Chapter seven

Wait. "That's all?" he asked taken aback. If he was honest, he was actually expecting something a little bit more surprising, like getting to see the explosion of another trashcan or anything that might be useful to them.

She laughed. "It's not everything, but I assume you might want to go little by little since I bet the whole—" with her hands she made a gesture of her head coming out of its place. "—thing must not be simple to explain"

It was not. Maybe he should start from the beginning.

He would go to the past once again to fetch those memories that haunted him and his brother every once in a while.

Alchemy. The science where one understands the structure of a matter, breaks it down and then rebuilds it. If used correctly, it can turn plain lead into gold. Just like every science, it follows the principles of nature: You can only create something of a certain mass out of something with the same mass. That is the principle of equivalent exchange: 'In order to gain something, something of equal value is required'.

A beautiful house on top of a prairie, the scent of the fresh air flooding the small town of Resembool in the east of Amestris, which he remembered well. A loving mother lacking a husband, two children abandoned by their father. Al remembered those days to be perfect just for having the company and the warmth he needed from the people close to him.

Warmth that right now he missed deeply.

Days went by slowly since there weren't that many things to do in the prairie. Usually their days went by going to school, and coming back to their place, help their mother with whatever they could, and get together with their friend and neighbor Winry.

There was also a door. An unused room at the end of the hallway at the Elric house. One time they asked what was behind that door, and their mother told them that it was the place where their father used to work on his research but she never told them what was his research about or the reasonwhy he left. Al only remembered that his mother stopped smiling every time they asked about their father or anything related to him.

Finally, inside the room, an unused library with tons of books pertaining to the man about this mysterious science and the undying curiosity of the brothers who only wanted to make their mother smile as much as she could. They found out that once they learned this science called alchemy, she smiled more and more, which made them happy.

And heartbroken when she passed away.

Al remembered the day of the funeral well enough. A sweet, loving person like her was very much known by a lot of people in Resembool. None of them said anything to the brothers, though. They couldn't stop to stare at the grave with the name of their mother in it, trying to figure out the real meaning of death at such a young age. Why did people die? What had their mother done to have her soul leave the land of the living where she was happy? (Or so Al thought) What was death anyways and who or what determined who got to keep on living? He had heard that there was an existence of greater power living up in the heavens that had some kind of control over the humans living down here, but he had never brought himself to believe it.

His tears that day came only after everyone else was gone and only he and his brother remained. Brother had never cried in front of anyone but mom and that day he didn't shed one single tear. He held on a straight face and no matter how hard Al tried to figure out what he was thinking, even if it was just for distracting himself, he could never guess. He hadn't talked in the day either. But when the night was about to fall, he pronounced his only words of the day.

'We are going to bring her back"

Thrilled by the possibility of performing something no one had ever achieved. Confident on their abilities which their mother used to praise. And fooled by the idea that they had nothing else to lose. Just by the simple thought of going back to his old, perfect life, he accepted.

Water - 35 liters; Carbon - 20 kilograms; Ammonia - 4 liters; Lime - 1.4 kilograms; Phosphorus - 800 grams; Salt - 250 grams; Saltpeter - 100 grams; Sulfur - 80 grams; Fluorine - 7.5 grams; Iron - 5 grams; Silicon - 3 grams and a small amount of 15 other elements.

The ingredients were set. They had trained almost two years for this, almost died for this, gave up their old lifestyle for this. Though it all seemed worth it by the simple thought of being able to see mom's smile again. Without a single negative thought in their heads, they activated the array. For a couple of minutes it seemed like everything would turn out alright, that they, just being kids, could succeed at what adults couldn't.

The smiles quickly left their faces as soon as their surroundings became a different color and Al felt something grabbing him by the arms, legs and stomach. He couldn't get rid of it no matter how hard he tried. He felt how this thing was taking his body apart cell by cell, atom by atom, tissue by tissue. With tears in his eyes he so desperately called for his brother who had the same thing going on except his brother was being kept there while Al was taken some place where his consciousness stopped working.

"After I regained my consciousness, I was already in this body, to which my Brother had affixed my soul and he was all covered in blood. I quickly sought for the help of our Granny who treated his wounds but his right arm and his left leg were gone."

He knew how to summarize the story enough for Francesca without missing the important details and she listened carefully uninterruptedly, nodding every once in a while.

After that, he briefly explained what the automail was about and how his Granny and their neighbor Winry equipped his brother with it. Then a man from the military came to see them confessing he had an interest in them and saying that they had what it took to become a state alchemist. Since he had already covered the part about alchemy being used in the state, he skipped it.

Even though they were both warned that state alchemist were nothing more than simple dogs, especially trained to use their abilities during times of war and that they weren't received well among some places, they said they didn't care. As long as they could have access to an adequate amount of knowledge on the only object they knew so far that could allow the brothers to get their bodies back: The philosopher's stone, they would endure any difficulty, thinking it could never be worse than what they had already been through.

"But only Brother became the state alchemist because I couldn't risk them finding out about my body" he finally explained.

With that last said, his story was finally over.