A/N: I kinda feel like I failed on this chapter, though I'm not sure why. Maybe because this doesn't really actually have anything to do with sleeplessness. Maybe I can improve it someway in the future, but for now this is it!
Also, I used some quotes from Eragon later on in this, so me no own
Enjoy!
It's my fault.
Is it though? There wasn't much I could've done. Actually, there wasn't anything I could've done.
Doesn't matter, the child died inside of you, it's your fault whether you did or didn't do anything.
"It's my fault," Izumi whispered.
Sig shifted his seat beside Izumi's bed. "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, Izumi, it's not."
Izumi shifted in her uncomfortable hospital bed. "Isn't it, though? For the longest time, we couldn't conceive because of something inside me. Then when we finally do, our child dies inside of me. Tell me dear, how is that not my fault?"
Sig was silent. "Did you intentionally harm our child? Prevent his birth? Because I know you didn't, Izumi. If you had done those things, then it would indeed be your fault. But you wouldn't have reason to do that, in fact, you've been looking forward to having a child as much as I have. So no, Izumi, it is not your fault."
Izumi was silent for a long while, far longer than Sig would've liked. It was hours before she spoke again and it didn't take much for Sig to figure that his wife still blamed herself for the miscarriage.
However, unbeknownst to Sig, Izumi was thinking of something else.
Okay, yes, perhaps the child's death was not her fault. Izumi might be able to live with that in time. Or maybe she wouldn't have to. What if...?
No, that was a horrible idea. Izumi could always just try for another baby. There was no need to risk her life in what she was sure would be a fruitless effort. Not only was it a horrible idea, it was a hopeless idea. That kind of transmutation would produce nothing.
But still. What if she could? Izumi was different than any other alchemist. She'd always been the most powerful among the students her master had taken on, the most skilled. She'd fought bears and wolves and military forces in the Briggs Mountains and lived.
And all for nothing, too, Izumi thought in amusement. That man didn't turn out to be the Silverstein I wanted.
Silverstein or Goldstein, Izumi had learned an important lesson up on that mountain. No life was equal to another, and all life was equaled to a single whole. There was no way a transmutation like that would work, not with those universal rules in place.
...but what if it could?
What if Izumi could make it work?
Yes, she would make it work. Izumi decided she would. She would work and work and work until it was possible and than bring back her child. Why try for another if she could just bring back the one she'd lost?
Izumi glanced to the side to look at her husband. He looked tired and sad, as Izumi suspected she looked.
Yes, Izumi would do this unspeakable act. But if, no, when she completed the task, it would no longer be so unspeakable.
Izumi would bring back her child.
It had taken many months of planning. Many, many months of planning while Sig was out at the market or out of town for some reason. Izumi was always careful to keep her notes away from her husband, because she knew that the instant Sig saw the notes he would know. Sig would disapprove of the idea, but Izumi had to do it.
She spent so many nights reading late into the night when Sig was asleep. So many nights doing calculations and arranging arrays in her head while she lay in bed next to her husband pretending to be asleep, trying to find a way to make it work.
And it was ready now. The transmutation circle lay sketched out on the floor before her, a bowl of ingredients in the center. Izumi was crouched next to it, going over everything that was required and everything she had put in the bowl. Her sleepless mind was boggled, and the thought of waiting until tomorrow to try entered her foggy brain. But no, she couldn't do that. Sig would be back tomorrow, and then he would know.
Sig would try and stop her, and Izumi couldn't let that happen. The child had to be brought back, he would be.
Izumi shifted from her knees to her feet, almost falling over as a wave of dizziness washed over her. She leaned heavily against the wall, breathing slowly and deeply. Maybe she should wait a few minutes? No, Sig could come back at any time and her find her down here in the basement. And then it would be over.
Izumi stepped carefully over to the bowl centered in the transmutation circle, carrying a hair brush and a small baggie of beard clippings. Soul data. It should work. She dumped the baggie into the bowl and pulled more than a few strands of hair from the brush and dropped them in as well.
Izumi set the baggie and the brush aside and knelt once again by the side of the transmutation circle. She took a deep breath, calming her nerves. Then she placed her hand on the circle and concentrated.
The transmutation light whirled up around her, stronger than she'd ever seen. The golden light was brightest in the center of the circle, where the bowl sat. That gave Izumi cause for hope, though there was a pit deep in her stomach that she did her best to ignore.
