Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Anti-Existentialism ❯ Chapter 4: Figments Of My Imaginary Nation ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: BHS

Figments Of My Imaginary Nation

Hello! We're back for the fourth installment of Anti-Existentialism! I noticed that very few people participated in my contests…Of course, most of the people who read this know me, and no one guessed who the character was…The answer to the question of who the character was in last chapter is: Barry the Chopper. And I know, I know, he should be all armor-ized, but he's not, `cause it's AU. And I turned fourteen on October second of 2005. One person guessed, and said I was seventeen….And I think Chiisai Mu said something about my dear Barry, but that's all.

Are you done yet?

No! Leave me alone. Er, I'm gonna start a blog about my stories, and, when I have a few posts up, I'll put the link in my bio, okay? Um, er, yeah. That's it, really.

Disclaimer: We own nothing. Also, `figments of my imaginary nation' is a chapter title in the amazing webcomic 9th Elsewhere, which totally rocks.

Warnings: Um, more insanity. I've been reading Kagerou lately, and I have to say that it is rather inspirational…Um, I'll put a link to the first page of Kagerou in my bio after I post this, and you should all go read it. It rocks. This one is mostly about Envy. Yeah. Also, it begins to flesh out the relationship between him and Alphonse just a little bit more.

***

Chapter 4: Figments Of My Imaginary Nation

Homunculi are said to be emotionless creatures, and no one really knows why this is so. Way back in the old days, back when such monstrosities were considered normal and when their existence was widely accepted, when you could talk about them without being labeled as insane, the reason for this was widely known. However, history went on, and first fire, and then the bright, searing flashes of electrical light came along, and the darkness was no more, so the monsters hid in the shadows, waiting and biding their time until darkness came again…or until they learned how to exist in the light.

And they were forgotten, but the legends were still passed down, but they were more and more disbelieved, until it became an absolute fact that Homunculi didn't exist. And, with the knowledge of their actual existence went the knowledge of why they were considered emotionless…

Many people have speculated on the subject. Some have said it is because they feel no pain, but others ridicule that and say it is because they kill so easily and without remorse. Some claim it is because they are no better than animals, albeit murderously intelligent, sentient animals.

But the real reason is this: Homunculi do not feel fear.

However, as he lay there, tied down to a table in a military laboratory, Envy felt as close an emotion to fear as he would ever be able to, and it was attributed to his terror that he wasn't immediately disgusted with himself for such humanlike weakness.

Of course, all the Homunculi had a deep, almost inbred nervousness of laboratories in general. When you are a creature that is not supposed to exist, being caught and experimented on is always a distinct possibility in any near future, and so they had learned to avoid such places, unless it was absolutely necessary to go near them.

And now Envy was back in one, not parading as a military official in a grand scheme to get the FullMetal Pipsqueak to manufacture the Philosopher's Stone for them, but instead strapped down to a table, trapped like an animal, and the near-terror that rose inside him was closer to a human emotion other than sheer fury than anything else he'd ever felt before.

However, Envy wasn't one to let others know of his weakness, and so, instead of showing his fear, he opted instead for threatening everyone around him.

“If I am not let go now,” the effeminate man snarled, “I will personally see to it that each and every one of you in this room dies a very painful, very slow death!” Now was not, in Envy's opinion, a time for subtlety.

“What are you gonna do, you bastard?” Edward asked, with an infuriatingly smug grin plastered across his face. “You're trapped, and you'll never leave.”

“The hell I won't!” Even though he acted as if he were merely furious at the audacity of these pathetic humans, these pitiful beasts who thought they could capture and keep him, panic was beginning to rise to the surface.

They think they can keep us here/! a voice cried indignantly. /The nerve of some people!

Kill the filthy humans. We know you can. Go ahead, kill them. It was the more martial of the voices speaking. Common sense, another of the voices that plagued the Homunculus, gently pointed out that listening to the voice of Violence would be the absolute worst choice in this situation, but Envy was not inclined towards kindness at the moment. He wanted to rend the flesh of innocents.

And then, welling up inside his skull like a demon from the deepest pits of hell, was the Monster…

Don't just kill them, It roared, the soundless thunder of Its voice bouncing off the inside of Envy's skull as It spoke. Torture them. Make them hurt. Make them know that we are not…to…be…trifled…with!

