Chapter 8

A Chapter by Keevan

"Your mission is to go to a small town called Genheim," the colonel said to Edward and I. "Travel there by train, and once in the town, look for a man named Togi. He is stealing money and other valuables from the good people that live there."

"Do you have any idea what he looks like?" I asked, clenching my fists. "Is this an assassination?"

"Only if he resists," Colonel Mustang said as he held out a picture. "and this is the most recent picture of him." Edward took it, and I looked over his shoulder, studying the face of the robber.

He had dark skin with a crew cut, and a big nose ring. He had no eyebrows that I could see, and had a postage-stamp mustache.

"This guy's a freak," I said as I looked at it.

"No kidding," Ed said as he shoved the picture in his coat pocket.

"I meant you, Fullmetal."

"Hey!"

"If this is going to go on any longer, take it to the playpen," Mustang said annoyed. "This assignment should go on for three to seven days. Edward, I'm choosing you to write the report when you return."

"Fine," he grumbled.

"Take a train to Genheim. Havoc will drive you to the train station. Get going whenever you're ready. Dismissed."

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I shoved my lighter in one pocket, and my box of cigarettes in the other.

"Packed," I said out loud to myself. I looked to my bed, and walked over to it, lifting up the pillow. It was a picture of four little kids. I knew I was the little girl with brown hair. And there was a girl who looked a little older than me. She had brown hair, too.

Then there were two boys. Both were blond, and one of them looked younger than the other. I couldn't remember who they were. I had found that picture on the night I woke up with the biggest headache ever.

I yawned and laid down on the bed, slipping the picture back under the pillow. I closed my eyes, thinking to get a quick nap in.

It was a nightmare.

"Let me go!" I screamed. "Let me GO!!!"

"Quick struggling, rat!" the man with the gold tooth shouted as he strapped me, 8 years old, to the lab table along with a few other people. I turned my head to the side and saw into the closet, which had made me scream in the first place.

Nothing in there but bloodied dead bodies. One of them, a friend of mine.

"Turn your head!" Gold Tooth man shouted, grabbing my chin and forcefully turning my head. A blond man with glasses leaned over my head.

"Who are you!?" I shouted. "Let me go! Let me go!"

"Can you be my Pain?" he muttered. "Can you bear the pain of being my Pain?" A mask was put over my mouth, and I was forced to breath in the toxic gasses. The blond man stood up and walked away. I stared at the bright light that was overhead. My eyes drooped, though my mind was still on Red Alert. The man with the gold tooth was looming over me, smiling.

I gently faded to the black, along with a horrendous dream full of extremely realistic pain.

"Damn!" I screamed as I sat up.

"Gah!" Edward shouted as he stepped back a few feet. I looked around the room, the same dorm I'd had for the past two years. I looked down at my hands, and saw that I was shaking. I felt drenched in sweat, remembering the face of my dead friend, who I had just remembered because of that dream.

His name was...

"Give me a heart attack, why don't cha!?" Edward shouted at me. I lost my train of thought, and lifted my head to glare at him.

"What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. In. Here," I said menacingly.

"Al and I've been waiting for over an hour, so I came to drag your a*s out of bed," Edward said. He sighed, and said, "Did you have a bad dream or something?" I shook my head.

"It was nothing," I said as I got up. "I'm gonna go take a shower. I'll just meet you and Al at the train station."

"Okay, suit yourself."

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"What was his name?" I asked myself as I slid on my sweatshirt. I left it unzipped, like I always did. I kept racking my brain, trying to remember that boy's name. But all I remembered was his bloody and terrified face, dead, with eyes wide open, from my dream. I shook my head again, realizing that I was eight years old in that dream. It felt like it happened before, it was so real...

"My past," I mumbled as I wrung out my wet hair again. "I think I might've remembered something. Gold tooth dude seems familiar, along with blond-hair-and-glasses-dude." I said this as I walked out of the shower room. And just as I finished mumbling things to myself, I bumped into Lieutenant Hawkeye.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Ah--nothing!" I said too quickly. She looked at me as if I were an unknown specimen, and shrugged.

"Shouldn't you be with Ed and Al at the train station?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. I yawned.

"I said I'd meet them there," I said.

"Are you packed?"

"Yep."

"Where are you things?"

"All I need are my cigarettes and my lighter," I said. "I could care less about anything else."

"At least pack some clothes for three days," she said annoyed.

"You're not my mother, Riza," I said as I walked past her. She caught my arm and pulled me back.

"You need to learn to respect your elders, Lucy," she said severely. "It's something you can practice while you're away."

"Whatever, Hawkeye." I pulled my arm back and continued down the hallways, feeling her gaze on me even after I turned the corner.