Alright, so this is basically a reimagining / rewrite of my newly discontinued story "The Art of Breaking", but with a lot of differences, so it stands on its own.

If you're new here, congrats! I hope you enjoy the misadventures of my two poor narrators. (The POV switches either every chapter or every two chapters between Lorelei and Griffin.)

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA in any way. This serves for the entire story.

Chapter One – Back to the Beginning Again

Lorelei Clemens

In retrospect, I should have known better than to charge at a mass-murderer while pretending I was a prison guard. I'll admit that it wasn't one of my brightest ideas, that's for sure.

Okay, I know that might be a bit confusing.

So, while I don't really want to go into the details, here's the full situation.

This is gonna get ugly.

I don't know why I'm suddenly not in my bed, but I'm not happy with it. Especially now that I realize I'm shoved in some sort of pitch-black supply closet, with what I presume to be a broom handle stabbing into my back.

Somehow I manage to turn on the light without killing myself. Even in the incredibly dim space, my suspicions are confirmed – it is a supply closet, even smaller than I originally thought. It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic, but still, I want to get out of here as soon as possible, even if I'm okay with tight spaces.

I look for the handle; once I find it, I turn it and ram the door open, falling out into the hallway. Literally, I fall onto my hands and knees.

But that's what brings my attention to my strange choice of attire.

"An Amestrian military uniform?"

I'm actually wearing one, one that looks strangely real. I don't recall ever – oh, you have got to be kidding me.

"No, Lorelei, it can't be real. Stand up and keep walking, you idiot."

I pull myself to my feet and stumble down the white hallway without really paying attention to where I'm going.

Soon, the only thing I've discerned about my location is that I'm completely, hopelessly lost. It's like a godforsaken maze in here, and did I mention that I freaking hate mazes?

"I swear, I'm gonna kill whoever's idea this was," I mutter, shaking my head as I frantically turn another corner. "I'll kill you, and I won't regret a thing. You hear that? I'm coming for you, you little bastard!"

At first, I'm so wrapped up in yelling at the sky – uh, ceiling – that I don't notice the voices. And by voices, I mean real people talking. I'm crazy in an entirely different way.

Trust me, really, my craziness will start to make itself apparent soon.

"…You know the things Bradley ordered us to do, the kind of man he really is. That's why you killed all those officers, isn't it, to send him a message."

Laughter from a different person rings out, full of derivative amusement, "I think you've got me all wrong…"

The person keeps talking, but I've stopped listening to him when I realize exactly where I am.

"…The reason I killed all of those men was because I could. It's that simple."

"That's too bad, Kimblee, that truly is too bad."

I should have stopped walking when I first recognized the voices, but did I? Obviously not, I just kept going like any stupid teen girl in a B-grade horror movie.

Of course I have to end up face-to-face with Isaac McDougal, who's just turning to walk out.

My eyes dart to the prison guard who's frozen next to the entrance to the cell, and I know that my fate is sealed and will be handed to me on a silver platter in the next couple of seconds.

But he stands there, staring at me like I'm the weird one, which I suppose I am. It's not every day that an eighteen-year-old girl runs around a prison in a military suit. Unless, somehow, it is an everyday occurrence and I was unaware of it.

Apparently, McDougal's reluctant to attack me, Amestrian military suit or no Amestrian military suit.

After nearly a minute of standing three feet away and staring back at him, I try to pull off a fake smile that should assure him I have no idea who he is, but comes across as more of a grimace. To distract him from this, I manage to stutter, "Uh, hi?"

I really should work on my introduction skills.

But "Let's be best friends!" isn't much better.

He blinks at me, drawing a blank on what to do in a situation like this. Clearly, his revenge plot never involved running into me.

More awkward silence – I can see matching tattoos and friendship bracelets in our near future already.

"You're part of the military?"

No, I'm probably just hallucinating that I'm in Central Prison among murderers, and that I found myself in a military-issued uniform. Because that's crazy, and I don't want to sound like a crazy person in front of a crazy murderer.

I nod and say, "Yeah…"

"But you aren't carrying a weapon." He's simply stating a fact, but it's definitely going to morph into an accusation eventually.

"Guess I forgot it," I reply, tensing myself to run like a thousand evil ferrets are chasing me.

He seems to come to the conclusion that there is something fishy about this whole situation – finally. I was beginning to worry about his sanity. Well, his ability to observe, since I know for sure by now he's insane.

I realize he's about to charge about two seconds before he actually charges. All of the blood drops out of my face, and I turn to run, only to trip over my own feet because I'm not used to walking in my stupid new boots.

