When Alfons had learned he was going to die, he hadn't thought much of what happened afterwards. He had doubted the afterlife even as a young child, clinging to his mother's hand in a church pew. Alfons had, instead of turning to religion or finding a cure, dedicated his life to making a mark on his world. He'd expected death to come quietly, with a final wheeze for air in his disease-ridden lungs and then silence as his consciousness faded to nothing. But then Edward had came along and Alfons had gotten caught up in something literal worlds beyond him. Alfons had no regrets as he closed his eyes.
Alfons couldn't remember what he was doing, but he didn't think it involved whatever this was. In front of him loomed huge silvery doors. Around him, an endless expanse of white. Kneeling some feet in front of the doors was a being only definable against the whiteness by the total absence of light around it. That was right, he had died. "Oh." Alfons mumbled softly, unsure of how to process that. The white being's posture was relaxed, almost patient. It laughed. Alfons' thoughts moved through his head sluggishly, like the whiteness had entered his mind in a fog.
"Where am I?" Alfons asked, unable to take his eyes off of the entity. Asking who it was seemed significantly less important, though the engineer wasn't sure why.
"I'm glad you asked." It said. It's tone was not gentle but also wasn't harsh. It's face split in to a grin far too big for it, and it stood up. "I am the Truth, or God, or the world. All and one. You. And you're here with me."
"I have a proposition for you, Alfons Heiderich," The Truth saids, walking up to the young engineer. "You live. Your lung cancer? Gone. You can do what you want with your life, without a time limit." The many voices it spoke with became malicious. "Here's the catch. You'll never see Germany again. Might as well forget it existed, because you can't go back. You'll be going to Amestris, but not the Amestris you've heard stories of. You won't ever see anyone you love again. Edward Elric will be there, but different, and younger. He won't know you. He won't ever have met you."
Alfons took a deep breath. "Or?" he asked, trying to sound more brave than he felt.
"Or you die." The Truth confirmed. "You have plenty of time to decide," it laughs, "Time doesn't move here. Or at least not in the way you think it does."
Alfons had already decided. It surprised him how easy it was to let go of everything he'd ever known.
||if you saw this like ten seconds ago, i reposted it because the website DELETED MY PARAGRAPH BREAKS. anyway i don't know what i'm doing. let's hope i figure it out. I SWEAR if there's another chapter it will be longer than this. this whole idea came from a conversation with lingtheavaricious and barafairy of tumblr. Um, I don't like how awkwardly this flows, there's a lot i'll probably change later on but for now if I keep poking at it i'm going to ruin it. ||
