A/N: This is actually the result of an application for an RP community on LiveJournal; I was interested in doing Edward Elric. You could write a first- or third-person POV piece, so I decided to stick to my personal niche and do first. It was an exercise to get into his head, to learn how he thinks and really to see how he sees. I really did like what came of it, short as it is.

Pull Your Halo Down
BGM: "The Noose" – A Perfect Circle

I hated silence. I hated the prescence of nothing - just a pitch-black room waiting to swallow you up.

I was used to hearing the constant bustle of automail being shuffled about, occasionally peppered by a soft swear followed by metal hitting the wooden floor. The sides of the house were kissed by the wind, laced with the faint sound of blaying sheep. As a little boy, that sound had been as good as a lullaby when Mother had set us down for afternoon naps, my body wanting to rest but my mind still unraveling the various arrays I'd seen in Father's books. The sound had been what quieted my thoughts, but it was the scent that lingered after that let me drift into sleep: the scent of my mother, faintly floral and soft as a dream. It wasn't perfume but instead as though the flowers she tended during the day rewarded her care with their sweet fragrance. Even as she kissed us good-night, I could still smell those flowers in her hair.

There had once been solace in hearing the wind, knowing the smell that could accompany it. Even years later, laying in the Rockbell's home instead, a part of me foolishly ancipated to find comfort in such a small thing.

I was such a child.

The first time had been a fluke - the window left open to usher in a cool breeze, for I'd come down with a fever that week. A part of me wants to attribute my stupidity to a feverish mind, but I know better; I had been weak, and hearing the familiar sound of the wind howling ever so slightly about the corner of the house, I was taken right back to my mother tucking me into bed. She was dead, but still I thought that her flowery scent would come in just as easily as her memory had.

But as I took in a deep breath, trying recapture some fragment of days past, my breath caught in my throat.

The smell of burning wood, the taste of pennies and salt on my tongue. The air felt too thick to breathe, and I felt myself gasping for air even as the smell made me retch. I had to breathe, I needed air, but my very body rebelled against it. Even if I was not consciously aware of what was going on, a deeper part of me knew: something was terribly wrong.

Then I heard it, as clearly in my bedroom as I had that night.

A death rattle, the timbre just high enough to be identified as female. I glanced to the corner of the room, my eyes meeting with two crimzon orbs that stared at me with nothing less than loathing. My mind screamed for me to close my eyes, to break any contact with those hellish eyes, but like a man and his liquid vice, I found myself drawn deeper in. I couldn't look away.

You did this to me, Edward. You thought you could play God and create human life. Do you like what you created with your two hands, Edward - turning me into this thing? Am I just as beautiful as those clay horses you used to create?

I felt a scream rising my throat, but the nausea roiling in my gut cut it off. I felt my stomach lurch as I saw the eyes shift closer, and without even thinking, I took the glass of water on the nightstand and threw it at the abomination. The glass shattered, and as though the shadows were a living entity, the darkness seemed to compress upon itself before fading away.

Blinking, I glanced wildly at my surroundings. The glass lay shattered in the corner, but there were no ominous shadows, no vermillion eyes glancing back at me. The air felt easier on my lungs, and I gulped it in like a drowning man. No odor of blood or burning flesh, but instead of grass.

I hated the silence. It was only the presence of nothing that the nightmares of the past were given the freedom to crawl from the subconscious.