Ch 25: Flashback

Rated T for gore and language

Characters: Edward

Timeline: Manga

Notes: THIS CONTEXT IS IMPORTANT! So, this is an excerpt from another yet-to-be published story of mine which was cut from the final draft. I'd tried a few times to make it work, but it just didn't match the tone of the rest of the story and I couldn't justify keeping it in. (The story's about Ed being seriously ill and Al taking care of him, and originally contained a nightmare sequence featuring this excerpt.) However, I liked the emotion too much to just delete it, so I moved it to its own document to hopefully use somewhere else…and that ended up being here! It's literally just the flashback, so there's no surrounding context…just the barest remnants of its old "illness" plot. I also know this compilation already contains Elric Human Transmutation Horror™, but that was Al and this is Ed so it's different XD.

(...)Ed tries to force himself away from this train of thought; it's the last thing he needs to think about right now. But lost in his ill, foggy mind, it just keeps coming back. His eyes burn with tears, but his body is too dehydrated to cry anymore. A dry sob escapes his lips, and he screws his eyes shut. It's futile; all he sees behind his eyelids are the images, and before he knows it he's trapped in a memory he wishes was a dream but was all too real.

He sees it again, so vividly in his feverish mind. He sees the room and its hellish glow, and he hears screaming—his own, he realizes—and for a moment there's just the white-hot agony enveloping his body. His hands are wet and sticky, latched onto the source of the fiery pain, and he chances a glance down, and—my leg, it's gone, oh, God—what've I done, my leg is fucking gone, I can't stop the bleeding! Mom! Mom, help me!

He turns over, yelling her name and eyes searching frantically, and that's when he sees it. The fading light of alchemy illuminates the mess of blood and half formed body parts in the center of the circle, and he sees its eyes—Oh, God, its eyes are glowing and red and inhuman and Alphonse is missing and my leg is missing and there's blood everywhere and Al—Al—Al—where is he!? The circle ate him, tore him to pieces, erased him right from the room. And now, Edward is alone, completely and utterly alone—but wait, he's not alone, because that thing is still on the floor and its eyes are still faintly glowing. He can't force his gaze away. He sees it exhale, slap its misshapen hand down in a bloody splatter, and then the glowing eyes fade to empty blackness. It's wrong. It's all wrong. He just stares for a moment, shaking, and before he has a chance to realize it, he vomits on the floor and collapses with tears. He sees Al's crumpled clothes on the other side of the circle and the dead, messed up transmutation is still bleeding out as surely as he is. It's over, it's all over, no Alphonse, no Mom… What've I done...I killed them both, no, they're dead—I'm alone, I can't be alone!

He's lying in a pool of his own blood, hot and red and nothing like the thick, muddy mess surrounding the transmutation. His eyes dart frantically around the room, searching for something, anything he can use to fix this; he can't even think clearly anymore, he's so lightheaded, but there has to be something he can do. His gaze falls on one of his father's antique armor sets in the corner. He's always thought it looked impractical, that nobody would have ever worn it for real battle—it's seven feet tall for God's sake! But now he looks at it and an idea sparks in his mind. Alphonse didn't die, he was pulled into the circle the same way Ed was; he could still be alive in there, and Ed could pull him out—make good on that equivalent exchange and get his little brother back. Not his mom; she's dead and now he's certain she should be dead, but yes, yes, if he can just have Alphonse back…

He drags himself through the gore because he's too weak to crawl anymore, leaving a trail of blood from his severed leg—oh yeah, that's right, I'm dying, aren't I? He can feel it, can feel the life slowly draining from his body, as tangibly as the blood. He looks around and, trembling, his hands find a piece of his brother's clothing and tie it around the stump, bile rising in his throat at the sight of raw bone and muscle and the never-ending blood and threatening to make him pass out. But he can't succumb yet, not until he has his little brother. His attempted tourniquet isn't going to last long, but damn it all if he's not going to make it last long enough. He finally manages to drag himself to the suit of armor, and he kicks it with his single leg, sending it crashing down in front of him. He doesn't know much about blood seals, but he's read enough, so he dips a finger in his blood and begins drawing. Give him back! He's my brother! Each seal is unique, a mark of both the person who drew it and the person it represents; he doesn't know what this symbol represents, he just knows he needs to do it fast because he's going to pass out. He draws a small hook, the final piece of the array meant to catch the soul of whomever it's for. Take my leg! Take my arm, take my heart, anything—you can have it! He's my little brother, he's all I have left! Then, he brings his hands together, fuses the iron in the blood with the iron in the armor, and waits.

What will that ethereal being take from him this time? He doesn't care. It can take whatever it wants—he just can't let it take Alphonse away. Alphonse is all that matters… All that matters…

And then, everything goes white.

I really don't think it's a surprise i had to take that out of its original story XD. it's pretty intense...but i really do love retelling canon scenes from the characters' POVs, even if they're hard to write sometimes