Fanfiction: Revolt of the Flesh (Fullmetal Alchemist)

[nebroadwe]

Title: Revolt of the Flesh
Fandom: FMA (manga version)
Character(s): Ed, Al, Winry and a lot of dead people
Pairing(s): None. (Ewww ... )
Rating: R (for, well, flesh-eating zombies)
Word Count: 2300 (my zombies come in drabbles)
Warnings: Um, zombies? Beware, beware?
A/N: Revised version of my entry for the 2007 FMA Zombie Apocalypse Challenge, written because I'd never tried horror before and rewritten for the sake of eliminating, or at least mitigating, a weak transition, some unhappy word-repetitions and the inevitable typos. Not sure I'll ever do something like this again; I'm not fond of the headspace I have to enter to attempt it. And, yes, it's arguable that I cheated by using [spoiler] to explain the situation, but I kept tripping over one of the fundamental principles of the FMAverse (coincidentally also the punchline to a family story about the hazing of the undertaker's newest apprentice, which makes it really hard to ignore). Besides, this way I got to play with narrative logic and Jungian archetypes. The Brothers Grimm ate my brain long ago. Concrit welcomed with steak tartare. Crossposted from nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. hagaren_manga, fm_alchemist, fullservicefma, fma_gen, fma_writers, and fma_fiction).
Dedication: For nateprentice, who intones the word BRAAAAINS with more relish than anyone I know.

---

      It's been a long time since the East saw a drought as bad as this. The trees droop, branches hung with shriveled leaves that crackle against each other in the hot wind. Dust covers the fields, piling up in drifts behind the failing windbreaks, as if the desert had come for a visit and decided to stay. The creek where the Elric brothers fished and hunted frogs and salamanders has baked into a cracked yellow ditch stinking of rotten eggs.

      Al pauses to look down, his hunched shoulders miming a frown, but Ed pinches his nostrils shut and hurries on.

≈
      He fingers the telegram from Winry in his pocket. The cheap ink has blurred and run, but Ed's memorized the gist: Riesenbuhl needs help; come sort things out. He grimaces, wondering what she expects him and Al to do. A drought's not like a flood: it's easier to dam a river than irrigate a waste. Plus, it's unnerving to be called home by an emergency. Nothing's supposed to happen in Riesenbuhl -- that's practically its reason for being. Snorting, Ed pushes back his sweat-soaked bangs. Anyone who calls East City a ghost town after dark hasn't seen the real thing.

≈
      "Grave-robbing bastard man-machines! Abominations raping our land, eating our flesh ... !"

      Ed catches a glimpse of the figure yelling on the ridge and grinds his teeth. Zeb Carter lost both legs falling drunk onto the railroad tracks four years ago. It didn't change him much, except to add all things mechanical to the list of abominations he excoriates in midbender, including his own prosthetics. If he's harassing Granny Pinako's patients again, Ed's going to kick his ass, cripple or no. "Is that Carter up there?" he asks Al.

      "Can't be," Al responds.

      "Why not?"

      "He died last winter, remember?"

≈
      Ed reminds himself that he's seen bodies, dead humans and live chimeras, almost as mangled as this, but it doesn't help. The skull's shattered, unrecognizable; the limbs and torso shredded, muscle torn from bone. He turns his face into the stinging breeze to clear his head. Cougars haunt these hills -- a nuisance at lambing, mostly -- and the odd bear, but the slurred marks in the dirt around the corpse aren't pawprints.

      "Brother," Al says, his voice unsteady, "this is recent. Maybe not even an hour -- "

      As one, they look uphill to the Rockbell house, and leave the dead to rot.

≈
      "Winry! Granny! Winry!"

      Ed beats on the door till it opens. Winry stands there, Den pressed close against her legs. Pulling the brothers inside, she folds to her knees like a collapsing deck chair. Al grabs her shoulders, Ed her hands. "Are you okay?" he demands. "What's wrong?"

      "Everything!" she wails. "And Granny went outside to tell off Mr. Carter for being a n-nuisance, and she hasn't come back!"

