Well, you wanted it, you got it. Here's the next installment of The Call of Atlantis. I have ideas for the next chapter as well, so I think that the next chapter will be out shortly. Yes, this chapter is a bit depressing too, but don't start thinking I've lost it, okay? I know some people read a little too deeply into people's stories, hehe.
Disclaimer: I am going to go and disclaim something, and once I'm finished disclaiming it, you may read the story...Wait...what was I disclaiming again? I think the last chapter had it, go back and read that one.
Edward refused to move, refused to talk, and refused to eat. He would just lie in the bottom of his tank all day, whether it was being transported or put in a place of rest for a time. Some of the men looking into his tank wondered whether he was dead. How could that kid get away with moving that little and still be alive?
The circus master knew otherwise. "No, he's just depressed. Not that I blame him, poor fella. You'd be able to tell if he was dead." He turned to look at one of his employees. "You ever seen one of these merfolks dead? They shrivel up on you, and they turn all gray. Not a speck of healthy color left on them."
Ralph's eyebrows went up slightly. "You've seen his kind around, boss?"
The circus master rolled his eyes. "The boy's trying to get to my country and you're asking me if I've seen them around. Of course I've seen them around. Just usually not alive and healthy like him. Their dead bodies get thrown up onto the beach all the time."
He then went and knocked on the side of Edward's tank. "Hey, kid, we're about to cross the border, so you just lay low and pretend to be a fish. We don't want no records of merfolks crossing the border. Amestris picks enough fights with its neighbors without this adding to it."
Edward covered his face with his hands. "What does it matter?"
The circus master shrugged. "Suit yourself. But try to be quiet." He then turned and walked back to his group and they packed up and got ready for transport.
Edward didn't pay much attention to what was going on around him. He knew that if the water in his tank was sloshing around, that he was being transported somewhere on a cart specially designed for that purpose. He sort of felt sorry for the people in charge of moving him. That much water had to be really heavy. He couldn't see their reactions though, because the boss had cleverly draped a cloth over the tank so that no one would see what was inside.
Aside from the occasional peek to see if he was alright, he saw nothing of the outside world, and he was lonely. He wanted Al to be here with him. He kept fingering the bracelet and the necklace over and over again. First Mom, then Al. And even the people who tried to help him kept dying, like Hughes and Sylvia. Why was everyone around him always dying? And why was he the last one left? Why couldn't he have been the first to go instead of the last?
Eventually, the cart stopped moving, and the cloth was removed from the tank so that he could see out of it. "Well, son, you successfully made it beyond the border. Congratulations." The circus master sounded like he wasn't particularly jovial about his managing to cross the border. Ed didn't know why. Perhaps he just didn't want to lose such an interesting freak as himself.
"Now I want you to tell me what you want to do, kid. Do you want to stay with us for a while, or do you want to be dropped off in the nearest river?"
Ed wrapped his arms around his tail as though they were still legs and propped his chin on it. "I don't know anymore."
"Didn't you have an ambition of getting to the ocean or something?"
Ed shrugged. "That was when Al was still alive."
"You're surely not going to just abort the mission because of that?"
Ed hung his head. "It feels as though all the color has been drained out of my life. I have nothing to live for anymore."
The circus master stroked his beard and thought. "I don't think we ought to leave you alone quite yet if you's talking like that. We'll keep you for a few more days and see how you's feeling then." Ed just shrugged again. Nothing could make him care about anything anymore. He wanted to be with Al, and if Al was dead, he wanted to be dead as well, though he wasn't sure if humans and merpeople had the same kind of afterlife experience. Maybe Al would come back as a ghost, as Sylvia had. Maybe that was the only way to be with Al from now on.
Edward blinked his eyes repeatedly to try and stop the pesky tears that were making his eyes itch, but they wouldn't stop. He was in water, so no one would notice the extra salt water, but tears have a way of getting control of your whole body, and before long, Edward was bawling.
Winry was crying and didn't quite know why, but she hadn't understood any of these strange emotions since this whole ordeal with the brothers came up. Roy patted her on the shoulder and said that it was okay to cry and to stay strong, but she didn't feel strong right then. She felt helpless. The boys were out there somewhere and she couldn't do anything for them.
