Welcome back to The Water Alchemist. I don't own any of the intellectual property of Fullmetal Alchemist.
Chapter Two
A Chance Encounter
***
When I woke up, I faced a white expanse that stretched on for miles and miles. My vision blurred as I attempted to open my eyes, the vast wash of white too bright. As my eyes adjusted with a few calculated blinks, I noticed there was not one splash of color, not one soul, nothing but me within this space. I was utterly alone. I attempted to prop myself up, much to my body's dismay, and my head swam with each movement. I ignored my dizziness and attempted to deduce where the hell I was.
Heaven? I thought briefly. It seemed a little too on the nose that it would really be this white. It was almost too pure. I tried to focus on the last thing I remembered. I was at home on my bed, and then—
"Agh!" I cried out, as a searing pain rippled through my head. The black arms of my nightmares bubbled to the surface of my memory. I groaned as the migraine raged on. I must have hit my head on something but considering there was a whole lot of nothing around me, I had no idea what it could have been. I attempted to move to an upright position and then to stand. My knees buckled almost immediately, and I landed on my elbow. I cursed under my breath and tried again to stand. I was a little more stable this time, but not by much.
"I see you're up," a voice cooed.
I turned to my left at the sound with a swift jolt. The movement was too sudden, and I felt lightheaded again. I dropped to my knees and grasped my head in my hands reflexively as if the motion would somehow stop the pain within. When I looked to the source of the voice – a bit more carefully this time – no one was around, and I was still alone.
Am I losing it? I thought, glancing about. You've already lost it being here, wherever here is.
"Who's there," I asked, my voice hoarse and strained. Where had that voice come from? My mouth was drier than it had ever felt before. I looked around and caught something as it moved in the corner of my eye. As soon as I laid eyes on them, I knew who I was dealing with. Fear shot through me, crippling my movement. Panic surged in my chest. "Truth?"
"Clever girl," the figure clapped mockingly. They were as white as the room, shrouded in a dark and sinister aura. Their face was as blank as if molded in gray clay and left unpainted, save for an ominous grin. The figure sat on the floor across from me at a distance. "Just like someone I used to know. An old friend, if you will."
"What the hell is going on?" I asked nervously. I stared down a would-be make-believe character from a serialized anime. I shouldn't be here. I hadn't performed any alchemy. It wasn't even possible. "Oh, I get it."
When the realization hit, I smacked my face with a resounding thwack. The impact echoed through the void. I immediately regretted it, and I yelled out in pain as my brain rattled around in my skull. It had to be a dream. But it felt real enough.
"You sure are a lively one," Truth remarked. "This should be interesting."
I smacked my face again, felt the bitter sting left on my hands and cheeks. My mouth was dry, and I gasped for air, which smelled like an unscented dryer sheet, stale and crisp. I shouldn't be able to smell the air, feel my cheeks sting, or my head swim in a dream.
Shit shit shit, I thought. Not good at all.
"Let's say this is real, which it can't be since it's an anime, a show—"
"Dimensions often have continuity errors." Truth remarked simply.
"—Why am I here?" I finished.
Truth put its head in its left hand as it motioned its other to the right. I followed the trajectory of the motion to see a dark figure sprawled out on the ground.
"That would be thanks to him," they said.
The figure looked strangely familiar, and after squinting my eyes a bit, I recognized the dark hair and the scar across his nose. The man I encountered when I was home was unconscious but breathing from what I could tell. My thoughts ran rampant as I remembered our last encounter and the danger I had felt then transitioned to now.
"What the hell?" I said.
How did he bring me here or pay my toll? Better yet, why? I thought, scooting back.
"This young man brought you here to me. But that's of little consequence. Do you want to know why you're really here?" Truth asked with a wicked grin. Truth snapped its fingers, and the man was gone. I swallowed the lump that had accumulated in my throat, hard. I dared not answer. A pit opened in my stomach and threatened to swallow me from the inside out. Truth went on without my reply. "You're here to participate in a challenge. You may have already heard but let me refresh your memory. I wonder if you can 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?"
"I don't understand," I said, shaking my head. "Just tell me what's going on. Send me back." The request sounded more desperate than I'd like to admit.