      They help her to the sofa. "You stay here," Ed says. "We'll find Granny." He hesitates, then adds, "Don't open the door to anybody but us."

      Eyes wide, she nods.

≈
      The backyard blurs in the heat. Ed blinks and squints, shading his eyes with his unbladed wrist. Nothing moves but the wind in the yellow grass. Den whines, scratching at the screen door.

      "We should check the windbreak," Al says reluctantly.

      Which means leaving only the dog to guard the house, which is stupid, but so is scouting alone for something that grinds human beings into hamburger and bone meal. Sometimes you have no good choices. "I'll go," Ed says, equally reluctant. "You can -- "

      "No," Al replies, and that's the end of that.

      Den barks incessantly at their departing backs.

≈
      Some things you see coming: the ambush erupting out of the brush, for instance; and the enemy, hunting in a gray-skinned, malodorous pack, clawing with black nails, groaning with lipless mouths full of brown teeth, diseased and maddened and insatiable.

      (And still recognizably human.)

      You don't expect the dog to tear through the screen and rush growling to your aid, though. She hamstrings one, but it twists to fall on her; the shriek could have come from either throat, but the blood is all Den's.

      (You won't forgive yourself for not seeing that one coming. Not for a while.)

≈
      Retreating into the yard, the brothers take their opponents' measure. Like berserkers, they ignore wounds and don't quit until knocked senseless, but they move slowly and attack wildly, as likely to strike friend as foe. At close quarters they can overwhelm their prey; given fighting room, their advantage lessens exponentially. Ed harasses them from in front while Al thumps heads from behind, and the battle is soon over.

      "What the hell's up?" Ed asks, bending unwillingly to examine a fallen enemy.

      "No!" shouts Al, pointing, and Ed whirls in time to see a shambling figure disappear through the cellar door.

≈
      Ed claps his hands, slaps them against the house's stone foundation and vaults down into the basement. When he hits the floor the walls are glowing bright blue with chemiluminescence -- a party trick, but a damned useful one. "Bar the door!" he yells to Al.

      The whine of his brother's work is overwhelmed by the enemy's upscaling moans. They're still pathetically clumsy (Ed wonders if whatever raddled them has a neurodegenerative component) and guileless, launching themselves at him like rag dolls fired from a cannon. Easy pickings.

      The noise is unnerving, though. He aims for the larynx when he can.

≈
      When the lights go on Ed is simultaneously blinded, driven to the floor by a lucky blow, and poleaxed imagining Winry's hand on the switch. "Al!" he shouts. His brother leapfrogs him, clearing the way to the stairwell. Ed stays low, kneecapping his opponents, and follows.

      At the top of the steps Al sweeps a frozen Winry over the sill. Ed spins, clapping; the treads flip like dominoes when he touches the last riser and their pursuers slide in a ululating heap down the ramp.

      Ed turns off the light before he shuts the door, mindful of the electric bill.

≈
      "We told you to stay out of it!" Al scolds Winry.

      She brushes him off and grabs Ed's right arm. "Hurry!" she insists. "I need you in the surgery now!"

      A rap against the cellar door interrupts them, followed immediately by a heavy thud and a sound like a sack of potatoes tumbling through a chute. The brothers exchange harried looks. "I'll reinforce this," Al says.

      "Check the windows, too," Ed cautions. "I'll catch up. -- All right, Winry!" he adds, yielding to her urgent tugging so abruptly that she stumbles. "This better be important."

     "It is," she answers. "You'll see."

≈
      Winry pulls a surgical apron over her head and waves at the gurney. "Lie down."

      Ed goggles. "Are you crazy? A tune-up? Now?"

      She drags a small chest across the floor. "Of course not, idiot!" Throwing open the lid, she rakes back a layer of ice chips to reveal an arm and leg of flesh, little more than child-sized but well-muscled. The skin sags around the joints, freckled with age spots over the back of the hand. Ed recognizes it immediately -- he's been threatened with it often enough.

