Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Veritas Hominum ❯ Nightmare ( Chapter 6 )

Nightmare

 

Thankfully it was less and less often that Ed would wake up in a cold sweat, images of organs piled upon skin - the creature that was supposed to have been his mother, but wasn't - lying in a corner of his basement still fresh in his mind.

 

Every alchemy textbook Ed had ever read stated very clearly that human alchemy was a sin. When he was young, he had always assumed it was because the adults couldn't do it. It wasn't until afterwards he'd discovered exactly why it was an unforgivable transgression.

 

Equivalent Exchange.

 

Al's body had dissipated into thin air along with Ed's right arm. In a moment of complete desperation, Ed gave his left leg to pin his brother's soul to a nearby suit of armor.

 

Ed had known that the price was high, but he hadn't anticipated this. When he finally looked over at what was supposed to have been his resurrected mother and all he'd seen was a monster, Ed finally understood why everyone had always said that human transmutation was a sin.

 

Failed human transmutations created creatures called Homunculi, beings with a mind and a body, but no soul. This creature looked, walked and talked like Trisha Elric, but “Sloth,” as she had eventually been named, had no memories of her husband or her life with her sons.

 

The irony of her name had not been lost on him. And as he had destroyed the homunculus named “Greed,” he had, in turn, faced the homunculus that bore his mother's face and destroyed her.

 

He had nightmares about her destruction as often as her creation.