A/N: I feel kind of bad that I'm starting yet another new story, instead of updating one of the two I still have in progress, but what can I say? This one wouldn't leave me alone. Sorry to any of you that were hoping this would be an update for Waiting or Dogs of War, but I hope you'll like this one as well!
Prologue
It was hard to say which element of the desert was going to kill him first. If he had to guess, he was prone to think it was the blazing sun, unapologetic in its harsh assault on his skin and eyes. The sand seemed to be trying to make a case for itself, however, as it sucked at his feet and ankles, always trying to pull him down below its shifting surfaces. It was becoming nearly impossible to continue denying it, and with every step he took, he lost another piece of his resolve to carry on.
He was only walking at this point because they would not allow him to rest.
Every time he tried to give up, to lie down on the sand and surrender his body to the heat and the thirst, they would shout at him and writhe inside his soul, telling him he owed them a retribution, that they did not want to waste away with him in the desert. He tried to placate them, tried to reason with them, but even he knew his words held no value. People he had known all his life were now reduced to squalling voices in his very being, and though he was not enjoying their presence there any more than they were, he certainly could not deny them after being the very man to condemn them to their current cursed existence.
He wanted nothing more than to give up, to fade to dust in the beating sun and drift about in the wind without consciousness. However, even if they were to allow him to do so, it would be an exercise in futility. His body would simply burn and crack and regenerate in the sand until he found the strength to get up once more.
There was no escape from this hell the homunculus had condemned him to. No option but to keep walking until he either found refuge, or simply sank below the desert's surface, never to be seen or heard from again.
With that thought, Hohenheim could no longer hold off his despair. He fell to his knees as he reached the top of a large dune, ignoring the wind and the sand and the sun, ignoring everything except for the two hands on the ground in front of him. They seemed so human, so normal, but he could never forget the unspeakable acts they had performed. He would never forget. His vision blurred, and his fists clenched hard, sand grains digging painfully into his palms.
His anguish was pointless, he knew, yet he could fight it no longer. It would not save the souls trapped inside his being, and it would not get him out of this desert, but he did not think he was physically capable of taking one more step.
The voices were shouting at him again, angry and indignant. How dare he complain about immortality he had earned by stealing their lives? How dare he give up when it would mean they, too, would fade from existence?
He did not care, not this time. He had never asked for this. He had never known this was the homunculus's plan.
He was the one who had to shoulder the burden, and he could not do it any longer.
With a quiet sigh, he gave in, and his body went limp as a rag doll as it plunged to the bottom of the dune.