An Unsound Soul

by AngelG93

A/N: Credit for the original idea goes to Gentsmaster3000.

Sorry for delivering such a short first chapter. This one has more meat.

Oh, and I've decided to make Ed twelve in this fanfic, so if he sounds more impressionable, innocent, or immature, that's why.

Chapter 2

Medusa's Trick! A Sadistic Experiment?

"So," asked Ed as he traipsed in Medusa's wake, "how exactly are you doing that?"

"Doing what?" she simpered.

"Floating like that. It shouldn't be possible."

"Well, of course it's possible, silly. I'm a witch."

Ed blinked in confusion. "You're serious?" When Medusa continued to smile at him, he furrowed his brow skeptically. "But that can't be. I'm a scientist; magic isn't supposed to exist."

"Maybe not where you're from, but it's quite prevalent here."

Ed glanced around, taking in the absurdity of the entire area and shrugged. "If you say so. At this point, I might be willing to believe just about anything."

His words seemed to excite Medusa. "That's the spirit," she sad. "It's important to be open-minded in life. For instance, even though I'm a witch, I'm also a scientific researcher. That way, I can learn from both practices and gain the most knowledge."

"That makes sense, I guess," muttered Ed. So, maybe magic is what brought me here, he thought.

After a few minutes, the two reached the entrance of Medusa's underground home. The witch dismounted from her broom and led the way inside, Ed following wordlessly.

"Welcome back, Lady Medusa," greeted a scrawny, plain girl with long silver hair, a polka-dotted dress, and the most absurd-looking hat Ed had ever seen. "Oh," she added when catching sight of him, "so that's why you went out."

"Why, yes," said Medusa, and something about her tone communicated that the girl should have held her tongue. "I wasn't about to leave a lost little boy out in the street at night."

"I'm not little," Ed grumbled.

Medusa turned to throw him a glittering smile. "Of course you aren't, dear. My mistake." She then continued speaking to the skinny girl, "Eruka, Edward here is a scientist, so I'd love to show him our… special project."

Eruka looked confused for a moment, but then comprehension dawned on her face. "Oh… of course, Lady Medusa. Right away." In another moment, she had darted off down a hallway. Ed found her gait quite odd; it almost gave the impression that she was hopping, the way a frog would.

"What kind of project is it?" he asked Medusa, pulling off his red coat and folding it neatly.

"I suppose it would be considered chemical research. I've always been fascinated by experimenting with unusual substances."

"Really?" cried Ed, beaming. "Then we have that in common. I'm an alchemist."

To his surprise, Medusa swopped down on him, cupping his face in her hands and giggling, "Oh, you are simply the cutest thing! I just want to keep you, you darling boy." Suddenly, however, her smile took on an eerie air. "In fact… I think I will." She glanced toward the front door, and Ed heard a lock click shut.

"Wh… what did you do that for?" he asked timidly.

"Well, I didn't want to cause a scene in the city, so I convinced you to come along willingly, quietly."

Ed flinched. "You… you mean you kidnapped me?"

The witch tapped his nose teasingly. "Why else would I bring you to this world in the first place if not to have you for my own?"

Ed pulled away from her, his golden eyes blazing. "So, you're the one? You dragged me to this godforsaken place? Damn you, lady!"

Before he could run, Medusa grabbed him by the wrists. "Such a dirty mouth," she chided. "Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"

"She died before she got the chance!" He tried to be brave when he mentioned his mother's absence so bluntly, but it still hurt him inside to think about her. After all, it had only been a little more than a year since he and Al had tried to bring her back.

Medusa's face filled with concern. "Why, that's simply dreadful, for a boy your age to have no mother."

"What's it to you?" Ed snapped, trying to tug his arms free of her grip. "Lemme go! Send me back! I want to go home!"

"Oh, I'm afraid it's too late for that."

Ed froze, gazing up at the witch. "What?"

"The window between worlds has darkened, and there's no telling when it will reappear. There's nowhere for you to go."

The boy slumped to the floor, trembling from head to toe. "But that means… my little brother Al will be all alone. You have to let me go; he needs me."

"But I'm not going to let you go, not after all the trouble I went through to acquire you. I told you that I love to experiment with unusual substances, but, truthfully, I should have said I love to experiment on unusual specimens… unusual people. And now, I have the perfect opportunity to further my research."

These words motivated Ed to renew his struggles. Unfortunately, Medusa only laughed at his futile attempts. "Oh, don't be frightened. I'm sure you'll find it an enlightening experience. I consider myself to be an excellent teacher, a master molder of young minds like yours."

"Find some other test subject!" Ed yelled, pulling fruitlessly. "Just leave me alone!"

