Through the Gate

Chapter 1

Author's Note:

Tackling yet another story on my list! I will be updating this story on Wednesdays, however, I don't know if it will be every Wednesday or every other Wednesday. Follow my tumblr if you're worried about missing an update!

I will tell you this chapter is longer than the rest are going to be, mostly because it's setting up the premise of the story. I hope you enjoy, and feedback is always appreciated!

***

July 21st 2012

"Well, it's a start."

It had taken three days for them to get the boy to speak, and even then, the results were less than rewarding. It was a single sentence, clipped and tense, ground out between clenched teeth while golden eyes flashed dangerously at their audience. If the team had been holding out any hope the boy was traumatized or in shock, it was dashed the moment he spoke. He confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that anger and distrust were the only things keeping his lips sealed.

Young, perhaps, but shrewd and even a bit jaded.

If asked, the members of the BAU team working the case would have given three reasons for the behavior. First, they couldn't find any record of him anywhere based on DNA, the fingerprints they could actually get, or pictures. No one was looking for him, and that meant he probably came from a broken home, if he even had a home at all. Second, he was injured. No one liked to be questioned when they were exhausted and in pain, but after the medics had cleared the boy, he was put in the interrogation room and hadn't left since, bathroom breaks aside. Third, he was deeply ashamed of something. They didn't know what, but they knew he was hiding a treasure trove of secrets, and the shade in his eyes when those topics were prodded gave away his crippling guilt.

There was more than that—so, so much more—but the three reasons gave a generalized explanation of his stubborn silence.

He wouldn't eat any food they brought him, barely drank the water they offered, and smacked the painkillers from their hands if they tried to hand him some. He glared when they got too close, he was perpetually tense, his eyes were underscored by dark circles, and no amount of coaxing or threatening or pleading got him to budge.

Every question was ignored; every statement left unconfirmed. Whatever responses they could get were non-verbal and violent. They were starting to feel run-down, and their idea well was running dry. Those three days had them sitting around a conference table, staring blankly into their beverages and willing their brains to formulate the next step.

Then, for no apparent reason at all, he spoke.

"Yeah. It's a start."

***

July 18th, 2012 – Three Days Earlier

Ed didn't know where he was.

That was the first thing he realized when he woke up, and it was a realization that shook him more than he would have liked to admit. Which, to be fair, it wasn't as if he were lost in an unfamiliar part of Amestris or even somewhere on the wrong side of Mount Briggs. No, he was somewhere... alien. It was foreign—too foreign to be Xing or Drachma or Aerugo—and it was frightening.

Buildings stretched up to the sky, slate gray in color and made of concrete and steel. Streets were black and cracked, littered with garbage and decorated with streetlights that were too high, too smooth, too white. It was loud, people and machinery screaming so he could hear them even though he couldn't see a thing beyond the dark alleyway. There wasn't a single star in the sky—at least, not that he could see—and the air was gritty and thick.