A/N: Hey there! I'm Starry. I originally wrote and formatted this story to another website, but I was encouraged recently to cross-post to reach a wider audience, so here I am! I'm not sure how it's going to do, but I do hope someone finds it who may not have on Fanfiction.net where it started and maybe, just maybe, likes it. A few things: The story has been running for a while, so there are already nearly forty chapters to browse, but it is not yet completed. I will upload a new chapter each week on Wednesdays. I usually end my chapters with Authors Notes, but I don't think I'll be doing that here, but who knows, I'm prone to change my mind. If I have any announcements for uploading, I'll place them at the bottom in AN format. I look forward to hearing your feedback! If you want to know more about the reasons behind the writing of this story, please see my bio!
Welcome to The Water Alchemist. I don't own any of the intellectual property of Fullmetal Alchemist.
Chapter One
Dream State
***
My bare feet tapped against the cobblestone streets with a decided thunk as each step echoed in my head. The screams that rung out behind me kept me going on faltering feet. The cold night air raked across my body as I ran along the dark and windy alley, nothing looking remotely recognizable. My heart thumped so hard against my lungs; I felt like it would surely burst, dumping crimson blood out onto the leaden path. But I couldn't stop. A black arm, slim and rubbery, grabbed my heel and held tight. I kicked back using what little strength I possessed, but it was no use. Another arm – as black and menacing as the first – grabbed my wrist. Another my shoulder, and before I could discern up from down, I was engulfed in a blanket of black. I flailed my arms and tried to make a sound as I gasped for air.
Would anyone even hear me? I wondered. I wasn't answered before I was swallowed whole by the churning dark sea.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaa!"
I shot straight up and nearly hit my head on the crouched wall I had called a ceiling. My breath was labored, and my heart still threatened explosion. I heard the screams echoing in my head, shrill and ominous, and as my eyes adjusted, I felt out of place in the familiar setting of my room. The yellow walls seemed normal enough. The closet was still beside my bedroom door, and my laptop stood open on a table in the corner. The mirror of the vanity displayed a young girl, with long blonde hair framing a familiarly freckled face. She looked normal. There was even some drool on her chin, an additional element of realism. I touched the face that was hers – that was mine – to wipe the drool away. I was in my body, in my bed, where I had left myself the night before.
That's the third dream this week, I thought to myself, stretching. Each time I had the dream, it became more vivid, more realistic, and I became an increasingly central figure. I would wake up in a cold sweat, heart attack on the horizon, and do a room check to distinguish reality from nightmare. I noticed my room was well lit, too bright for it to be morning. I hadn't bothered to set an alarm the night before, so I must have slept in far past mid-morning. I had gone to bed around four in the morning, so I wasn't surprised. I checked my phone absentmindedly; I had some unread emails, no missed messages –which wasn't surprising – and figured out that it was already two in the afternoon, which was pretty early if you'd ask me. I decided that I should get up. Mom would probably get mad if I slept in any later.
Getting ready wasn't much of a hassle, I usually took a quick shower and called it a day. I let my blonde hair drape down my back, loose and uninhibited. My outfit was plain— a pair of biker shorts and a white crop top, matched with my worn-out sneakers and some thick white socks. When I descended the stairs, headphones in hand as always, I saw that my mom was seated at her usual spot in our living room. She was quietly nestled in her rocker with her laptop on an old tv tray desk in front of her. It was her version of a make-shift office in our two-bedroom townhouse. She was something of a workaholic, even grinding out papers on a Saturday. She looked up at me as I let my headphones plop on the kitchen table.
"Marina?" she called.
"Morning," I greeted. I started searching the cupboard for something to eat, noting we were low on bread.
"Stop at the store," she commanded, not lifting her head.
"Okay, do you have a list?"
"No," she said curtly.
I sighed, grabbing a pen and a post-it note and I moved around the kitchen, taking stock. I had to move out of my private school dorm for the first time in four years, and to say that I was not used to being home was an understatement. Ever since I got back, she had taken to the idea that I would be a great make-shift assistant. I missed the days I would spend at my dorm alone or the days when Mom greeted me with a 'hello' when she saw me instead of orders. I was shipped off to boarding school mere seconds after my mom remarried, in hopes that we would all be able to adjust to the deeply opposed union better separately. If you asked me, especially with how things went down, it only made matters worse.