At that moment, Eruka returned with a corked beaker full of a black liquid and an empty syringe. "Here you are, Lady Medusa," she said with a ribbit-like tremor. "I didn't know if you'd need more than this, but-"

"This will do splendidly. Well done, Eruka." Medusa briefly patted the girl on the head before snatching the implements away from her. In order to do this, however, she was forced to let go of Ed's left hand. Seizing his opportunity, Ed pressed his palms together. A small column shot up from where he touched the floor, bumping Medusa's other hand so he could slip free. Though the witch was startled by this development, she quickly regained her composure.

"A good effort," she complimented, "but still not enough." Before Ed had taken five steps, she snapped her fingers, and arrow-headed ropes wrapped around his ankles and wrists. A metal chair materialized, and the magic cords dragged the flailing boy onto the hard seat, looping his arms over the low back and fastening each of his limbs to a separate chair leg. Ed strained against his bonds as Medusa approached, her smile widening as she filled the syringe with the mysterious liquid.

"Please, let me go!" the boy begged.

"And spoil my fun? No, I don't think so." She squirted a tiny stream of the liquid from the needle to test its efficiency.

"What is that stuff? What's it do?"

"I call it Black Blood, and as for what it does… you'll soon get to see for yourself." After unfastening the metal clasp of his jacket, her black-nailed fingers traced a faint line down his neck until they stopped directly over his jugular. "Here we are." Holding him still with one hand, she punctured his skin, injecting the liquid directly into his vein.

Ed expected something drastically horrible to happen, but it was over before he knew it. Medusa tossed Eruka the now-drained syringe and gave her instructions to "fetch the supply stock" before conjuring a clipboard and pen from thin air. Perching on the tail-like arrow that draped from the back of her robe, she clicked the pen and smiled at Ed. "Now, dear, why don't you tell me how you feel?"

For several long moments, he could think of nothing to say. Then, an unpleasant bubbling surged in his gut, as if his insides were boiling. Before he could try to explain it, he coughed violently, and hot blood poured from his mouth onto the stone floor.

"Ah, I see," Medusa noted, scribbling something onto her clipboard. "The Black Blood likes you, so much so that it's displacing your human blood. Fascinating."

Ed continued to vomit, staining the ground a deep red. He'd seen plenty of his own blood before, but not like this; he hadn't even known his small body could contain so much of the rich, sticky liquid. Again, and again, the vital resource pumped out of him, scalding his throat on its way up. Long after Ed was sure he should have died from exsanguination, the convulsions ceased. He had no more blood to expunge, and yet his body was still functioning normally – how could that be?

"Excellent," said Medusa, glowing with excitement. She descended from her makeshift seat, disposed of the mess of rejected blood with a wave of her hand, and crouched down beside her victim. Ed flinched at her approach, but all she did was wipe the remaining gore from his chapped mouth. Her touch was surprisingly tender, that of a caring mother tending to her messy-faced child. The act confused Ed to no end: one second, she was making him puke out his innards, and the next, she was trying to play "Mom"? This woman made no sense.

"G… get away," said Ed feebly, jerking his head away from her. The sharp movement, however, sent his sense of balance off-kilter. The room suddenly felt like it was standing on its head, or maybe its side, Ed couldn't tell. He had forgotten which way was up to begin with.

"Oh? Is it starting already?" Medusa asked, pulling back Ed's eyelids to get a better look at him.

"Is… what… starting?"

The witch lifted up a few strands of his bangs as she whispered in his ear, "Why, the madness, dear."

"Madne… what madness?"

"The Black Blood grants considerable power to its host… at the cost of sanity."

"You mean… I'm going to lose my mind?"

Medusa laughed lightly. "My dear, who said anything about losing anything? Madness is something to be gained – it broadens your horizons." She tilted her head to once side as she prompted, "Do you know why?"

Ed shook his head wordlessly, and the simple motion felt as disorienting as rolling down a steep hill on his side. Horizontal and vertical had no more meaning, no more boundaries.

"Madness erases your fear," Medusa explained. "Edward, wouldn't you like to not be afraid of anything?"

Ed thought about that. He had been scared when his mom had died, and even more scared when he and Al had broken the taboo and attempted Human Transmutation… when everything had gone wrong. What would it be like, not to feel fear? To Ed, it sounded… well, crazy. Nevertheless, when he gazed up into Medusa's serpentine eyes, he slowly nodded.

The witch gave him a reassuring smile. "Then, you have nothing to worry about."

Through his kaleidoscopic field of vision, Ed saw Eruka trot back into view, rolling a cart full of sealed containers. "Here are the supplies, Lady Medusa. Is there anything else?"

