AUTHOR'S NOTE: As you can guess, this is a crossover between Fullmetal Alchemist and The Walking Dead. The premise here is a mixture of the FMA and Walking Deadplots, thus combining one big plot.

Heads up, this may take some influence from the Walking Dead comics during the latter half of the fic, since we're well past the Woodbury arc in the comics.

This chapter is in Ed's POV.

It wasn't supposed to go like it did.

The plan was simple: my brother Al and I had created a recipe for human transmutation. Our plan was to use it bring our mom back to life. We couldn't live without her, it was simple as that.

But when we activated the Human Transmutation Circle we'd put together... it all went wrong.

Al was taken into the Portal of Truth and lost his whole body... and I lost my leg. I lost my arm, too, when I bound Al's soul to a suit of armor.

It was... painful, to say the least. I'd lost half of my body, and replaced Al's with a hunk of metal.

And our mother still never came back to life.

The next two years were hard to get through. Al stayed in that suit of armor, never eating or sleeping. I was confined to my bed, since I couldn't walk.

Thank God for my friend Winry Rockbell. Thank God her grandma took us in after our mom died and our dad left. Without them, we'd have no real family... and I'm not about to call that jerk Van Hohenheim my father.

I had friends, yeah... but other than that, I had nothing.

But two years after the incident... I decided on something that would change me forever: I asked to get auto-mail prosthetics.

The agony was worse than when I lost my limbs. And keep in mind, I had to go through this process twice.

But I endured. And soon enough, I had new limbs.

Once Granny Pinako and Winry made sure they were all set, I tried to get out of bed and test them out.

But Winry stopped me. "Don't get up yet, you knucklehead. You've got at least a month of rest in that bed before your muscles can take the strain."

"But, Winry-"

"Do I have to break out the wrench, Ed?!"

I didn't care if she hit me or not. I tried to get up.

Turns out she wasn't making an empty threat. As I blacked out, Granny yelled, "We're trying to heal the boy, not brain-damage him!"

That was my last memory before the world ended.

My eyes fluttered open, and it became apparent that I had some sort of migraine. I was going to have to get back at Winry for that.

Then I saw the note. There was a piece of paper on the desk next to me. It read:

Ed,

DO NOT LEAVE YOUR ROOM UNTIL I'M BACK. It's not safe outside, so I bolted your door short.

I don't know how to explain what's happened to the world... but I can tell you this much: It's gone to hell.

Al and I are headed to Central City, since it's safe there. I left food for you that should last the week. If the military has this under control, it should be over by then.

Stay safe,

Winry

I wasn't sure what to make of the note. My first thought was that it was a prank, since I'd never heard about anything remotely dangerous recently.

Still, I was a little hungry, so I tried to find the food she left. I found it over by the window and slowly walked over there.

It was cold. And stale. At least a month old.

That definitely worried me. I speedwalked over to the door, which was bolted. It was no problem using alchemy to blow it off its hinges.

Then I saw the sight no kid should ever see.

Granny Pinako was kneeling over Winry's dog, Den. Den was bleeding, his guts hanging out of his stomach.

I gasped. Granny heard and turned around.

She didn't look the same as she normally did. Her skin was paler, and her eyes were milky white. And her teeth were covered in blood. Den's blood.

Pinako lunged at me. My first instinct was to defend, so I slammed her with my right arm automatically.

Her head flew right off her shoulders. I immediately vomited on the floor.

The worst part was... she still seemed to be alive. Her jaws were still moving, as if they believed they could still bite me from a distance.

It didn't take long for me to decide what to do. I raced out the door, only to realize all I had on was a black t-shirt and ratty old black pants. Not exactly presentable. My hair wasn't even combed.

I didn't care. I just kept running until I arrived at a neighbor's house.

They lived on a farm, so they had plenty of livestock. I went over to their stables and found a horse.

He looked like an average equestrian, decent health. I figured no one would miss him, since no one seemed to be around anyway.

Dead wrong. I felt a sudden blow to the head. I blacked out not long after.

When I awoke, I was on a couch, in a living room. I could faintly hear a child's laughter.