"Oh, you'll be going back, alright. Now, about the toll," they said. I tensed up, and my heart stopped its beat momentarily. I envisioned the horrors they could do to me. Take my arm, or maybe my leg, hell, my head if they felt like it. I winced at the thought, and my head ceaselessly pounded. From thin air, Truth pulled out a deep crimson stone that shone with a warm light. "As I said, it's been paid already. You have a very generous benefactor indeed."
I stared at the stone in confusion. I blinked, suddenly realizing what Truth was holding. My heart skipped a beat. It was simply impossible. There was no way that a real Philosopher's Stone shone in front of me. It filled the vast expanse of white with its overwhelming glow.
"How did..." I trailed off, mesmerized by the color, hypnotized by it.
"No need for details," they said. As quickly as the stone had appeared, it vanished, and the warmth of its light disappeared with it. "You have to figure that out all your own. That's an integral part of the challenge, my dear."
I was about to ask again just how this was real when something seared the skin of my chest. My neck became heavy with a weight that threatened to crush me. It felt like someone had branded my skin and dropped a dumbbell on my back in one swift singular motion. I cried out in agony, and my scream pierced the expanse of silence. I looked down at the source only to be overwhelmed by a red light emitted from my chest. As my eyes adjusted, I realized the Philosopher Stone had rematerialized and now hung from a gleaming silver chain around my neck. The pain – undoubtedly caused by the stone – was so intense that I grabbed the chain and reflexively attempted to remove the necklace. Before I even got it over my chin, the chain retracted and choked me with so much force I nearly passed out. After a few agonizing seconds, it released me, and I gasped and sputtered for air. I coughed and looked up at Truth, who grinned a void, expressionless grin.
"What have you done?" I coughed out.
"That's your burden to bear now," they said with a shrug.
"Take it off!" I pleaded.
"You can't remove it. Now, I believe you have a decent knowledge of the laws and inner workings of the world you've been called to," they said, standing and walking toward me. The stone felt even heavier than before, keeping me in place, and I winced. The grin faded from Truth's otherwise expressionless face. "Now that's no fun. I think it'd be more fun if you went in blind."
"I thought you said my toll was paid!" I screamed, though my voice was guttural, and I coughed again.
"Tsk tsk, I would never go back on equivalent exchange, dear. I just mean this would be more fun if you didn't remember a few things, that's all. You can restore them with a little effort, I'm sure," they mused. I scowled at Truth as an intense wave of anger and anxiety washed over me. If my toll were paid, why couldn't I keep my memories? The weight of the stone was overbearing now as Truth stood over me, and I felt myself slip in and out of consciousness. "In place of your memories, I'll show you the Truth."
Before I could respond, I was immersed in a red glow that felt as if a million volts of electricity were surging through my body. I was completely paralyzed and screamed like hell, unable to do anything else. The shock felt like it lasted forever, but the glow eventually dissipated, and as I fell to the floor, a door appeared beneath me. When it opened, I free-fell through a scroll of knowledge that filled my head with endless information. I was conscious enough to see the Truth before I was sent through another door and fell through a clouded sky.
***
"How much longer until the next town, Al?" Edward asked, exhausted. They had walked that never-ending desert for who knows how long.
"Not much farther, brother. The town should be right ahead," as Alphonse answered, the small town between Liore and East City appeared over the dunes.
"I hope there's a decent restaurant there. I'm starving," he lamented. Ed didn't have the stamina of his armored brother. He was desperate for some food after the emptiness Liore had left in his stomach. They expected to reach the small town by nightfall, and hopefully would find themselves a room at an inn before the train to East City left in the morning. The sun still shone high in the sky, but it would take a bit more time before they would reach the town. Ed dreaded the thought of the report he'd have to make to Mustang after the Philosophers Stone turned out to be a fake. Ed just knew that the Colonel would taunt him about wasting funds and resources for all these dead-end leads on the stone. But he wasn't going to give up just yet. He couldn't. Al needed his body back, and he was going to be the one who restored it. Maybe if that bastard Mustang gave me something other than these chicken-shit leads—
"Brother!" Al called, disrupting his brother's thoughts.
Ed – annoyed at the interruption – spun around to face his brother, who was nowhere to be found. Ed heard a small voice call to him somewhere deep within the sand.
"Damnit all, Al— stop sinking!" Ed clapped his hands and touched the sand, creating a pit that revealed his younger brother, who chuckled nervously.
When they finally reached the town, Ed found the nearest restaurant and was already halfway through his meal as the sun set completely.
