chapter 17

You glance at Ed, curious. He leads you out of your room, down the hallway, through the kitchen, and stops in front of Al's room. You stiffen up. Ed turns to you.

"Wait here, I need to go grab something."

You sigh in relief as Ed knocks on the door.

"Who is it?" Al's voice sings.

"It's me."

You shimmy across to the side of the door so that you don't get seen when the door opens. Ed gently pushes the door open.

"Hey," he says, "I need to get something."

The room goes silent, and you hear Ed grunt as something thumps. A few seconds later, Ed's outside of Al's room and closing his door. Ed is holding the silver machine you saw a lot of times earlier. Your eyes trail it.

You follow Ed into his next door room, and you close the door behind the two of you. Ed sets the machine on the marble ground with a thunk. You wince at the loud sound as it echoes through your head.

You examine the metallic machine. Even though you had seen it many times, you hadn't had a such close experience with it. The machine looked like a telephone box with a telephone to the side of it, wires sticking out of every possible place. There were many buttons and small lights covering the surface where there weren't wires.

"What is it?" You ask, curiosity lacing your voice.

Ed grins. "I've been working on it for a long time. I'm no good at mechanics, but I learned a little fro- a little from Alphonse...."

His voice dies out at the end.

"Alphonse...?" You ask, feeling like he wasn't talking about his younger brother.

Ed looks away. "Yeah.... But that's another story for another time."

Ed's wide smile returns, and that causes your own lips to turn upwards too.

"Anyways, this machine is able to communicate to people from the other side of the gate. It doesn't use the gate as a resource, though, so that's the good thing! I-I just wanted to show you and test it out since you're from the other side of the gate too... But it's not stable yet. So let's hope it won't explode or anything, haha."

You cock your head. "Then why don't you test it until it's good?"

"Well, this the test, right?" Ed replies. He leans towards the machine and flips on what you presume to be the on/off button. You wonder what'll happen.

The machine starts whirring and little lights of all different colors flash on and off, making a pretty array of colors. You stare at the machine as the telephone part of it starts to vibrate. Suddenly, a loud rings through the room, exploding your ears. The ground shakes.

You don't have time to react, and only a yelp escapes from your lips as something dark reaches for you.

You fall to the ground, unconscious.

Ed's grin turns down and his eyes widen in horror. A bright yellow light fills the room. He traces the thick black vine that reached out from the machine into your heart. Ed's knees gives up from under him.

Al rushes in. "Brother, what's-"

Ed turns to Al, tears and desperation filling his eyes. "She's gone, Al. She's gone. And it's all my fault!"

Al's eyes widen as he stares at the figure behind his brother. Your body was vaporizing slowly. Al points towards you, shaking.

The yellow light swallows your body, along with the vine and Ed's machine.

Ed turns and hangs his head as everything falls silent. Al stands there wordlessly.

Ed blinks away his tears, determination set in his eyes.

"She's gone, Al, but I won't allow that. It's not a fair equivalent exchange." Ed looks up at Al.

"We're going to bring her back."

Al leans towards the doorframe, eyes wide. "But... How? We don't even know what happened, or where she went. Plus, there are people after her. And us."

"Don't be stupid, Al. We've been through worse than this.. Right? I even died once, didn't I? We can figure this out."

Al stares at Ed, eyes slowly growing determined and a smile edging his lips. "Yeah."

****

Sorry guys, I know this is late and short and bad, but it was an airplane writing, okay? And the wifi, guys, IT'S HORRIBLE so I really hope it's okay if I update late I'm sorry T_T

I'll be updating every two days in China midnight time sooooo yeah. Anyways, if you enjoyed this chappie, be sure to vote, comment, share, and most importantly, ENJOY!!!

~Sky-chan

Word count: 705 words