This story was inspired by Hangebokhan's illustrations for the FMA Fandom Challenge 2016. Hangebokhan's artwork can be found in DeviantArt. You can also see the illustrations in the FMA Fandom Challenge Tumblr blog. Hangebokhan's is Set 1.
TRIGGER WARNING: Implied abuse of a minor.
The vignettes are only related chronologically. Enjoy!
The sound of Edward's gate closing reverberated throughout the wide void; Alphonse felt the sound waves coursing through his frail body.
"Brother…" The word slipped out of his mouth. The name had sounded like a lament but without a soul to provide proper context, such sentiment was something he wasn't able to gauge well. Nonetheless, he would try.
A different sensation emerged from his chest. It was light and pleasant, and warm. Alphonse placed a hand flat on his bosom. Ignoring the fact that his ribcage looked like a washboard he concentrated on the delightful warmth it was giving off.
The wonderful sensation only lasted for a few beats then a sense of emptiness took its place. Alphonse curled his hand into a fist, but not before his jagged nails left red marks on his skin.
Rivulets of blood blossomed from the scratch marks. The scarlet orbs resembled morning dew, the kind that covered the emerald hills of his beloved town. A wry, painful smile tugged at Alphonse's cracked lips.
Was Resembool covered in a sea of green, or was it vested in gold courtesy of the unrelenting sun? Even though he couldn't gauge the passage of time inside The Gate, he knew the pristine hell was affected by it. His thoughts shifted back to Edward.
Brother had grown so much.
Edward's hair was almost long as his, and his face had lost the roundness of childhood. Alphonse brought a hand to his face. Contrary to Edward, whose manly features were chiseled by puberty, his had been slowly carved out by hunger. His jaw clenched. He was still wasting away in that horrible place.
A dull ache started suffusing from the center of his chest. Alphonse then turned his attention to the present moment.
Retrieving memories was a challenging task for a soulless body, but with enough intent, he was able to salvage fragments from the dark ocean of his mind. This time around, he didn't need to spend too much of his precious energy in that arduous task.
Laughter filled his ears first, then an image of his grinning brother appeared in his mind. Edward looked jerky, like a moving picture which pace was out of sync. With some effort on his part, the movie in his mind cleared, and his brother's movements became fluid. Unlike the black and white movies he'd seen in the past, his was shown in full color. The images playing in his mind's eye were so vivid that he felt himself being transported to that particular memory.
Alphonse remembered Edward transmuting the playground at their school so it would look like a medieval castle. He even equipped the play area with vomiting gargoyles and ferocious dragons. His brother had created that monstrosity a few months before their mom passed away. Alphonse grimaced, hating that the memory he retrieved had to end in what he knew was heartache.
There weren't many distractions inside the white void, and his got ruined, so he turned to the task he'd pushed upon himself since the day of the rebound.
He'd been standing for a while now so it didn't surprise him when his right leg buckled after taking a step forward. Thankfully, his Gate was close by.
Once in front of the massive construction, Alphonse ran a bony hand over the stone surface, guiding his wiry fingers across the intricate carvings. He raised his gaze so he could study the words written in ancient Xersian, knowing that within those characters lied the clue to escaping that hellish place.
"Corpus…spiritus…" He uttered like he'd done thousands of times before.
But this time around, the gate rumbled.
Alphonse's eyes rounded with shock while the stone slabs parted. He staggered backward. A part of him was afraid of what he would find on the other side of the gate.
The tall doors offered a view of green pastures, blue skies, and sunshine.
"It's home!" The emerald landscape brought tears to Alphonse's eyes.
A sense of urgency rushed throughout his thin body, shifting his primeval instincts into drive.
Alphonse started making his way to the threshold, slowly, because that's all his body could afford to do without collapsing. And he did his damn best. One step, then another. He squinted when the glare bouncing off the landscape reached his eyes. Two more steps and the warm sun touched his emaciated body—he was going to make it!
When he reached the fringe between dimensions, a dark shadow slithered under his chin and coiled itself around his frail neck. Alphonse gasped. Immediately, he wrapped his bony hands around the dark tendril and tried to pull it off, but as he did, more tendrils wrapped around the rest of his body.
The symbol of the flamel appeared in the blue sky above, casting a large shadow over everything lying below, including himself.
"Why!" Alphonse cried in despair just as the tendril collaring his neck tightened its squeeze.
It was then when he understood what was really happening.
"No!" Alphonse fought hard to loosen the noose around his neck with the energy he had left.
The gate shook again, and soon the doors to the outside world were closed shut.
"My soul! I need to go to my soul!" Alphonse whimpered in utter frustration.
"What a shame…"
Truth's voice echoed throughout the white expanse; Alphonse shivered. Without his soul acting as a compass, he couldn't pinpoint the exact location of the deity.
The black tendrils, minions of Truth's realm, let him go, and he fell on hands and knees. His body couldn't stop shaking.
The white being appeared in front of him and knelt.
Truth lifted Alphonse's chin so he could savor the despair brimming in the teen's olive eyes.
"What were you thinking?" A devilish grin crossed Truth's etheric space.
Alphonse forced his eyes away.
"What were you planning on offering so I could grant your freedom?" Truth continued. His ghostly hand cupped a side of the teen's face. "Were you willing to surrender your mind?" His thumb glided across chapped lips. "Or perhaps you were willing to give up something else?" Truth added as he pushed his thumb into Alphonse's mouth.
Alphonse cringed but he wasn't sure if this was the right reaction to the given the situation. He sank his teeth on the probing thumb and bit down hard. "Neither," Alphonse growled, choosing to rely on his instincts.
Truth was highly amused by the teen's actions. He decided to let him go.
Though rather pointless, Alphonse took the opportunity to put some distance between himself and the wicked deity.
Truth turned to him; a fiendish grin spread across his ethereal face. "That's too bad." He said quietly before knocking the teen to the ground by the sheer force of his will.
Alphonse could hear Truth talking but the blow to his head had muffled the words. He didn't want to know what the deity was saying anyway, and was glad that everything was fading to black.