The words pounded through Envy's brain, flaming letters a mile high that planted themselves in his skull and sprouted up like Jack's magic bean-stalk, only the giant was at the bottom of this plant, and it wasn't a giant, but a monster, and not amonster, but instead the Monster! The Monster was loose inside his head, inside his body, and he couldn't fight it anymore, but he could, couldn't he? Yes, yes he could. He'd done it before, but the Monster was a ticking bomb inside of him and every time It tried to come out and he forced It back down It got a little stronger, and now It was stronger, It was too strong, and he couldn't resist it anymore.

His arms were breaking out in scales, and he thought he was screaming, but he wasn't sure, because all he could hear was the Monster's triumphant roars echoing in his head, drowning out any other noise, but he thought he was screaming. In fact, he was almost positive he was, and he could still dimly see the others in the room, the ones outside his head, and they seemed scared, and maybe one of them was screaming too, but they weren't real. None of it was real. They couldn't be real because he was the only one who was real and they weren't him and they weren't real but the Monster was, the Monster was real, oh, god, the Monster was so very, very real and huge and frightening and there, in his head and under his skin, in his body and waiting to take over and when he passed out it would take over. There was more screaming, but this time it wasn't him. It was probably the woman with the short black hair who'd been standing there with the giant man and the Elrics.

No, no, it was him, he was the one making that god-awful noise, that blood-curdling, heart-stopping shriek of terror and pain and sheer desperation, that terrible din that tore at the inside of his throat until nothing was left but raw screaming flesh, shouting out an agonized beat to the tune of the Monster's roars. It was all getting louder and louder until finally it was too much, far, far too much and his body simply shut down, but that was okay. It never actually worked, anyway, because he was nothing more than a pretty clockwork doll, nothing more than a piece of superb machinery that was like no other, only he was like others, he was like six others, and even though he was the oldest he was like them instead of them being like him, even though they were all fantasies modeled after him.

And then his thoughts stopped, or, at least, went somewhere else, far deeper inside of him than his brain, where they couldn't be found.

***

Way deep down, in the very deepest pits of what would be his soul if he had one, Envy floated in the void, and he thought, and someone else thought back.

`What am I?' he thought. `Where am I? Am I real? Will I ever know?'

We are real. No one else is.

`I am not real. I am fake. I am a figment of my own imagination.'

That doesn't make any fucking sense.

`The voices. They talk to me. They are real. I am their figment, then.'

No. No. They are not real. They are more figments, but they are special figments. They are the figments of ourimaginary nation.

`The Monster is real.'

But here, in this void, in this empty pit devoid of any life, empty except for him (but he wasn't life, he was just a different kind of death), nothing at all was real. This was where he could escape from the world, and just be alone, with nothingness as his only companion and dementia as his lover, with all the figments of the whole world gone and trapped on the outside, where he couldn't get to them and where they couldn't get to him.

His body was a prison to keep him in so he couldn't hurt the people outside, and it worked well enough, because he'd never broken out and he'd never hurt anyone, only killed people. Killing wasn't hurting. Killing was release. It was mercy. When he killed people, they got to go somewhere else and be real. He didn't want to be merciful, though. He wanted to be cruel, but not like the Monster. Never like the Monster.

Of course, he could never be cruel like the Monster, because the Monster wasn't cruel. Words could not be applied to how the Monster was, because It was beyond mere words and labels. It was the Monster, and that was the only label that would ever fit It.

The Monster was real, but It wasn't here. It was out there, hurting people, because he'd let It loose, but he didn't care, because It wasn't in there, hurting him.

`Those people are real.'

No they're not. They're not real. They're figments. They don't matter. When you kill them, their bodies disappear. That proves that they never really existed.

`Their bodies rot! It's biodegration, or something.'

How is something as dumb as you part of us?They are not real. Only we are real.

`There are others! Lust, and Greed, and Sloth, and Wrath, and Gluttony, and even Pride. They are all real. And the Elrics are real. The tall bald man is real. The woman with the black hair is real. The short black-haired boy is real. He touched me. I felt him. He was warm. His heart was beating and he was breathing.'

He wasn't real! None of the others are real. Only we are real, and we are the ones that they are modeled after. All they are is pale imitations, wan shadows of us. We are all that is real.

`That's not true!'

It was cold, for some reason. It was dark and grey and cold. There were no directions—no up, no down, no left, no right, and movement was purely a thing of distant memory, a shadowy recollection from a long ways away. A memory from a life in a body rather than a grey area of frozen darkness, when there were limbs and body parts that moved, rather than only a mind that floated in the void, bereft of everything except for its voice.

