Rebirth

It snowed! YAY! I made a snowman! (one shaped like Armstrong, teehee!) YAY! want another chapter? YAY! IT MELTED! BOO! ITS JUST A SMALL LUMP OF SNOW NOW! BOO! ;...;
So yeah, some fluffiness is in store as well as some confused angst... im confuzzeled myself! SO YOUR NOT ALONE. But also, theres some dramatic stuffies and flashbacks! MANY FLASHBACKS! -nods sullenly-

THANK YOU FOR REVIEWING ALL!
kay, but if your confused: flashback or dream, 'thinking', "saying", and bolded is important things or segments of the story skipped for lack of ideas! you'll understand later, lol.

Ch.5- Like Cats and Dogs

Some people dont understand why others dont speak the same as them, or even as much. A different language or a mental illness... only when your perfectly healthy do people think your strange.

"Riley, we cant speak to you unless you choose to yourself, neither can we help you. Now tell us what you saw." the hardware store owner had said.

"Its no use, Abe, she wont speak no matter what is said!" said another man of the small crowd beginning to form, "when is Grace coming?"

"She should be here any second... if only her father was back from ishbal."

This was when Riley chose to break out in a horde of tears, hiccuping as she staredsulkily at the ground.

"Jeeze, now look what you did Abe, ya made her cry!" Molly, who worked as a waitress at a nearby restraunt, said.

He just looked at Molly dully.

"Riley! Riley?" a womans voice said, walking through the people. She came up to Riley and picked her up, letting her dig her face into her shoulder and smiled weakly.

She seemed a lot younger then.

"Riley."

She looked up to the source of the quite voice to see Dr. Monroe, her family doctor ever since she was born.

"You can go see her now." he said.

She stood up abruptly and rubbed her eyes of sleep, walking into her mothers room.

She noticed the wires first, the machine seemed to be beating at an easy pace. She walked up to her side to see a mask on her face, giving her oxygen.

The doctor walked up to Riley and spoke silently."Shes been diagnosed with a medium level of shock. She cannot speak orfeel,but she can hear quite clearly. Hopefully the effects wont scale to a higher stage as fast as we presume and she wont be forced into a coma," he saw her emotionless face and grimaced, "Im sorry Riley, we've done all we can." he then left the room with his clipboard in hand.

Riley wheeled the black round chair in the corner of the room to her mothers side and looked at her pale face. She then grabbed her wire-free hand, and although she knew she couldn't feel it, held it warmly on the side of the bed and looked at the ground blankly.

"Riley, what are you doing in this room so darkly?" Grace asked, pulling back the curtains, she seemed somewhat angry and somewhat sad when she looked at Riley.

There was Riley, ten years old, sitting in the middle of the playroom of Grace's old orphanage- one room never to be gotten rid of. It was attached to an old library, both doors had been nailed shut for unknown reasons, only known to Grace who had not made it into another INN room.

Riley was holding a doll with short braided hair, pink stitching, and a dusty green dress made of cotton. It was one of the many in the middle of the room with different designs and hairstyles and colors in which she had created with alchemy.

"...did you use that alchemy to get in here? figures. Your just like your father when it comes to convenience," she smiled sadly. She knew the reason Riley was in here was because she was curious and also knew the reason she had not been speaking for the last month as well.

"Riley... he was a very brave man. He... It was unfortunate to what has happened, but no use shutting others out for it."

Riley turned her head halfway and glared at the 48 year old woman, who seemed unphased. Used to children acting much more evil than this.

"You haven't spoken to anyone in ages. Why... I haven't even seen you read in-" "Im finished." Riley said, her voice slightly hoarse from lack of use.

"What?" Grace asked, amazed she finally spoke.

"I said im finished reading all of those children books. I read them all in that library a month ago." she said, getting up she tossed aside the useless doll and turned to Grace.

Riley was then looking at the ground. "I... I want to go to the bigger library today."

Grace was momentarily stunned and nodded, smiling.

From that day forwards Riley had taken to calling Grace her mother, since she had never met her before, her dying while Riley was born. Riley, on some extent, blamed herself for killing her mother at birth. Grace had adopted her as her own at the age of 8, after her father died during the Ishbal war. He had worked in the military front line and was killed by the uprising when he was posted at the center of town.

After a while Riley stood up and turned, flipping her long black braid from its place on her shoulder she turned her softened gaze back to its usual cold slate and let go of the womans hand, placing it on her stomach.

"Thank you... for not calling me that..." she whispered. "Like everyone else."

"What a freak. Why does she even come here if shes not going to talk to anyone, why does she even come to the daycare? her fake mother doesn't even go to work, only at the INN, so why doesn't she just stay there? peh." one girl said, quite loudly, to two other girls. Satisfied at their reaction in giggles. "And just look at how she does her hair. A braid? its way too long!"

