A/N: The plot of this story follows the canon storyline in Brotherhood until after Hughes dies, but instead of going to the Devil's Nest and Dublith, Ed, Al and Winry go to Rush Valley, but something called them away from visiting Izumi. So Ed never meets Greed and then Ling and May. The events in this fic begin several months after Rush Valley, with Ed and Al on the search for a means to get their bodies back...

This nightmare is eternal, like a sinking sand, where nothing will go away. The grief is consuming me.

Where are you? Why did you leave me all alone...

Chapter 1

Edward was the only one wearing any shade of colour – his infamous red cloak. He hadn't thought about what he was going to wear, and he had shrugged the cloak over his shoulders as he did every morning. Except he had forgotten, or more accurately, he had chosen to forget about the event which had congregated people, half of whom he didn't know, in sombre shades of black together. Everywhere the eye could see there were black suits, black dresses, black coats, as though he was swimming in a sea of the night.

Being here, it felt like night-time. Not the late hours of the day leading into the excitement of midnight, but at night-time early in the morning, where dawn was but a lonely dream. It was a time when shadows reigned, dragging out their ever-lasting dynasty throughout these ungodly hours, where nothing changed. The time was therefore so torturous that everyone slept fitfully through it, but when that night-time ruled Edward's every waking day, it was living through an eternal nightmare.

He longed to forget it all. He wanted to forget the sad faces ushering apologies on him like newly wedded couples had bouquets thrown at them; Edward was drowning in their sympathy. If he could throw it back at them, he would have done so in a heartbeat. But that was the punishment of being young – no matter how mature you acted or proved your worth as an adult a countless number of times, age is a sentence of punishment against you. It meant that these strangers automatically assumed that Edward wanted their sympathy.

Why couldn't they bloody see that he wanted to be left alone?

As he staggered past these people, their faces were blotted out like stains as he sulked past the crowds, noticing nobody. Edward was surrounded in his own bubble of misery, his personal bubble of this endless night-time, that he didn't hear what people were telling him. He carried on walking. Even though he knew neither where he was or where he was going, he continued to move forwards. He couldn't focus his attention on anything else. He was in the state of being in so much pain that it felt like his senses had ceased to function, and Edward had lost the will to care if he was living in a nightmare or not.

He remembered leaving his hotel room looking as scruffy as ever that morning. The trip to this place was a blur. He didn't know how long he had been trapped in this claustrophobic space with these strangers, but time was as lagging as his senses. For all that he was aware; he could have been here for ten minutes or ten years. Edward didn't care – the future had long since lost a purpose to him. He just carried on living, day in, day out, living in his own personalised hell.

But he couldn't define his existence as "living" – he was too raw and hollow inside for that to be a possibility.

His focus temporarily slipped out of his comatose state to register that he had reached a grey, solemn wall. To his left, there was a set of stairs of the same mundane colour. He lumbered forwards and turned, burying his face into his hands like he was about to cry. He automatically tucked his body closer to his chest, as if he believed that his body was able to comfort him in a womb of warmth and remove the pain tearing him apart. The pain had torn apart at his emotions already, and he had been warped into this hollow shell of the Fullmetal Alchemist that now existed in the flamboyant Edward Elric's steed. Edward barely recognised himself anymore.

His skin was stretched over his bones like a mask; there was no muscle left in his arm or leg. His automail had been neglected, so they constituted of metal stumps he dragged around with him, and they were likely to be riddled with cobwebs. His clothes were so loose that his belt was tightened to its fullest potential, and still his trousers threatened to fall down. His slimly fit shirt was baggy and his cloak sagged to the floor, collecting dust and sorrow in its path. Edward didn't dare look in the mirror, but he knew his hair was straw and his eyes were husks – empty, lifeless disks.

There was worse pain to feel.

He had experienced so much pain that it had melded into his framework that had pushed him beyond the agony of automail. The pain had infiltrated his mind, leaving his hollow body remaining. That pain had rendered him unable to feel anything else.

An invisible, yet impenetrable, fog had settled around him, and he wallowed in that darkness on the stairs. His chest was heaving as though he was out of breath, as he felt that pain threatening to consume him; it was all he could do to keep himself alive. Burying himself in the darkness would make that pain go away.

Edward was like a child lost without their mother. And his mother was never coming back for him…

His body choked silently and yet no tears fell. He would have been self-conscious to have the World's eyes watching him, but he huddled on the stairs, memories taunting his mind like dancing shadows around a fire.

His mother was never coming back for him…

He needed that familiar reassurance. That gentle touch on his shoulder, the unspoken comfort which was Edward's purpose for waking up every morning. His breathing fastened. Nothing was ever going to be alright.

It would be time soon. Time when he would have to say goodbye…There was only so much denial that he could muster and as a result, he knew that this moment was real.

Make this pain go away.

Stop. Please.

Too late. A bell chimed somewhere, and a congregation of strangers started to gather around the stairs he was sitting on. Edward looked up, realizing he had positioned himself by the door. It was raining outside. He heard the clomping of military boots. Stop.

He heard cars to a door close. Stop!

Solemn silence followed, and the footsteps proceeded to come into the church. Stop!

He couldn't look. He couldn't cry. He buried deeper into the fog, his own eternal nightmare. Nightmares were better than this reality. Everyone else would be staring, pitying, him. He had witnessed too much sorrow for a child this age. But with acknowledgement came acceptance. But. Why.

Why.

Why would he want to look at the box?

Edward glanced up, exhausted, as he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. Too late. He had seen it. The wooden coffin was ornate with forget-me-nots arranged in a bouquet of hyacinths. Their literal meaning: don't forget sorrow.

And inside?

Edward choked, realizing his heart was thrumming inside of his chest, and his breathing had quickened yet again.

Alphonse. His baby brother, his gentle baby brother, had the full-decorated honour of a high-ranking military officer. No. No. No. He was Edward's curious, shy and compassionate baby brother.

No. He couldn't say goodbye. No. No. No!

The hand squeezed gently on his shoulder. Edward turned around, and his eyes widened in astonishment. Al was there in the flesh. He wasn't inside that box. He was here. With his big brother.

Edward gasped, his body shaking in shock. Of course this was a bad dream. Al would be there in the morning as he always was. Al would radiate his optimism onto Edward's cynicism, and the Elric brothers would seize another day to regain their lost bodies. He knew that today wasn't real.

Al closed his eyes and smiled, and that familiar warmth vanished. Edward blinked. Al wasn't there anymore. Al? Al!"

"Al…"

Edward collapsed, his cloak billowing out around him, as pain contorted through his body. The unsurmountable pain called grief surged through his body. Al was dead.

And Edward was alone.

I'm finally posting this! :D This story is going to be my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, and I have to admit, I am both excited and apprehensive.

As to where the idea came from, I read the FMA doujinshi called Traumerei a while ago, and the story's broken Edward coping with the loss of Al is heartbreaking as well as unique. It's beautiful, and I highly recommend it to anyone. I'll have an update schedule (long chapters weekly most likely) ready which I'll post with the next chapter - for the first time in my life I am organized!

If you're enjoying this and want faster updates, please leave me a review. They're greatly appreciated :)

Thank you for reading, and I will see you with the next update ~ Dawn