A/N: This one is more of a chapter to build suspense up and let you all know a bit more about what is going on with Edward. It's also probably my worst one yet. Next chapter though, you get to find out what happens with Ed!

Blackness. Complete and total blackness. There was no noise, no scents, no sounds. It was just black. A thick suffocating black that seemed to reach out and wrap itself around Edward's throat, grabbing and squeezing and holding, and it wasn't letting go.

But it wasn't the darkness that scared Edward. No. He was used to that by now; used to the darkness and the choking and the complete and utter blankness that ate away at his sanity. Hours had been spent trapped in the surreal realm that he found himself in now, just staring at the never ending nothing.

It just didn't bother him anymore. Nothing the he was shown there was something that he hadn't seen hundreds of thousands of times already and while it still gave him nightmares, while he still woke up in a cold sweat from them, they were just that. Things from the past that would forever haunt him. This time seemed different though. There was just something about the way the air, non-existant as it was, swirled around him this time. It was thicker and filled with a menacing intent.

And then a soft, white glow appeared in the distanse and Edward felt every muscle in his body tense. He knew that glow. He knew it and it, more than anything else, scared him. Terrified him, really. The soft, innocent, white glow made the hairs stand up along the back of his neck and the top of his arms.

He was here.

Edward took a deep breath, a sharp intake of air, and took a step back into the darkness. The light stayed where it was and he was sharply reminded that if He wanted to speak with Edward, then Edward wouldn't be going any where. It wasn't like there was anywhere for him to go anyway. The darkness would swallow him and never let him go if he strayed any further into His Space. The fact that the whole space was once Edward's mind didn't matter.

"What do you want?" Edward spat out at the glowing form, almost the shape of a human now.

"Want? Mr. Al-che-mist, you should know what I want from you." A low clicking noise emanated from the glow then, like a mother 'tsking' her child.

And, true to what He was saying, Edward did know what he was there for. A new round for the game that he had been bound to play; by body, mind, and soul. Bound by the contract that he had signed with his own blood; the very blood that currantly kept Alphonse's soul trapped in the suit of armor that served as his body. But he wasn't usually drug into this...this place just because He wanted to rub it in.

"Alright, so then tell me why I'm here!" Edward barked. He didn't want to play The Game right then, not that he ever did, he wanted to get back out in that cave and make sure Mustang was alright!

"Oh, but he isn't Mr. Al-che-mist. The game's getting more in-ter-est-ing! I just wanted to remind you of the ru~les!" The voice was practically singing; high-pitched and low at the same time. Thousands of voices all swimming together, hundreds of sounds blending, just to form the voice that came out of the glowing shape and echoed through-out the nothingness.

But Edward didn't want to hear the rules. He didn't want to be reminded of why Mustang was being cru-no, no he was fine. He wouldn't die while Edward was caught up in a talk with Him. The older man was being drug in as a pawn, a useless tool, to try and stop Edward.

"I don't need to be reminded of anything." He snapped at the voice. But the voice just laughed at him, that seem child-like laugh that always filled his mind.

"Oh, but Mr. Al-che-mist, I think you do need a refresher course! You just have to remember that when you bra~ake, you have to come back to me~e!" The only way to describe the voice then was that, yes, it was singing. But then it dropped down to a low voice that sent chills down Edward's spine and his stomache churn. "And trust me, Mr. Al-che-mist, you can't last much longer."

And then the light was gone and there was that awful, ridiculing laugh. Echoing around him, pulling him bodily deeper into the black, and it was all that Edward could do to even try to struggle and get away. But it was no use and he knew that it wasn't any use.

Slowly, the darkness in front of him started to change. Colors were added to the black, creating an awful swirling mass, and pictures started to form.

A younger him, missing a leg and screaming at some un-seeable force.

A writhing mass of blood and bones and organs; one hand outstretched and reaching towards him, begging him to fix her.

A splattered mess of blood on an alley wall where the rain was doing its best to wash it all away.

A city in the desert laying in ruins; blood coating everything there.

A woman, strong and brave, crouched on the ground; holding her stomache and coughing up scarlet.

Edward could feel the terror coursing through his veins, pulsing and causing his breath to get stuck in his throat, even though he had been witness to the visions plenty of times before. They still made his blood run cold and his mind go blank. And then there was a sight that he'd never seen before.

The colors swirled once more, flashing to a darker scene were all that Edward saw was red. That awful crimson liqued was everywhere; splattered on the stone walls, the stone floors, the rocks and wooden poles that littered the scene. Not even the cieling had escaped the mural of blood. And then something in the middle of all the rubble, of all the red, moved. A dark shape that, with a jolt, he realized was human.

A wet gasping noise filled the air, the only sound that he'd heard the since He left, and the picture in front of him shifted. Literally, the room he was looking into moved so that he could see the black shape in the middle of the room. And when it did, he felt the sour taste of bile rise in the back of his throat.

Red on his hair, on his face, on his body, everywhere! And Mustang wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing but he was still making that God-awful gasping noise.

"No!" Edward's shout came out as a whisper, eyes wide and breath virtually gone, as he tried to step away from the thing in front of him. "No! Not it's not real! This hasn't happened! You're just making it up!"

And the laughter grew louder. Louder and filled with more scorn. "Not yet, Mr. Al-che-mist, not yet it hasn't! But this round's just starting and there's so much that could happen. So much that will happen."

And then the pictures, the images, started over again. They flicked through themselves faster, new ones being added and old ones being taken away but that one image, the one with so much red, was what it always ended with. And Edward could only think of one thing.

It was his fault. All his fault. -

He killed them.