The Price of Life [Fullmetal Alchemist]

Chapter Forty Eight

"take pictures in your mind of your childhood room

memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home

remember the footsteps, remember the words said...

i just realized everything i have is someday gonna be gone."

-taylor swift

•••

The sun sets just as the old friends part ways.

"You're still declining my offer?"

"Yes," Sonia laughed lightly. "I've pestered you enough. But I appreciate it." She smiles and takes his hand with both of hers. "I really do. Thank you."

"Any time, sweetheart."

He's still waving by the time Sonia reaches the top of the hill. She waves back, then heads down the hill to her house from years ago. She could see it from here, just in front of the huge field of lavender flowers that she and her mother used to care for and pick. She'd take one now to satisfy a nostalgic feeling, but spring seemed to be running late. She would rather let them blossom.

The house didn't look much different to her. She figured no one would ever live there again, considering the history behind it, but looking closer, the paint seemed touched-up, and the windows shined.

"I wonder..." she mused to herself as she went up the porch steps.

Sonia dug around her suitcase, looking for a certain tiny item. With some trouble, she found what she was looking for: a rusted house key etched with an "M". Ever since she left years ago, she couldn't part with it. It held too many memories she wasn't ready to let go of.

She prayed it would open, but they key only fit halfway in when she tried. She huffed in frustration but wasn't too surprised - she figured they would only have to change the locks to her former home. After all, it was the place where a family was torn apart when a child disappeared after performing alchemy's one and only taboo and the other was sent off to the foster care system after the father died from the war and the mother committed suicide. That family just so happened to be hers.

The girl carefully steps down the creaky porch. She takes another gander at the house and exhales a breath to compose herself. Determined to find another way in, she goes to the side of the house. Coming towards the window in her childhood room, she realized a light was on inside. Past her room through the window was the kitchen. A few feet were visible that unfolded a scene of a family. Looking closer, the four figures turn into a normal, nuclear family. A mother, a father... and two young girls.

Sonia takes a step back, feeling as if she was just slapped in the face. The family's resemblance to hers was uncanny. Quickly she looks again and watches as they sit down for a late dinner, talking and going on about their night without a care in the world. They laugh and hold hands around the table, then pray.

Her first instinct, her desperate want, was to crash in and destroy this seemingly perfect family. It wasn't fair, what she was seeing.

'That could've been us. That should have been us.'

"But it's not," she whispers mournfully to herself in the dark, her bleary eyes distorting the unknown family. Suddenly, an intrusive thought entered her mind.

'This isn't your house. It's theirs. You have no home. No family.'

Sonia only realized it was her sister's voice haunting her after she was well across the field of budding flowers.

After a mile or so, she buckled over with her hands on her knees and vomited something fierce. She felt empty, both mentally and now physically.

"I can't squat in my own house," she complained to herself miserably as she sat in the middle of a deserted road. She took a swig of her canteen and spit the water out onto the gravel to clean her mouth.