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intruder: -noun; One who intrudes; one who thrusts himself in, or enters without right, or without leave or welcome; a trespasser

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It would be an understatement to say that Eduard Durnings was having a bad week. A grave understatement indeed.

Sunday, he had gotten caught in the rain without his umbrella coming home from church services.

Monday, he was so tired from being kept up by the small cold he'd gotten from getting caught in the Sunday rain no less, that he'd accidentally walked into a women's public powder room. Needless to say, he'd been chased out with the utmost of vigor.

Tuesday, a dog had started chasing him during his midmorning walk and had tried to bite him. While it had been quite entertaining for others to witness, it definitely did not put Eduard into a better mood.

Wednesday, he'd been wrongly identified as a petty thief and had spent the whole day behind bars until his father had come and vouched for him.

Thursday, he accidentally fell down on a busy street, right into a large pile of dung. Whether it was human or animal, he wasn't sure, he wasn't certain he wanted to know either way.

When nothing particularly too horrible happened on Friday, he thought his luck might have been finally looking up.

That was until Saturday evening, when, whatever it was, had happened. He couldn't remember too much of it, really. It was all very, well, odd.

He'd been in his room, cleaning himself up for dinner, when the most peculiar sensation overtook him. At one point, he thought he'd heard someone call to him. When he looked up towards the sound, his head had begun to throb horribly, his vision swam before his eyes, and then all he could see was darkness. For a long while, Eduard had thought he might have fainted and was dreaming.

He had become someone else; someone very confused, annoyed, and slightly scared. He'd looked at himself in the mirror of his room, surprised to find his hair much shorter then he remembered it. Sirens had begun to sounds when his father banged open the door, telling him they had to flee. He stumbled along outside, not knowing where he was, demanding Hohenhiem that he tell him what was going on.

Father gave him a strange look and grabbed his face hard enough for it to hurt, making him look into his eyes. He asked him if the word "transmute" meant anything to him.

Oddly enough, it had.

It meant science and logic and pain and terror and hope and life and death and brilliant blue light all rolled into one beautiful, awful thing. He told his father that 'Of course it did, why wouldn't it?'

It was when his dreamself didn't recognize zeppelins that he thought maybe, just maybe, he wasn't really dreaming. Tentatively, oh so carefully, he spoke.

"Hello?" His voice sounded far away for some reason, somehow echoing as he spoke.

His dreamself was shocked to hear what he thought was an disembodied voice. The boy-who-was-and-wasn't-him's head began to throb and his eyesight seemed to shift somewhat. Suddenly it was as if he were looking through a mask, not through his very own eyes.

Eduard tired to speak again.

"Who are you?"

At this point, some sort of horrible realization came over the other boy. Eduard couldn't tell what it was right away, but the growing sick terror told him that the other boy felt that something, something, was just not right.

"Don't tell me", his dreamself asked aloud, "am I in somebody else's body?"

After these fews words, Eduard can't remember anything else. A large blanket of dark forgetfulness is all that he can even bring to mind. The last thing he can recall is a sense of horror, one not so different from what the boy-who-was-and-wasn't-him had felt, as some of the weight of those words hit home. He knew, at least some part of him knew, what the other boy had meant. But the idea, the mere thought alone, had been hard for him to try and grasp. How could that other boy...how could he have been in his body at the same time that he was? It didn't make any sense. Something like that would be impossible, right?

Eduard awakens in the manner that most normal people wake when they've had a nice long sleep. Slowly. Extremely, luxuriously, slowly. Taking his sweet time, Eduard tried to evaluate how he felt right at that moment.

Since no one could be offended by or pardon silent French, Eduard was more then happy to say to himself that, when it came right down to it, he felt like shit. Carefully opening his eyes, he tried to look about the room he was in without moving too much. He saw mostly white walls and ceiling, the smell if antiseptic and bodily fluids in the air.

"A hospital?"

"Yes young man, a hospital indeed."

Eduard turned his attention from the the walls and ceiling to the middle aged nurse who stood in the doorway of his room, her uniform just as immaculately pristine as the walls, a pitcher of water and cup in hand.

