Here comes a SUPER EARLY Halloween story! Avoid reading if you can't handle the spoops! 8)
A match struck the floor and was put into the candle.
"So begins the epic tradition," Fuery said cheerfully, adjusting the match appropriately. They were all gathered in the basement of Central HQ at 2200. It was the day before Halloween; they planned on staying until the clock struck twelve, when it would officially be the famous holiday of candy and costumes. The people attending were Mustang, Riza, Fuery, Breda, Havoc, Falman, Edward, and Alphonse. As a prank, Havoc had told Breda that they were bringing costumes, and now he was dressed as a mouse, his face painted with whiskers and annoyance.
"So, what are we supposed to do?" Ed yawned in a bored tone. His arms were crossed and he looked like he didn't want to be there.
"Tell ghost stories, of course," Fuery answered readily. "And maybe play Truth or Dare."
"Great," Ed said, suddenly grinning. "That's my favorite."
Al visibly shuddered at that.
"Very well, then. I'll start it off. Truth or Dare, Fullmetal?" Mustang called.
"Dare." He never, ever picked truth. Truth screwed everyone over.
"Really? Feeling brave tonight, huh?"
"He always picks Dare," Al put in.
"Thats useful knowledge," Havoc said gleefully, rubbing his hands together.
"Very well then. I dare you to…" he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers in realization (which earned a terrified squeal from Falman when a small spark shot through the air). "I dare you to twerk. In front of everyone."
"Simple enough. I should've known a pervert like you would dare me to do that, though," Ed sighed as he got up. Al burst into laughter before he even started and Ed glared.
"What?!"
"It's just-do you think I never noticed you practicing in your room?"
Ed's face turned tomato red. "The fuck, Al?!"
This earned a large series of snickers from the group. Even Hawkeye grinned ever so slightly.
"Fine, you little shits!" Ed fumed, and proceeded to twerk better than anyone else in the group. Except…
"Mustang can twerk better than that," Riza said indifferently. All chatter ceased and everyone turned away from the Fullmetal Alchemist's butt and to the Hawk's Eye.
"Lieutenant! What the hell?"
"Like Al said. Do you think I never noticed you practicing?"
"?!" Mustang sputtered (if it's possible to sputter a large series of exclamation points and question marks) and everyone collapsed into maniacal laughter.
"Lets move on!" Breda managed to stutter out after a good minute. The rest of the group quickly agreed.
"Now is time for the ghost stories!" Fuery announced. By now, it was 2330. The group had all sorts of battle scars from their heated game of Truth or Dare. Breda had dirt smeared on his face, Havoc was still coughing from when he was dared to eat a cigarette, and Falman was huddled in a corner.
"I want to go first," Fuery continued. The others glanced at him, but were mostly preoccupied with their current conditions.
"It was a dark and stormy night," he began. Ed rolled his eyes at the cliche beginning.
"And in an orphanage, there was one kid who was still awake. He kept hearing odd voices. They were very high-pitched and childish. He kept asking who was there, to which the voices responded, 'kill them all, Sebastian. Kill all of them.'"
Ed, who was unbelievably hard to scare, yawned. It sounded too boring.
"And so, Sebastian grabbed a knife from the kitchen…and stabbed all his roommates!"
The group stared at him, waiting for him to continue.
"…In their sleep!" Fuery added, as if that made it more scary. Ed burst into laughter.
"What?" Fuery asked, surprised by the young alchemist's reaction.
"Thats the most cliche story I've ever heard!"
"Cliche?! It was CREEPY!"
"Creepy?! That sounds like something you'd hear in a third-grader's storybook. Allow me." Ed cleared his throat and got up. "Just remember, I don't like telling fake stories. All my ghost stories are real."
Mustang smirked at this, expecting a lamer story than Fuery's, who was now sulking in the corner with Falman.
"The air was heavy, promising rain," Ed said softly, his tone suddenly falling. "The clouds were packed together, dark as could be…
"There was a young boy standing in his house. He ran to his window and looked outside, excited for the rain. He couldn't wait. He loved the sound of the water hitting the ground, the sky sobbing and bleeding onto the earth."
That was certainly a strange description of rain, but everyone simply assumed it was to keep the mood.
"The boy was young, maybe seven. He had long blond hair, and golden eyes."
Smug bastard is writing a story about himself, Mustang thought disdainfully.
"The boy went upstairs. His grandmother was lying in bed, listening to radio while reading a book. She was young, for a grandparent. She turned and smiled at the boy.
"The boy went into bed with her, cuddling and listening to the radio, simultaneously waiting for the rain to begin, when a strange broadcast came on the radio."
Ed's posture suddenly slackened, and his eyes took on a glassy, zoned-out quality. Havoc, who knew a thing or two about ghost stories himself, knew Ed was trying to improve the mood; but knowing this didn't make it less creepy.
"It said, 'boy, come downstairs, we will all wait, let the rain begin.' And then the normal broadcasting resumed. Grandma hadn't even noticed it." Ed suddenly broke off the story and seemed to be choking down a snicker.
"Chief, what the heck?" Breda snapped. "Stop being weird."
"Sorry. Anyway, the boy was drawn to this message. He hopped out of bed and went downstairs. And down in the kitchen, was a regular old knife. Except it hadn't been one he'd seen before. He picked it up and saw two words engraved on it; they said 'Property of'. Next to that phrase was a series of scratched-out words. Through lots of squinting, the boy made out three of the words. One was "the universe.' Another was 'all'. The only one that hadn't been scratched out was the one that said…"
Ed straightened himself, but not like a normal person would; it was as if a puppeteer had tugged on the strings on his neck and back.
"You."
Falman and Breda, who were notoriously bad at handling ghost stories, let out surprised squeaks. Mustang was still unimpressed, but for some reason he had a sense of foreboding. Al and Riza didn't have opinions yet; they were listening intently.
"The boy picked up that knife, for the words said it was his. Perhaps once it had belonged to the universe, then to all, but for now it was his."
"The boy slowly walked up the stairs, not knowing what he was doing. He was merely curious to see what would happen. He walked over to his kind, sweet grandmother, with her beautifully glossy dark-brown hair, and her all-knowing eyes, the color of emeralds…and stabbed her, straight through the chest."
Mustang's eyes grew wide with alarm. It wasn't the words; they were actually rather cliche, and the same thing had happened in Fuery's story. But the delivery…something was about that alchemist, the way he was holding himself, it was something he hadn't seen since Ishbal. It sent uncontrollable shivers down his spine. And then Ed smiled, a chesire-cat smile, and said in a sing-song voice,
"Oh, how I loved the sound of the blood hitting the ground, her sobbing and bleeding onto the earth. Just like the rain."
Just then, the clock struck 2400, and the large grandfather clock let out a screaming ring. Half the group shrieked, whirling around. Only Mustang kept his eyes on Fullmetal, because the unthinkable was unfolding before his eyes. The innocent blond boy he once knew pulled out a knife. In the dim light, Mustang barely made out the words Property of GOD.
GOD was written in suspiciously red marker.
Marker. It wasn't blood. It couldn't…
But he had no time to think. The boy was too fast. He ran like lightning and stabbed the Flame Alchemist straight through his heart. The last thing he saw wasn't insanity, or horror, or bliss. It was something ten times worse; it was indifference. The boy didn't care who lived or died. It didn't matter. It never would.