      His stomach heaves and empties itself at Winry's feet.

≈
      "Ed!" She squats beside him, careless of the mess, wiping his face with a cloth. "What's wrong?"

      He scoots away and cleans his mouth on his sleeve. "How?" he rasps, throat still clogged with vomit and loathing. "How could you -- ?"

      "It's what you want, isn't it?" she answers. "I couldn't waste them -- this chance --"

      She reaches for him; he stiff-arms her in the chest and she squeaks like a dog being stepped on. Her morning-glory eyes brim with tears. "I wanted us to stay together," she says. "Granny didn't understand."

      Ed doesn't understand either. He doesn't want to.

≈
      "They won't have you like that," Winry continues, glancing furtively at the office door. "The automail: they don't like it."

      Ed forces himself to ask, "Who's 'they'?"

      The door opens; he's on his feet before she moves, staring at twin intruders whose tattered clothes hang limp on bodies dessicated to coat-racks -- whose skin, tanned leather-dark, strains to cover wasted flesh and unyielding bone.

      Ed doesn't recognize them, but he knows them.

      He grabs for Winry, but she's already slipped beyond reach. "They couldn't come before," she remarks over her shoulder, smiling. "It was too damp. Not like Ishbal."

≈
      They hold her close, denying him a target, their heads nestled against hers. Winry whimpers and sighs; when she turns to him, her torn cheek and throat quiver, blood-stippled. "I'm sorry," she says. "There wasn't time ... "

      The door slams behind her as he reaches it. He pivots, lashing out with his left leg. Don't like automail? I'll give you a bellyful -- !

      "Brother!"

      The door rattles in the jamb -- once more and he'll have it down --

      "Brother! Come quickly!"

      Ed claps his hands to his ears, nails scoring scalp till he gasps with pain. Then he does what he must.

≈
      All the waiting-room furniture has been pushed to the walls. A boy lies naked on the linoleum, his head turned aside, face obscured by the fair hair fallen across it. His body is livid with scars and bruises; the right arm sits strangely, as if dislocated at the shoulder. Twisting around him is a transmutation circle, its chalked outlines shimmering with potential energy. Ed squints furiously and the mercurial symbols resolve into a chain, earth linked to air, sealed at the cardinal points with a hamus enclosed in an octogram.

      Al kneels at the boy's feet. "Mine," he whispers.

≈
      "No!" Ed says. "Al, your body's at the Gate."

      "But this one's here," Al answers, stroking the boy's foot. "I want it, Brother. I want to feel ... " He pinches a toe until the joint pops. "I want to hurt. I want -- "

      "Stop it!" Ed lunges forward, but something seizes his left ankle, dumping him to the floor, and then the enemy pile on like playground bullies, crushing him beneath their fetid weight. He gags; spits; shouts, "That's not yours!"

      "I want to live!" Al claps and bows his head to his joined hands. "I want to die!"

      "Wait! Don't -- Alphonse!"

≈
      When he can see and hear again, he panics, because he's elsewhere.

      And alone.

      For a nauseating moment Ed can think of nothing else, muscles spasming uselessly until his brain catches up with his senses and throttles back on the adrenaline. The sun, low and huge, shines red in his eyes; turning his gaze away, he realizes his automail's been removed and his breathlessness is as much the fault of the ropes compressing his chest as his own alarm. His mouth sets. Anyone who considers him helpless without his prosthetics is mortally mistaken.

      You should've killed me when you could.

≈
      The sunset dazzle fades behind the clouds, leaving the sky awash in a rosy glow. Sailor's delight. At last Ed sees his surroundings clearly: the cemetery, its once carefully tended greensward parched, eroded, and blotched with freshly dug -- no, freshly disturbed graves. His heart begins to pound again; he discards his hypothesis of a dry-weather ergotic plague in favor of resurrectionism run amok. Riesenbuhl wouldn't be the first town tempted to disaster by an unscrupulous alchemist with visions of its beloved dead revived.

