Amestris becomes a harrowingly silent place on the afternoon of the Promised Day and only the survivors at the center are left to tread over it. Within a few hours, they won’t be the only ones wandering. The sacrifices are rising and leaving Central is more dangerous than the looming threat of invading armies.
Rated: M. it’s a horror/zombie au fic. - or it tries to be
Warnings: Gore! Blood. The whole shebang for Zambeez
Chapter 5/11
Alphonse
Alphonse grew up listening to comparisons made between him and his brother. It notably narrowed down to the peculiar color of their eyes and hair, rich and golden like the desert sun, and the attunement to their prodigious understanding of alchemy.
It was said Alphonse Elric was patient where his brother was rash, that regarded others with a gentler compassion where Edward was brash, and generally, an optimist down to his soul. It had been a beacon of pride for him. Humility and approachability were traits people loved about their mother and to be seen as such, when they hardly look like her, created a warm spot in the cold hollow of his armor. Throughout the day - in his bouts of straying consciousness, he wondered if there was such a thing as too much optimism, and if he was just wrong about everything. That created a chilling spot in the warmth of his flesh body.
Alphonse thought about everyone he met, he laughed with, and held conversations. The people he knew little insignificant tidbits about, the smiles he had seen, the connections he had felt because of all of this. Not physically, but in his soul. He thought about them and each time he did his lip trembled and his throat became irritatingly tight as he was no longer used to have physical reactions to emotions. But this was the truth now: everyone he came in contact with during his journey - anyone who wasn't sitting in this room - wouldn't be able to celebrate with his accomplishment of regaining his body. He tried not to think of Resembool, fearing he'd spiral into something darker, and the day they had lost everyone somehow worsened.
Someone - or something - climbed through the window of his second floor hospital room and Al functioned on pure adrenaline to save his life and May's. He wished he could cement the idea then and there that it was animalistic and not human. He felt conflicted arriving on that moral decision considering he was without a flesh body up until a few hours ago.
And that was the thing, Alphonse felt nothing but anxiety since leaving his armored body behind at the military grounds. He was frail, weak. He was now made of flesh and bone, not of metal and a bloodseal He couldn't keep nutrients down and while he knew to expect this, he felt like a letdown to everyone. Nerves were on edge after what they saw this afternoon and he could pick it out like weeds around the hallway where they had all gathered the first night.
After the sun ducked under the horizon, the hospital lights shining down on the street had attracted the sacrifices, or so they decided to call them. They had tapped against the pale-red brick until the group ultimately decided to kill the lights. It would have been easier to just completely block out the had made a fire in the middle of the wing.
Colonel Mustang sat with them near the fire created from medical files and wooden clipboards to cook their evening meal. He, Brother and Teacher, they all had the same contemplative look on them – or perhaps it was shock. Their gazes were glossed over from the flames burning meekly in the spring nighttime.
Darius leaned against a wall, one foot propped against it, arms tightly crossed. Jerso donned a white patch right side of his skull. The chimera had lost his ear and they lost Zampano.
Al shifted his eyes away from the disturbed chimera. A loud thump startled him back to Darius's direction. A balled fist created an indent to the wall behind it.
"This is ridiculous. We are sitting ducks!" The gorilla chimera paced anxiously.
Jerso stirred from his seat on the floor, watching Darius warily. Drowsiness clouded his eyes, a side effect of the medicine administered for his missing ear, but caution alerted them.
"You saw those things. Whatever that was was. It's just like the mannequins in that white room. They move the same way, they don't think!" His voice boomed and bounced off the walls. "What do we do about what's out there?"
Alphonse clenched his fists weakly, an answer - for once - not springing immediately to his mind. Brother hadn't moved from his gaze into the fire, but his shoulders were tensed and the bridge of his nose was crinkled slightly.
Darius twisted on his heels to face the Colonel and marched for him.
Lieutenant Hawkeye twisted her body to reach for a sidearm. They exchanged glares; the animosity still hanging from this afternoon.
"Where's your plan now, Colonel?" His large arms were thrown up in the air with exasperation; he spoke an octave louder and with pause in between his words. The Colonel didn't flinch even as the chimera . This seemed to frustrate Darius even more.