"For now, no. Feel free to hop out and amuse yourself." Once Eruka had vanished once again, Medusa peeled off the lid of one of the boxes. Whatever was inside glowed with a light blue aura.

"What's in there?" Ed asked groggily.

Medusa removed from the container a pulsating azure sphere. "This? It might be hard for an entirely scientific mind like yours to grasp, but this is a human soul."

"And what… what are you going to do with it?"

The witch stood over him, her face masked in shadow except for her cruel smile. "Open up." She flicked two fingers, and tiny cords hooked around Ed's lower jaw, prying open his mouth. Before he could do much more than cry out, Medusa forced the orb down his throat. Despite his horror at what was happening, he found the taste… nourishing. Left with the choice to swallow or choke, Ed defaulted to the former. He shuddered as he felt its pressure on his esophagus all the way down to his stomach.

"Good boy," Medusa praised, ruffling his hair. "Let's try another."

Ed shook his head vehemently, being unable to speak with his mouth held open, but his protests were in vain. Medusa thrust a second, a third, a fourth soul inside him. When the count reached ten, Ed began to scream, begging as best he could for her to stop.

"You have nothing to fear," Medusa told him as she pressed another orb into his mouth. "Savor it. Enjoy it."

How could anyone enjoy this? Ed thought. This was Hell, and Medusa was his appointed tormentor. His punishment for trying to bring back the dead had finally come to fruition – as each soul slid down his throat, he was reminded of the soul he couldn't recreate, the soul of his mother that was forever lost to him. It was such a depressing realization that tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. When one glistening drop finally coursed down his cheek, Medusa wiped it away.

"No need for that," she said soothingly. "You're doing very well."

The procedure stretched on and on. Eventually, he had trouble remembering what the word "time" even meant. How long had he been in this strange world? A day? A month? If felt as if he had always been here, in this chair, with Medusa force-feeding him human life. His body didn't seem like his own anymore, as if the souls inside of him were changing it into something else.

There were times when Medusa let him rest, but those moments were by far the worst. Alone in the dark, his mind played cruel tricks on him, showing him faces he felt should be familiar, but whose names he couldn't recall. There was a smiling girl with light blonde hair, a dark-haired main with a charismatic smirk, and a large suit of armor with strangely kind eyes. Every time he pictured them, the fear he had of them mounted. Who were these people? They wouldn't go away. Make them go away, he begged. I want to forget. Just let me forget everything.

Medusa said feeding would help him forget, so he obeyed, accepting the nourishment with less and less resistance. The unwanted memories grew fainter and fainter, until they were swallowed by the darkness altogether. Finally, the moment came when he looked blankly at Medusa and whimpered, "What… what's my name? I can't remember – I can't remember anything."

She smiled at him with such warmth and sympathy that his heart leapt in his chest. He wanted her to comfort him, to tell him everything would be all right. She descended upon him, enfolding him in her arms.

"Welcome back, my precious boy."

"B… back?"

"Yes. You've been so very sick, but you're going to be fine." The ropes which had bound him slithered away, and, for the first time in his memory, he could move around. Instinctively, he brought his arms forward… and that's when he saw it.

"Aaagh!" The sight frightened him so much that he fell backward out of the chair. He scrambled away, but the source of his terror followed him. It was metal, a metal arm that was connected to his right shoulder. It wasn't supposed to be there. He had to get rid of it.

"Calm down," said Medusa, approaching him as one would a spooked animal.

"What… what is this thing? Why is it a part of me? Get it off me!"

"I will, but not yet. You aren't strong enough."

"Get it off!" he shrieked, flailing the limb as if he could remove it by shaking hard enough.

Medusa caught his wrist and laid the arm gently by his side. "Enough of that. You're safe now. Nothing can hurt you here."

"I don't know where I am! I don't know who I am! I'm just… just so scared!" Unable to bear it any longer, he burst into tears, sobbing with such force that he half-choked on his own gasps.

Medusa cradled him in her arms, hushing him and stroking his hair tenderly. "Oh, my poor little darling, I'm sure you are. Don't worry. Mother's here to protect you."

A/N: Medusa is such an expert in pseudo-motherly child abuse, isn't she? T.T Creeper… Her observation methods remind me of Count Rugen from The Princess Bride. Anyone else getting that vibe?

OUTAKES TIME!

Ed: "I'm not little."

Medusa: *face of doom* "YES, YOU ARE. GET OVER IT."

TRALALALALALALALALALALA TRALALALALA TRALALALALALALALALALALA TRALALALALAAAAAAAAAAAA

Medusa: Madness erases your fear. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate… leads to suffering. Therefore, madness is good for you.

Ed: That's crazy.

Medusa: Now you're getting the idea! :D