"Oh, look, you're up! Took you long enough," an annoying voice called from behind me.
The hardest adjustment was living with my stepfather Jeremy. Jeremy's a forty-something, boisterous and crude man who somehow works one of the quietest jobs in the world as the head librarian for the county. He was always quick to comment, and it seemed today was no different. Jeremy had come into my life around the time my father had left, and he hung around my mom like a lost dog with no one to claim. They had been together for as long as I could remember. It wasn't until a few years ago that he convinced her to marry him, after four previous failed attempts over the last nine years. He and my mom were colleagues at our local library before she became a remote-learning adjunct professor.
I had only moved back just six days ago, and I wanted to decompress a little after the most stressful year of my life. Starting high school was one thing but doing it at my school was another. The second you entered their ninth grade; all you did was college prep. Lincoln Boarding School was notorious across the country for its college preparatory program. When Mom and Jeremy sent me there four years ago, their reason relied heavily on that fact. I didn't want to go, but Jeremy had convinced my mom on their honeymoon when I couldn't protest. We tended not to get along.
"Yeah, well, it's not like I have anything to do today," I said, taking my mom's card from her wallet. I headed to the fridge to finish my list and to see if I couldn't find something quick to eat.
"You could help your Mother," he suggested, leaning against the island. I eyed him over the door for the fridge and wondered if he had thought to help get the groceries. Jeremy huffed. "Don't give me that look, young lady. Have some respect for your elders."
"I'm fifteen," I said matter-of-factly. I wasn't keen on his patronizations.
I raided the fridge and picked up an apple as Jeremy silently fumed. The problem with me was that I wasn't as passive-aggressive as my mom tended to be. She always said I took after my father in that way; I was much better at plain old aggression.
"Well, I am your father. This is my house. Watch that tone."
"Let's set the record straight; you're not my father. This is my mom's house. If anyone needs to help around here, Mr. how-to-tank-a-business-in-ten-days, I'd suggest heading to the local grocer," I finished with a satisfactory crunch into my apple.
He seized the apple from my hand and – with outrageous force – threw it into the open trash bin. I stared at him speechlessly, and he grinned at his childish assertion of dominance.
"Doesn't fall far from the tree, huh, Rina?" he remarked snidely.
I may not have known my dad, but it wasn't Jeremy. In what little stories my mom offered, I knew that my real dad didn't care enough to stick around to watch his only child grow up. He sure as hell had a lot of nerve giving me nicknames he'd never use, but Jeremy had even him beat using it.
"Don't you ever call me that, you bastard."
"Marina Elaine. That's enough," my mom scolded.
"Oh, I'm the bastard, huh?" Jeremy said, edging me on.
I'd had enough. I turned to my mother sharply and slammed the fridge shut.
"Are you seriously going to let him talk to me like that? Let him call himself my father as if he has ever tried to be one to me? This is all okay with you?" I asked incredulously. She sighed, rubbing her temples, and waved her hand at me.
"Can you just... go? Both of you are giving me a headache, and I have work to do," she said, returning to her screen.
She never defended me, not when Jeremy picked on me incessantly, not when he shipped me off to boarding school, and she wouldn't now.
"Could you at least pretend to be my mom?" I asked. "I already don't have a father, isn't that bad enough on its own?"
As tears began to well in my eyes, I snatched my headphones from the table and pushed past Jeremey, headed for the front door. I heard muffled yelling as I switched my music on and slammed the door behind me. A single tear threatened to fall from my blue eyes, my father's eyes. They were the only good things he had left me, and even they were cursed to be miserable and lonely.
***
I felt more serene than I did a few hours ago after I had allowed the stale heat to melt away my troubles at the farmers market, surveying the different stalls and picking up the things we needed, and I decided I should head back. With any luck, they would have gone out so I wouldn't have to address the events from earlier. The longer I could hold that conversation off, the better. If I had to live there indefinitely, I'd have to devise a treaty along the lines of 'you stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours'. Otherwise, I wasn't sure if we would survive long enough to live together.
