Thankie reviewers, you all rock! (I'm afraid I cant reply to them at the moment, for reasons explained at the bottom)
Taking over me
Chapter 4-the thing in the basement.
Winry opened the door slowly and quietly and stuck her head through the gap.
"Is he awa-oh!" she straightened up in surprise to find Ed standing in the centre of the room. "I didn't think you would be up yet."
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well you were so exhausted from las-"
"Are you kidding? I feel great!"
"Oh well that's good to hear." Winry looked from Ed's smiling, still slightly pale face to Al who was seated on the bed. "Erm, there's some breakfast for you downstairs."
"Great, I'm starving!" Winry moved out of the doorway to let Ed pass and watched him disappear down the stairs.
"Wow, what a recovery."
"He's not fully recovered but he won't let us see him at his weakest moments, he has a lot of pride." Al said standing up and turning to make the bed. "He's always been that way as long as I can remember whenever he was ill when we were younger, he would always be up and around before he was completely better but I knew it was because he didn't want to seem weak."
"Yeah, I remember." Winry said quietly thinking about the time that Ed and Al had caught chicken pocks (1). Ed had gotten out of bed saying he was as good as new even though he was still covered in little tiny red blotches. She smiled slightly at this memory as she and Al headed downstairs. Riza, Glacier, and Winry had decided not to tell any of the men that Ed had had a nightmare as it would result in no ending torment to the younger boy. He went through enough already because of his height.
"So, what's everybody doing today?" Riza asked as she placed her empty teacup on the table.
"I'm helping Winry clean out the attic today." Fury said and a few of the other men nodded their heads in agreement, mainly because Winry had threatened to kick them out if they didn't help.
"How about you?" Roy asked looking at his girlfriend.
"I'm cleaning Al's armor; it's getting dirty and driving me crazy!" Al looked around at her with, they could only guess, a rather scared expression on his face. "don't worry I'll be gentle."
"What are you going to do Ed?" Glacier asked the small blonde. Ed looked up suddenly as though shocked that anyone would talk to him.
"I think I'm going to read my Dad's books."
Not long after, the group separated to do what they had planned. The men and Winry left for the attic, Glacier and Riza half dragged Al outside so they could clean his armor properly without making a mess and Ed went upstairs and sat in his room reading his Father's books.
He stared at the purple-ish leather cover for a long while, just stared at it, not really sure of what he was doing.
Do I really want to open this book?
Yes, I do.
He slowly looked through the book, noticing his Father's handwriting across most of the pages, noting how messy it was.
Like mine.
He cursed himself for that thought and carried on looking through the book. He reached the inside of the back cover and almost gasped. Drawn on the inside of the cover were two transmutation circles, one above the other, and on the other side, lots of notes hastily scribbled down. Ed couldn't read them they were that messy. The transmutation circles looked like none he'd ever seen before. They were very pretty and held intricate designs. They didn't even really look like transmutation circles, but Ed knew they were by the fact that they were in an alchemy book.
What was he trying to do?
Ed noticed a few words beneath the first transmutation circle that he hadn't noticed before.
To fix everything
Even though Ed had no idea what this meant, his heart leapt.
To fix everything, to fix Al, to fix me!
He didn't even know why he decided to try it out, but he headed down two flights of stairs into the recently emptied basement, chalk in his left hand, book in the other. He knelt on the cold stone floor, held the book close to his face and copied the transmutation circle at the top of the page. It took him the best part of an hour, making sure he got every line just right. When he had finished he stood at the edge of the circle and admired his work. He looked back at the book, double checking he had everything right. When he was satisfied, he knelt down at the edge of the circle. Flashbacks from the previous nights dream invaded his brain, but he pushed them away.
I have to do this, for Al.
He placed his hands on the edge of the circle and was temporarily blinded by a warm golden light, the sign of something good. He smiled into the light once more, familiar swooping sensation in his stomach whenever he came across a discovery in his alchemy. He opened his eyes and looked into the center of the circle, but the elated expression slid off his face.
What the hell is that?
Rising seemingly out of no-where, out of the ground, it was a body. Ed gasped and tried to pull his hands away from the circle, to stop the transmutation, but they were stuck, refused to do as they were told by his brain. He looked up again in horror, the body now fully emerged and hanging in mid-air, as though being hoisted up by invisible ropes. The light disappeared quickly and Ed was left in darkness, staring up at the still floating body. Something wasn't quite right about this though (as if a randomly floating body is right), he could see right through the body but it still had a solid outline. He reluctantly stood and slowly walked towards the body. It hadn't moved and Ed counted that as a blessing, but it didn't seem dead either. He was a few yards away when it began to slowly sink towards the floor. Ed stared.
How was this supposed to help fix everything?
As he looked at the body it seemed to take a deep but slow breath. He stopped walking abruptly and his eyes widened.
It's alive!
As the body's feet finally reached the floor, it stood on its own. Spreading its feet to support its weight and its head slowly titled back until it was looking straight. But it had no eyes, it had no face. Just a smooth surface where the face should be.
How can it breathe?
But Ed had no time to think further on this subject as the body took a step towards him, considerably closing the gap between them.
Shit! Maybe it can't see me.
He stepped to the side a few times to get out of the way, but the body, no monster, followed his movement and all the while closing distance. Ed backed up until he hit the wall and the monster came to a stop in front of him. Ed could only stare in childlike fascination and fear as the monster took in another deep breath and exhaled it slowly. It then reached forward with its hand and placed it heavily on Ed's shoulder. He couldn't move only stare and panic as he felt its grip increase on his shoulder until it began to hurt. Ed placed his hands to the things chest to push it away but his hands went straight through it.
How can this be? Why can it touch me, but I cant touch it?
He felt the pressure on his shoulder increase further still. He closed his eyes and cried out in pain but as he did so, he felt a sudden gust of wind enter his mouth causing his cry to die in his throat and disenable him to breathe for a second. When he got his breath back he opened his eyes and looked around the basement for the thing. But he couldn't see it, nor was there a transmutation circle on the floor anymore. He raised a hand to the shoulder which the thing touched and found it to be coated in dry sand. He brushed the sand off with confusion and looked once more around the room. Nothing looked out of place. He decided to leave the spooky basement and go outside in the sunshine, where there were a lot of people who could determine whether he was insane or not.
"Brother! Save me!" his head whirled in the direction of his younger brothers voice and saw, to his great relief, no monster attacking his little brother, but Glacier and Riza chasing him around trying to get him to stay still so they could clean his armor.
It's taken them this long?
He had been in the basement for at least two hours. What was going on?
I know, I know, shitty chapter, but I haven't been myself recently and I'm so very sorry for the extremely long wait, but like I said, I haven't been myself. I will update again soon, I promise but I really should be doing coursework at present and if my mom finds out otherwise, I'll be banned from using the computer for two weeks!
Please review my shitty chapter.
