A/N: Thank you for all of your help last chapter ATPD! sorry I forgot to mention it then...

Warning: Gore(I'm guessing you know what part of the Elric's story I'm referring to...)

Chapter 2:

Saved

..~•~..

Mom fell to her knees.

"Mom?" I asked her, wondering why she wasn't standing again yet. That's when I saw the red liquid dripping down her neck from a spot near her ear. I knew what had happened, but I didn't want to admit it.

"Mom?" I asked again, flat out refusing to believe it. She fell forwards, landing on her face. That was when I finally believed it. Mom was gone, and she wasn't coming back. She was dead.

I looked over at Al, seeing only the same traumatized expression as me on his face as well. He knew it too. I felt an enraged sadness start to grow somewhere within me. A want to know just who did this to her, so I could make them pay.

I looked in the direction the shot came from, to see a white coat vanishing behind a stone wall. It had been a sniper, Amestrian or Ishvalan I did not know. What I did know was that I wanted to hurt them.

That person killed my mother. Right in front of me and Al, her kids. I let a low growl emerge from the back of my throat as I started to get up from the ground.

A hand shot out and grabbed me by the wrist. It was Al's. I looked back at him and saw him shake his head at me, begging for me to stay with him. To not die like Mom.

A figure clad in white shot out of a bush nearby, a big knife in their hands. They were going for Al.

I jumped in front of Al, shielding him from the blade. My right arm hurt, and then it didn't.

I looked down at the ground. What I saw terrified me even more. My right arm was lying there, where it used to be was spraying blood everywhere.

The pain came back. It was worse than anything I had ever felt. I screamed as loud as I could, more tears coming to my eyes, but this time tears of agony. This was turning out to be the worst day of my entire life.

I heard splashing footsteps coming from our left. The white figure with the big knife was coming again. I stuck my left leg out to shield him once again.

Same as last time, there was pain, and then there wasn't. But one thing was different. When I started to scream again, another shot rang out. This time the person in white fell to the ground.

A different person came over to help, asking if we were alive. Everything around us was

painted red with my blood. That is the last thing I remember of the attack before my vision turned black.

..~•~..

Everything around me was white. It was clearly a room, but I'd never seen one like it before. It was strange. I couldn't remember anything.

I went to rub my eyes with my hands, but only one moved. I tried to move my right arm again, but was only met with pain. I looked over and saw that it was missing, an empty space beside me.

Then all of the pain and horrible memories from before came back. I screamed at the top of my lungs. A nurse came running in with a pill bottle at hand.

"Mr. Elric! Are you in pain?!" She asked frantically.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK?!" I screamed louder than I intended to.

She handed me a pill from the bottle she was holding and a glass of water that was on the table beside my bed. "Take this and the pain should go away." She said calmly, trying to be comforting, like a mother. Like Mom. Like the mother that died that night.

"Where's Al?" I asked her after taking the pills.

"He's just outside. He didn't get injured at all. The ones that brought you in said that you had successfully shielded him, leaving him safe." She said, reading my mind. I have no idea how she did that. She was some kind of god.

"Who brought me in?" I asked the now calm nurse.

"Oh. I believe it was Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang. Do you know them?" She asked me.

"Never met 'em." I answered truthfully. I'll need to ask about them when I get out of this place. I need to do that fast. Winry says they do the most horrible two things that anyone can do to me here, Serve me milk and poke me with needles. Despicable. Nobody should suffer like that.

"If you want to meet them, they gave me a number to call. You can talk to them yourself instead of hearing others opinions on them. I know that's what you're thinking at the moment." She said knowingly.

This woman really was some sort of mind-reading god. "Yes please, thank you ma'am." I told her.

"My, you have some nice manners when you aren't screaming at me. Your mother taught you well." She complimented me. I started crying softly after hearing the words 'your mother'. This woman clearly didn't know what happened on that night, otherwise she wouldn't have mentioned Mom. I guess she really wasn't a mind-reading god.

I looked out the window of the white room, trying to hide the tears falling on my cheeks. I was confused though. Even though my vision was blurry, I could tell I was in a city of sorts.

Mom told stories about cities. Places where there were lots of buildings close together. More buildings than Resembool had altogether. Now I can see that she wasn't exaggerating.

"Where are we?" I asked the nurse, barley hiding that I was crying. I've had some experience with this kind of thing. I didn't like Mom to worry about me, so I always hid my tears. I was quite good at it, even though she could see right through me.

The nurse couldn't tell. I had her fooled as long as I was faced away from her. "We're in Central City hospital. Aren't you from here?" She asked.

"No. I'm from Resembool. I've never been to a city before." I told her, still concealing the tears.

She grimaced at the name of the town. Oh, so she had heard. "Isn't that the town that got invaded the other day?" She asked me.

"How do ya think I lost these?" I said, gesturing sadly to my missing arm and leg. Oops. Now she knew I was crying. I was looking at her.

She saw my tears and started to comfort me. "There, there. It's okay. Everything will be okay." She had clearly had kids my age in the hospital before, I knew this because of how quickly she reacted to me crying. She didn't freak out or anything.

Wait a second...was she pitying me? Sure, I lost my arm and my leg, but my brother was still alive because of it. It was just like that old saying, 'it costs an arm and a leg for a life'. If I got the opportunity to do it over again, I wouldn't change a thing. As long as Al's ok, I am. This woman didn't even know about Mom's death yet. That would be a better reason for pity than this.

"Just...Just call the number, ok...Please?" I asked her politely.

"Ok. I will." She said, walking out of the room to find a phone.

I was going to personally thank the people that saved me. I will repay them for what they did, somehow.

..~•~..