Al's POV

I wish I could've dreamt.

I wish I could fallen asleep alongside the rest of my cabin mates into the sweet release of sleep. I wish I could've had the night go by in just several minutes instead of several hours. I wish I never overthought anything. I wish I could've dreamt.

I wish I could've dreamt; to fall back into the past. The past when all was right, when we were happy and she was still here with me. I wish I could undo the wrongs I'd caused upon myself and turn back time for the better. I wish I hadn't been given a constant reminder, a constant curse for my mistakes. I wish I could've dreamt.

Instead I was left with a hard and hollow body. A body that could no longer feel the cold ground beneath it or the soft breeze flowing throughout the room. A body that couldn't even feel the beat of its own heart or the sting of pain or the need for fresh oxygen. A body that was stolen of all its sensations, of all its pleasures, all the little things that it didn't even know could be taken for granted. A body that was hollow and harsh, nothing short of death.

But I wasn't dead. And I wasn't alive either, depending on your definition of 'living.' Which, according to mine, I wasn't. For every day filled with fun and happiness and hope, there was a night, infinitely longer, filled to the brim with loneliness, misery and longing.

It felt like torture. To stay like that, like something that should be classified as lifeless, was worse than any pain I'd ever felt. It wasn't fair. All I'd wanted was to have her back, to see her smile just one more time...

And it was thinking like that that gave me this body. It was thinking that I could change the unchangeable, that I could achieve the impossible that had knocked me down a peg. And I deserved it, too. I was being arrogant to try and challenge fate. To challenge the gods. Yet, I still found myself thinking that it wasn't fair.

So inevitably, I had two sides of myself arguing inside of me on whether it was wrong or not for me to attempt what I did. They would fight constantly, every time the lights went out and everyone else fell asleep. They made me feel guilty and anxious, depressed and angry. I was tired of them fighting each other. I was tired of regret. I was tired of having no clear answer. Was I wrong? Was it justified? Could I have done something different? I wanted all this confusion building up inside of me to stop so badly. I wish I could've slept. I wished, I yearned, I thirsted for just one night that would've let me dream.

"Dude, Al, what are you doing?" A hushed voice interrupted my muse.

I scanned my eyes across the cabin, trying to identify the distraction.

"Why are you up so late?" I looked to the top bunk on a bed to my immediate left, craning my neck to get a better look at Ling.

"You...You're up too, you know."

"I always wake up at this time."

I paused, considering his reply. "What? Why? It's like...2:30 in the morning..."

"Oh...yeah..." He so cleverly answered. "It's cause... You know what? Doesn't matter. Go to sleep and just...pretend this never happened or something. I don't care."

I paused.

"U-Um, okay then..."

I tried to act casual (well, as casual as you can when someone tells you to 'go to sleep and pretend this never happened') as I slipped under the sheets and closed my eyes, half expecting my brain to shut down and allow me to go to sleep. But of course, as I should've known, I stayed awake as I heard Ling sneak around the cabin doing god knows what to our cabin mates, not once ever opening my eyes.

Ed's POV

I wish I couldn't dream.

I wish I had sleepless nights; waiting for the sun to come up would be much more quicker than having to replay all of my deepest memories, my dirtiest secrets, over and over again unwillingly. I wish I could stay awake and alert, not having to trudge endlessly through the rubble and debris of the broken barriers in my mind. I wish I could stay away from my past, let it stay where it should be and never remember her face again. I wish I wasn't given a constant reminder, a constant curse for my mistakes. I wish I couldn't dream.

Instead I'm thrown into a world that I have no control over, no hope of ever knowing what I'm going to witness. I do see flashes that I have more or less grown accustomed to: a distant figure turning away from me, leaving to never look back on what she left behind; a man, showing me the same hostility as his wife so as to not waver his concentration as he works his life force away.

And now another nightmare has surfaced, another bad dream has been birthed to add to the overflowing collection: a monster, a hideous beast, a disgusting and unforgiving creature looking up at me through eyes I once trusted, talking to me in an innocent and sweet voice, "Big Brother?"

I scratch them away. I claw, bite, and struggle with all the strength I can muster to ignore what my eyes force me to watch. In the end I know that no matter how hard I fight, no matter how strong the walls I build are, these memories and the feelings that inhabit them will fight back infinitely harder, they will make sure that they will never stay repressed, that they never stay away in the back of my mind.

And once again, the scene changes. I find myself looking down on a beautiful green valley, even grander than Camp Half-Blood. Hills roll over and over though the vast plain, the gorgeous sight only ever interrupted by the occasional building.

I turn behind me, only to realise that I'm standing at the door of a two story house towering over me. I don't know why I decide to, but I reach out towards the rusty golden doorknob. As soon as I turn it, the wooden green door in front of me lurches open and I'm yanked into the house and hurled through the structure until I'm tossed into the darkest room and the end of the house. And suddenly, as I open my eyes, I'm in someone else's body.

I can't tell what's happening. At first, everything is a vibrant, electric blue. Then the room turns a deep shade of purple, before being completely turned on its arse and changing to pure, blinding white. For a second I feel dizzy as everything turns pixelated yet clear all at once, and then in less than a split second I can't feel anything at all. Everything is black. I look around, not sure whether this will continue to make absolutely no sense whatsoever or if it will change into a different but familiar nightmare. My question is answered as the room bursts into flame.

I run around, realising I'm back in my own body.