However, there was a suggestion of movement, a sting of pain. Like a slap. The other had hit him, although it was only felt because his mind was still attuned enough to the world of bodies and sensations that he recalled the sensation of being hit; his mind accepted without question that the other had just hit him.

Any action taken here had to be accepted by both in order for it to occur, because this was a realm of imagery. It was metaphor and simile and hyperbole, it was literature and artwork and music, it was hate and love and life and death, and all the shadowy, insubstantial things that are perceived by the barest touches of the very edges of our senses against them. This was the realm of thought that lay deep inside Envy's body, and it was the only place where the voices inside his head could gain substance enough to speak with him on equal terms, and they never failed to take advantage of such situations.

They are not real. When will you learn that? Nothing is real except for us! We are all that matters!

Blood dripping from a face that wasn't there, and still the sharp stinging was there, buzzing around in the skull that he no longer controlled, until he thought he couldn't bear it.

`Am I dead?'

This time there was no angry other to reply, no irate part of him to snap out a comeback or hurt him. He was well and truly alone, floating all by himself in this void.

`Why does it hurt? Am I dead? Am I asleep? Sleep is dead. The dead sleep. Nothing is real. They are all real. I am not real. Why does it hurt? Pain is real. No. No. No more pain. The pain should not be real. This place isn't real, and nothing real can come here. But I am real. No. Cold. It feels like snow. Why does it feel like snow? I am dead. I think I'm dead. My body is gone. It rotted. But I'm bleeding. My nose is bleeding. Maybe it is rotting too. I think it is. I am gone. I am dead. I'm not real. Why does it hurt? Why is it cold? Why am I so cold? Am I real? I don't think I am. I'm not here. I think I am dead.'

Over and over again, his disjointed thoughts played like a broken record through his head, filling the noiseless void with a silence that was comforting. At last, he decided to try and speak.

“Hello?” Immediately he regretted speaking. His voice was thin and flat and not really there, and the sound of it scared him.

Besides, there was something bad nearby, and speaking would attract it to him. Already he could feel it getting closer and closer.

It was made of shadows, and it had no eyes or ears, but it could hear and see him anyway, and it wanted to kill him. It wanted to break all of his bones and tear off his skin and then eat him, even though it had no hands or feet or a mouth.

And it had noticed him.

Slowly it moved closer, while he cowered and whimpered and cringed. He shrank down into the dark shadows, lay himself down on the frozen ground and dug under it, dug his own cold grave and then lay in it and pulled the turf over him, over his head like a child with a blanket in the middle of the night when the door creaked open and there was a shadow standing in the doorway…

Only he was a shadow, and he'd stood in doorways before. He'd held the knife that the moon-light glinted off of, and the children died, one by one, in their beds, with their pretty dreams still dancing in their heads if they were lucky. But most of them woke up and had a brief taste of the terror that had drawn hoarse shouts from the very pits of ancient man's stomach, sharp sounds of sheer, undiluted fear that echoed around the ancient caves, sounds that were the sustenance of those old creatures that were, in a way, Envy's ancestors, in that they were the monsters that lurked there before he had ever existed.

And now he felt that terror, now he was the child curled up in bed, hiding under the blanket because if you hid under the blanket the monsters would go away. But this wasn't a monster. It was only a shadow of the Monster, but it could still hurt him and it wanted to hurt him so badly, so very, very badly. Soon it would, and he would stay there forever, writhing in whatever agony it decided to inflict on him, because he couldn't die because he wasn't real and he was scared, oh, he was soo scared…

“I'm under the ground and I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm okay and safe and fine and it won't find me under here, no it won't, because I'm safe and hidden and everything is all…everything is all right and I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'M SAFE, I'M OKAY, EVERYTHING IS FINE AND IT WON'T FIND ME, NO IT WON'T SO DON'T BE SCARED `CAUSE IT'S OKAY YES, YES, IT'S OKAY it's okay! It's okay! It's okay, it's okay, I won't die, I'm not real and it's not real and it can't find me because I'm safe under the ground. I'm in my grave and I'm dead and it can't find me, no it can't, so I'm okay. It won't kill me if I'm dead.” He babbled to himself, gasping for breath every few seconds. His breathing was erratic and panicked, as he reassured himself with words his own ears refused to acknowledge or even hear.

