For the next week I visited the river searching for the boy's reflection that I had seen that day but so far I haven't found him. I didn't tell my mother because she would worry that I had gotten to much sun and I didn't tell my brother because he would probably make fun of me so I kept it to myself.
It turned in my head at night as I tried to sleep; had it simply been from heat exhaustion? My over tired eyes playing tricks on my as the sun went down was the obvious answer but it had been to vivid to chalk it up and erase it like that. Then there was the nagging question as to why I had felt that way when my brother went home.
I revisited the feelings I had felt that day and what they came too was that I had been afraid my brother wouldn't be coming back, that I'd never see him again and that is what had scared me; losing Edward for good. His steady breathing above me settles my restless nerves in the sense that he's not going anywhere.
'Things change.' A voice resounds in my head as my eyelids begin to close under the heavy weight of sleep. 'Circumstances and people both change.'
"I like how things are now. Why do they have to change?" I ask it. It's quiet for a moment as if pondering the answer.
'It jusssssst doessssss.' It hissed out the voice turning malevolent startling me but still I fell deeper into the void of sleep unable to stop it.
Images flashed across my mind as I felt many hands grabbing at me, holding me as a tremendous force of energy flew past me. My head swam as I tried to make sense of everything I was seeing. Ed and I as small children, learning alchemy? We never learned alchemy; a grave with my mothers name on it, a bright light enveloping my body sucking me into a void while Edward shouted and reached out for me desperately , looking down at my hands seeing leather gauntlets instead of flesh and bone, wanting to feel something anything but only hanging in some hellacious limbo for too damn long.
I stood watching the images fly around me and I knew that these were my memories. How I knew that I can't say but I knew that at one point in time I had acquired them, they belonged to me.
"Become dissatisfied again?"
Alphonse turned around quickly to be faced with a white being. It had no facial features where it's head should have been except grooves where it's mouth was when it spoke giving the appearance of teeth.
"Again..?" Al asked confused while the being only nodded in response. "What do you mean?"
"You came here broken and desperate, I gave you what you wanted." Alphonse kept his eyes on the thing wary as it spoke to him, the words piercing through him as a dagger would. "Of course there was an exchange. Yet here you are again, dissatisfied."
Al stared at the images that swirled around him. One particular image of Edward stopped in front of him hazy and transparent. He looked straight at Al a smirk on his face as he flicked his long hair away from his face. "No matter what Al I'll fix you, I swear it." He stated before it floated off to circle around him again. Al turned back to the being.
"Back there in Resembool, it wasn't real was it? It was some illusion that you created. That I had wanted." Al said as an image of his mother slowly letting go of both his and Edwards hands flew past his vision.
"It's as real as you make it, as real as you want it." It stated. Al shook his head quickly clenching his trembling hands into fists at his sides.
"No…." He said forcefully as his eyes narrowed. "It wasn't real. I want my life back. No matter how hard it was I don't care. I'd rather live my life miserably then give into some happy delusion!"
The thing smirked at him its teeth showing. "Are you sure?" It asked. Al nodded his head once forcefully. "Then I'll be taking those back."
The images that had been swirling around him flew off towards the thing filing past him as into a large door.
"Wait but I need those if I'm going back to my real life!" Alphonse shouted.
"The exchange from before still stands besides I didn't take all of them; only the ones you'd cherish the most. Have a nice life Alphonse Elric." It hissed out just as the voice in his head had done before.
His body felt heavy as if a tremendous weight had been tied to him. He fell to the ground as his head spun. It was nauseating causing his torso to ache horribly. He shut his eyes against the pain the sensation of falling over taking him….
I heard a train whistle. Slowly I open my eyes to find my head resting in someone's lap. My first initial reaction was it was my mother. Soft and warm, the transmutation had worked but why were we on a train? Was it to escape Resembool to avoid being found out; the truth that my brother and I had performed a human transmutation and succeeded.
"Mom…" I speak out, my throat parched beyond anything I've ever experienced before making my voice small and croaked.
"Al. It's me Rose." The voice says softly. My eyes shoot open and I attempt to sit up but feel my body not willing to comply. I'm too weak. Why am I so weak?
"It's okay Alphonse, your just tired. Don't over do it just rest." The girl says as she places a soft cool hand against my forehead. I sighed defeated closing my eyes heavily fighting off sleep the best I could.