As a kid, I adored everything about my mother, idolized her even. She sacrificed for me things I'd expect no one to, but she did it graciously and without hesitation. But when my dad left, it was sudden and unexpected. One day he came in, said he didn't love her anymore, and that's all she ever told me. As I grew up, she became more and more distant. The loss of my dad had taken its toll, and it was hard on her to raise a small person who was so much like him. She'd say things like, 'You're as impatient as your father', but the remarks weren't kind, just a bitter nostalgic tick. Jeremy took advantage of my mom in her fragile state, though I was too young to understand it then. He had lurked around in the background of her life before her marriage crumbled, and as he watched the pieces fall, he brought his own to replace them. He wormed his way into her heart and somehow convinced her to invest in a busted company he created as soon as they got married four years ago. She lost what savings she had left in the process, most of it the money she got from settling her divorce. She had to take out a loan to keep me away the last two years at boarding school per Jeremy's request, and I had only found out when I came home for a break I realized would never end. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to evaporate. I was deep in thought when I ran into an oddly placed brick wall, almost dropping my haul.
"Ouch," I let out as I realized the wall that I hit was human. Dark hair caught the light of the sun's rays, and equally dark eyes gazed down on me. He had a slight but noticeable scar along the left side of his nose, a faded mark that stretched with the flare of his nostrils. He was wearing dark navy slacks, a white button-down, and a black overcoat in the middle of July, at the height of a heat advisory. He looked to be as cool as if it were a breezy autumn day when even I had sweat stains. I was amazed he hadn't stroked out. "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there. Are you alright?"
His icy gaze left me incredibly uncomfortable, and an impossible chill ran down my spine in piercing tingles. He kept his gaze on me and allowed an eternity to pass before he responded.
"Marina, right?" he asked. I furrowed my brows.
Who is this guy, and why does he know my name? I thought frantically. I've walked this neighborhood since I was a kid, and I had never once seen him around. I had certainly never introduced myself. I wouldn't forget a face like his.
"Yeah, why?" I asked. He began to walk past me and into a nearby alleyway. "Wait!" I exclaimed, immediately regretting having opened my mouth. Maybe I shouldn't question the random creepy guy who knows my name and towers over me, I scolded myself internally.
He turned to me, cloaked in the shadow of the alley, and raised an eyebrow in question. Shit.
"What?"
"Who are you? Do I know you?" I asked.
He didn't answer me and disappeared around the corner. I stood there dumbfounded, and against my better judgment, I sprinted around the corner. Yet, as I rounded it, there was nobody to be seen. He was a quick one, that was for sure. It was getting late, and I suddenly didn't feel very safe, so I ran the rest of the way home, the bags hitting against my thighs the whole way.
***
When I got there, it turned out that no one was home. After I called around the house for Mom and Jeremy without an answer, I assumed they had gone out to get dinner. Dinner. I realized that I hadn't eaten all day except for a bite of an apple I hardly enjoyed, and my stomach was quick to remind me. I texted my mom that I was home. She replied:
K. On way with dinner. Need to talk later about this afternoon.
I settled the groceries on the counter and began putting them away. I knew we would have to talk, but I didn't want to think about that now. I finished putting my haul away, and I decided a quick snack of some carrots wouldn't hurt my appetite, so I took a bowl of them with me to my room to watch some Fullmetal Alchemist and relieve my troubled mind. I had picked it back up before I came home for break, and it was admittedly the only thing that had brought me joy. I had watched it when I was younger, finding some old DVD's of it along with the manga, but when I went away for school, my mom purged the house of them. She did that with most everything that belonged to my dad. There was just something so compelling about the brothers' story and how they persevered through every hardship that resonated with me. I opened my laptop and pulled up the watch screen as I bit into a baby carrot. I pressed play, and the episode began with a black screen like usual, and a few seconds into the video, a white eye opened in the middle of the screen.
"I propose a challenge," a voice called from the screen. I sat glued to the screen, not exactly remembering this part of the show but excited to see what was about to unfold, nonetheless. "I wonder, can you right the wrongs of a past life not your own? The toll has been paid, but success ultimately falls on you. I am God, I am all, I am the world, and the decider of fate. Will you humbly accept a fate that you have no say in? Or will you be able to rewrite the past to save the future?"
"This seems a little out of place... what episode is this? Stupid piracy sites..."
I tried to exit the screen to check the episode description, but my mouse wasn't working. Neither was my mousepad. I heard a door open and close, and Mom called my name from downstairs. I had only removed my eyes from the screen for a split second, but the eye that had noticeably not blinked began to glow a deep crimson red. Suddenly, before I could even gasp or gather what was going on, hundreds and thousands of black, void-like hands seized me and pulled me into the screen.