      Once he finds Al and saves Winry, Ed promises himself, he'll see that ghoul buried alive.

≈
      They come lumbering into the cemetery from every direction, one sphacelate figure barely distinguishable from another in the twilight. Ed keeps his head down, his left arm twisted behind him, exploring his bonds. They loop him from collarbone to waist, pinioning him to one of the few headstones still upright, but the knots are clumsy. He picks at them as forcefully as he dares, while his enemies shuffle past to crowd around a nearby plot. Sluggishly they drop to their knees and begin digging in the dry soil, keening like laboring women.

      Ed swallows and tugs harder at the rope.

≈
      A digger topples, opening a gap, and Ed glimpses the name on the memorial.

      "No!"

      He rips himself free, frantically improvising a circle to seal the ground, but his hand trembles and the wind effaces what he scrawls. The revenants pounce, fouling his limbs with theirs, yanking his head back by the hair. He sees a familiar silhouette straighten against the bloody sky, shrugging the grave-mold from its shoulders. His breath catches.

      Its head lolls toward him; then it shrugs again.

      Ed claws the earth as his captors drag him away toward the charred shell of his childhood home.

≈
      They toss him backward into the pit beneath the elm tree, a maw broader than his arms' width -- his straining fingers just brush a fuzzy nap of grass-roots and dirt before his body crashes wetly into the half-formed thing that lies at the bottom. He hopes, believes, prays he's crushed it -- then he feels the heart pulsing against his spine, the entrails wriggling under his buttocks like a nest of snakes. The ribs bend inward to embrace him; the lungs flutter and inflate so the mouth can breathe Edward into his nape as it gnaws through his skull ...

≈
      Al's ready to smash the call button into the wall by the time the duty nurse appears, except that his hands are occupied preventing Ed from hurling himself off the bed in his delirium. "Can't you give him something else?" he asks, as the nurse prepares the same syringe as last time.
      "Sorry. Doctor's orders."
      Al pins Ed's torso and right arm and lets the nurse worry about getting the needle into his left. Ed whimpers, kicking the sheets, and tangles his legs into immobility as the drug takes effect.
      Al strokes his forehead helplessly, wishing him dreams of home.

---

Author's Note: Hamus is the Latin word for fish-hook.

---

[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix); the anime of the same title was directed by Mizushima Seiji and story-edited by Aikawa Sho. Copyright for these properties is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Aniplex, Bones, and dentsu. All rights reserved.]

Comments

[sevlow.livejournal.com]

Man, I really loved this story. It's so deliciously chaotic and disjointed... It's like a series of little, horrified gasps of a story instead of one long narrative. I wish I could do something as creative O_O

..It kinda reminded me of the movie Memento (which, if you haven't seen, you desperately need to.)

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

This was delightful! I have a special love of horror stories - and wish desperately I was any good at writing them myself - and the tension in the beginning and the chaos that breaks out was just amazing. The descriptions of Winry and Al losing it just made me shudder - it actually took me a couple moments to get who's arm and leg Winry was offering and who came into the door (I reread "Not like Ishabal" twice and went "OH MY GOD.") and poor Al and that little human's body.

I expect you'll get a lot of reviews saying "DEN! NO!"

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Man, I really loved this story.

Thanks! Bit out of my usual way, but that's what made it such a good exercise.

It's so deliciously chaotic and disjointed... It's like a series of little, horrified gasps of a story instead of one long narrative.

I like writing drabbles, and when I started thinking about how this story would work it occurred to me that doing it as a drabble sequence would let me make the kind of skips and hops that dreams do more easily than a straight one-by-one narrative. I hoped that would let me set out the clues that justify the ending (you'll notice that the story keeps changing in the way that dreams do -- one element suggesting a whole new line of plot, geography contracting oddly, characters appearing and disappearing) while hiding them at the same time (a drabble sequence is sort of naturally disjointed, since each drabble is complete in itself -- all the transitions are implied). I was actually a little afraid that people would note the initial contradictions -- is Zeb Carter alive or dead? -- decide I didn't have control of my story and give up. Glad you made it through. :-)

..It kinda reminded me of the movie Memento (which, if you haven't seen, you desperately need to.)

