#justanotherdumpster

“And then God created the world as it is, breathing life into it and shaping it so that His children could thrive and prosper in His benevolence. He poured His love into every single thing, and spread it across the land for all to see.

But the Devil was jealous of it, and so he showed humans how to twist creation, how to break it and re-shape it to their selfish and cruel desires - he brought alchemy to God’s world.

He spread it to The Creator of All’s children, corrupting them, turning them into demons, choosing damnation - alchemists defied GOD.

And all those who defy God are bound to burn in the flames of Hell.”

~

Edward had never believed in God, nor in anything the Inquisition liked to say about Him.

He hated to sit in class and listen to how loving and great He was while people were burnt in village squares because they didn’t do what He commanded. Ed despised that He got to decree what was right and what was wrong, loathed that He seemed to do nothing but sit on his golden throne in Heaven and ‘slam his gavel on the unjust and the damned’.

Edward was too curious -his teachers didn’t like him much because of it. Too many times they’d found themselves cornered by his uncomfortable questions, and every time they looked at him, they saw something like fire in his eyes - a hint of challenge that sparked to life anytime he argued about what the Holy Book said of God.

“God will punish you if you turn your back on him, Edward.”

He’d heard those words often, coming from the priest, but he’d never paid much attention to them - he didn’t even believe in God, so why should he be scared of him? Besides, how could asking questions be seen as ‘turning his back on Him’ in the first place? He wanted to know everything, and he wanted the proof as well.

“God gave us no proof of His existence as a test, my child; we must believe in Him, even when we have nothing - that is the power of faith.”

Which made no sense to Edward; he knew air existed because he could breathe it even if he couldn’t see it. He knew there was oxygen, helium and hydrogen in that very air because someone had dedicated their life to studying it… yet, in centuries no one had found evidence of God, no matter how hard they searched. To him, that meant He did not exist at all.

It wasn’t unusual for Edward to go and ask his mother about unholy matters like alchemy, as she was the only one who answered with a warm smile and kind words. She never said much about it, claiming to know nothing, but somehow Ed always knew. She was hiding something, even if he knew for sure she couldn’t be an alchemist, – she had after all, passed the array test - so they were sure of it.

But it was exactly that array test, –the very one which had once spared her- that had destroyed her life, and the life of her sons.

All children had to pass the test to be allowed a normal life. At the tender age of six, ‘the time when the Devil claimed his demons’ as proclaimed in the Holy Book, they would be tested, to see if they were damned… to see if they could use alchemy, the power that defied the Laws of Creation, that defiled God’s wishes and intentions. Being able to use this power meant that the child had sprouted from the Devil’s Seed - that they were impure and unclean, destined to burn in the depths of Hell.

The Inquisition just hastened their torment.

They had the decency to burn them in a building, at least, and not in the village square like all the other alchemists - people Ed had known, that he was sure were not demons at all - destined to burn at the hands of the servants of God.

He didn’t blame Him - He didn’t exist after all – but he blamed His men; those who had decided that changing something, making it better or easier to use, must be a sin. Once, he had asked the priest why; if God had existed before everything, He must have created the Devil - a creature that was meant to trick humans into failing Him. Ed had asked him how far God intended to push the faith of His children before he would be satisfied.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned out to be an alchemist, Edward.”

That had been his answer.

He hadn’t paid attention to it.

He really should have.

Alchemy was hereditary, he knew that much - from parents to sons, it never skipped a generation. When a mother or father were burnt at the stake their children were always quick to follow… but his mother wasn’t an alchemist and his father had vanished a long, long time ago, leaving nothing behind - if not the golden eyes that the priests hated so much - a sign of the Devil, they said.

Gold eyes were associated with alchemy most of the time, and they were rarer than ever thanks to the Inquisition, but Ed wasn’t worried about it; his father couldn’t have been an alchemist, his mother had never said anything about it.

