Okay, look, I know I said 10 deaths, but I'm cutting it here at 8. It's close enough to the deadline for this thing that I need to wrap it up soon. So... I made sure to eat lots of sugar and read lots of angst to prepare myself. Enjoy some angst. Oh yeah, and to those to whom I haven't sent a review reply to, thanks here, because I'm probably not getting around to it with my busy life. See ya at the end.

Disclaimer: Don't own. I sooo wish though.

Death Type 08

Ed didn't know how long he'd been stuck in here - days, weeks, maybe even a couple months. There was no clock. There were no windows. He was too far away from the train tracks to feel their rumbling. And the guys keeping him here kept giving him drugs that put him into unconsciousness for unknown amounts of time. He didn't recognize the guys, nor the place where he was kidnapped, and that just put him even more on edge.

He had tried talking to them a couple times, but at this point his voice was worn thin from both moderate disuse and how much pain it put his chest through. He had no idea what he looked like, but it was probably to the point even Mustang couldn't conjure a snarky comment on his condition. Except maybe something like, "Wow, Fullmetal, with your body healing yourself that much, I don't think you'll get any taller for years." Which, in all honesty, would hurt more than anger him, because Mustang was Colonel I-Don't-Care-About-Anyone-Else-Haha-Lol-God-Complex. It was what he did.

Ed looked around again. His arms were tied to the side of the chair - he couldn't transmute his way out. They'd taken his automail leg so he couldn't run, and even if he did get out of the ropes he wouldn't have the strength left over to go anywhere regardless.

There was a creak cutting through the ringing silence of his prison, followed by muffled voices and the sound of a door opening and slamming shut quickly and eagerly. He hated that door - but he was grateful at the same time because it steeled himself for what was coming. It just told him the fact that it was coming in the first place, too. So he didn't really know his feelings about the creaky door. It was good and bad, he guessed he thought.

Listen to me, Ed thought. Rambling about a freaking door. I must be going insane. Or maybe I always have been and these events are making me normal and that seems like I'm insane.

He looked up as the usual three guys stepped into the room. He gave them names in his head because they didn't tell him theirs - the guy in the back was tall and thin, not at all muscular, but he was the one who gave him the drugs, so he didn't really need to be. He also instructed the other two on how to best torture him. And then laughed maniacally. His eyes were nearly always hidden by glasses, and the guy reminded him of a deeper-voiced Tucker, so his name was Tucker II. Fitting.

The second one was an extremely muscular guy - maybe three-quarters of an Armstrong. Almost a Sig. He had really really silver hair - not white, just really silver and shiny even there with no light - and he had Ishvalan eyes, but his skin was normal-colored. He still reminded Ed strongly of a more muscle-ey Scar, and so it came out that this guy was Scar II.

The third guy wasn't necessarily muscular, or fat, he was just built big. And he could pack a really mean punch, as Ed had learned. His hair and eyes were both pitch black, and the latter were completely emotionless - void of emotion. Just black pits of nothingness, even though his voice and general disposition were filled with a general hatred of everything. So, Void was the name Ed gave him.

The three guys were the ones that usually came in to torture him. Torturing was really all he knew now - he'd been kidnapped and taken here and tortured for information about anything he knew until he broke. He'd been asked about everything from human transmutation to soul bonding to Mustang's flame alchemy to the Philosopher's Stone. He didn't even know who these guys were, but they were definitely bad.

Today they came in equipped differently from normal. Tucker II was carrying none of the usual sedative drugs, but a single opaque yellow bottle and a pair of sinister-looking scissors that gleamed in the light from the lanterns they brought. As well as a needle. They used needles as much as possible because they knew he hated them. Screw these guys for knowing what he hated. Scar II had a weird screwdriver-ish "weapon" that looked more like a tool than anything else. He thought it looked familiar, but he couldn't pinpoint from where he knew it. And Void hadn't come in with anything at all - in fact, all he did was smirk and go to sit in a chair to the side of the room.

Ed looked at Tucker and Scar II, who were both whispering in hushed voices. Tucker set the bottle and syringe on the table and pointed to the scissors, earning a nod from Scar. Then they both turned to Ed.

"Tell me, Fullmetal," Tucker said (Ed cringed, because he hated being reminded of Roy every time that was said), "do you know what is in this bottle?"

He shook his head, though his face was still defiant.

Tucker laughed maniacally. "Well, I guess we'll just show you." He nodded toward Scar, who grabbed Ed's automail arm and held it to the side of the chair - not that it was needed, as they had bashed the automail beyond repair and he couldn't even move his fingers anymore. Only his shoulder, a tiny bit, right where the nerves were connected to the automail. "You see..."

He dipped the syringe in and filled it with the liquid inside - it was red. Ed gasped and jerked around in his chair. There was no way.

There was absolutely no freaking way they had Philosopher's Stone liquid here. No way in any sort of world.

"I see you know what it is," Tucker II said in his deep Tuckery voice. "This is indeed the Philosopher's Stone. But you see, we've been warned of the events that would happen if we inject it, so we needed a test subject - a guinea pig, as it were. And you'd do perfectly."

Scar II laughed, tightening his grip on Ed's automail. If he coul feel that arm he'd be screaming bloody murder by now.

Tucker then set the syringe down, but Ed didn't lower his guard. "First, however, we need to test you - see your limits, if you'll survive being injected or not. We can't waste our precious Stone. That's where he and I come in - we're going to test our test subject."

