A/N: Dark themes mentioned, read with caution.
Damned
Blood blood blood so much blood. A perfectly drawn alchemic circle, every inch of chalk painstakingly carved onto the cold basement floor. The runes from the circle were crackling, alchemic sparks rippling blue through the air, heavy with blood and pain and despair.
His mind was sick. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to turn over and retch and take away the awful churning feeling in his stomach. They had done something so terribly bad to Mama…he didn't want to look or see, but he knew everything went wrong. More blood blood blood.
Something had gone terribly wrong. His memory was faint, static, a jumble. Pictures and scenes of blood and alchemy tingled through his mind, but he couldn't understand. He was disorientated and overwhelmed by the coursing river of blood blood blood.
His mind was coursing, ripples of intangible waves of agony massing around him like a black tide of guilt. He felt detached, isolated and so terribly cold and alone. Shattered like the broken glass lying around him. Glass and chalk and blood and death death death.
He groaned, his mind pulsing and he felt that it was going to explode from the pressure. He tried to, but he couldn't move. He was chained to the earth, grounded, afraid. He had lost control. Anxiety coursed through him. He choked as he imagined the hot scent of blood blood blood.
He could see it in the corners of his vision. Dark ruby red splotches spattered an arm's reach away. Mama…But he wasn't alone, was he? There was Brother too. And so much blood…no no no!
He forced his arm to rise, his left, and his right. And then his torso…Strange. Everything was heavier than he thought it should be. He could see the blood, hear the blood-curdling melody of alchemy's magic, but he couldn't feel the frozen slab of floor beneath him. He couldn't feel the itchiness from his laundered shirt. He couldn't feel the pinch of where his shoes dug in at the toes. He couldn't smell the reek of death stifling in the air. He couldn't taste the blood on his lips.
He couldn't feel anything at all. Hollow hollow hollow.
And then he heard it. The distinct clang of metal grinding against dirt, screeching against more metal. A discordant cacophony. He wanted to clasp his hands over his ears. That noise was close to him. He looked down towards his legs, clad in armour. He didn't have any legs. He was the armour. He was layers of iron sheets folded over each other. Iron and carbon and oxygen.
The ingredients of a living human being could be bought on a child's allowance.
Gauntlets…his hands…rose and clasped at his helmet…his head…that shook vehemently. He was nothing. A ripped, tormented soul. No no no…
He couldn't break down…not yet…even if the viscous flow of blood made him feel nauseous. He wanted to drag his battered body away and wash it away in the rain. Where was Brother?
Moving without feeling, his will stretching to the metal he was able to control, treading lightly like a phantom, he exerted his force into standing up. His soul inwardly gripped at the metal, bending it, stretching, rising. Just like that, as if he had been born doing it. He felt that he yielded the power to possess the metal. A fairytale. But anything would help…distract him…from the blood blood blood sealing them in their despair.
And what if he was a ghost already?
Brother. He controlled the steel, taking a step forward, walking, and running across the room, screaming. His voice was discordant, harsh, lost like a memory. Smoke and dust danced through the air. Someone was coughing, choking. He tried to breathe, but found that pathway blocked, as if someone had plugged his lungs to an eternal source of oxygen. He didn't ever need to breathe again.
He was panicking, afraid, hyperventilating inside. What if Brother but Brother was coughing that must mean he was alive what if he was too late what if the same thing had happened to Brother as what had happened to him? Breathe breathe breathe.
A shout, a plea, a cry. That was Brother. He moved instinctively. Ripped clothes. Savaged limbs. Slumping heavily. Delirious. He was drenched in blood blood blood. Brother looked like a ghost outside, while he resembled one inside.
A hand, left hand. The other was missing, ripped away like his body. It was pointing towards something.
A sickening desire to turn around followed. He shouldn't have looked. He didn't want to look. But his helmet creaked as he exerted his will to turn it around. Slowly, slowly slowly, moving to gaze at the centre of the circle. The centre of his nightmares, the place where he swam in a river of hot blood blood blood.
A corpse. Open, dead eyes. Husks. Misplaced bones and organs, heaped together like in a sack. It was horrendous, an abomination, a sin. It was his fault.
Armour was clanking. He was petrified. He thought he was going to have a heart attack. But that couldn't happen. He whimpered, begging for the warmth and gentle touch of Brother's hand. That had been ripped away too as had Mama there was nothing left of them.
He had been reduced to ash.
The twist comes next time.