"Slow down, brother!" Al scolded. Ed munched absently on a piece of chicken.
"I'm just glad to get some food in my belly. It feels like it's been forever," Ed said as he chewed. "When I'm done, Al, we gotta find a phone. We should probably get a room at an inn, too. I'm exhausted."
"I saw one across the street a bit further down. We should try there," Al offered.
"Yeah, I'll see if there's a phone here. I'm just about done," Ed swallowed, bits of food adorning the sides of his face. With one last colossal bite, Ed flagged down the waitress to inquire about a phone he could use. After giving the operator his military code, he was put through to East City's main operations line. "Yeah, is the bastard in?" Whoever was on the other end of the line knew who 'the bastard' was almost instantly. There was a short silence, followed by a click and a ring.
"Roy Mustang," the voice on the phone answered in a cool tone.
"Well, Colonel," Ed roared through the phone. "I think it's about time you check your sources. You send me on yet another wild goose chase and leave us to clean up your mess in Liore!" Al flinched at Ed's harshness.
"But those people are better off now, that's at least something. Besides, it's not the Colonel's fault the stone was a fake," Al reminded him in a hushed tone. Ed shrugged it off and could almost hear the smug smile on his face as Mustang spoke.
"We can go into further detail about the Liore report when you arrive at East City, Fullmetal. But before that, I have another job that I need you to take care of for me."
"I'm not your personal maid," Ed groaned as he leaned up against the phone box, ready to hang up the call.
"It's a lead on the Philosophers Stone," Mustang drew out.
Ed put the retracted phone back to his ear.
"Keep talking."
"I got an... interesting call this morning. Just your luck."
"Oh yeah, what's so lucky about it?" Ed asked as he crossed his arms.
"Apparently, a young girl fell out of the sky earlier today. Reports from multiple eyewitnesses say she was engulfed in a red glow. Strike your fancy yet, Fullmetal?" the Colonel teased.
"Just get on with it," Ed said, exasperated but interested.
"The old woman who made the report is currently housing the girl. She's still unconscious to the best of my current knowledge. They're in the next town over— a place called Bethanie, about half a day away from East City. Head out to investigate before reporting here."
"You got it, Colonel," Ed grinned as he hung up the phone. "C'mon Al, let's see if we can catch a train tonight. I'm not so tired anymore."
***
I was laid out on something, not quite ground, but sort of lumpy. I could feel it underneath me— a mattress, most likely. I was awake, but my eyes wouldn't open on command. I was in a liminal space between awake and asleep. I heard a faint voice, but I couldn't make out the words being said, or who by for that matter. It was like someone had covered my ears. After a few minutes passed like that, with a little effort, I finally gained control of my eyelids and willed them open. I was able to map out some basic shapes of my surroundings— a rectangular and dark mass across the room, the end of the rectangle I assumed to be a bed I laid on, and a figure that hovered to my right. The sounds were becoming clearer with my eyesight, and I was able to place the voice I had heard to the figure as they came more clearly into view. I registered that it was a woman hunched over me, with grey hair pulled into a neat bun at the base of her neck and thick-rimmed glasses that magnified the crow's feet around her brown eyes. She looked to be in her sixties, maybe even seventies, and donned a faded lilac apron over a long russet dress. A pink shawl wrapped around boney shoulders hung in my face when she clasped her hand on my forehead.
"Look who's finally up," she said in a soft voice. "I was worried about you for a while there, dearie."
I couldn't speak. I tried to make my tongue move, urged my lips to purse, to form the words that my brain wanted to respond but nothing came out. I tried to move my hand. Nothing. I wanted to sit up; the covers were entirely too warm, and I could feel the sweat as it pooled at my back. Since I couldn't move, I instead took in the features of the room. The mass from earlier was a wooden dresser that leaned against a white-washed stone wall. The wooden floorboards creaked as she moved to a basin situated on a wooden table next to the bed. The window behind her illuminated her profile as she took a damp rag from the tub and wrung it out. The room smelled of roses and smoke.
"Burning," I said in barely a whisper.
"Oh! You speak!" she said. I seemed to have surprised her, but she recovered quickly. "Yes, you're burning up."
She laid the cool rag to my forehead in a gentle motion, the shawl brushing softly across my chest. The smell of roses came from her, but the smell of smoke was more prominent.
"Burning," I repeated, a bit louder this time. The smell permeated my nose and began to make it hard to breathe. I coughed. "Something's burning."