She stood on the platform as Roy brought up their baggage and set it down beside her. They were in Sansefeld. That was as far as this train went. It wasn't far from the border, but they would have to secure some other kind of transportation from here on out, and then there would be the process of actually getting across the border without letting the military get their noses into it, and…
"Here's your passport," said Roy, and he handed a leather bound wallet to her. Well, it looked like a wallet in her opinion. She had never actually seen a passport firsthand. Nobody traveled east or came from the east past Reisenburgh. Too much desert area.
She opened it up and was surprised to find her picture in there, alongside a description of who she was. The name was wrong. How could Roy of all people get her name wrong?
"Why is my name listed as Angelica Larkins?"
"It's a little bit safer than crossing the border as Winry Rockbell, don't you think?"
Of course, that made sense. Why hadn't she thought of that? Maybe it was a good thing that Roy had made this trip with her, otherwise she would have been caught as soon as she had tried to cross the border, if she even made it to the border, that is.
"Um, one more question, Roy, sir, why does it say I'm married?"
Roy chuckled. Winry wasn't sure if she liked that chuckle or not. "Because a traveling couple looks a lot more believable and a lot less like Winry Rockbell than a single girl trying to cross the border alone."
"Huh, okay." She turned to look back at her passport. Her first form of identification and it has to be a false ID. How strange. Her life was just one big mess of strangeness.
"So who's my husband supposed to---" She looked up at Roy's smirking face and snapped the passport shut. Of course, who else would it be? "I get it. You're the mysterious Mr. Larkins, aren't you?"
"Justin Larkins at that."
Winry snorted. "Doesn't sound as interesting as my new name."
"Hey, I've got a good friend by the name of Justin!"
Winry stuck her tongue out at Roy and then grabbed her bag and started walking off the platform. "I should warn you, I brought my trusty wrench with me, and I'm equipped with full knowledge of how to use it, so no funny business." She saw Roy wince, and she chuckled to herself as she tried to figure out just which form of punishment he'd imagined her inflicting upon him.
Roy grabbed his bag as well and the two walked together until they were able to find someone with a horse and carriage to take them to the border. According to Roy, going by way of horse was less suspicious than going by way of car. One needed a lot of money to rent a car, and there weren't many of them this far west. Anyone renting a car would be noticed for sure.
They loaded up into the carriage and rode the bumpy ride to the border. Winry was so nervous that she remained completely silent for the whole trip. Roy simply dismissed her as "shy" to the driver and kept up the conversation himself. How could he act so comfortable in a situation where you were lying about who you were? What if something were to happen? What if they got found out?
She soon realized that in matters of this sort, she should just shut up and trust Roy, because the border patrol didn't even remotely suspect anything of them, not even with Winry's "shyness". Roy was such a good talker that he could convince anyone of anything. No wonder he had advanced so many ranks while still so young. He had talent. Scary, but helpful, talent.
Finally on the other side at a safe distance from the border to drop her guard, she put down her bag, threw out her arms, and said, "Now what?"
Roy scratched his head. "Well, I hadn't thought that far ahead."
Winry growled and shook her hands, then grabbed her bag and started marching off angrily in a random direction. Men. Why do their brains shut off at the times you need them the most?
Edward had paid close attention to his feelings whenever he would start to get dehydrated, even back when he was sick in bed in Reisenburgh. He came to the conclusion that if the sky was clear, and the sun was high in the sky, and warm enough to give someone a sunburn, then about five hours of lying in those conditions would likely kill him. Though Al would kill him faster if he was here and knew his older brother had been thinking such thoughts.
What was the point though, honestly? Why should he continue trying to live when everyone he cared about was gone? He had never planned to live the rest of his life alone. So why was he suddenly expected to now? There seemed to be no reason to persist through the pain.
He waited and watched and waited again, trying to determine everyone else's movements. They had changed their behaviors a little bit since crossing the border, so he had to relearn, but it wasn't all that difficult to decipher a pattern. They always retreated around noon. He supposed it was because of how intense the sun got around here in the middle of the day. It never hurt him since he was in a tank full of water, but the sunlight really flooded through the tank during that part of the day and made the water almost appear colorless when otherwise it looked blue. If he was going to do it, then that was the time to do so.
As soon as noon was near and the other staff retreated for the day, Edward launched himself up to the top of the tank and threw himself over the side so that he came crashing down into the dirt. That hadn't felt very good, but he wasn't striving to end his physical pain. If he could deal with having auto-mail for years, he could deal with a little physical pain now.