I haven't seen it through, but now you mention it ...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

This was delightful! I have a special love of horror stories - and wish desperately I was any good at writing them myself - and the tension in the beginning and the chaos that breaks out was just amazing.

Oh, good. I don't really do horror myself -- not contemporary horror, anyway, but I do sometimes find myself in the mood for the kind of story that makes the mind creep, classic Twilight Zone or Outer Limits style. The really odd thing about writing this story is that I did it all with technique -- it's one of the few time I wasn't able to turn around and be my own audience to evaluate the effect of my own words. I just had to set things up and let them run. I couldn't even get my usual offline beta to check me, because the next-to-last drabble would have done her in. So I'm really looking forward to the comments -- even the ones excoriating me for killing the dog. evil_little_dog already bewailed that development. Will I come off as totally callous if I say that was one of the easier parts to write?

The descriptions of Winry and Al losing it just made me shudder - it actually took me a couple moments to get who's arm and leg Winry was offering ...

Oh, good. I was hoping for not more than a double-take on that. I didn't want to come out and say whose it was, but I also wanted people to get it and find Ed's reaction justified.

... and who came into the door (I reread "Not like Ishabal" twice and went "OH MY GOD.") ...

Originally that was going to be the "explanation" for the zombies -- that Winry's parents were the ones making them, having finally found Riesenbuhl dry enough to support their existence -- but that kind of dropped out in the process of writing. I found I didn't really need an explanation, for one thing, and by the time I sat down to write Winry's scenes I had already written Al's, which had turned the whole thing into more of a psychological piece than straight-up horror and required a different hook going in. And it let me use the old "devouring mother" motif in yet another place, to help pull everything together thematically. The first thing I wrote was the next-to-last drabble, with Ed getting eaten. Just eaten. An early reader thought ... well, never mind.

... and poor Al and that little human's body.

Look closely at that little human's body -- I've chosen my descriptive details veeerry carefully there, and not just because it's a drabble and every word counts ... heh, heh, heh.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and congrats on winning, of course! I did enjoy reading Welcome Back, despite my quibbles about the ending. I can't help but admire the way you got around the "What's dead stays dead" problem and well-written, well-characterized plotfic is in general a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

C'mon, you knew I'd wail for the loss of Den.

I got who's arm and leg were in ice...it took two readings to get past "Ishbal" and get who was there.

Blond hair...one of the Tringham brothers?

It's sooooo creepy.

Poor Ed and his nightmares. *shudder*

[nateprentice.livejournal.com]

BRAAAIIINNSSS...

Had to say it.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ha! Knew you'd come through for me. :-)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

C'mon, you knew I'd wail for the loss of Den.

Uh, [shuffles], actually I hadn't thought of that. Though it's perfectly logical now, of course! I just spent so much bloody time rewriting and rewriting and rewriting the third-to-the-last drabble that the rest of it kind of, well ... I wasn't really thinking about reactions to the rest of it after a bit. [more shuffling] You know how hard it is to get zombies to do anything on cue?

I got who's arm and leg were in ice...it took two readings to get past "Ishbal" and get who was there.

I am glad it it's neither screamingly obvious nor irretrievably obtuse. I like making people work, but I also like having them get it. Me showing off how clever I am, heh heh. :-)

Blond hair...one of the Tringham brothers?

No: mangaverse. One has to consider ... [thinks about how to put this] ... point of view? (This one is supposed to be obscure, for story-internal as well as story-external reasons.)

It's sooooo creepy. Poor Ed and his nightmares. *shudder*

Exactly. I couldn't get past the problem of making zombies plausible in a setting where the dead don't come back. Ever. Period. As a fundamental building-block of plot/characterization/what-have-you. I was interested to see that some of the other pieces in the contest could get over that hump much more easily. As for me, I decided it was worth trying the symbolic approach. Anything can happen inside your head. And the inside of Ed's head is logically full of fear and conflict and guilt. It was fun to turn the limiters off, the way dreams sometimes do. I'm particularly fond of the casual callousness with which he rips out the zombies' throats.