The light shone brighter and brighter with each passing second, til eventually Izumi had to look away. Then something happened that Izumi did not expect.
The door banged open, revealing an anxious and worried-looking Sig. He raised his hand against the light, though his eyes stayed on Izumi's hunched over form. "Izumi!" He called, begging she would hear over the sounds of the transmutation. She did, though she gave no sign of it. Izumi had to continue, she would not come all this way for thing.
The golden light grew brighter still, and the wind raged throughout the room. She ignored calls of "Izumi, stop!" and kept her hands pressed firmly to the transmutation circle, when suddenly the golden light turned dark and hateful. Izumi felt the affects of this new reaction almost immediately. There was the feeling of someone repeatedly punching her in the stomach, and then it suddenly felt like everything inside of her was...well, outside.
She collapsed on the floor, clutching her stomach, but the transmutation circle no longer needed her guidance to continue. What looked like a hole in the floor opened up inside of the circle, revealing what appeared to be a large eye. Long creeping black tentacles slipped out of the circle, searching for something. Izumi was sure it was her.
She was not wrong. The long black creepers wrapped around her arms and legs, and suddenly Izumi was no longer in her house. The whole area was white, though for Izumi, there was no hope in ascertaining what or where the area was. It was just...there. All it did was exist.
And while she looked vainly around for any sign of where she might have appeared, there was none. She turned around, and was faced with a tall door. Izumi had no clue what kind of material the door seemed to be made of. It both matched and defied all characteristics of every type of stone she knew. She examined it carefully and still came no closer to figuring out what on earth the door was even for.
"Enjoying the view, miss alchemist?"
Izumi whipped around, only to have trouble finding the owner of the voice that had just spoken to her. A white Being, with close to no form. It held a wide grin on its face, though no emotion was expressed through it.
"Who are you?" Izumi was not proud to admit that her voice wavered, though only a little.
"Why, what an odd question! Oh, I am so glad you asked! I am Truth, I am God, I am the the world, I am the universe." A short pause, before the Being's hand lifted to point at her. "And...I am also you."
Izumi stammered. "W-what on earth is that supposed to mean?"
Instead of answering, the Being simply smirked and said "I suppose you would like to see what is on the other side of that door, am I right, miss alchemist?"
Izumi gaped, by now almost completely unsure of what was happening. The tall doors behind her began to open, the bottoms dragging loudly against the nonexistent floor. Izumi turned tail and tried to run toward the thing that called itself "Truth," but a long dark creeper shot out of the doors before it was even fully open and snagged her foot. It began to drag Izumi toward the darkness within the Gate.
"You must have known what you were getting yourself into, miss alchemist," the Being mused aloud. "Doesn't every alchemist who attempts to bring back the dead? Don't they all want to know the Truth about what lies beyond those doors?"
Izumi screamed as the creeper succeeded in its mission of dragging her into the darkness. Her fingernails left no marks on the ground that somehow allowed for the dragging noises the Gate made when opening. Or closing, as they were doing now.
And then
Everything
Her eyes
They burned
Oh hell
Was this hell?
It wasn't just her eyes that burned, it was her mind
She couldn't take what she was seeing, it was all so much.
So much, she barely had room for conscious thought. Both pain and relief beyond imagining filled her brain. Information she never could have imagined on her own filtered across her vision like Cinematic Records.
Cinematic Records?
What?
Where had that thought come from?
Ah, there. A tall red-headed man who was not a man. A non-man with a chainsaw.
The images were confusing.
A child. No, two. Both blond, though the smaller one had eyes and hair like the sun. Who were these beautiful children?
Why did she already love them?
Was it love?
Adrift upon the sea of time, the lonely god wanders from shore to distant shore, upholding the laws of the stars above.
The trickster, the riddler, the keeper of the balance, he of the many faces who finds life in death and who fears no evil; he who walks through doors.
Who was this man, more powerful than the angels?
Angel.
A tall man, wings like light shown on the wall behind him.
Do angels wear trenchcoats? Those were the cloakings of men.
Men.
Men the angel loved above all else. They embrace the angel, one as a brother the other as a lover.
Did angels love?
Angels
The love of angels
The voices of the angels
Four men and a woman stand on a stage in front of a raging crowd, with voices like the angels
Hallelujah
If Izumi believed in angels, that was. Though after her visions, she just might. Those five people, they sounded like angels.