But no, that can't be right, I reason with myself, I'm running.

Yet, I know that I am. I dash around the burning room as it turns to ash and dust around me, trying to find an exit. A beam falls, sending sparks up in the air and a deafening crunch to the ground. The room is falling down around me. Scratch that, the whole house is coming down. I continue to search for an exit as it seems my whole world is going up in flames.

And then, I stop. I stop to stare at the flames. I stop to look around me. I stop, staring at a little boy lying on the ground, his eyes closed and his body curled in a ball.

The fire isn't bothering him. The fire is bothering his clothes, though. The last piece of fabric that covered and protected his skin turns to smouldering ash. The fire, now having stolen the barrier between it and him, advances. The flames licked his skin, yet he did not burn. His hands hugged the fire, but it slithered out of his reach. A boy, with his golden hair matching the flames, lying in the fire without once ever opening his eyes.

I hear a whisper in the air, turning my blood to ice despite the fire engulfing my surroundings.

You sought out for life. You were so desperate to even defy me.

I turn around wildly, eyes manically searching for the owner of the voice.

In your foolishness, you were blinded. Blinded from reality. Blinded from the truth. From me. Life only flows in one direction. To break the flow is sin. And in accordance for sin...comes punishment.

A chill runs down my spine as I figure that the voice is not talking to me, yet the kid on the floor.

And as for your punishment... You were arrogant; prideful. And for that, you will be rewarded with despair; humility.

Rewarded?

You will be given...a reminder. You were greedy for life, for comfort and affection. And now, in your arrogance, you will be given a body that is unable to feel the warmth that you so desperately missed.

Only now does the kid rise. Only now does he open his grass green eyes. And only now do I recognise his face, only now do I realise...

"Get UP!"

I spring up in my bed so quickly that I hit my forehead on the bunk above mine.

"Ow.." I massage the soon-to-be bruise as I sink back into my mattress.

"You're making us late. Hurry up and get ready." Even without looking, I know that it's Lan Fan nagging me.

For some reason we don't really...enjoy each other's presence. It's definitely something to do with the fact that we're both hot headed and stubborn; I'm willing to admit that I am. But if I can say one thing about our relationship, it's that she started it. I mean, she didn't start the relationship; she started the mutual disliking of one another. And Hell will freeze over before someone hates me and I don't hate them back.

I slowly but steadily climb out of my bed and into the wheelchair beside it, glad that I don't have to change; I didn't have pyjamas anyway. As I perform a messy job of making my bed, my mind is cluttered with thoughts of my dream: what had Alphonse done? Was it just a weird dream? If not, what happened? And what was that voice?

The inspector comes and leaves quicker than for me to start caring about them. I try to push thoughts of Alphonse to the back of my mind and attempt to focus on what's happening today. Chiron decided yesterday before dinner that this decision and action was best for me, and a new opportunity for the camp to finally take a step forward (though I know that he meant to say "This has never happened before and you're an experiment."). I have to admit, I'm really excited and overwhelmed that this could actually happen, and that it was about to. Unfortunately, Al plagued my mind.

It was just a stupid dream, I chide myself, it doesn't mean a thing.

My dreams have been right before... I rebut.

I want to hit myself on the head for thinking about that. I want to strangle that part of me that keeps bringing it up and won't let me forget about what I did wrong.

Stay positive, you dick, I tell myself. And don't think about that. Today is gonna be awesome.

Winry's POV

"How long would it take?"

The question rings in my ears as I ponder the question. Considering the blueprints, materials, assembly, surgery, connection, calibration, rehab and everything in between, it would probably take about...

"A year; year and a half at the most."

The golden boy in front of me shifts his weight in his wheelchair.

"Is there any way I could do it quicker than that?" He asks.

I snort, getting up from my desk and checking over the plans once again. "Only if you want to burn yourself from the inside out."

He sighs though his nose.

I give a short sigh as well.

This is the biggest project that I have ever done. This is bigger than the time I basically made an entire grandfather clock from scratch. This is bigger than all the magic equipment that campers had me make that would ensure their safety and wellbeing. This is bigger than all of my projects put together (which, now that I think about it, would look kind of cool). I cannot believe that last night, Chiron approached me with the challenge of making two fully functioning prosthetic limbs.

A right arm and a left leg. I would have to build, from scratch, half the limbs of this kid. It was pretty weird to think about how I was giving him his ability to walk back; I just hope that I can do it properly and not stuff everything up. Which would be terribly awful, because it would be a few years before he could start surgery again. And I intend for that to not happen, and for him to be back on his feet as soon as I can possibly manage. In order for this to go well, I need to think positive, stay confident and keep a trust in Edward that he will also fully trust me.

I look down at the crippled blond, putting the plans for the prosthetics down and sporting a smile. "Well, let's get started, shall we?"

a/n: first things first: this chapter was a filler. i believe that was kinda obvious. plot next chapter, i swear. aslo i know winry's part was super crazy short, but itll most likely be longer next chapter. promise. thanks to you who followed/faved and reviewed, im really grateful. and one last thing: for izumi, i really really really want her to be a daughter of hera, but that cannot happen for obvious reasons. is there any other god/goddess that might suit her and/or could there possibly be a way for her to still be a daughter of hera, yet we could get around it (like, idk a curse that forbids her from ever having a family...*hint hint*)? idk. tell me what you guys think. and with that, ill see you with the next one. seeya