To Feel
Kadge Rose-Feather
A flash - eyes opening to see colours I have no names for.
I am... Forming, slowly, I can feel it.
Feel?
The heavy smell of acrid smoke, the metallic taste of blood now, on my tongue.
Am I alive?
I have been forced into existence from my lack thereof; I haven't existed before and I feel broken, somehow.
Existence...
Sound waves hit me: the pained sounds of sobbing, dry heaving and rough, laboured coughing.
I try to form words, but nothing coherent comes out except for a sort of harrowing, disgusting and inhuman moaning noise.
Red - that is the colour that flashes.
More awful, bloody smells and agonised sobbing, though it's louder, this time.
Words, from the same source as the sobbing; screaming something out over and over again in a harsh, hopeless way.
"Brother? Brother?!"
It is a young boy's voice.
Gurgling sounds from my lips, as a black liquid fights its way out. I feel so dirty.
... And then footsteps, resonating from the doorway of this small room. Footsteps not belonging to the young boy, whose breath hitches.
Breath...
I inhale curiously, gurgling more as I exhale. I hear a sadistic laugh from the owner of the footsteps, who has walked straight past the boy and over to the decrepit form that is me.
Me...
Myself?
The smoke clears, if only a little and I can make out the boy who waltzed in with his long, dark green hair and awfully twisted smirk.
His grin widens more, impossibly, as I blink and try to copy the expression.
Then he laughs again.
The boy at the other end of the room, still snivelling painfully, calls out in a shaky voice,
"E-Envy? W-what are y-you-"
Envy turns quickly to him, snapping, "Shut up, you stupid brat!"
Then Envy swivels back to me smoothly, bending down slowly and studying my face. His predatory smile does not inspire fear within me, but it makes my brain tingle strangely.
Gently, Envy pushes small, smooth red rocks into my mouth, and suddenly my stomach comes alive with a newfound sense of hunger.
Taste...
Even though they only taste slightly plain and mostly bitter, my body aches with a heated, painful yearning for them.
I feel myself taking on a more anthropomorphic form as Envy shoves more of the red gems into my mouth.
Eventually, I am grasping onto Envy's arm with my own new limb, able to move my mouth and speak with words.
"More, more!" I scream, but all speaking seems to result in is Envy losing all of his patience with me. He pushes me roughly away, causing me to skid backwards into the wall.
... And it hurts upon impact.
I whine as a newborn child unable to sleep would.
Envy snorts disgustedly, walking casually back to the younger boy and dropping all of the magical red gems into his shaking, blood-covered hands.
"He said that it had to be fed, but he never said that I would have to be the one doing the feeding." Envy tells the boy who is still crying, before walking swiftly out of the room.
Time passes and my pain is forgotten, my new hunger causing my stomach to growl with its guttural longing.
"Hung-greee..." I moan, dragging my broken body over to the boy who now has the rocks.
There is a red, sticky puddle surrounding him and as I move closer, the boy struggles to move back.
"More..." I mutter sadly, though suddenly the door behind is thrown open and this time there is a light pouring out of it and a tall, dark-haired man holding it open.
"Alphonse!" The man calls into the room, his voice strong and commanding.
The boy, however, starts to emit a high-pitched whining noise upon seeing me with light cast over my body.
I push myself up and onto him, smiling like I saw Envy do and eating the red rocks out of the palms of his shaking hands.
Smile.
He screams agonisingly, annoyingly.
I think I may be sitting on one of his legs that are very short and pouring out the red liquid that caused the puddle that surrounds us, though I am not positive.
Finishing the rocks, I feel calmer and more content. I look up at Alphonse to express my appreciation, but a brusque pair of hands rips me away from behind.
I didn't notice him walk in.
The man from the doorway holds me in a firm grip, as a lady with blonde hair lighter than the boys wraps a blanket around Alphonse's shoulders and picks him gently up.
"Al, you - surely you didn't." The man whose arms encase me whispers, looking at my face with a roiling mix of anger and sadness. Al is crying again, though this time it is more dignified and contained; quieter.
Bored, I stick my tongue out at the man whose arms I am in, giggling as I do so.
The man flinches, setting me back down on the ground.
But I have legs and feet now, so I stand, still giggling a little as Alphonse begins to sob.
"Hawkeye... What will we do?" The man's words are so pained and hopeless that they almost make me frown for a moment.
The woman's voice, though level and calm, shakes towards the end of her sentence.
"We have to get Alphonse to a hospital first, sir. Everything else can come later."
She pauses for a moment in the doorway, her back to Sir and me.
"Is it...?" She leaves the question open, almost hopefully.
The man's head drops down as he takes a strong hold of my shoulder.
"No, I'm afraid not. It clearly has an ouroboros tattoo." The man mutters, following it up with an exhausted sigh.
The man starts to shepherd me along behind Hawkeye and Alphonse. We walk at a hurried pace- the building we are in is old and abandoned, and the long open corridors simply make me want to run around.
"Sir?" Hawkeye asks in a monotone.
"What is it, lieutenant?"
A slight pause from the woman.
"We mustn't let sentimentality get in the way of business."
A hitch in the man's stride, in which I take the opportunity to fumble out of his grasp and start running down the corridor.
Even though I come to a halt at the end of the hall, waiting for the others to keep up, I realise that I seem to have startled the man, because he's rushed towards me and is aiming something small and black.
His chest rises and falls furiously, his eyes shining.
"Homunculus, stay still."
I stick my tongue out at him.
"Why? Is this a game?" I ask curiously, tilting my head to one side.
The man snatches my arm up in his grasp and begins to pull me through another room. I notice that the woman and the boy have already left, probably to go to that hospital.
I smile up at the man with dark hair, who doesn't seem to appreciate the gesture at all, muttering colourfully under his breath.
Yep, I really shouldn't of started this instead of working on and finishing my other story, but oh well...
Equivalent exchange... I write, you review.