"...fake mother. I had no idea what they were saying then." Riley continued, keeping her face as hard as possible, "I was such a fool... even when we played games, I didn't understand what they meant. I thought they were my friends."

"Okay. I'll be goose first!" a girl said, "duck. duck. duck. duck... crow..." all the children began laughing when Riley was pronounced a 'crow', "goose!" she giggled, beginning to run.

"I only smiled like an idiot and waited for them to call out 'goose' for me... peh." Riley turned to the door. "I know you told me not to leave... to go to the exam... which explains your constant engaging me to every guy in sight." she smiled lightly. "You wanted me to stay in town and start a family, but... I have to leave this place. Im sorry, goodbye. I hope you get well soon, mother."

Riley could have chosen to stay or even to speak to Dr. Monroe when he tried to stop her in the hall, but instead took to shoving past him stiffly and strided down the hall and out of the hospital.

She intended to pack up and take the midnight train out of town.

"Sloth... Sloth? are you listening to me?" Kali asked.

Actually, he wasn't. At the moment his thoughts had been drifting somewhere between the dark starry night outside of the beginning to move train and the events of earlier. He couldn't shake off the possibility that he, and Kali,might be followed. Pride from before might be on this very train at this very second.

"I was asking why catsand dogs hate each other." Kali said.

He looked at her through his bangs, although she seemed to be looking at her intently, he thought he felt a hidden message in her words- and didn't want to say something wrong... so, being the man he was, and not knowing the secrets to woman, he did exactly what he did best.

"You never told me you were 16." he said.

"You never asked. Now stop trying to change the subject already!" she said impatiently.

He frowned, now his thoughts were on this girl. She was mysterious in a... bubbly... way?

"Alright. Cats dont like dogs becaaause... dogs drool."

"Nuh uh! Why would they hate them for that?" she asked.

"Well I dont know. Im not exactly a master on pets." he said, furrowing his brow. "Maybe... because they're so different."

"Like how?" she questioned.

"Y'know. Dogs bark, cats meow, dogs whine, cats purr kind of thing."

"Oh..." she said.

Sloth yawned, about to decide to go to sleep, maybe because of the silence in the cart, it made him very tired. He then glanced up before deciding whether to shut his eyes to see Kali scrunching up her eyes, as if thinking hard.

Two figures grabbed the small child and tried their best to keep her quiet. Her mother was out with her hardworking father, and the nanny was drunk and passed out downstairs. They pulled her out of the soft covered bed in a struggle.

"Stop it! you cant do this, MOMMY! HELP! MOMMY!" cried a shrill child-like voice, "MOMMY! PLEASE DONT LET THEM TAKE ME, MO-"

"Why didn't you go home and pack at all?" Sloth asked suddenly, as if to break the unsettling silence which had befallen the two, "I was wondering since you had so much money with you." he said, shrugging at her look of worry.

"...I was going to leave anyways. I ran away... I guess." she said, finding her shoes to look quite intresting at the moment, "I didn't want to stay with them any longer... I never have."

He seemed surprised at this. "Why? I mean you dont seem the type of person who would have a bad family."

"And what do you know about me?" she said abruptly, and ignoring his surprised look, and before she could stop herself, she errupted in a river of tears, "Im so so-orry I just coul-ouldn't handle it."

Sloth reached over to offer some sort of comfort and she immediately collapsed into his arms, soaking his trench coat within seconds between her small clenched fists, she hiccuped air as if she were being strangled.
He seemed very stunned for a few minutes (okay... maybe 10 minutes is more like it) in which time he couldn't help but blush slightly, remembering her age, he thought of Stacy. She had cried in his lap often about many things which he could not begin to understand. Whats odd was she too asked the question of cats and dogs, in which he had no answer to.
Only Stacy had shown him a cat torn up brutally by a pit bull and had asked him to heal it, even though it would die within minutes, he chose not to tell her and tried his best to help the kitten- of course to no avail. This was when he had to tell her the simple truth of life, and a week before she had died. On a large extent, he had blamed himself for when she cried, since she had no eyes, her tears had been crimson, mixed with blood, in which most likely had started the infection and killed her.

He felt her pulse, and until he felt her evenly long breathing on his chest did he realized she was asleep already, not dead, but reminding him of how tired he felt. He didn't even bother to get into a more comfortable position, but instead leaned against the wall by the window to his left and dozed off, remembering the way she had squeezed his hand as she cried since she could no longer feel the cat breathing, he finally got to sleep.

Im sorry if its rushed a bit. I tried my best to capture my (readers: ahem!) our characters best intrest! I SWEAR! besides, at least it wasn't short. It was quite long, actually.

But hey, im in for constructive criticism if need be, I care not for flames, and I love it when people compliment me CUZ I LUV ATTENTION!
-nibbles cracker- go away.
XDD mmmmmmmm, cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

SO HEY! heres the next chapter to look forwards to, kay: Ch.6- The Wise Old Lady and the Automail Master (Kali's POV)