Ed studied the tool in Scar II's hand. He still couldn't remember where he knew it from - but they'd explain to him, wouldn't they?

"I see the look in your eyes," Scar said, grinning. "You want an explanation. But I think we'll just show you."

He lifted the device and brought it close to the upper arm of Ed's automail.

The tool and the automail being so close together finally gave him a reminder - Winry. Winry had used this to fix his automail a couple times. Speaking of Winry, was she and Al missing him? He thought they should have found him by now.

Back to the present, he told himself. Be strong. And whatever you do, don't bow down to them.

Scar II cackled in much the same way as Tucker II and then shoved the end of the tool down into the crack between two metal plates. When he added pressure, the main plate of his upper arm popped right off, landing neatly in Tucker's hands.

"Excellent craftsmanship," he noted. "But it doesn't matter, really, does it? Because we'll be taking it apart now."

Scar pulled another three or four layers of plates off until he reached the final one. Ed had finally caught on to what they were doing. Tucker came forward with the scissors. Ed breathed in and out, willing himself not to panic. But internally his brain was total chaos except a corner of logic.

"Aaaand... there we go," Scar said, grinning crazily as he stared at the neat bunch of Ed's nerves lying in plain sight to the light.

Ed breathed heavily, trying to direct his attention away from his automail. Focus on the cuts they gave you on your arms yesterday, he told himself. Or whenever it was. So he tried to focus on his other arm, ad it worked. For about a second.

He felt it before it even came. The metal scissors closed in on his nerves, the gap between their blades closing rapidly, and he jerked his arm as far to the side as it would go - and then the tips of the edges managed to snag a single nerve and sever it from the automail.

He tried to scream at first - but he shut his mouth and told himself sternly he wouldn't. He would try really, really really hard not to.

Tucker tutted and gave the metal scissors a few snips at the air. "My. Feisty, are we? We'll have to hurry, then."

Ed closed his eyes tightly and braced himself for the pain. He felt a burst of pain, white-hot fire racing up and down from his shoulder to his head to his other arm and down his body before going back to the source. They did it twice, so he could only see spots behind his eyes, before it happened.

Snip for the fourth time, and he screamed. Or tried to, anyways.

No sound came out of his mouth - his voice wouldn't work after so long and under the conditions - but his eyes snapped open and his expression turned somehow even more pained than before. He was pretty sure if he did scream, though, it would be so high-pitched it wouldn't be within the human range of hearing. Once his mouth closed and he started breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his ears and pain blossoming from his shoulder, Tucker and Scar and Void laughed maniacally. For the third time, in Tucker's case.

Tucker continued snipping at Ed's nerves. Two after the first scream, he slumped into his chair and lost control of his body as it shook all over, throbbing and hurting and generally he felt like a piece of crap. He didn't know where he was or why, he just knew it hurt. A lot. When was the last time he hurt like this? The only time he could remember was when they tried the transmutation.

After that, the only reactions Ed could give to his torturers were small jerks of involuntary shuddering or something along the lines. He was slipping in and out of consciousness and somewhere else, his mind was going fuzzy and gray, and he was only brought back by the stabbing and horrible pains of his nerves being literally snipped out of function.

Then he heard the voice, through the pain and the ringing and the laughter, the voice he never thought he'd be less happy to hear. He was always happy when he heard the voice, because it meant he was saved, but at this point, even he didn't think he was worth saving. But he listened to the voice anyways. It was pained and surprise and shocked and scared at once.

"Brother!"

He slipped back into the gray. When he finally remembered the pain and jolted into an extremely hazy reality, he was off the chair and in the arms of someone who was warm.

Warmth felt good after the pain, even if the person didn't look at all like Ed remembered. Gone were the smirk and the air of I-have-a-god-complex, instead a look of worry and surprise.

Ed smiled bitterly, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. He tasted copper. He saw gray and hazy. He couldn't really think straight. But he knew Roy Mustang and Alphonse when he saw them.

"Brother! Hang in there! We're gonna get you out of here!"

He was vaguely aware of the three men being beaten pulps on the floor. He just saw Roy and Al. And the gray, which was turning into white. He could hear his heart in his ears, and it sounded like it was getting further away each time it beat. And slower. Was he supposed to be scared of that?

"Fullmetal, hold on. We'll.. do something productive, hopefully."

He cringed at the Fullmetal, then laughed. It was hoarse and pained, but it was a genuinely sad and bitter laugh.

"Don't... bother with me, Mustang. I'm... not really worth saving anymore."

Al gasped and finally noticed how much blood was running out of Ed's automail side. And who wouldn't be, when their nerves were just sliced a lot?

The gray came back, but this time it was very close to white. And when he came back from it, there was a part of it left, standing just in his field of blurry vision. It was a woman, lined in white. His mother.

He looked at Al, knowing he just said something but not really bothering to care. But, he supposed, he deserved one last thing before he died. Something that the two had never said aloud that was way past due at this point.

"I love you... Al... See ya."

He blinked, but he didn't remember ever opening them. The next thing he saw was white, and then after that...

There was nothing. Just the glorious white stretching forever.

In the real world, Roy and Al sat in a dark room under Amestris wanting to cry.

"I love you too... Brother."

I didn't put a tissues warning in there - ah, well. If you needed them you shoulda come prepared.

So yeah, this is the last chapter of this work. I might come back and publish more chapters if I get an idea, but I'll mark it as complete from now on. See you all around the site! Love you all! See ya!