[wildwolfwind2-0.livejournal.com]

My reaction to various points of the story:

'Man, it's gonna be one of those psycological horrors, isn't it? I won't be able to sleep tonight'

then

'NOOOOOOOOOOO DEEEEEEEN!'

then

'Squeeeeee! Dark implied EdWin!'

'Gasp! Sarah and Urey?'

and

'Crazy Al, oh noes!'

So yeah, I was really into this fic.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

My reaction to various points of the story: 'Man, it's gonna be one of those psycological horrors, isn't it? I won't be able to sleep tonight' ...

I admit, it takes a particular kind of mental attitude to write this stuff. Not a very comfortable one, I've found.

... then 'NOOOOOOOOOOO DEEEEEEEN!' ...

Okay, I give. I know that monster films tend to start by offing the family pet, so off she went, but I had no idea the motif still had that much punch. It's a revelation to me. ;-)

... then 'Squeeeeee! Dark implied EdWin!' 'Gasp! Sarah and Urey?' ...

This, on the other hand, I was pretty sure would have some impact. It was a little tricky to write, but only because I had to compress each moment down to a hundred words. The monsters are scary (or supposed to be scary) because they turn the characters' most intimate relationships inside-out -- feeding becomes eating; nurturing, killing; and everyone except Ed is willing, perversely, to accept and deal with that. Cue the Twilight Zone theme.

... and 'Crazy Al, oh noes!' ...

One of my favorite bits, because it was the kind of crazy that could make character sense. Canon-Al handles the frustrations of his situation pretty well, but we've seen how much he hates being alone every night in the dark, sleepless. I just pushed that frustration forward and took the rheostat off -- and since this is all about the inside of Ed's head, really, surely one of his worries about his brother is that Al might just give up, let go and leave him all alone. Lots of abandonment issues in the backstory, after all.

So yeah, I was really into this fic.

Excellent! Thanks. I'm kind of curious, though: so far everyone's been exclaiming over what happens to the other characters (Den, Winry, Al). I wonder if the bit where Ed gets eaten is too close to the revelation that it's all just a dream to have the impact I intended it to have. It's the one place where I really pushed the "ewwww" lever to full.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

You know how hard it is to get zombies to do anything on cue?

Ummm...about as easy as herding cats? Or having thinking characters do what you want them to do?

No: mangaverse. One has to consider ... [thinks about how to put this] ... point of view? (This one is supposed to be obscure, for story-internal as well as story-external reasons.)

*shakes head* Still not getting it. May be too obscure for a slap and dash reader like me. *grin*

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ummm...about as easy as herding cats? Or having thinking characters do what you want them to do?

Herding cats, yep. One is, ostensibly, in control (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040315), but in reality, there's a disadvantage to brainlessness (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040317). At least you can argue with characters who insist on thinking for themselves and sometimes they may actually come up with useful ideas. Zombies, uh-uh. There's another corpse in the windbreak that Ed and Al never discovered and never will now, because the ambush broke early. Sigh.

"No: mangaverse. One has to consider ... [thinks about how to put this] ... point of view? (This one is supposed to be obscure, for story-internal as well as story-external reasons.)"

*shakes head* Still not getting it. May be too obscure for a slap and dash reader like me. *grin*

It's only meant to be noticeable in retrospect. Think about it: who else do we know in the FMAverse who's male, young, blond, and been through the mill, particularly with respect to his right arm? [waits for it ... ]

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

...you're sending me links to Girl Genius. o_0

Besides Ed, I'm lost here. Sorry. *blink* *blink*

[wildwolfwind2-0.livejournal.com]

'I wonder if the bit where Ed gets eaten is too close to the revelation that it's all just a dream to have the impact I intended it to have. It's the one place where I really pushed the "ewwww" lever to full.'

