The Same Coin

The Promised Day (Part III)

The darkness slithered up her shoulders and around her neck. Winry shuddered under the sensation, losing the control over her breathing as she sucked down quick, panicked gasps of air. Then it slid across her chin, and the fear left. She took in one strong inhalation, gazing up at the eclipse with defiant eyes.

Then it swallowed her whole.

Winry flailed against it. She could feel tentacles wrapping around her ankles, and they began crawling up her legs. She kicked hard, struggling to loosen their grip but too afraid to open her eyes for what would happen if she did. Winry reached with her hands, trying to slash at the tentacles with Nen, but they wrapped themselves around her arms. One wrapped itself around her thigh, creeping higher and higher. She struggled, flinging herself backward and and writhing against its fierce grip in desperation. Then it reached higher, and Winry gasped reflexively, and the darkness filled her. She felt it snake into her mouth, down her throat, and she gagged. She couldn't breathe around it. Her entire body clenched against the invasion, and her eyes flew open.

She was floating in a shadow sea of bodies. She could see the silhouettes of people around her, writhing as the tentacles — shadowhands, she saw now — dragged them downward. Against her better judgment, Winry looked down. She tried to scream, but there was no air. Only darkness inside her. In her lungs. In her pores. In every orifice. She felt herself being pulled deeper into the pall, where bodies glowed in iridescent ruby. Her vision began to throb and grow dim around the edges. She couldn't do anything except focus on the other crimson bodies sinking below.

The pain began. Her lungs burned. Winry gasped for air, and found nothing. This was what suffocation felt like. She could feel the shadowhands squeezing tighter around her body, as though trying to rip her apart. The hand in her chest clutched something, and her body jerked.

Her soul, she realized with wonder. It was after her soul. The fuel for the Philosopher's Stone. She was inside Father. Was it too late for her? Were Ed and Al here too, or were they someplace else, still fighting? The thought gave her hope, and she strained her arms in a bid for freedom. The shadowhands held tight. She couldn't breathe — but she couldn't die. Not here.

A tremor shook her, and Winry flung her head around as screams filled the void. Shadowhands began dragging up bodies from the bottom, shining like beacons in the darkness, and as they were towed past her — back to the surface — Winry choked on the cry of horror in her throat. Their eyes were glazed over with a white film, mouths gaping like fish while the hands on them — inside them — pulled them back. She heard children crying.

Something rocked her again, shaking her body as though a bomb had gone off. The shadowhands holding her swayed before another explosion jolted through. What was happening? She struggled to see around her in the darkness, then light flared around her. A line of fire flared through the black, casting long shadows, and the hands gripping her loosened. Winry flung herself, twisting hard as explosion after explosion lurched through the flask — but with every flash of light, the hands around her strained to keep their grip.

Above, Winry heard new screams, and a hand wrapped around her leg released her so as to reach upward and drag more people — fresh souls — down. Another ricochet shook her, and another hand let go. Her arm was free. Winry slashed at the shadowhands gripping her other arm. This time her Nen cut through. She worked fast now, severing through the other hands holding her, and suddenly she was free. Winry kicked with her hands and feet, propelling herself to the nearest silhouette and began cutting them free. Shadowhands tried to grab her again, but she evaded them and then she and the other person were both free. She let herself sink a few feet down to someone else, working as hastily as she could. The shadowhands were flailing in the darkness, and all around her glowing people were disappearing.

She felt something brush against her from behind, and Winry twisted around, mouth opening in an 'O' of horror as she saw her grandmother, bound and eyes closed, being dragged deeper. Winry grabbed onto her grandmother's arm, slashing at the shadowhands to free her, before maneuvering the small woman onto her back. Far below, a glowing silhouette blinked away while another explosion rocked through.

They were being spent. The souls inside Father were being spent to protect the flask — which meant she needed to keep herself free from the shadowhands, so that she couldn't be taken as fuel. At the same time, the realization made hope swell in her chest. If Father was having to defend himself...If he was being besieged from the outside, then it meant...It meant—

Edward.

Winry prayed.

Overhead, she heard new screams. Father was trying to draw in more souls — but from where? If the Promised Day had succeeded, if all of Amestris had been turned into fuel, then what could be left?

Light burst into the darkness, and Winry shied away from the unexpected brightness, gripping her grandmother tight — then she was suddenly being ripped upward again. Her grandmother was gone, and Winry sucked in a breath of air before pushing herself to her hands and knees weakly, coughing. The sun was warm on her back. Nearby, Captain Buccaneer was sitting up, and so were the Briggs soldiers.

Fu laid beside her still, unmoving.