I ended up being right. A little girl, about three or four years old, waltzed into the kitchen happily. A man followed her in, obviously her father.

I groaned and tried to get up. The dad heard me, because he walked over to help me up. "There you go, kiddo. You want something to eat? You look hungry."

Actually, what I wanted was answers, but my stomach ended up responding for me. I went over to their dinner table. The dad had put out a nice, heaping bowl of stew, and divided it up. I was enthusiastic while eating it, mainly because I was starved. And I love stew.

After we finished eating, I asked him who whacked me on the head, and why.

"That was me," he confessed. "I wasn't sure whether you were one of those... things, so I decided to not take any chances. So, I knocked you out, saw that you were alive, and brought you in."

I nodded. I understood his logic, but I still had a question: "Who are you, anyway? What happened to the country? All I know is, I'm out for a month, and I wake up to see my grandma turned into a flesh-eating monster."

The man took off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. "My name is Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes. My daughter over there is Elicia. As for your second question... no one knows what happened. One day, everything's fine... the next, half of Amestris's population is gone.

"The radio told everyone to head for the nearest city so the military could protect us. The only problem was, it just put the food all in one place. I had a friend who used to be stationed in this area, but headed over to Central City to kill those monsters. I haven't heard from him since he left.

"Anyways, I decided to not go to a city. I figured I'd be better off in an isolated countryside, where there'd be less danger. My wife didn't make it... but other than that, Elicia and I have been doing okay."

I nodded. "It does look like you've made out pretty well. But... I'm not sure if I'll be so lucky."

"How come?"

"My friend left a note on my door... she and my brother headed for Central. I don't know if they're dead or not." I sulked, remembering Winry and Al.

Hughes stroked the small goatee he had. "In that case... want to borrow one of my horses?"

He led me to the stables where he'd knocked me out, and let me take out one of the horses there. Hughes also gave me an axe, in case I needed to kill a creature.

"Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it," I yelled to him as my horse rode off.

"No prob! Drop by when you get a chance!"

I chuckled. He seemed like a nice guy.

It only took me a day or two to get to Central. I didn't eat much, though I raided a few houses to grab a bite.

When I got to the city, I saw exactly what Hughes had meant.

Hundreds upon hundreds of undead people stumbled toward me and the horse.

I swung my axe instinctively, decapitating quite a few walkers. But it didn't matter, because they eventually knocked me off my horse...

...And started to eat it, piece by piece.

I panicked, and started to hack my way through them until I got into the middle of the city.

Half-eaten corpses were everywhere, some of them still alive. I kept moving until I ran by a tank, probably empty. I leapt inside for safety, and locked the hatch.

I was safe inside... for the time being. I knew it was only a temporary measure.

I found a dead soldier in there. I cleaved his head in before he could come back, and took his gun for protection.

I was forced to hide in there for a few hours, until I knew I had to face the music. I opened the hatch...

...And saw that all of the walkers that were surrounding the tank earlier had been killed.

And standing on the ground was a boy around my age.

His yellow jacket was blood-soaked, and his long black hair looked messy and greasy. He looked at me as I exited. I saw that he was Xingese, and seemed to have a look of determination on his face.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Ling Yao. If you want to live, you'll do exactly what I say."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Not bad so far, right?

Heads-up: Each new arc will have a character guide for when I bring in new characters, so you can tell who's who. For example, Ed is Rick's counterpart. (If I don't have a character that should be in a certain arc, it's because they're not in the story. For example, Dale will not have a counterpart here.)

R & R!

NEW CHARACTER GUIDE: Volume 1
Rick Grimes/Ed Elric
Lori Grimes/Winry Rockbell
Carl Grimes/Al Elric
Morgan Jones/Maes Hughes
Duane Jones/Elicia Hughes
Shane Walsh/Roy Mustang
Andrea/Riza Hawkeye
Glenn Rhee/Ling Yao
Daryl Dixon/Jean Havoc
Merle Dixon/Heymans Breda
Carol Peletier/Maria Ross
T-Dog/Jerso
Amy/Rebecca Catalina
Sophia Peletier/Nina Tucker
Ben/Selim Bradley (character exclusive to the Walking Dead comics, more on him in Ch. 3)