*bulletin board*

I kind of messed up with the posting of the first two chapters, I hope now everything is ok.

Well, I didn't quite remember it but this story has relatively short chapters, at least if compared to my usual shameful long trend.

By the way…enjoy!

03Bitter Dancer

Day after day, I drown in some sort of distant vigil dream.

I force myself to act as if I am steady, willing, present to the others.

Every night, however, countless unknown faces emerge to taunt my nightmares: they look at me mirroring all of my wicked crimes and my mistakes.

I've been told (very carefully, they fear me, after all) that I cry in my sleep.

I pretended not to hear them but I know they're right.

It's getting really hard to stay lucid, sometimes I can't even tell the difference between incubus and reality, it's all mingled up in a freakish infernal jumble

I can't even remember the reason why I got stuck here, so I turn off my mind and I keep…killing.

There's a subtle hint of sadistic pleasure in the way I linger on the contempt for myself.

Oh, the great Flame Alchemist, now spiteful murderer…which is what I am, with no doubts.

The path is already chosen and I can't contain myself, the more I sin the more I need to punish myself.

Even If I wanted I couldn't stop, this lucid madness that leads me leaves no space to other choices.

My skin is marked and my flesh will burn in Hell's flames, someday, hopefully, just like all the lives I've mercilessly taken.

I lost all my honor and now I'm a dog, just like they wanted from the very start, a vulgar murderer, a grotesque human being who keeps shattering and destroying his integrity.

No one cares, not even myself.

Everything that I was no longer exists, it's piled under layers of anguish and distant blurred feelings.

I just have to breathe, that's what I have to focus on, right?

I'll keep walking, step after step, because as long as I hear pretended signs of life, I'll know I still exist.

:::::::::::::::

Hughes is quite the uncommon lad.

I can lightly perceive his glare on me, just like he could sense my panic.

He pierces through me and sometimes I even detach my eyes, pretending I'm too much for him.

He doesn't give in, though. His looks never falters, behind those silly spectacles, and occasionally he tries to talk.

No significant word, mind you, just superficial blurts about casual things.

But believe it or not, his phrases come down to me, like ropes, and force me to interact with him every day.

Hughes' face is always shamefully relaxed and sometimes too jovial for my tastes.

No wonder his name is well known among the soldiers, he never stops his blabbering about girls, love, life and pranks.

Even when the mess time is horrible and flavorless, he jumps like an acrobat from a companion to another, warming up their meal.

Sometimes a laugh or two can be even heard after his rambled jabbering.

The fact is, incoherently, that I don't know whether to be annoyed or amused by all his out-of-the-place cheerfulness.

The man is totally unpredictable. Incomprehensible, even.

Hughes is a professional, acute and extremely reliable in the most serious situations.

But it's hard to believe the idiot now praising the first-class cleavage of his infamous girlfriend is a reliable official and a thoughtful soldier.

I gulp down the sticky slop of my lunch, accompanying it with some questionable bread.

A bit distant from me, the guy keeps blithering about the over-said fiancé.

Far away from him – so the shitty gabby says – she's waiting impatiently to be his bride.

All around him, the others cheer him up and have a toast to the lovely Glacier.

I remain silent and chew mechanically the rest of my inconsistent meal.

Aromas and flavors have been dull for quite a while now, but this curiously relaxed mood tricked me for a moment to believe they were suddenly back.

Hughes is now done with his crappy declarations and dismisses his companions with ample grins and gestures, between whistles and applauses.

Then he sits casually at my side.

- How're you doing , Mustang ? –

I lift my icy look and stare at him.

Someone should remind him that I do not stick with him and his cheap cheerfulness.

- Like everyone else, I guess. - I answer back, feeling my words to be more sinister than I wanted.

Hughes sighs a bit too heavily and stand up, inviting me to follow him.

I'm not interested, really, but I'm not that rude to refuse, after all this man didn't do anything wrong.

At least up until now.

He walks for a bit in the sandy ground, waving occasionally to some people, and finally he sits around a makeshift fire.

