Chapter 2: Curious People
°•_•°
Ed raised an eyebrow at Toni. She had to be crazy. She talked crazy, had a weird accent and her clothes looked crazy. What was craziest was the fact she didn't seem to care that a boy was there, she was just going to pull her clothes around.
He glanced at the broken table and sighed. "I'm going to have to fix it, aren't I?" he asked no one. Ed clapped his hands and hit the pieces. They morphed themselves back into a table.
Al had gone out to say hi to Winry, who was in the room down the hall. Ed began to think about how he would explain Toni's being in the room. He wasn't going to kick her out while she was asleep and hurt. He wasn't that heartless. He would have Mustang do something about her in the morning.
One thing had interested him; the fact that she had dropped in from who knows where. He would have to ask her when she woke up.
Ed looked at a clock and sighed. It was close midnight. It was too late to bother with anything more.
^•-•^
The nightmares came back. I never saw anything. It was more or less just feelings, emotional and physical.
I felt freezing cold and burning hot. I felt unbearable sadness. It felt as if I was trapped somewhere, like I was stuck in a box. I felt loneliness. When all of it ended, a voice would say "Never again," yet another thing I wouldn't understand. The nightmare would fade to black and I would fall into a dreamless sleep.
I woke up the next morning utterly confused. I wasn't in my room at the home. Miranda, another girl at the home, wasn't banging on the doors to wake everyone up. I wasn't getting up to throw a pillow at her. It was weird.
I sat up on the couch and glanced around. I saw a suit of armor I hadn't seen before sitting in a corner of the room. Ed was asleep on one of the beds. I smiled to myself, thinking about how peaceful he seemed.
I moved my legs off the couch and stood up. I yawned pretty loudly and stretched my arms.
"Good morning," I heard a high pitched voice say.
My body went stiff and I slowly turned my head toward the armor. "Uh, is there a person in there?"
The head moved and I squeaked. He got up and I ended craning my neck to look him in the eyes. "Yeah, my name is Alphonse Elric. I'm Ed's brother."
"Oh okay," I said. I decided to ignore the fact he was wearing armor. The city was filled with freaks and odd balls. I gained plenty of stares after I got my pixie cut, so I knew how it felt. "I'm Toni, and I never got a last name." I held my hand out to him. It was a thing I did and I doubted too many kids my age would bother shaking hands.
I was surprised when Alphy shook my hand like it was perfectly normal. I pulled it away and smiled to myself.
My stomach growled and I huffed. I hadn't eaten in a day. I forgot to do my chores, so the caretaker took my food privileges away for a while. 'Need food,' I thought to myself. I glanced around but I didn't see a kitchen of any kind.
I heard a creaking noise and my head turned toward the sound. It was Ed. He was beginning to wake up and I was feeling evil.
I stepped over to his bed and crouched down so he wouldn't be able to see me. I slowly brought my head up so that my eyes were just above the mattress.
"Um Toni..." Alphy started.
I shushed him and looked back to Ed.
He was half awake. I could tell by the sound of his breathing. When his eyes started to open I ducked down. I heard a yawn and the mattress creaked. He was sitting up by now and I smiled.
"Uh..." Alphy said.
"Hm?" Ed grunted.
This was my chance.
I shot up off the ground and surprised him. "BOO!" I shouted in his face. He screamed and fell to the other side of the bed. He made a loud thump when he hit the ground.
I burst into laughter and hugged my chest. "Hahahahaha! That was too easy!" I continued laughing.
Ed came around to my side of the bed and glared down at me. He was pissed. Anyone could tell. His expression was priceless.
My laughter died down but I kept on smiling.
"Why?" he asked. He kept glaring. I hadn't noticed his arm or leg yet. I was too busy looking at his face. His hair wasn't up anymore and Ed looked a bit like a girl.
"Obviously, because I could. It's that simple," I said. I got off the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. I now saw that his arm and leg were made of metal.
"Whoa!" I exclaimed. I grabbed his hand in fascination. "What the fudge is this thing? Last I heard technology like this thing is at least another few years away!"
Ed looked at me odd. "Huh? Have you never seen auto mail before?"
I gave him a question mark face. "Auto what? I've never even heard of it before."
He continued to look at me while my nerd side kicked in. I pulled on his arm and rubbed my fingers over his hand. I poked around at it, wanting to rip it apart and figure out what kind of micro-chips powered this thing. It had gaps so he couldn't be able to get it wet.
"Can I take it apart?" I asked as I bent down to look at his leg.
He backed up and looked at me like I was asking to cut his head off. "No! Why the hell would you want to do that?"
"I'll put it back together! I promise! I've taken apart a computer and put it back together." I pleaded with puppy dog eyes.
"What's a computer?" he asked, completely serious.
I gave him a question mark face again. "Seriously? What year are you living in?"
"1914," he said, again completely serious. (A/N: that is right, yes?)
My jaw fell open. "What do you mean? Last I looked at my calendar it was 2012."
"2012? Are you insane?" Ed went to the coffee table and picked up a newspaper.