This turns out to be a good thing, seeing as he expects me to run and therefore overshoots, lunging where my shoulder would've been and tripping over me.

Now it's simply a contest of who can get up off of the ground first, the murderer, or the small – smallish – teenager with no athletic skills whatsoever. On second thought, I'm not even going to try to get up; it'll just be useless.

Shockingly, McDougal manages to get up before me, yanking me up by my collar and slamming me against the nearest wall like I weigh no more than a ragdoll. My feet aren't even touching the ground, and I'm quickly finding out that being pinned to a wall by your throat can mess with your breathing.

"He sent you, didn't he?"

There are a lot of he's in Amestris, but I doubt McDougal's talking about Garfiel. "Bradley?" I choke out.

He nods and presses his arm harder into my throat. "What do you know?"

By now, my vision is swarming; I don't have the air to stay conscious for any more than a few seconds, let alone tell a mass murderer that he's actually just a fictional character. That leaves my surefire way to get people to leave me alone. Oh hell, I really wanted to avoid this.

Time for the Ominous Latin Chanting.

"O Fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis–"

By now, he's realized that something is seriously wrong with me, way more wrong than he had formerly estimated. He practically jumps five feet away from me, but I can't even bring myself to care that I crash to the ground.

I'm more focused on the fact that Latin doesn't exist in this world, which makes me look even crazier. Chanting in a dead language is one thing. Chanting in a nonexistent language is in quite another ballpark. Maybe memorizing all of the lyrics to "O Fortuna"for Latin class was a good move on my part.

"Semper crescis aut decrescis; vita detestabilis–"

Due to my breathing being restricted, my voice is ridiculously high-pitched and raspy. Honestly, I sound like Gollum, and that's obviously not a good thing.

Reciting Latin poems – songs, whatever – in my best Gollum impression. No wonder everybody thinks I'm absolutely insane, it's because I am.

"Nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem, egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut glaciem…"

McDougal stares down at me as I continue chanting. He slowly starts backing away, keeping his hand on his gauntlet just in case I try to flip out and actually attack him. "So you aren't really a guard, are you?"

He mutters this under his breath, but I hear it anyway, so I decide to keep screwing with him. Hey, he attacked me first. It's justified.

I whip my head up and slowly nod, grinning my best Cheshire cat grin. "Let me guess, it was the ritual that tipped you off," I deadpan, sighing.

This seems to confuse him even more. "…Ritual?"

"Oh, you haven't heard of the great ritual, now have you? We're planning to open the Gates of Hell, releasing our leader into the world for the first time in centuries. It will obviously be, well, completely magnificent. We just need a human sacrifice to set our plan into motion. That's the reason we came here today."

"And by human sacrifice, you mean…?" He gestures at himself skeptically.

"Of course we mean you, Isaac McDougal. We've been watching you for a very longtime, Isaac. Please just come with us peacefully; we'd really hate to have to ruin another candidate."

McDougal takes another step backwards, his hand still on his gauntlet. "The hell do you mean, another candidate?"

I shrug and answer, "Oh, right. You're the eighth on the list. Number nine is your dear friend in the cell, Solf Kimblee. So, if you react like the others, we'd just use him instead."

"That's intriguing," Kimblee says, "you've been watching me, too?"

"We watch everyone. Now, Isaac, will you come peacefully or not?"

He starts to do his fancy water-bending trick – dammit, I mean alchemy. Maybe it's his way of saying, "Hell no."

Sigh. I really freaking hate the Ominous Latin Chanting.

"Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis, status malus, vana salus semper dissolubilis–"

Gradually, I make my voice seem even more demonic and gravelly, until I'm convinced I'll never be able to talk again. But that pales in comparison to my current problem, which happens to be headed straight towards my face as I'm letting my inner cultist shine through.

An icicle. You're sending an icicle at my forehead. Oh, you have got to be kidding me!

I do what most stupid movie background characters could never figure out: I just roll out of the way. (Really, it's not that hard.) The icicle – I still can't believe he actually did that – smashes to pieces on the wall behind me, and I bolt up to my feet, glaring at him.

"Obumbrata et velata mihi quoque niteris; nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris…"

Apparently, McDougal's had enough of my silly little ritualistic chanting, because he takes out a knife.

My weakness, it's… small knives. Anything but knives!

"This is getting interesting," Kimblee mutters from his cell, and I can hear the smirk in his voice.

