Phosphorus, Hydrogen, Oxygen. Three essential elements in the human body. Also three very potent explosives. Given the right manipulations, any mix of these can be made to combust, with the slightest provocation. Five parts Phosphorus, four parts Hydrogen, one part Oxygen makes a lethal firebomb. Add some Carbon as a time-delay, just to give you some time to sit back and watch the fireworks. Voila, a ready-made human bomb. I like to think that I have an 'explosive' personality, and I'm always happy to bring that certain quality out in others, if you know what I mean. Hell, you may have even heard of me. Kimbly's the name, Zolf J. Kimbly.
But you can call me the Crimson Alchemist for short.
In fact, no one's called me by my real name in a pretty long time. Now that I think about it, it wasn't since my childhood in Turkina that anyone's called me Zolf. Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday. Of course, not many people knew of me back then. And I had only started practicing alchemy. But that all changed.
I was just a kid, about fourteen years old, when I first recognized my life's calling. I only wanted to help my dad out with work at the factory, and earn enough money for food. I wasn't exactly on the straight and narrow, but everything I did, I did for my family. It's as if I was a different person back then. I guess I was.
Anyway, there was this old guy that lived down the hall from my family. We would always hear strange noises in the middle of the night, and he would only leave his room about once a week, and only when the sun was down. We never got a good look at him, but he was always hunched over, as if he was carrying something secret and fragile. And soldiers kept visiting him, with a big, locked box. A really creepy guy, always scared my little brother.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I had a couple siblings, you know. Two brothers, one younger, one older. My older brother, Benjamin, had an accident when I was little. Got his arm caught in a steel press, tore it clean off. Our family couldn't afford a replacement, so he just walked around with a stump. I was always so ashamed of him. He was just dead weight in our house, eating our food but not bringing in any money. Worthless sack of crap, that's all he ever was.
But my younger brother was much better. Named Jacob, used to tag along with me all the time after work. He couldn't work yet, he was too young, but he only had a couple of years before he could lie about his age and get away with it. He was a lot like I was back then, devoted, caring, determined. You know, he's really the only person I ever felt bad about killing. Who knows, maybe if he was still alive, he'd still be like me.
I doubt it, though. No one could ever be like me, they just couldn't live with themselves. I'm not hindered by compassion, like normal people. I like to think of myself as an extreme realist. I don't let feelings get in the way of my goals. And since I became an alchemist, life's been a whole lot more fun.
Which brings me back to the old man. One day, I decided to sneak into his room while he was gone and find out what he was doing. Jacob was terrified of the man, but he came with me. The front door was always locked, so we climbed from our window into his.
It was late at night when we jumped in. One wall was covered in bookcases, all empty. The books were spread out on a desk in the corner, with an oil lamp as the only light in the room. There were a lot of loose papers on the desk too, covered in scribbles I couldn't read. After checking out the papers, I turned around and searched the rest of the room. On the bottom rung of one of the bookcases, I saw a lump, covered in a sheet. I walked closer, and felt the hair on the back of my neck raise, like there was static in the air. I turned to Jacob, but he didn't seem to notice the sensation.
I bent down and reached for the sheet, and felt more of the strange energy crackle down my arm. My hand finally reached the cloth, and I yanked it off.
What I saw was kind of anticlimactic, at the moment. It looked like just a pile of little red rocks. But they did have a bit of a weird glow. I picked one up and looked at it closer, and I could almost see a little blue spark inside. By this time, my whole body was tingling with little cracks of electricity, but Jacob still didn't seem to notice. It was as if only I could feel the stones' effects. I never had the chance to ask why.
Suddenly, the room's door slammed open, showing the outline of the old man. He looked up at me and my brother, and I could only see the glint of the lamp in his eyes. He shrieked at us, then reached into his coat. I could only watch as he pulled out a revolver and fired.
I heard a crack, and felt something bite me in the side. I was knocked sideways to the ground. A quick glance down, and I was confronted by a hole in my gut, slowly turning my shirt blood red. I looked back up, just in time to see the old man step over me, grab Jacob by the hair, and shove his gun in Jacob's face. I didn't even think.
I lunged at him from the floor, with every intention of killing him before he could kill my brother. But just as I collided with the old man, the stone in my hand flashed. He looked to my hand, with fear in his eyes, I looked up at him, rage in mine. I didn't understand it at the time, but this was how my whole career started.
And as the explosion ripped a hole in the building, all I felt was anger and hate.
I woke up a week later, in a bright, white room. A nurse looked down on me, and smiled. I was instantly awake.
I screamed. I wanted to know where Jacob was, I wanted to know why they wouldn't let me see him. They tried to subdue me, but I beat them back. I calmed down only because I knew they'd never let me out if they thought I was crazy. With a low voice, I asked them again. One doctor, with a fresh bloody nose, approached me cautiously. He knelt down and put a hand on my shoulder, somewhat reluctantly. He told me my brother was dead.
Apparently, the explosion had killed the old man, my brother, and the rest of my family. But I only mourned Jacob. The others meant nothing, they didn't even deserve to live. Jacob was the only one with the will to get a better life, to get our family out of the cesspool we called home.
The doctor patted me on the back, mistaking my trembling for sadness. I reached up, grabbed his arm, and broke it over my knee.
Then, the rest of them jumped on me. I punched, I bit, and I clawed, but I couldn't get out. They strapped me down on my bed, and left the room. A while later, a doctor came in with two burly orderlies. He gave me a shot he said would calm me down.
I don't remember much of the next few days, only that unfamiliar faces were always watching me through a window across the room. Some were doctors, some were nurses, and some, I know now, were soldiers.
After what seemed like an eternity, they let the drugs wear off. During my time alone, I had come to realize a couple things. For one, I had to get out of the damn hospital if I ever wanted to have a life again. Second, I decided that humans were worthless. They didn't really have a soul. We're all just the elements we're made of, nothing more. Just material with a pathetic excuse for consciousness.
On the second day of my being relatively free, a large soldier, with tanned skin and a beard, walked into my room. He looked me up and down, as if examining a piece of new equipment. After a moment, he straightened, and looked me in the eye. I glared back.
He seemed to find this amusing, and smiled. He asked me if I knew anything about the military. I said yes, and told him about the old man's late-night visits. The soldier's face went blank. He asked me if I knew what the old man gave the soldiers that came to him. I said I didn't.
The soldier slapped me across the face. I turned back to him and jerked at my restraints, but couldn't get out. I was content to just growl at him. He said that he knew that I knew something. He said that there was something that caused the explosion, something I must have been touching. I thought back to the red rock I had found. I said I hadn't touched anything.
He hit me again. I screamed back at him that I had found a pile of red rocks, under a sheet. I told him that they had some kind of energy in them, and that the one I had in my hand had flashed just before the explosion.
The soldier smiled at me now, and said that he was impressed. I asked him why, and he told me that I had created a blast with the power of fifty pounds of dynamite with no knowledge of alchemy. I said that I didn't get it. He asked me if I wanted a job.
I didn't want to go back to the factory, and I sure as hell didn't want to be kicked out on the street, so I said yes. That was the first good decision I made in my life, and it's only gotten better.