The woman looked at me quizzically, then sniffed the air and turned her attention to the door across the room.
"My roast!" she exclaimed. In an instant, she was through the door and had left it ajar, allowing smoke to billow into the bedroom freely. I attempted moving again, not yet ready to die in a fire. Much to my relief, my hand moved and then my arm. My body was cooperating for the most part, and as I sat up, the towel fell from my face into my lap. I swung my legs around to the side of the bed and held the towel to my mouth and nose to act as a respirator as I exited the room. I walked along a long narrow hallway – the kind that two people wouldn't be able to navigate comfortably – to follow the flow of the smoke and the fading scent of roses. I entered a den, sparse in furniture – save for a worn couch and a rocking chair – but neat. A few feet away was a kitchen equipped with a simple sink, fridge, and stove, the last of which the woman was bent over as she aired out the smoldering oven. The smoke stung my eyes as I approached. The woman pulled a dish out of the smoke and, in one swift movement, placed it on the stovetop, opened the window above the sink, and turned back to me with a smile. "Everything's alright, dearie. Just a little toasty is all. You've got a good sniffer on ya. I must be getting too old to smell as well." She moved to a glass door that was nestled between the kitchen and the den and opened it to air the room out.
"Can I help?" I asked as I removed the makeshift mask. I thought I should at least offer, though she seemed to have things more or less under control.
"You shouldn't keep up with a fever like that, but you may as well sit down. Dinner is ready," she presented the roast as if it hadn't been on fire moments ago, and I placed the towel on her modest dining table, then took the seat she offered.
She carefully carved the meat, and with each slice, the aroma of the cooked beef overtook the smell of smoke, and my stomach alerted me to its emptiness. She served me a healthy dose of meat and potatoes, and when I took a bite, she watched me chew the piece with a satisfied smile. It was delicious; I couldn't even tell that it had basically threatened to burn the house down just a bit earlier. It filled me with the warmth I had lost when I left the sheets of the bedroom and stood around in my clothes, drenched with sweat.
"It's really good, Miss..."
"Isabelle. Just call me Isabelle. I haven't cooked for a guest in a while," she said, taking the seat across the table. I nodded. Isabelle took a bite herself, and we sat in silence for a while as we enjoyed the salacious saltiness of the roast. She broke the silence. "What can I call you?"
It was the first time I had to think about anything other than not dying in a fire since I woke up.
"Marina," I said.
"Where are you from, Marina?" she asked.
I froze. When I woke up, I had assumed I was related to the woman at my bedside, which had made the most sense at the time. But now that I thought about it, tried to think of it, nothing and nowhere came to mind.
"Here, I suppose," I said, unsure of where exactly here was. "But I'm not sure. I don't remember." I wasn't sure what to make of the situation. I really didn't remember. The longer I thought about it, the emptier my mind was. I couldn't recognize the woman across from me. I was sitting in front of a stranger and shared in dining on her roast.
"Don't remember?" she asked. She waited for an answer that didn't come. I was too entrapped in my thoughts. After some time, I was able to distinguish a few things. I knew my name, age, birthday, even my blood type – but I was lost on where I came from or how I got here. I furrowed my brow to further concentrate. Isabelle seemed to sense my uneasiness. "Well, if it helps, you're in my home in Bethanie, a small town in the country of Amestris. Ring any bells?" I shook my head.
"No," I said, and she frowned.
"Maybe you hit your head. You had quite the fall."
"Fall?" I asked, perplexed. I didn't recall falling.
"Oh yes, you fell right out of the clear blue sky. You were surrounded in a red glow, like something out of a fairy tale. I saw you fall from my porch and gathered some of the village men to help you. When we got to you, you were passed out in one of the fields. We brought you back here, and you've been asleep in the guest room for about a day now. I thought you would have surely been dead when we found you," she mused.
It took me a moment to process the information Isabelle presented to me. In that instant, everything stopped. I just fell out of the sky. How was I supposed to believe that? I couldn't manage to wrap my head around the situation she just described.
Did I hit my head? I thought as I touched my scalp. I felt for knots but came up empty. The room became far too warm. My palms became so sweaty that I couldn't hold my fork without it slipping from my fingertips. I stared at the unfinished roast in front of me, and I started seeing double the portion I had left on the porcelain plate. I stood suddenly, looked around, not able to recognize anything as the room moved unevenly and slowly around me. My breath became labored and exhausting, and with each heave of my chest, the panic settled deeper in my stomach.