Mental and emotional pain though, he had no idea how to deal with that, or if it was even possible. It hurt too much to think about it. Being awake was a constant nightmare, and he couldn't find any escape in his sleep because the visions of Al kept him awake. Even if he did eventually get to sleep, he would still relive that night over and over in his dreams. He just wanted the pain to end. He needed it to, and he couldn't think of any other way to deal with it than…
"Hey, what are you doing out of your tank?" The circus manager came waltzing up to the area where Ed was trying to dehydrate himself to death and grabbed one of Ed's arms when Ed tried to cover his face and block the view of the man. Ed refused to respond though, even if the man wouldn't let go of his arm.
"Staying out of the water for too long is dangerous for you folks." He gave a shake to Ed's arm, probably to see if Ed was paying attention. "You know that don't you?"
Ed shrugged, and this angered the man so that he stomped and spat. "Son, you's not killing yourself while you's in our group, you hear? I'm sorry that your brother is gone, but you's got to go on living. Your brother would want that."
Edward seethed internally. How would that man know what Al would want? He had barely known Al and had pissed him off enough to make him leave the circus long enough to get killed. He knew that everyone else would say that Al would want him to keep living, but they were all alive. How would they know what a dead person thinks about another person becoming dead and reuniting with them?
It seemed the man grew tired of waiting for Edward to respond, because he bent down, threw Ed up onto his shoulder, and then plopped him back in his tank. The man started walking away, but he turned around and pointed at Edward as he said, "We're gonna be watching you a lot closer from now on, you hear? Don't you try any funny business. I'll send someone out to keep an eye on you in a few minutes."
Now Edward was furious. It was his body, his life, he should have the right to choose whether to live or to die. And yet they were trying to force him into a role he couldn't fit into, one of just giving up on everything he had ever cared about and somehow finding a life in the emptiness that was left.
Why did it matter to them whether he lived or died, anyway? Was it just because he was a valuable little freak in the guy's freak show that would bring in lots of profit? The guy could just kill him, dry him out, and pin him to a board and get everyone to pay to view him that way. That would attract about as much money as the living thing. He'd seen a lot of hoaxes structured that way in Amestris that raked in so much cash.
He closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths to try and calm down. Getting worked up over this wasn't going to get him through it. He used to always sing a little tune that would calm him down. He thought he could remember Al noticing him singing it back before that fateful birthday when everything changed. It was worth an attempt at feeling better at least, so he hummed a few bars of the song.
Then he noticed something strange. The clamshell necklace he'd taken from Al had started vibrating, and some sort of switch went off in his brain that told him why. He wasn't sure if the necklace had somehow given him the knowledge, if Al had told him and he'd forgotten, or if it was just a mer thing, but he definitely knew what had trigged the reaction and what the reaction meant.
Edward's eyes widened with wonder as he cradled the necklace in his hands. "Someone else with mer blood is nearby..." He felt a little self conscious talking to himself, and he quickly glanced around to see if anybody was watching, but he shrugged and decided it wasn't important if they thought he was crazy. They probably already did think he was and were busy discussing how to deal with his insanity.
"Is it Al, or… no, it can't be Al, can it? I saw Al's body back there, unless he somehow came back from the dead." Ed shivered at that thought. As much as he loved Al, he really didn't want to see his little brother as a zombie, even if he liked zombies otherwise. They gave one a good excuse to make brain jokes.
"But if it's not Al, then who could it be?" He swam up to the top of his tank, grabbed a hold of the side and scanned the surrounding area, but couldn't see a trace of anybody who could possibly be mer. He sank down to the bottom again and picked up the little clamshell necklace. Its vibration was slowing down. Probably because he had stopped singing, not like continuing to sing would make the necklace tell him anything else. It could only give a rough representation of where the person was, not their exact location. Somehow he knew this, even though he had never been instructed in mer technology.
Looking up once again, he saw a faint silhouette off in the distance that seemed to be coming toward the circus, then stopping and standing for a while, and then turning and going a different direction. How he wished he'd had legs right then so he could run and catch that person and ask them lots of questions. That mysterious silhouette was probably exactly the person the necklace was trying to inform him of. There had to be a way to get them to come here.
Like I said, peeps, don't assume that I've lost it just because I'm doing a little catharsis in this story. I'm taking meds, I'm not going to kill myself, so relax. Those of you who weren't concerned with that, just go on being blissfully ignorant as before, hehe.
Anyway, the next chapter should be up soon, and it'll probably start being a little less angsty from there. We shall see. Thanks for reading, and come back soon!