I'm either going to have to run, or resort to my backup-backup plan, because it's pretty clear that the Ominous Latin Chanting isn't going to cut it this time. And, since I despise running of any sort...

Crap.

"Hey, you moron. I know something about our dear Fuhrer Bradley that I suspect you do too, if the fact that you're rampaging around this city is any indication." I tilt my head at him and grin, rocking back and forth on my heels as I wait for his answer.

"That he's a Homunculus?"

Seriously, man. You really shouldn't go blurting that out to random cultists, you know. What if I was working for Bradley, and I just wanted to see how much you knew?

"No, I meant that he has a weird obsession with melons. What's a… whatever the heck you just said? Human curry, was it?"

I can tell that his brain is struggling to comprehend what I just said. Quite honestly, my brain is having the same problem. What the heck is wrong with me? The fact that Bradley does have a weird obsession with melons is entirely irrelevant.

McDougal blinks and sighs, "Never mind."

So that's how you want to play it, huh? "I'm guessing you're choosing to fight instead of come along quietly. What a pity."

"Why." He doesn't even bother to ask it; instead, he just says it flatly.

"Because I really hate running!"

There's no way I can take down a freaking murderer, especially one holding a freaking knife. If I had a weapon of my own, I probably still would end up dead. I'm just that lucky, you see?

So yeah, I reluctantly start running in the direction of the wide open door. Of course, this is all while shrieking the Greek alphabet at the top of my lungs – trust me, it's a legitimate strategy. If my assumption that Greece didn't exist here is correct, I'm basically running and screaming non-existent, vaguely cultist words.

Seconds after I start running, I immediately trip over my boots again and end up crashing into McDougal. Somehow, I accidentally end up grabbing his knife before falling onto the ground a few feet away.

Dammit. This is why I don't run.

He stares at me unblinkingly for a full minute, disbelief written all over his face. "What… What is wrong with you?"

"Well, I kill people and I eat hands. That's… umm, that's two things." I begin to realize what I'm saying as I'm saying it, and my voice gradually gets slower until it trails off. No. Somebody tell me I did not just say that. If there was a chance to take back my words, I definitely would do it right now.

McDougal blinks.

Apparently, I did just say that. Really, of all the times to quote Llamas with Hats, my brain had to choose right now? My god, I seriously need to work on holding my fricking tongue from now on, unless I want to die within two days.

Without saying anything about my sudden cannibalistic tendencies, he simply pulls out another knife – because how many knives can one person keep on themselves at one time? I'm pretty sure the limit does not exist.

"Are you just going to stand there until I die of boredom?" I mutter, holding my own knife – on second glance, it's more a stiletto than anything else – in my palm, turned so it won't cut me.

All it takes is a single second, and…

Oh, please not the being lifted up and slammed into the wall part again.

Because life is a heartless jerk, I'm yanked up by the collar and slammed into the wall, one arm – the left, to be precise – pinned between my shoulder and his arm.

It's turns out to be a good thing that I'm left-handed, seeing as I'm holding the stiletto in that hand. I grit my teeth and rotate the blade until I'm pretty sure it's turned far enough, ignoring the fact that it's digging into my hand.

I close my eyes and wrench my arm out from under his, lashing out with the knife and slashing downwards once I think I've made contact.

And, just like that, the pressure around my throat vanishes, although I'm out cold in a matter of seconds, so I don't really have time to notice the difference.

"What… Why can't I see anything?"

Stumbling to my feet, I rub a soaking wet hand over my eyes, but it doesn't change anything at all. Everything's still pitch black.

It must've been a nightmare, and I just fell off my bed, that's it. Any second now, my vision will clear up, and I'll be able to find the light. It shouldn't be that hard; it'll only be a few feet away, after all.

I take a step forward, then another when I don't hit anything.

"What exactly was that chant you just did? It sounded quite intriguing, I do have to say."

I vaguely recognize the voice, but I can't be bothered to figure out who it is at the moment. It's probably my dad, but he should recognize Latin, since he majored in it…

So, for the time being, I'll go with sarcasm.

"It's a poem – O Fortuna – that was written in the language of a now-extinct civilization. Really, you should know which one by now." It's not like there are that many now-extinct civilizations that most people know about.

"Xerxes, correct?"

"Yeah," I say without even listening to what they're saying. "Whatever you say, man."

There's a pause for a moment before they say, "I'm assuming you know the translation."

Wow, four for you, Glen Coco, you won an award. If I didn't know the translation, then there might have been a chance that I would've raised up a demon from hell. Even though I'm more the type of person who'd accidentally raise demons up from hell than intentionally, I certainly wouldn't do it by chanting ominously in Latin. That's so cliché.