I follow him while he discharges whoever is now there, suggesting to get back inside the tents and have some rest.

No one really resists to his kind expression, this is a simple truth.

Hughes grins again and begins to rustling on some kind of leather package.

He's rolling tobacco with unexpected dexterity, then he lights up a cigarette and offers me smoke.

I'm not really prepared for all this closeness.

- I've never smoked , not even in war. – I say, distant as ever.

- Well, sometimes only small pleasures can do the difference. Just try it. -

I take the cigarette, I take some swift puffs and then a dry cough shakes me .

Hughes smiles, again, in that irritant fashion the meaning of which I'm kind of trying to figure out.

- It was really true, you never did this! –

I throw at him my best silent scowl.

Do I look like a shit-telling lad?

He laughs.

Then hesitates and looks down.

- I've heard of ... Rockbells – he says, as if we are talking about the weather.

The stomach tightens at once and my awful meal threatens not to be digested anymore.

I'm frozen.

The memory of the Rockbells' pitiful expressions, their supplications – please, please, we have a little girl waiting for us at home – comes back to me in a single, sharp image.

I just did what I have been commanded by my superior .

It's just that…in front of that couple immersed in their own blood I wished I had a painful death as it never occurred to me before.

They were doctors, helping people and no matter which side they were on.

I killed them and now they are dead.

Once again ground has been stained with innocent blood and murderous intents have taken the last bit of my soul.

It's rotten, it's hideous, and this is so painfully true and real that I can't bear it in my mind anymore.

Hughes doesn't speak at all nor he answers me back when I realize I've been blurting all this immense, cosmic shit to him.

Unexpectedly, Hughes' eyes bear no contempt, even if I know they're watching my dirty murderous hands, all clad in pure white gloves.

There's no compassion or pity.

And I'm amazed.

- Surviving the horror of our own mistakes. That's what I call courage. -

There's no trace of the goofy jerk I always saw sewed on his face.

He's talking to me for the very first time.

- I know I'm not a powerful Alchemist but I've killed too – he says, almost softly, now grinning again – We're all in the same shit, I suppose.-

He's right , I'm not the only one here.

But still nobody talks about it, there's this secret rule, everyone keeps everything inside and pretends it didn't really happened.

Hughes reach out and carefully grips on my shoulder.

I observe his hand on me like some sort of curious fact, happening somehow to me while I didn't see it coming.

- I know what you've been through. And I know it sounds pretentious but…Don't sink Roy.-

I snort, a bit sarcastically.

- You still have lots of good thing you can do.- he says, sounding really concerned.

- This doesn't bring back the people I killed.- I say I automatically.

- Yeah, but it's the least you can do. -

- I do not seek redemption. -

He looks at me, transfixed .

- Then, please, don't look for damnation . There is still much you can do. -

He throws his cigarette into the fire and his smile comforts me.

So, that's the real thing he does to people, his kind of Alchemy.

I never witnessed such a powerful and honest offer of friendship.

I smash my face in my opened hands, crushing eyeballs with my fingertips.

When was, again, the last time I got actual sleep?

This is the remains of the famous, dreadful and weak Flame Alchemist.

Hughes is still near me, though, and looking at him again I'm willing to talk as much as he's willing to stay and listen.

I talk about my ambition and my vision of things.

Especially those that should change, those rotten cogs that have to be changed.

I'd like to be on the top of the highest military ranks, I'd like to be the one in charge, just to stop this massacre, just to redo things better.

- The army needs men like you, our country needs it . - Hughes reassures me with a fraternal face .

I discover with astonishment that this man's inner thoughts are surprisingly similar to mine.

And from that time around the bonfire, Maes keeps teaching me every day, just by his presence, that achieving my goal is a matter of sacrifice and clenched teeth.

But now I'm not alone in this, there someone I can call my friend and he never ceases to amaze me.

Maes Hughes doesn't deceive me anymore and now I've come to know the meaning of his façade.

It's about not to let things win over him, it's about having enough strength to go on.