Naw, it's just that this is the FMA fandom. We've had soooo many fics of Ed getting eaten(in more ways than one) that we've gotten used to it.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

...you're sending me links to Girl Genius. o_0

[looks worried] You don't have religious objections to that or something, do you? Hard to tell where the boundaries are with these decentralized theologies ...

Besides Ed, I'm lost here. Sorry. *blink* *blink*

[stares back at you, one eyebrow up, head slightly tilted, waiting for the other shoe to drop ... ]

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Hadn't thought about that, but I reckon you may be right. I don't think I've seen many stories that kill Den, so that has the audacity of freshness to it, I guess. [grin]

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

No, no, Foglio is one of the artists I admire...sometimes. I had friends who used to hang out with him. When his star took off, however, he forgot all the "other people" who he used to hang out with. Their bitterness rubbed off on me, I'm afraid.

*looks blankly at you* Ed? Er....

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

No, no, Foglio is one of the artists I admire...sometimes. I had friends who used to hang out with him. When his star took off, however, he forgot all the "other people" who he used to hang out with. Their bitterness rubbed off on me, I'm afraid.

Oh, dear. That's sad. Not that artists can't be as stupid as everyone else in the human race, of course. And I do enjoy Girl Genius -- fortunately product is sometimes separable from producer. And the point about the cats is, I think, well taken, but I'm not a cat person. (I have this friend with a cat that used to sit outside her bedroom door at oh-dark-thirty and wail to be let in. And the friend always caved. Then the cat would sit on her face. She still loves the cat. There are, clearly, more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. Cat hair up my nose, ewww.)

*looks blankly at you* Ed? Er....

Yep. :-) Remember, he's dreaming ...

[ishte.livejournal.com]

Oh you have no idea how happy I was when I got to the last section and it was "just" a dream born in delirium. It begs the question though... what brought him here?... and where exactly are they? I love your work as always.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Oh you have no idea how happy I was when I got to the last section and it was "just" a dream born in delirium.

I can guess. :-) I knew that was how it ended from the start -- I wrote the last two drabbles first, then started from the beginning and worked up to them. I saw the challenge on mikkeneko's journal and said to myself, "How can you have zombies in Amestris? They can't really be the walking dead. I suppose you could have some alchemist galvanically animating corpses or something -- but, no, mikkeneko wants crowds of zombies, and how would any one person or even small group power that? Could be a self-defeating scheme, I suppose, but that's not very interesting. Zombies are creatures of nightmare; they've got to be a real threat ... hey, wait a minute ... "

I was rather afraid people were going to hang me over the ending, because it does pull the rug out from under the jeopardy a bit. (I tried to play fair; if one reads closely, the fact that I'm using dream-logic rather than realistic plotting should be perceptible.) Fortunately, everyone seems to be just as creeped out by the idea that Ed has such horrors in his mind, which is what I was aiming for.

It begs the question though... what brought him here?... and where exactly are they?

I don't know ... character context was more important to me than plot context in this one: it's enough to know that Ed is in hospital and delirious, because the point is to examine what happens to the inside of his head when the brakes come off his subconscious. It's a bit like "Passio" (http://nebroadwe.livejournal.com/10132.html) that way -- though I suppose, if you wanted, you could imagine this as a sequel to that (i.e. Ed having a really bad time of it post-operatively). Or you could write the answers yourself (I'll know I've arrived as a fanfiction writer when someone else uses something of mine to jumpstart their own inspiration :-).

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

One of the ELDs likes to wake me up in the morning by shoving her nose into my face. If that doesn't work, she smacks me with her paw. Preferably on my head. She's also awakened me by shoving her muzzle into my mouth.

And people wonder why I refer to them as 'evil'.

Yep. :-) Remember, he's dreaming ...

Hmmmm...and dreams are always of the bizarre. *grins*

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

One of the ELDs likes to wake me up in the morning by shoving her nose into my face. If that doesn't work, she smacks me with her paw. Preferably on my head. She's also awakened me by shoving her muzzle into my mouth.

