That night, Nicholas could only read that book; even when he felt his eyes begin to droop he still carried on ploughing though the pages. It was like his eyes were glued to the black ink letters with undeletable interest. He even kept his overhead light on when his mom came and switched the main light off, just so that he could carry on reading the literature that had been reproduced from the brain of Edward Elric. He could see now that the existence of Edward was apparent to Winry, as they were childhood friends and it was perfectly clear that Edward and Alphonse were brothers, despite Alphonse's soul being locked in a suit of armour, which was only detectable by him from the reading of many alchemy books in past free time experiences.

He still didn't want to believe that they were both brothers because then that would confirm the very notion that Edward was his father and that would the truth that he's dead. He really wanted that detail to be a joke that was especially planned out by Edward. Nicholas was practically living on the hope that his father would come back to him and, without that hope, he felt so empty.

-That morning-

Nicholas had no wink of sleep and, by the morning he had just finished reading the last page. It was the second afterword that his mother had planned into it. Sweat clung to his brow and tears were staining his cheeks quickly. The first had left a tingle of fear inside him to rekindle as his eyes fell onto the jumble of letters that came up all of a sudden before finally the pages of periods that adorned each line fiercely. The newspaper report confirmed the sudden break out of letters and periods by sticking on the conclusion of murder. Even the words of his own mother betrayed that Edward was killed tragically and horribly.

But, what hurt the most was seeing the dead face bore into him emptily from the news report picture. Four scars had dug deep into his face and blood from them stained like red ink spillages into cartridge paper. It hurt even more when the creeping thought that the face staring back at him could easily be mistaken for his own, as if it was Nicholas staring back with the vacancy of life-light in his eyes. His and the boy's faces were so alike as if they were brothers. But they weren't they were father and son. Nicholas had finally seen his father's face for the first time ever and it carried with them the eyes of the dead and the scars of the damned.

His hands shook from the tears and they kept doing so until he dropped the book onto his covers. He couldn't bear to bottle up these feelings and he felt like he was going to explode with rage, but he knew it would only be a matter of time until that happened.

He could hear the ever-growing sound of footsteps as they made their way to his room. Slowly, his mother stepped inside the room now and seeing Nicholas' tearful face, her own filled with worry and fear for him.

'What's wrong?' She asked.

'Y-YOU LIED TO ME!' Nicholas screamed down his wrath upon her as he stood up on his bed.

'What? What do you mean?'

'FOR 13 YEARS YOU KEPT THIS BOOK AWAY FROM ME! YOU HID THE FACTS FROM ME AND FED ME LIES AND EXCUSES TO DETER MY MIND FROM THE TRUTH!'

'Th-The truth?' for the first time in her life she was terrified of her son. The face of wrath burned bright on the surface of Nicholas and there was no way she could see to putting out that bonfire.

'YES! THE TRUTH THAT MY DAD IS DEAD!!! WHENEVER I ASKED WHERE HE WAS HE WAS REALLY ROTTING IN HELL! YOU HID IT ME FOR ALL THIS TIME YOU SICK BITCH!'

Tears crept down her cheeks from her son's piercing words.

'I HATE YOU! YOU DESERVE TO JOIN HIM IN HELL! I WISH YOU WERE DEAD! IN FACT, I WISH I WAS DEAD SO THAT I WOULDN'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR FILTHY LIESS!!!'

'P-Please

Nicholas.' Winry cried feebly. 'Don't say things like that.' She tried to near closer to her son but was soon stopped.

'ONE MORE STEP BITCH AND I'LL TEAR UP THE BOOK!' Nicholas quickly took up the book in his hands and poised himself ready to tear up the first few pages of it.

'P-Please don't.' She pleaded. Tears flowed down her cheeks from the fear that the one permanent memory of Edward was going to be destroyed. 'It's the only thing I have left of him. Please don't take that away from me!' His mother cried.

'And why shouldn't I?' It was a surprise to see that he wasn't shouting anymore but his words were still presented with a smirk as he still holding the book ready to be torn. 'You took the truth away from me so why shouldn't I do the same?'

'Because dead or alive he's still my husband, he's still your father and he's still my love! He died for us and I don't ever want to let go of that memory! Please don't take away the one thing I have left to hold onto!' she pleaded and more tears flowed down her face.

A look of disbelief and rage spread across his face as his mother's words struck him through to the core.

'You value this piece of shit more than me?! The reason you haven't bothered to hang yourself yet is because of this book and not your own son?!'

She gasped. Only now did she realise how lethal her supposedly persuasive words were. Purely by accident had she chosen material possession over her own child.

'Well this is what I think of your "reason for living"!' The horrible sound of ripping noises filled the air as the pages were torn right in his mother's view. As the pages tore shut her eyes to the sight and she tried to cover her ears to the monstrosity of it.

'OPEN YOUR EYES BITCH!' Nicholas screamed as he carried on tearing through the paper. 'I WANT YOU TO SEE THIS! I'M NOT HIDING THINGS FROM YOU!' he let the torn pages scatter onto his bed as more followed. Soon all the torn and the hardback covers were bent from the failed endeavour of destroying them.

'WHO'S TOUGH NOW HUH?!' Nicholas screamed mockingly at the pages. 'ROT! ROT IN HELL! DIE!'

Gathering up the pages from his quilts. He jumped down from his bed and thrust the remnants of the pages into his mother's face.

'Let's see what lies you can conjure up from that!' He spat in her face leaving her totally ashamed, scared and humiliated. She escaped to her room and did not leave it. But it was also like she couldn't. She was too scared of what her son would or might do next.