost involuntarily. Almost.
"Shut up," she said again. It felt almost good to say them out loud, after holding them inside her for such a long time. She lifted her head from my pillow and glared at her mother, anger and pain bubbling up like lava in a volcano. "Shut up. You have no idea. You don't know anything! So just shut up! Shut up and get the hell out!"
Her mother fell silent after this outburst. But after a while, she spoke again. This time, her voice trembled from the tension of her barely-controlled anger and frustration. "Alright. But I hope you know that what you're doing isn't helping yourself or anyone else."
Then she left. She closed the door behind her, and Leena let her head fall back into her pillow again. She squeezed her eyes shut and hugged her sheets around her, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes.
"Starving yourself won't bring her back."
"She's gone, Leena."
"You have to understand."
"She's gone."
"Gone."
"Gone."
Leena gritted her teeth again, clenching her fist so hard her nails dug into her palms. This time the tears spilled over and soaked her pillow.
I know, damn it...
I know.
She was my friend. A girl I'd met in Chinese school, actually. She'd been in a level higher than me, but we were the same age and, in regular school terms, the same grade, sixth. Our personalities were different, but we had been drawn together by two things: mutual friendship with another girl also in our school, and a love for anime.
Naruto was our first fanbase. Then Bleach. Then I'd introduced her to Fullmetal Alchemist. We were obsessed, I a little more so than she. We watched the episodes, read the manga, read and wrote fanfiction, drooled at and drew fanart. Upon entering junior high we were placed in the same history class; we drove the teacher insane.
Then came eighth grade. We'd had two classes together, English and math.
We rubbed off on each other, or at least I liked to think so. She picked up some of my hyperactivity. I drew some of her cynicism. She became a person who grinned often and laughed much. I gained some of her sick thinking and pervertedness. (So not all of that influence was good.)
And then...
I wasn't there. How could I have been? We walked in two entirely different directions to get home after school. But if I had been there...if I had...
A friend of ours who had been at the scene said she had walked forward quickly, and the driver of the car had been too eager to move. That had made me almost want to laugh. If it were her, I had always secretly harbored the thought that she would die in some spectacular way if not in her sleep--saving someone else, in a bomb explosion. Something. I'd never imagined that she could die in something like a car accident.
An accident. A stupid, stupid....
An accident! Because of a mistake someone made! An accident meant that something wasn't meant to happen. It meant that somebody somewhere had goofed up, big time, and someone else had to pay the cost.
It wasn't fucking fair.
She shouldn't have died. She had never done anything wrong, never done anything to warrant a death sentence.
"God, can you hear me?"
She'd been my friend.
"A...a couple days ago...a friend of mine died."
I often found myself wishing that this were Amestris, that alchemy existed, so I could find a way to bring her back to life. But the impossible was impossible.
"If you're up there...if she's there..."
I'd been to her funeral. Even though watching them lower her body into the ground was like being stabbed, I would never have missed it.
"...make sure she gets to heaven, okay? Because she deserves at least that much."
What kind of friend would I have been if I did?
What kind of friend...
What kind of...
...
...
...
...
"...Leena, are you okay?"
...
"Leena?"
...
"Leena, please answer me."
...
"Yeah, Mom, I'm fine."
...
...
...
...
Life goes on...
...
...
...
I can hear it.
...
The silence.
...
Darkness, nothingness...
...
It's smothering me.
...
Where is everyone?
...
...I feel cold.
...
...
...
I woke up with a start.
How long had it been since I had last fallen asleep? Three months. Three whole months since I'd experienced the old feeling of weariness, that one moment of exhaustion before dropping off into black unconsciousness. I had never needed sleep for those three whole months. Ghosts didn't need sleep, and for three months after my death, I had been a ghost.
So why the sudden change?
With a shock, I realized something else: I was warm.
Here's another fact about ghosts: they don't feel. Oh, sure, they can feel emotion. They can get upset or sad or happy or embarrassed. But they're insubstantial, and therefore can't feel anything. They don't feel pain. They don't feel warmth. If that's confusing, think of it this way: all ghosts are like Alphonse Elric, stuck in a suit of armor where they can and can't feel at the same time.
Not feeling wasn't exactly an uncomfortable feeling, but it took some getting used to. We're so used to feeling things that, eventually, we start unconsciously beginning to expect to feel things when we come in contact with the world around us. If you stepped into a volcano, you would have to fight all your instinct not to run and get the hell out of there before you were cooked like a fried chicken.
If a ghost stepped into a volcano, hell, they would still have to fight their instinct not to run and get the hell out of there before they were cooked like fried chicken. But there was a major difference: the ghost wouldn't get cooked like a fried chicken.
Warmth after three whole months of nothing was a beautiful feeling, and for a moment I just lay there in darkness, enjoying my little bubble of happiness.