And people wonder why I refer to them as 'evil'.

I don't. Pets! I like animals, really, but not to live with. I dogsat for a Jack Russell once. First, we argued about the sleeping arrangements -- he was used to snuggling up under the covers with his owner, but I'm not that kind of a girl. It was a queen-size bed, for heaven's sake; he could have had about two-thirds of it all to himself, but he wanted to sack out on my head. Finally he moved, all disgusted, to the foot of the bed, a compromise with which I was prepared to live. Then, at two in the morning, a car drove past the house and I was awakened by fifteen pounds of dog hoofing it across my diaphragm to get to the front window and bark. Then, when he sauntered back, all pleased with himself, he tried to get under the covers again. I pushed him off and he snapped at me. Then I snapped. He spent his nights in the crate after that. Silly beast.

Hmmmm...and dreams are always of the bizarre. *grins*

I'm just not getting the reaction I was expecting here. Ah, well. :-) I guess it was a little too far over into dreamscape to have him looking at his own body/not his body (in the way that you sometimes half-recognize things as familiar in dreams). I expect it would be creepier as a visual.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I get miserable if I don't have a little dog body roaming around within my house. Three doesn't quite seem like a big enough pack but I can't really afford more right now.

Though dogs who bark and wake me up face the consquences, yesh.

I guess it was a little too far over into dreamscape to have him looking at his own body/not his body (in the way that you sometimes half-recognize things as familiar in dreams).

When I finally got that you meant Ed, I did get somewhat creeped but that was so long after I'd read the story....

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

oh this was good and creepy, especially Winry....poor Ed. I just love dreams like this

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

To have, or to read about? :-) Brr. But yes, I enjoyed making Winry into one of the adversaries; I think characters who claim to love you but have unsuitable ways of showing it are quite scary. (And I don't think Winry killed Pinako, by the way -- just, uh, cannibalized her for parts. Nobody's brought that up yet, but just in case ... )

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

hmmm they're fun to read, less fun to have.

it was fun seeing Winry as a freak and geez poor pinako...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

it was fun seeing Winry as a freak and geez poor pinako...

There was a lot of "what's the worst thing I can do with this character?" going on here. Winry's still behaving helpfully, pragmatically, even lovingly, but it's all in the service of death, which makes it perverse. And Pinako, well -- I knew that Winry was going to suggest replacing Ed's automail with human flesh pretty early, but I didn't know who the donor was for a while. I thought at first she just had some random, possibly decaying arm and leg to offer, but then I remembered that Pinako's short, too. And that she had helpfully wandered out of the house at the beginning and not returned, so she could be dead.

I'm actually fondest of Al's freakout, myself -- I think I've said that up-comment. It took a bit to work out what he should say about his situation, though. I wanted it to be impressively dramatic; it started out longer and just got carved back to essentials so I could keep to the 100-word limit.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

personally all along I've always considered Ed's wish for his limbs back to be a little...gross. I keep wondering how he thinks they're going back on.

and yes Al's freakout was fun too

[allegratheneko.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I'm so glad that I got to see the end before you posted it on fanfiction (this is CrimsonNekolady). Too creepy!! Just when I thought I understood something, another puzzle would appear. I had to read through at least two of your hints before realizing that the boy was Ed XD Overall this is just amazing, great job.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's been interesting to seen the different reactions I get to the posted-all-at-once version and the drip-by-drip version. I wanted to see if it would hold up both ways. I fully expect to be crucified on ff.net, though, because most people seem to be trying to work out a realistic solution to the plot and here I am about to pull the rug out from under them.

I had to read through at least two of your hints before realizing that the boy was Ed XD

Altogether too subtle, that, evidently. :-) Ah, well. I know it's there; I can hug the secret to myself on cold winter nights and giggle in a creepy and vaguely menacing way. (What I wouldn't give to be able to let off a full-throated villainous belly-laugh, but I just can't seem to ... )