Five?
No, three.
Not that five, another three.
The Pusher, the Prisoner, and the Lady of Shadows
Though to those names they no longer belong
The Drawing of the Three was already complete, the Dark Tower and Andre Linoge awaited the Three
(Andre Linoge?)
Randall Flagg, though Andre Linoge still.
(Linoge?)
Legion
I am Legion, for we are many
A clown, chasing a nameless soldier through the smoke of a burning city
The visions were too much they had to stop
Burning
That was all Izumi could understand was burning
(but)
But there was still something more, something just out of reach
The Truth
The answer to it all
If Izumi could reach it, she get all the answers she needed. The only one she needed was the one which would bring her child back to life
The creeper gripped her arms and legs again, and began pulling her back to the light. More visions came before her
A cat.
A talking cat. Bigger than most, intelligence and malignance glittered in dark eyes.
A tall, war-torn boy, no, a man now, with the glow of power all around him.
"There are many strange forces at work in Alagaësia, Shadeslayer. I have seen things that defy belief: whirlwinds of light spinning in caverns deep below the ground, men who age backward, stones that speak, and shadows that creep. Rooms bigger on the inside than the outside ... Galbatorix is not the only power in the world to be reckoned with, and he may not even be the strongest. Choose carefully, Shadeslayer, and if you choose to go, walk softly."
Words that made no sense.
Words no one listened to.
A tall, well built boy of only nine or ten facing another, with red hair and evil that littered the air around him.
War paint that looked like blood was smeared on the latter's face, and both stared down at the rocks below their cliff where another boy, fatter than the others, lay with his skull smashed open upon the rocks.
Oh God, they were only children.
Evil. The evil that lay within the hearts and souls of all human beings
the Lord of the Flies
It was he who said so
He who said
Said
East wind
Eurus, the god of the east wind
Sherlock, not a girl's name
Mycroft, never Mike
Redbeard, not a dog but a haunted, locked away child's memory
Child
Her child
Reaching, reaching, not quite able to reach
There was another child, the Ouroboros gleamed on his foot in the dark
He held possession of another child's arm.
But not her child. Another her's child
If she but reached a little farther, she could grasp the answers she needed
Reaching reaching reaching
Light. Izumi blinked, arms reaching out before her. The Doors slammed shut, and Izumi shuddered away from them. She wanted as far away as possible from these Gates. The information that lay within them was evil, things that should never be looked upon by human eyes.
The Truth cackled behind her, and Izumi spun on the spot once again.
"You are wiser than most other humans, miss alchemist. I have an appointment with another in few years who will not be quite so wise. At least, not for a time. Tell me, what did you think of your trip?"
"What was that?" Izumi asked, not even noticing the heavy tremble in her voice
"The universe. And not just ours, but many, many others. Glimpses of the Truth of all worlds."
"I hated it."
"I would think so. They're not exactly pleasant for someone who has no experience."
Izumi's voice was small. "Home. Can I go-"
"Not quite yet, miss alchemist. I still have to exact your toll. You know, the one for seeing the Truth."
Almost immediately, Izumi felt a pain in her stomach. Right about where period cramps usually exacted their vengeance. She collapsed onto her knees and put her hand over her mouth, feeling the blood forcing its way up her throat and out of her mouth. Onto her hand. That wasn't right, the blood belong inside the body, not out.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
"Now, miss alchemist, you may return to your home."
The white vanished, leaving instead the image of her husband bent over a still form on the floor. It was small and bundled up, but Izumi did not need to lift her head in order to figure out that the transmutation hadn't worked. She'd known since the moment the Truth had dragged her to the Void.
Her eyes went dark as she stared at the grieving image of her husband bent over child who had only known the shortest, most painful of existences.
And it was all because of her.
A/N: I'm not drunk, I swear to you.
I'm not high, either
I'm just very, very, very sleep-deprived.
Well, this is the last chapter! I said it was going to be four, and I was wrong! It was five! Well, kinda. This last chapter really had nothing at all to do with not sleeping. I FAILED MISERABLY
Well, now, I think it's about time I stopped procrastinating working on my Suicide Squad fic and started writing for that again.
Because I've been doing that for about a month and a half now, so BYE ;) See you in the next FMA fic, lovelies!
Also, all in all, these fics are 57 pages altogether. Just thought I'd tell you!