And so it was with no surprise that, on his sixth birthday the Inquisition knocked on his door and demanded that he follow them to their Court - it was Christmas, but they cared little about that. Alphonse came with him, Trisha holding both of their hands in her trembling ones. It had made Ed nervous; it wasn’t normal for his mother to be like that - she was calm, sweet and gentle, never once had he seen her angry…but that time she had worn a worried frown, her eyes scared when she had turned to him to say;

“Everything will be alright, sweetheart.”

But she’d been WRONG.

Like all children before him, he had approached the array on the pedestal, had reached out hesitantly to touch it - and it had reacted to him. As it sparkled with blue light, he had frozen in shock as the truth hit him like a ton of bricks… he was an alchemist.

He was damned.

He was impure.

He was destined to burn.

Edward would never forget the screams of the Jury, the black hooded men seizing his mother and tearing her away from him as they shouted - “To the stake, to the stake!” They were the only words he could hear, those and his mother screaming his name.  

His brother was to be taken away too, but his mother had screamed again.

“They’re twins, they’re twins - test them both, test both of them!”

It had been a lie. Al was younger, younger by a year - alchemy never manifested before their sixth birthday, never… but Ed knew that if they believed Al to be as old as him, and the array didn’t react, Al would have the chance to survive.

He watched as his crying brother touched the circle, no reaction coming from it - he watched as they took him away, as they preached to the Lord for the miracle of a child born from sin, without sin, as they thanked Him for sending them the Messiah… he watched, screaming and crying, trying to reach his mother’s hand one last time before they were both taken out into the square, away from his brother, in front of everyone. He couldn’t be burned at the stake, he couldn’t die, he just couldn’t – then who would take care of Al?

The Judge started to speak, saying something as his mother was tied to the stake and dead grass laid at her feet - she was soaked in oil, a courtesy given to those who had fallen into sin because of temptation; it made them burn faster, made it less painful… as less as it could be.

“-uilty of lying with the spawn of the Devil, of having brought one of his demons to life, an-”

He didn’t hear most of it, -his own screams and sobs too loud- but no matter how hard he fought to free himself from his captors’ grasp, he couldn’t move an inch.

That day, he watched his mother burn.

The smell of charred flesh, her face consumed by the fire, her inhuman shrieks - all that smoke, blinding, heavy and dark… in that moment, he thought he was already in Hell.

“And now… the son of Evil - the impure incarnation of sin, the tainted half of this world, the one born alongside the Messiah from an unholy uni-”

He didn’t hear the rest, his body suddenly jerked up and taken to where his mother had been burnt - what was left of her still in the pyre under his feet, staring back at him as a reminder of the horror he had just witnessed. He was tied to the stake in front of everyone… the son of Evil deserved a death for all to see.

There was no oil poured on him, no grace bestowed upon him, nothing to spare him the longest agony.

As the pyre was lit, Edward cried out - he began to shriek loudly, and so his screams rang throughout the square as people turned away or shouted for the sin to be erased. Soon enough, he could feel nothing but burning in his legs, his skin slowly turning to black as it cooked under the intense heat of the fire: he didn’t know if he was still wailing, he couldn’t hear anything but the bubbling and popping of his own skin. Not long after, his left eye gave way to the fire, burned within its socket.

Ed wanted to die. There was nothing else he wanted more, in that moment - when the pyre finally stopped burning, he cried out to be killed, begged for the pain to end, anything but burning again, but he wasn’t given any mercy.

He was the son of Evil.

He was sin.

He wanted to die.

He wanted to die, he wanted to die.

He didn’t believe in God – never had.

But that day, he prayed.

“Please, God, if you’re there, kill me, kill me now, please God if you exist kill me, kill me, ki-”

There was an explosion, of that much, he was sure - even in his agony, he could tell something had burst… and then he was hit by something, all over his body - cold, blissful water.

Pain washed over him again, stronger than ever when he felt someone’s hands on his charred skin, and a cloth wrapped around his limp figure. There were screams, orders and more explosions, but soon enough, he ceased to feel anything anymore, and fainted.

As he slipped away, one thought flashed by in his agony-wretched mind.