Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist but I own Ester.

From across the blank landscape, there was a white washed figure standing before a black gate and she was confused. Watching as she was flashed a too wide smile - was that what insanity looked like? - a shiver slowly eased its way down her spine and she wanted nothing more than to sleep for eternity.

"Well now, what do we have here?" He - her? - it? - asked, voice like a cacophony of discord, neither this nor that, but something in between and she felt it all the way to her marrow.

Blinking heavily - an action she was hard pressed to follow through with - she stared straight at its blank face and felt absolutely nothing. Not a single twitch of her muscles nor the weight of her hair against her neck and distantly she wondered if she should be panicking but despite how hard she tried, emotion was elusive.

She could do nothing more than exist.

The effort of keeping her eyes open was a strain in the worst of ways and with an almost inaudible sigh, her lids drifted shut with a languid glide and wouldn't lift despite her feeble attempts at regaining her sight.

An air-filled chuckle rubbed against her ears and the undeniable feeling of way-too-close filtered into her consciousness and wrapped itself around her brain.

"Isn't this just terribly interesting," the amused tone chirped with a startling ambiguity. "A little stray bird, so far away from her flock."

Vaguely, she could feel something in her recoil at the way those words curled around her heart with a vise grip, but everything was just too much and she could feel herself sinking. Into what, she didn't know, but it was swallowing her up quicker than she could dig herself out. Everything sounded as if it was traveling through water, diluted and striped down to the barest harmonic notes. It was like a heavy blanket had been settled over her body and all she could do was hear things like an echo bouncing off the dark walls of her skull.

It was disorienting and if she could muster the strength to vomit, she would have.

"Well, since you're already here I suppose you'll be making a deal with me," It said with a terribly amused lilt to its tone and she could feel her stomach sinking. "that for this and this for that, in fact you could call it an equivalent exchange."

A finger twitched and a muscle spasmed as something rose and whispered hushed muttering into the dank space within her thoughts, hissing quietly at the pale figure that she could still envision despite her brief glimpse and she shuddered.

"Really, this is the best option considering the circumstances so I hope there'll be no hard feelings left over from our meeting."

Something opened up behind her with a loud creak and groan and all of a sudden she was being moved.

"After all, you won't be needing two bodies now will you?"

And all she knew was hands. Hands and the inky darkness as her eyes flew open and a scream tore its way from her throat because standing just before the now rapidly closing doors, there was a girl replacing the figure in white.

A girl with spiraling black hair, bright brown eyes and a grin to match.

A girl with dark freckles that splayed across the tiny bridge of her nose, down the side of her bare neck and, dotted themselves around her left breast and over the brown skin of her hips.

A girl who looked exactly like herself.

"Maybe we'll meet again?" It said with her voice as the hands muffled her shrieks and pulled her deeper and deeper. "In a place like Amestris, you'll be back in no time."

And as those dark doors closed in on her and she drifted away once again, her petrified wail faded into the screech of a newborn baby and everything changed.

"I hope you're clever enough to reap the benefits of our trade," Truth - God the All-knowing and the All-seeing - whispered from the recesses of her mind. "it's always so sad when I see such potential go to waste."

Edit: 3/29/17

Welcome back to my Full Metal Alchemist SI-OC.