Darius opened his mouth to speak again and loud thuds banged against the wall behind the transmuted door.
"Lower your voice."
"Or what? Is Colonel Mustang afraid that those things will break through the wall and get us?" He taunted.
"Lower - your - voice." The Colonel iterated dangerously.
"Darius, stop it, man." Jerso supplied, his eyebrows knit in concern and maybe fright. "We're all just scared here. Nobody could have seen this coming."
Darius inhaled deeply, chest extending and glaring around the room. He lifted his arms and balled fists pounded at his chest. The chimera opened his mouth to release a distinctive, ululating yell several notches louder than his speaking voice.
Alphonse covered his ears and winced, not entirely used to registering sound physically.
Teacher and the Lieutenant sprung up with the former quickly materializing a dagger with alchemy and the latter producing a handgun from her holster. Darius stopped immediately, putting his hands up.
"We don't care if you feel like acting a fool and putting your own life at risk," Teacher warned. "But don't endanger the rest of us`
"Fine," He spat, glancing towards the amphibian chimera. "Let's go Jerso."
Jerso tilted his head at the mention at his name. "Where are you going?"
"Away from here. I say we have better chances out there than stuck like canned meat in here."
Jerso shook his head. "I don't know." It was the first time Al heard him stammer. "You didn't see these things the way I did. If they're anything like those mannequin soldier - I don't want a repeat of the white room. It was the fire colonel who saved us, remember? Not even the twerp stood a chance."
Brother didn't stir.
Jerso bowed his head towards his bent knees, running hands over the braided dreads down the length of his scalp. "And if they got Zampano…"
The tall man pursed his lips, anger and fear flashing through his face. "Suit yourself." He walked over to the window, working on yanking the bolted wood panels off the walls. "You alchemists can fix this right up, right? Just like you fixed me?"
No one responded. Alphonse's heart went out to him. He empathized with Zampano and jerso back in Baschool. But there was nothing to say. The people who he wanted to be angry with were dead; quite possibly walking the streets.
Small feet broke the tense silence as May approached the firelight. He gave her a knowing, appreciative smile whenever he saw her. Alphonse was told of her persistence in helping get through the first few hours, but it was that same persistence that miraculously had him out of bed. "What's going on?"
"Darius wants to leave," Jerso whispered to her. "I think he's scared, little girl."
"I am not scared!" Darius roared. "I just want to live! Without a cage."
They all jumped from the nails ripping from the walls. Some clinked as the metal scattered on the floor.
"Enjoy your trapped existence." was the last thing he said before he hopped out the window.
The silence following Darius's departure hung over them, like a thick humidity, and uncomfortable. Teacher stood up, lifting the slatted barricade and Hawkeye went to help her reattach it. Undoubtedly, it was an easy feat for Teacher. Time, energy, and sound spared by the clap of two hands.
"How is Scar faring, May?" Teacher asked as the two rejoined them around the dying fire.
May fumble with her fingers and her eyes focused on the floor. She released a sigh, "I don't know what's wrong with Mr. Scar. He's warm with fever. I've given him what I know to stop try and bring it down. I've placed a wet towel over his head, but he's unconscious. And I really don't know why."
The Colonel perked. "What happened with Scar?"
"One of the bodies exploded." Brother looked down focusing on the floor as if the scene played on the tile in front of him. He wrung his hands. Alphonse noticed the fluidity of his automail was not all there, but Brother continued, "Something shrouded around him. I don't know what it was. Unnatural if I had to describe it and then Scar collapsed after a few seconds. It was a close call."
Confused, the Colonel frowned, "A gas?"
"A mist or something, yeah," Brother responded and the older man didn't say anything more, turning pensive.
"Did you check his lungs?" Teacher asked.
May nodded at Teacher, looking up with eyes that made Alphonse sad. "He's breathing fine. My medical knowledge only goes so far. His chi flow isn't blocked like when I tended to his wounds this morning."
"May," Mustang called calmly.
After a moment May answered, "Yes?"
"You've mentioned chi and life force before right now."
"It's the basis to Alkahestry."
"Can you sense anything in these things?" The Colonel asked.