I enjoyed it for all of ten seconds before I realized I wasn't just feeling warm: I was also feeling sticky, and extremely cramped. That was a feeling I didn't welcome. I had no clue how I had gotten so disgustingly gluey, and as my twisted mind began to come up with various perverted reasons, I decided I really didn't want to know. And as for being cramped, as long as I didn't move around, it was fine.
It was completely quiet in my (rather small) happy bubble, refreshing after hanging around my former hometown for so long, where silence was basically nonexistent. Well, it was almost completely quiet. I frowned, concentrating. There was a small, almost unnoticeable sound...a sort of barely detectable drumming. Thump. Thump. Thump.
It pounded at a steady rhythm. I could almost feel it inside me: thump. Thump. Thump.
I wondered vaguely what it was. If someone was pounding on me, it certainly didn't hurt.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Then it registered. Slowly. The thumping was coming from inside me, and there was only one thing it could be:
...a heartbeat.
...
It was impossible. Completely impossible. I was dead. I was dead as a doornail, dead as that girl who died in a car crash a few months ago--whoops, that was me! I was dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. I had been dead for three whole freaking months, now all of a sudden I had a freaking pulse?
And to have a pulse, didn't I need...well, a body?
And having a body...didn't that mean I wasn't a ghost anymore?
That I was--
I cut off that thought before it could take root, afraid to let myself go in that direction--hope. It hurt too much, like being blind in darkness for too long, and then suddenly finding yourself out in the light.
But it was too late. My new-found pulse was already hammering away, pounding in a sign of excitement and anxiety. That proved it: it was my heart.
Trembling, I moved a hand and held it out in front of me. It came in contact with something almost immediately, inches away from my face, and I flinched.
I was touching something.
I was freaking touching something.
At the moment, I was too excited to realize how wrong that statement sounded. I was alive. I was freaking alive! I wasn't a ghost anymore, I wasn't dead anymore! I bit back the sudden urge to cry, although I welcomed that, too. You couldn't cry as a ghost, either. Another sign of life. Which I had. I had life.
...
...so, if I'm alive...
...where the hell am I?
That thought stopped my ecstasy short. Where could I possibly be?
There was one logical place, and that would be my body before I died, which was obviously buried underground. That would explain the darkness and the enclosed space. But...
I felt a sudden rush of panic. If I was underground, in a coffin somewhere, didn't that mean my air supply was limited? I could suffocate down here! There was no telling how deep they'd dug my grave, it could take me forever to get out! Especially since I'd spent three months as a ghost and was no longer used to physical labor!
Great, so I had come back to life only to die a second time? I felt all my hope drain away, and in frustration, I kicked out. Hard.
"Oh..."
I froze.
"Princess, are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine. It was one of the children kicking, that's all."
There were people out there?! I kicked again.
"My, it seems like they're feeling lively today."
"The physician said you would give birth soon, Princess. Perhaps this is a good sign."
"Yes..."
Their voices, speaking animatedly in Mandarin Chinese, were faint, but definitely there. Help! I wanted to cry out, but my mouth remained frustratingly closed. I kicked a third time.
"They seem anxious to come out."
"Of course, Princess. They know they're important members of our clan."
"You're certain I'm to have twins?"
"The physician and the astrologers confirmed it, Princess."
For the first time, I began paying attention to what they were saying. The first woman was apparently going to have kids, and the second woman...wait a second.
I felt all of my blood drain out of my face at my new relevation. Every time I kicked, they said something about the baby being lively and wanting to come out. I was in a dark enclosed space, cramped, warm, and sticky and wet. And, I realized for the first time, naked.
...
...
...
...
HOLY FUCKING CRAP.
I kicked for the fourth time, the hardest I'd kicked so far, and the first woman ("Princess") gasped. "Ah..."
YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING.
YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING.
YOU'VE GOT TO BE...oh my Lord. THEY'RE NOT JOKING.
I hadn't been brought back to life. I had been reborn.
And, from the sound of it, I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
"Princess, are you sure you're fine? Perhaps you should ask the physician for some herbs..."
"No, no, I'm fine. It would be harmful to the children." Small pause. "It's a sign that they're growing strong. One of them will be the future emperor of Xing, after all."
"Of course, Princess. The entire Yao clan will rejoice when they are born..."
It took me about five seconds to realize what their new dialogue meant.
a) I was a twin.
b) I was an heir to the Yao clan of Xing.
c) ...and unless there was another Yao clan in another empire called Xing somewhere in one of the universes...
I WAS IN FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST.
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...oh my fucking God, I am so screwed.
To anyone who was confused:
All dialogue in this story was spoken in Mandarin Chinese, because both Leena (who is of course the authoress herself) and the girl who died are Mandarin Chinese. Also, the authoress is taking for granted that Xing is the Fullmetal Alchemist equivalent of China. If you don't know where she's coming from, let's just say the authoress was able to read the Xingese writing in page 128 of volume 14. Asian pride.
If you have any other questions about the weirdness of this chapter, ask. The authoress will do her best to answer.