And it stomped toward him, its feet thundering on the ground he was buried under, ground that shouldn't have been there but was. It so, soo close to him and it was going to get him, it was going to kill him. Soon he would be gone and he would never ever be able to see the light again or feel the warmth of the world again, because he would be trapped here in this frozen hell as the toy of the Monster's shadow. And then it reached him and tore up the ground and carried him off into its lair, its den, its torture-chamber, and it began its torturous games…

***

`How long has it been? I don't know. Where am I? Am I dead? My arms are bleeding…Look, my fingers are starting to rot. I'm such a mess. When is it? How long was it? Does it still hurt? Am I dead?'

The shadow was coming back, and it was going to hurt him some more. He'd been thinking too loudly, and he'd woken it up.

As it trotted towards him, it grinned with murderous intent and he whimpered and wished that he could cry. But he couldn't, because it had already clawed out his eyes and it had picked apart his beautiful face, ravaging it with sadistic, malignant fervor, just to pluck out the tiny little tear ducts, letting him know that all that damage was special, that he, and he alone was getting this special treatment, as if to say, `Look, I did this especially for you. Don't you like it?'

And so he couldn't see or cry but he could still hear and smell, and he smelled the stink of his own blood, and he could still feel, oh, god, he could feel and it hurt, everything hurt, and he wanted to die, to disappear, but he couldn't…

And then the shadow stopped, because there was a new voice.

“Are you going to be okay? I don't want you to die. `Nii-san says you're bad, and you did try to kill us, but I think you could be better. What am I saying? Anyway, please don't die. I think I'd be sad.”

The voice was distant and muffled and came from far, far away, but it reminded him that once he'd had a voice and a body and a life, and he still had those things, so why couldn't he go to them?

And then he realized that he could. The Shadow couldn't hold him here, because it wasn't real, but he was, and the voice was real, who was the voice? Who was it that was speaking? It was someone he knew…

As he rocketed up through the layers of his mind, towards consciousness, he tried to remember who it was…

And then, as the blinding light of sentience flashed into eyes that shouldn't have been there, it came to him—

Alphonse Elric.

And then he was awake, still laying down, still strapped down, only this time his ankles and knees and wrists and elbows and even his neck were all wrapped around with leather straps, so that he couldn't move at all, and staring down at him was the metallic face of the youngest Elric brother, somehow contriving to look concerned.

`Why the fuck is Chibi's trash-can hovering over me like a concerned mother hen?' Envy demanded, but it was only in his mind that he spoke. Apparently he still couldn't actually talk.

“Envy? Are you okay?”

`Are you fucking retarded?'

“Hello? You're awake, right?”

`No shit.'

“Envy?”

`Why the hell do you care if I'm okay, anyway? You and your brother hate me!'

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

`Because I am amazed that something so stupid can actually live. Christ Jesus.'

“Um, Envy?”

“Christ…Jesus…Greed says…says that…” the Homunculus finally croaked, not really meaning to say it.

“Huh?” If Alphonse could have blinked, he would have. “Greed says what? Why are you talking about Greed?” A pause, and then, “Who's Greed, anyway?”

“Homunculus…Obviously.” Even in his near-comatose state, Envy could still fill a few mere syllables with more venom than was contained in a whole nest of rattle-snakes. “Jesus…you…you're so…stu…stupid.”

“Um, I see you're back to normal…”

“What's it to…to you….trash-can?” Envy forgot about the restraints and tried to sit up, with the result that his head received rather a nasty whack on the table as the leather stretched to its limit and then snapped back. “Ow! Fuck!” Dazzling white specks ate away at the edges of his vision, until, somehow, everything went dark and black, and he slept, but this time he didn't dream…

~Well, this was not as long as that last installment, now was it? It was still pretty long then…And we can see more of Envy's, erm, `issues'. What exactly is wrong with him, anyway, master? Do you know?

PS: You can see that Alphonse is beginning to care for Envy. Of course, he is naturally a very caring person, is he not?

Servant of the Unseen

***

This whole thing from page three on was heavily inspired by Kagerou, which will be immediately obvious to any frequent readers of the comic. If you don't read Kagerou, you should, for it is wonderful. I also listened to the songs The Killer In Me Is The Killer In You, by Smashing Pumpkins, Sleeping In, by The Postal Service, District Sleeps Alone Tonight, by The Postal Service, and The Reckoning, by Godhead, while writing this. Go listen to all of those songs, too.