"Alphonse! No!" I draped my body over his to prevent any bullets from harming him any further, but even I wasn't stupid enough to not know that it was too late. His chest was static, no rise or fall to it, and his eyes blank, slowly losing their color. Tears streamed from my eyes as I came to the realization that my last true blood-relative was dead, gone in a flash; the flash of a gun that is.

"Damn it! You idiots!" Grand yelled at the soldiers, though it appeared to be more out of frustration than out of anger. "Fine, let's try this again!"

I raised my gaze up to the State Alchemist, my eyes sending him the most rage-induced glare I've ever sent, though I knew in my heart that it wasn't going to change anything. Though suddenly, I heard grunt from the far side of the wall of soldiers.

Grand could only watch for a split second before he was socked in the face, his transmuted weapons turning back to dust, and Wes was grabbed from the wall. Before I knew it, I too was lifted off of the ground but a strong arm and whisked off to who knows where, the sounds of gunshots growing ever more distant.

I managed to look up in my drunken stupor. "Teacher…" I mumbled as I saw her running ahead of me. That meant that Sig Curtis was carrying Wes and I.

I don't remember much else about that day. All I remember was that night, because it marked the most important turning point in my life. Bigger than losing my leg, bigger than losing my mother. This marked the start of my own journey.

Teacher had come back to get us after having heard a rumor of the soldiers, obviously having gotten there just in time to grab us and go, disguised of course, and leaving the scene before they could be questioned or noticed by citizens.

The four of us had camped out in the woods several miles out of town, near the border to the Eastern Desert; no man's land as our town used to call it. No one went near the desert, and even fewer came near this area simply because it was so close to the desert.

I'd waited for everyone to go to sleep before I crept out of the campsite, stumbling in a half-dead state back to a town. It wasn't my town, but it was a town that had a store that I could steal from.

I stole everything I needed, slowly but surely checking them off the mental list I'd created, my mind focused on only one thing. I could lose everything I ever cared about, but I'd be damned if I'd lose Alphonse too.

I returned to near the campsite. If things went south, I'd need their help. Sadly, that also came with a side-effect.

I was setting up my transmutation circle, with the ingredients lying in the middle, ready to be molded into a human shape. Once the circle was finished, I approached the center with a knife, raising it to the thumb of my right hand. "I stopped you once," I heard from the darkness.

I whipped my head toward them. "Teacher…"

"I'm not going to stop you again. If you're so stubborn as to try a taboo…to try Human Transmutation...then I won't stop you," she stated.

I only nodded before running the knife along my thumb, letting my blood drip onto the pile of ingredients.

"You know it's not going to work."

"I have to try."

"But you know," she clarified. "You don't have to throw you life away like this."

"...When this is over, if I'm still around...you should stay away from me. Wes too, though I'll probably need his Automail, so fat chance of staying away from him."

"Eden…"

"...You're right...I don't have to do this," I then looked her in the eye. "But it's all I can do."

I closed my fist, the cut slowly clotting as I moved to the edge of the circle, getting onto my knees. I took a deep breath as I pressed my hands to it.

"Alphonse...please come back…" I whispered, though almost immediately as the circle started to glow, the image of Alphonse's last words came to my mind.

Everything started circulating in a sickly beauty of golden light...but slowly it changed, corroding into a hellish purple until it engulfed my vision. I manage to find the center of the circle, seeing the ingredients slowly taking shape.

But then everything disappeared and reappeared as nothing but a white void. I looked around, soon seeing, upon turning around completely, a gate of stone, with a vast mural of Alchemical symbols and symbols that I'd never seen before. I went up to it and pressed my hand to it.

"It's quite something, isn't it, Alchemist Eden Elric?" a voice behind me startled me, making me whirl around, only to see nothing but white. Actually, that's a lie, I saw something, but all it was was a black outline forming a relatively humanoid shape.

"What are you?"

"That is the question, isn't it? I'm not quite sure, Alchemist; what am I?"

"Are you...God?"

"Perhaps I am to you, but I more so think of myself as something a bit more specific than any god could be. Though if you practice Alchemy religiously, which I know you do, then you could consider me Alchemy's deity and you may call me…" a sick grin spread across the figure's face. "Truth."

"Where...where's Alphonse?" I wondered hesitantly.

"He could be anywhere, though if you'd have asked me, I'd say that he would be behind that door."

I turned back toward the gate.

"All it will take is one little push, and everything with become clear, Eden Elric," I put my hand once again upon the door, taking it in, trying to memorize its markings. "Well, Alchemist? What are you going to do?"

I turned back toward it, now filled with determination. "I'm going to find my brother," I stated before pushing the gate open, seeing a black void. "What…?"

Before I could react, a thousand set of eyes opened themselves in the void and black appendages reached toward me. I couldn't fight them as I was pulled into the gate. It terrified me, as I had no control over what was happening, and though I wanted so badly to close my eyes, the hands that pulled me in her holding my eyes open.

Different scenes flashed in my vision and mind simultaneously, and even more whizzed past faster than I could process them, though they still entered my memory nonetheless. It was as if the past, present, and future were all occurring at the same time and I was its lone audience member. I could see everything; I could hear everything, taste everything, and feel everything though my own mind forced me to feel only one thing; fear. Everything then gave way to one image, my brother smiling at me and reaching toward me. He looked so happy, and he was alive and well. I could almost reach him, just a little more, when he spoke. "Come back to us."

And then...everything stopped. I was back outside the gate, facing away from it, reaching forward. "Wait…" I turned back toward the gate. "Alphonse is…" I turned back toward Truth.

"I'm sure that you know the answer, Alchemist."

"He's...inside the gate. I need to go back in."

"Oh no, that's won't be necessary," Truth stated, having a light chuckle to its voice.

"What did you say?"

"I said that it won't be necessary for that. You know all that you need to know and I don't need to show you anymore, especially for the piddly sacrifice you gave me to see what you have," it raised an arm.

"What are you talking…?" suddenly, human flesh began to appear on the white form, an arm, its right arm, as a massive pain flared up in my mine, and when I went to hold it, I only felt air. I looked down for only a moment, seeing my arm gone, before I was snapped back into the real world. I held my arm, still gone and now oozing blood, and cried out in pain, quickly getting Izumi's help. I writhed on the ground, struggling to stay conscious.

I managed to look at the center of the transmutation circle. "Alphonse…" I choked out as the dust cleared, revealing a mass of flesh and bone, looking deformed and malnourished as best and completely nonhuman at second-best.

I nearly hurled at the sight, seeing it drool and ooze pus and blood, not looking fit enough to live for more than a few more seconds. It spoke four words; words that were burned into my mind throughout the madness that followed that night, hell through the rest of my left. "Come back to us…" it choked out, it's voice not Alphonse's, but instead a mangled gurgle, only serving to excrete more drool before it went silent, dead.

The rest of the night was a blur. I don't remember how we did it or where we went, but the next thing I remember was that we were in a town, my limbs were restrained, and I had a gag in my mouth to keep me from biting my own tongue off as Wes gave me an Automail arm, telling me that "everything would be okay," as he did.

After that, from that night, I remember being left alone, the smell of fresh blood lingering slightly in the room where I refused to sleep.

Author's Note:

Gotta say; one of the easiest thing I've written in a while; everything just came so naturally with this part because it's essentially a repeat of what happened in the show but with a small tweak here or there, but whatever; it had to be written, right? Don't forget to review!