"Where am I? How did I get here? What's going on?" I cried as tears welled at the edge of my eyes. "I want to go home."
My knees threatened to give way as the tears fell freely to the glossy surface of the floorboards. In an instant, Isabelle had me in a tight embrace and put a reassuring hand on my head, urging me to take deep breaths. A few tears continued their descent and trailed down my cheek, then landed softly on the shoulder of her shawl. The sound of her voice soothed me, and after a few deep breaths, I returned the embrace.
"There, there, it's okay. You're safe here. We'll figure this out," she said in an even and relaxed tone. I sniffled and nodded, grateful for her kindness, and she pulled away to look me in my eyes. Her gaze was stable and did not waiver at the pained expression I wore. She pressed a frail but steady hand to my forehead. "You're still quite warm. I'll draw a quick bath and give you some fresh clothes so I can clean what you have. Then back to bed with you. How's that sound?" She sounded so sure of the plan, so I nodded numbly in compliance.
As I sat in the warm bath, donned the long shirt Isabelle laid out for me, and nestled into bed, I couldn't help but wonder if my life was like this. It seemed quiet, secure, and Isabelle fit the motherly role easily as if she were my own. Was my mother as kind as her? Was she worried about me? Did I have a mother, or even a father to go home to? Were they looking for me? I wondered myself worried as I stared at the bleak white brick above the bed, tears streaming down my face.
***
When I awoke the next morning, I sat in bed awhile and let the information from the day before sink in further. I massaged my eyes, wishing the action would trigger something, anything about myself, about where I was from, or what to do now. Isabelle had mentioned that she had called for help, but I had no idea what that entailed. Maybe a doctor, or a detective or something, though I had told Isabelle I was feeling much better, which was only a small fib. I wasn't as panicked as yesterday, but my head spun a bit. It wasn't unreasonably painful, and I didn't want to stay confined to the bed all day. I could handle a little vertigo. After I had willed myself out of bed, I asked Isabelle to take me to where I fell, in hopes that it would jog my memory. When we got there, there were a few smushed plants in the shape of my body, but it didn't spark my memory. I was disappointed, to put it mildly. I was still lost, and quite frankly, even more confused.
How had I survived a fall like that? I thought.
"I'd take it it's because of that necklace you've got," Isabelle remarked on the walk back to the house. I must have asked the question out loud. I looked down at the necklace in question and pulled it from its place nestled underneath my borrowed shirt.
"This thing?" I asked. A crimson stone swung at the end of a long, silver chain. When I held it up to the light, the stone looked almost clear, transparent. I didn't recognize the red stone around my neck, but it felt warm and comforting, like a security blanket. I squeezed it in my palm as a sharp pain flashed in my head. It was gone in an instant, and I ignored it. She nodded.
"It was still glowing when we found you. I'd bet that's why you didn't go splat," she said, and I chuckled at the comment.
When we got back to Isabelle's, we ate, and after I offered to help her around the house to return the kindness, she had shown me. As she cleaned up after our meal, I swept the floor. Isabelle and I looked up from our tasks at the sound of a swift knock at the door. A voice called 'hello' from the other side. Isabelle rubbed her hands on her apron, and she moved to the door. She opened it to reveal a young boy, maybe my age or a little older, with golden blonde hair in a braid and clothed in a black shirt and pants, topped with a red coat. Behind him was a hulking suit of armor, shiny and silver with glowing red eyes that peered into the room as they entered. There was something incredibly familiar about them, but as hard as I tried, I couldn't figure out what. A quick sting of pain shot through my head again.
"Do I know you?" I said aloud, not sure where the question came from. An impulse, I guessed.
The shorter boy met my gaze and held it captive with his golden eyes. A sudden shot of pain pierced my skull, then another, and another, repeatedly in quickening succession, each jolt more painful than the last.
"I'm Edward Elric, and this is my brother Alphonse. And you are?" he asked skeptically.
My vision became bleary, and the room spun. I lost my grip on the wooden broom, which clattered noisily to the ground. My head pounded, drowning out the sounds of their voices. They were talking, I knew, but I couldn't hear them. One last shot of excruciating pain struck my head, and as suddenly as it hit, my body fell to the floor with a thud that reverberated throughout the tranquil house.