"What are you thinking?" Teacher interjected May's response.
He leaned back into his chair, kicking one leg over the other. "Why the dead would rise. Most of this room knows full well the impossibility of the scenario."
Al glanced over to Hawkeye, staring at her commanding officer and unsure if he picked up a sadness in her eyes. It was hard to tell from the limited light.
"Judging by the way that they burn, I'm assuming they look nothing like the mannequin soldier we encountered?"
"No," Brother said, stirring out of his silence. "They used to be human. They were once living humans, but now…" He struggled. "Now, I don't know."
"Then we find ourselves in a dead nation with its citizens suddenly rising up." The Colonel said grimly. His greyed eyes looked into the fire with a focused determination.
Alphonse mused he could probably feel the warmth of the fire on his face; it almost convinced Alphonse that Mustang could see again.
"They are another form of mannequin soldiers," he continued. "But what's animating them?"
"I don't sense anything different about them, not from what I've seen." May answered his question from before."
"And this isn't something you see with your eyes?"
"No, it's more like instinct, but if I concentrate then I can sense it."
Mustang breathed out, "Can you teach me what you know?"
May looked at him thoughtfully, at the others, himself, and then back to the Colonel. "I can try."
"What do you two know about it?"
In Aspec, Al remembered his feeble attempt to learn Alkahestry and their source derived from "chi", "life force", and "the Dragon's pulse". All three turned out to be synonymous. He wondered then if it was it's lack of tangibility that made it difficult for him, or if it veered on the spiritual type of science that Alphonse simply didn't attune well with.
Alphonse jumped again in his wheelchair before he could speak. An earsplitting yell rung through the streets, rattling him and the others. But it was getting nearer.
"Let me in! Let me back in!"
Heads turned towards the window and it took a moment for all of them to realize the cries for help came from Darius whose voice had heightened several octaves.
Brother and Teacher scrambled to give Darius an entryway, collectively realizing why he needed help.
Just like his persistence, his curiosity knew no bounds and his feet touched the cold of the hospital floor despite the warmth of the faltering fire. May stirred from his sudden movement as one hand held onto the IV stand. He took slow steps and his slow approach still managed to jolt his brother and the Lieutenant out of their stupor from watching. He noticed how none of them moved to assist him outside of the building. As if they were grounded by a fear neither of them had known.
He slowly pivoted his head from his brother to the view past the window panes.
Darius was several blocks away, running with all his might. Behind him several bodies moved with impressive speed and a mob moved at a snail's pace behind him, like the foot soldiers to the cavalry charging ahead.
Immediately, he noticed how none of them moved to assist him outside of the building. As if they were grounded by a fear none of them had known before, like an instinct deep down urged them to remain where if they were to keep their lives. With the little strength Alphonse gathered from only a day, he felt it down to his bones.
The running sacrifices looked terrifying, spastically moving forward in a way that wasn't practical but they gained ground on the chimera nonetheless.
Breaking the fear-wrought silence, Brother extended his hand out, shouting in the encouraging, heart-thumping way that he does, "We've got you, Mr. Gorius! Run!"
The chimera, responding to the encouragement, picked up the speed of his sprint and prepared himself for a lunge only a chimera could accomplish.
However, a millisecond before he did, something from the shadows jumped out of the alley and tackled him to the ground. The manner in which it opened its mouth should have broken the joint at its mandible but it bit down on Darius's neck. Darius's arms and legs spastically shot out before he tried to claw the sacrifice off his neck.
In the cast of only the moonlight, Alphonse saw the blood that spilled towards the sky. Any of them looking out the window saw him reaching out towards them pleading them to help him. The front lines of the mob moved in on him and his screams were wretched and pained. Al couldn't see Darius any more as the rest of them moved in on him. They clawed and ate as the survivors watched from the second story window of Central's only hospital.
Summary: Joel flips through his notes and thinks if he should revise a few of them.
The visit to the café has been sticking in his mind all day and he wants to talk about it. The only thing that’s holding him back is that it would bring his personal life into his show.
Then, Joel realizes that no one is actually listening to his show (that he knows of) and he decides to throw the adventures of his day in...
