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.P h o b o p h o b i a.
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The irrational fear of having a fear.
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He never believed in God.
He had stopped believing in ten, and stopped being a Catholic at twelve, because that was when he knew God had failed him; or perhaps it was the other way around? He had said, on many occasions, that there was once a hero; a hero on wax wings who could fly like the gods; yet his arrogance allowed him to think he could fly close to the sun, which caused his wax wings to melt, and he plunged into the sea beneath him.
It could be told that way. Edward also preferred the version where the hero never made it to the sun at all; in fact, it was the clouds that stopped him. Water from the condensed vapor washed the wax away, and then the hero still plunged into the sea.
In the end, Edward thought cryptically, the hero didn't make it.
He did not believe in a divine being, he didn't depend on something unseen to fix his life and make him live it through doting on one thing that caused so much pain. If there was a God, why was there war? If there was God, why were people dying? Why was there bloodshed, hatred, why was there massacres and riots and genocide if God was there watching over us and making sure if we were safe? Why wasn't the people - the millions of people - that died given safety? Did God choose favorites?
Christians, Catholics, he believed they were all fools, idiots for thinking that there was someone up there that would help. That would actually care. Ha.
The bitter truth was something humanity couldn't take, Edward reasoned in the end, so they created something that would save them from their own images of horror and destruction; God was man made, as was heaven. Figments of a person's imagination, because there was no way something like that existed, that every saint would go there.
Humans were imperfect; they were constantly performing sins, they were constantly making mistakes.
And they always had to pay for it in the end; Equivalent Exchange. There was no God, because there was no divine being that would help him.
There was only the Truth, the cold, hard, bitter, Truth. It controlled everything; it took pleasure in the pain of people, it took pleasure of watching the lesser being squirm and shake and break apart. It laughed in the face of war and bloodshed, it glorified in catastrophe and chaos; it was wicked, it was evil, it was fair.
It was what made the universe work; it created life, destroyed life, it started the day and ended it, it made everything flow in a perfect circle, a never-ending heart beat and rhythm. For people to learn, they needed to make mistakes. For people to be humble, they needed despair. Everything was opposites, flowing together in an eternity of harmony.
He had stared into the depths of hell; he knew what awaited for the sinned, the damned, the saintly. It was all going to one destination, but what we do in the world fueled how much punishment we receive afterwards. He had gotten a taste, he had only seen barely the scrape of what was an endless dark hole.
The Truth was fear, it was despair and destiny, it was pain and hurt and resentment, it was hatred and anger and greed. It was what man feared the most, because they could not stand the fact that something as horrible as this was the only thing that waited for them, the only thing that would their ultimate demise.
Edward understood; one of the very few that did. He understand the cruelty of humans, he understood why the Homunculi despised him, he understood why the Truth was always creeping in his mind.
The Truth was his fear, the one thing that haunted him. He would see that wicked grin of a shapeless being in his dreams, the whiteness of something that would be your last taste of light. And then - then he remembered the Gate, the large, black, ornate doorway that led the path of insanity. He had walked albeit only one step, on the pavement that lasted a thousand miles. And he only wanted to stay on that one step; he wanted no more, no more, no more.
Yet he still had another path, carved out by another dark future. And on this one he took his steps slowly, each one more painful than the last. It was foggy, it was unclear and it was absolutely unreliable; it was fragile, like it could crack and fall at any minute.
It could disappear under his feet, but he was the man who stood on two feet when he had nothing to stand on and only one leg to do it on. Nothing was impossible for him, because for some weird reason, Truth had taken a liking to him. But he wouldn't fail the game he entered, he would go throughout until he got to his destination, he would. He would see through it all.
Even though he was in the place with no beginnings, no endings, no walls, no ceilings, no floors, no windows, no restrictions, no happiness, no uncertainty, and most importantly; no way out.
But it didn't stop him from moving forward, because it was all he could do.
Move forward.
Forward to the End Which Didn't Exist. To the Place of No Return. To the Doorway That Should Never Be Opened. To the Despair of All Men.
To hell.
Because that was what Edward Elric feared the most: fear itself.
Yet, he would never forget it, because it was something that never could be forgotten.
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Don't Forget.
3. Oct. 1911.
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Don't worry. We never will.
3. Oct. 2010.
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