I grabbed it from him and read the date. 1914.
The newspaper slipped from my hands, my fingers losing the ability to grip.
"How?" I whispered. "How is it possible?"
A numb feeling spread throughout my body. I turned my head back at Ed. He looked somewhat concerned.
"What state am I in?" I asked. "This doesn't look anything like New York to me. Hell, I doubt I'm even in America anymore." I only assumed I was in the country because we were speaking the same language.
"Well I've never heard of a place called America. This is Amestris."
The numb feeling reached my throat and I couldn't make words come out. I swallowed and it helped. "Great. I've been shipped out of the only home I've ever known and I'm stuck here, wherever here is."
I put my face in my hands and breathed deeply. How was it possible? Just a few moments ago I was having fun. Now I realized I may never be able to get home.
Miranda, Jay, Kelly, and even Cara. I'll never see them again. I'll never see Jonah again either, and I could forget about school.
My breaths got shaky. I looked up at them. I couldn't tell if they thought I was insane or if they were actually caring.
I ignored their presence for a few moments and grabbed the pillow behind me. I wrapped my arms around it and buried my face into the soft fluffiness. I cried. It had been a while since I had really cried. It was a while back when I first started high school. There was this bully who was a senior and she picked on me constantly. I came home crying one day.
The next time I saw her I punched her and broke her nose. I got suspended for a while, but it was worth it.
This was entirely different though. I was officially trapped and there was nowhere else for me to go.
°•_•°
Ed watched as Toni cried into his pillow, her body shaking with every breath.
He didn't know what to do. If she was telling the truth, then she really was from a different year and place. America. It sounded like Amestris, but then she said New York. Ed had never heard of a place like that.
"Uh, Toni," Ed said. Toni looked up at him. Her face had turned pink from crying.
"Yeah?" she asked, still hugging the pillow.
"Where did you say you were from?"
She sniffed before answering. "It's not like it'll help but New York City, New York. As I mentioned it's in America. New York is one of its fifty states. I've lived there all my life but I don't have a New York accent. My friends make fun of me for it." She was smiling now.
Ed was even more confused. Toni had all these facts that made it her story seem true. Even if she was crazy, she really believed everything.
^•-•^
'I've gone insane. That's the only way I can explain all of this. I tripped in that building, hit my head and now here I am, hallucinating.'
I heard Alphy's helmet creek and I looked up at him.
"Toni. What do you remember before you came here?" he asked.
I moved the pillow to the side and looked back at him. "I was in this creepy old building. There was this one room and on the floor was a red glowing circle. There were weird designs inside the circle and this creepy voice told me to move into the circle. It felt like I was in a vacuum, I could barely breathe. Everything went black and the same voice said, 'Have fun on the other side of the gate.'" I stopped and looked at them. "Do either of you have any idea what that could mean?"
Ed's body seemed to go stiff.
"What?" I asked him.
"Do you remember seeing anything after he said that?" he asked in a demanding tone.
Alphy's head turned toward his brother.
"No, nothing," I said, frazzled by his reaction.
He sighed. "Damn," he said under his breath.
"Why did you ask?" I questioned.
They froze. Ed gave me a fake smile and said, "Oh no reason."
I narrowed my eyes at them but went on with the story. "After the voice told me that, all I saw was darkness and then I came crashing. I fell on the coffee table over there and cut myself." I pointed at the coffee table pieces that were on the floor. My jaw dropped when I saw a coffee table instead of broken wood bits.
"How is it fixed?" I exclaimed. "I know I broke that thing! I have the cut to prove it!" I pulled up my shirt and showed them the still exposed gash in my side. If I made a wrong move it would open up again and the pain would be worse.
I laughed mentally at the sight of Ed and Alphy's faces, or at least Ed's. His face flushed.
I pulled my shirt down and stared at the table. "How did you do it?" I asked.
"It's alchemy," Ed said simply, the flush still on his face.
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Hm? I thought alchemy was just chemistry with a fancy name."
"Chemistry is a part of it, but it's more than that," Alphy explained. "Alchemy is also the process of deconstructing and reconstructing. You need to understand the laws to preform it."
My head could have been a question mark by the time he's said all of this. "Sorry Alphy, but I'm entirely confused."
He was confused at the name Alphy, but shook it off and continued. "Okay. How about I show you?"
He pulled out a piece of chalk and drew a circle on the ground. He then drew lines inside the circle. It reminded me of the creepy room.
He crouched down and touched his hands to the edges of the circle. A blue light began to shine. My eyes grew wide as the wood floor shifted shapes and a stopped when it formed a cat.
"That is so cool! I've never heard of alchemy being used like this!" I jumped off of the bed and grabbed the little wooden cat. It was so cute! I stuck my face next to his helmet and exclaimed, "Can you guys teach me?" I looked over at Ed. He still looked like a girl.
"Um. Maybe, but we have other things to do," he said.
I frowned. "Like what? Unless you have schoolwork you guys are both just teens like me, right?"
Ed sighed. "It's complicated but I guess we'll have to explain."