My vision is starting to clear, and I eventually realize that I'm not in my room, but in that same prison, standing in front of a cell.

If this means everything was not a dream, then…

"Where's McDougal." My voice is oddly calm, and I don't ask it so much as hiss it.

"…You don't remember," Kimblee mutters under his breath after being silent for over a minute. "If you really want to find out, then you should look behind you." It sounds like he's smirking, but I just ignore it.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I look over my shoulder, wondering why he would tell me to do something as simple as that.

Oh my god.

The stiletto, which I'd been holding earlier, is stabbed entirely through McDougal's neck, blood spilling onto the floor. I press a hand to my mouth, instinctively swallowing the bile that rises in the back of my throat. Unfortunately, I remember that both of my hands were – are – soaking wet a few seconds too late.

"I…I did this. I killed him, right?"

"Are you expecting me to say no, miss? Because I'm certainly not going to. You stabbed him in the throat, and then you dragged the knife down as far as it would go. It's not my style, but I'll admit that it works. It's a shame you weren't in Ishval; that would've been a good technique."

How can Kimblee be so nonchalant about this? I just killed someone, and all he's thinking about is how he massacred people back in Ishval. And, on top of that, I'm pretty sure he can't even see that much outside of his cell, so he had to infer how I killed McDougal.

He's probably still reminiscing, so I'm going to have to find some other way of dealing with this situation. Either I snap him out of his sick mind, or I distract myself from the dead body that I'm just feet away from.

"Canto I, 'The Dark Wood of Error'. Midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say what wood that was!–"

"What are you doing?" For some reason, Kimblee sounds more confused than anything else.

I shrug, not really knowing what I'm doing myself. "I'm reciting another poem until I fall into a coma. Are you going to listen or not?"

He sighs, and I can practically hear him rolling his eyes as he says, "Apparently, I have to."

"I never saw so drear, so rank, so arduous a wilderness! Its very memory gives a shape to fear. Death could scarce be more bitter than that place! But since it came to good, I will recount all that I found revealed there by God's grace…"

Honestly, I never thought I would end up reciting Dante's Inferno to a bored mass murderer, all while pointedly ignoring the dead body.

Of course, I don't end up finishing it. I only get fifteen pages in, to the point where they talk to Charon, Hell's Ferryman.

"'Woe to you depraved souls! Bury here and forever all hope of Paradise: I come to lead you to the other shore, into eternal dark, into fire and ice. And you who are living yet, I say begone from these who are dead.' But–"

That's when I hear someone – two people, to be exact – walking in my direction. Snapping my mouth closed, I turn around so I'm facing the door and lament their horrible sense of timing.

For a moment, everything's silent.

"Hughes, what're you doing here? I'm just following up on a lead; you didn't have to tag along. Besides, even if McDougal was here, he'll be long gone."

"Hey, I was bored, okay? And it can't hurt to check, in case this lead is reliable."

No. Oh, please no. The voices are gradually getting closer, and I know who they belong to. And within a few seconds, my suspicions are proven to be correct. Maybe I should go into fortune-telling or something like that.

Roy Mustang gets one step into the room before he can fully see what's in it. He freezes, not knowing whether or not to look at me or McDougal. "Hughes…" He calls, his voice unnaturally high-pitched, "you might want to see this."

Within a few seconds, Maes Hughes follows him in, surveying the scene. He blinks rapidly and tilts his head at me, making me feel like I'm under a microscope.

That, or I'm a lab rat. Or maybe I'm a lab rat under a microscope.

"Hello? You can hear me, right?" Hughes asks loudly, as if talking to a small child.

This is going to be a very long night…

I hope you guys enjoyed this! I certainly enjoyed writing it, that's for sure. {Sorry for taking such a long time to upload; I thought I was feeling better and then it went back downhill.

Lorelei's Ominous Latin Chanting is actually from "Carmina Burana", a collection of ancient Latin poems that were later turned into songs. What she recites is from the first two verses of the first – and most well-known – poem, "O Fortuna".

As for Dante's Inferno, it's a real book by a real man named Dante Alighieri. It's the first book in The Divine Comedy, and it's seriously the ancient equivalent of self-insert fanfiction.

…Review and I'll give you a virtual cookie? Ask questions and I'll give you two virtual cookies

{Also: Would it make more sense narrative-wise to switch POVs every chapter or every two chapters? I'm having a bit of trouble figuring this out, so I'll go with what the readers prefer.}