Stand Up and Walk

The Smokebomb Alchemist

"I still have too long a life ahead to get rid of these feelings, right? I want to try doing over the things I've left undone. I thought I was running after something carried over from my dreams, yet I'm stumbling into people on this narrow, winding road. It's not like I want to go back to the way things were back then; I'm just searching for the sky I've been losing. Here's hoping you'll understand. Stop making that sad face as though you were a victim. Sins don't end in tears; you have to carry the pain forever. Who am I waiting for in this maze of emotions with no way out in sight? I want to purge myself more simply, as if writing in a blank notebook. What is it I want to escape from? ...Is it reality? It makes me want to scream that we're alive for things to come true. Can you hear me? I can't put up with playing it safe. ...I've got nowhere to go home to! I'm always grateful for kindness; that's why I want to grow stronger (I'm on the way). I even welcome this pain for the things I miss."

—Yui, Again

...

The rain comes down as it never has before. The drops fall in curtains, in walls. The wind blows ferociously, howling like caged animal. The trees groan, bending, submissive below its mighty force. The flashes of lighting are brief but bright—they light up the pitch-black sky as though it were day. The thunder crashes with deafening force, rattling the little white farmhouse.

Inside, a woman named Trisha Elric is folding laundry, humming a happy tune under her breath. Upstairs, her youngest son, Alphonse Elric, is sleeping soundly in his bed, unruffled by the storm raging outside.

However, in their small, cozy living room, is her other son, Edward Elric. Trisha knows that he's up, and Edward knows she knows, but she doesn't tell him to go to sleep, despite the fact that it's long past his bedtime.

He stands at the window that overlooks the garden in the front yard. His head barely comes up to the bottom of the window, and he's almost too short to see out of it at all. He stands with his forehead pressed against the cool glass, his eyes unwaveringly focused on the storm outside. He doesn't flinch when the thunder brings a slight tremor under his feet; he doesn't blink when the lightning turns the sky white.

It is mid-November, and they are lucky that it's not snowing.

In the other room, Trisha hears her son call for her softly.

"Mom?"

There's something in his voice that makes her immediately put down her laundry and come into the room.

She comes up behind her son. She loves the soft golden light the fire casts from the hearth. She watches their shadows dancing, and hears the logs crackling.

"Mom," her son says again, his voice still hushed. "There's someone in the garden."

...

Ed is waiting by the door as a soaking-wet Trisha comes crashing back inside, holding an even wetter little girl in her arms. "Ed," Trisha says, calmly but urgently, "I need you to get me a bunch of towels." Ed nods and slips away to get them.

Trisha takes the unconscious child in her arms and places her in front of the fire. The girl's skin is like ice. Her breathing is shallow, but what scares Trisha the most is that the child isn't shivering—not at all.

As Ed comes back, his small arms full of towels, Trisha begins removing the girl's wet clothes. She takes the towels from Ed. "Thank you, Ed," she tells him. "Now, I need you to go get me some clothes from your dresser, okay?" Ed nods again, still oddly quiet—he hasn't said a word since he'd alerted Trisha to the girl's presence. He goes up the stairs, and Trisha pulls off the rest of the child's clothes, wrapping her tightly in the soft, white towels.