"What happened?" he asked her, almost cringing at how dry and weak his voice sounded.

"I'll tell you, it's a down right miracle you're alive Mr. Durnings. It's not everyday someone can get trapped underneath a burning dirigible and live to tell the tale. No broken bones either, and only a few first degree burns and bruises. I'll tell you, I've never seen such good luck." She said, a sort of stern kindness very present in her voice.

Eduard was, without a doubt, shocked. Even if he'd only been minimally hurt, it was no wonder he felt like someone had run him over with a train. A dirigible, one on fire no less, had fallen on him!

"How did I-?"

"A group of travelers passing by saw it crash and went to see if there was any survivors. They found you, pulled you out, and got you to safety; so what I've come to understand. Now, no more talking, you need your rest. Now, try and drink some before you go back to sleep." she said sternly, pouring water from the pitcher to the cup, propping Eduard's head up so he wouldn't choke while trying to drink.

He hadn't realized how thirsty he'd been until his first tentative sip unconsciously turned into large gulps. The nurse gently pulled the glass away just as he began to cough, nearly choking on the water.

"Not so quickly, you'll drown at that rate."

Eduard only coughed, letting his head settle back into the pillow, thirst quenched for the moment.

"Thank you very much." he said, ever the polite soul.

The nurse nodded and made her leave, reminding Eduard that he should try and rest some more. Eduard, though, already knew that it would be a moot point to even make an attempt. His memories of the night before had begun to come back and swarm him.

There was no way for him to try and brush off the odd memories as a dream of sorts; the evidence that what had happened was indeed real were somewhat staggering. Whatever that voice had been, Eduard was glad to know that his body was now his own again, no one else was in control. He lifted a hand up painfully, happy to see that they responded without any difficulty when told to move. God must have been smiling on him. What other way could he explain the apparent miracle that had happened to him?

"What a load of bullshit."

For a beat, Eduard's heart skipped. It was that voice again, but this time, instead of it coming from his own mouth, it had echoed inside of his mind. Suddenly, his thoughts drifted to the stories of the bible, particularly the one's that involved demons and exorcisms and having one's soul possessed by the devil himself.

"Our Father, whom art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name..." Eduard began to pray shakily underneath his breath, crossing himself several times as he spoke.

"Stop it, you're being ridiculous."

The thing's voice only made Eduard pray harder, faster. No way was he going to let a demon steal his eternal soul! Not if he could fight it, anyways.

"I said stop it! I'm not a demon, you idiot!"

The prayers didn't stop, but a new thought did enter Eduard's mind. What if...what if he was becoming like one of those people who speak to walls and get sent away to large, institutionalized buildings that everyone knows of, but don't speak of out of sheer embarrassment?

"...You're not going insane, either. I've seen enough crazy people in my life already, and I can tell that you're not one of them."

Eduard stopped praying abruptly, a cold realization coming over him. He hadn't spoken a single word out loud, save for his praying, and the voice had known that he was wondering whether he might be going insane or not.

"What sort of beast are you? How can you hear my thoughts?" Eduard asked out loud, not for a moment trusting this voice.

"I already told you, I'm not some beast or demon! God dammit, are you really that dense?"

Now, Eduard wasn't much of a stickler for bad language, it didn't really matter to him. So long as God wasn't involved.

"Now you listen here, whatever you are, you're in my head and I'll not have you take the Lord's name in vain while you're there, you understand me?" Eduard hissed furiously.

The voice grumbled underneath it's breath, saying something that distinctly sounded like the aforementioned curse. Eduard bristled mentally for a moment, the heat of his anger extinguished as the nurse from before stepped back into the room, now accompanied by someone he knew well.

"Father!" Eduard said with as much vigor as he could, excited to see the man.

But the voice, whatever was in his head, had a completely different reaction. It didn't say any words, but the cold animosity it felt towards Hohenhiem were staggering. At this moment, images and other emotions brushed up against Eduard's mind. A picture frame that use to hold four people now only had three. A woman, a mother, on her death bed. Abandonment. Anger. Frustration. A grave covered in flowers, two little heads bowed in grief. As soon as the moment had come, it was gone, replaced with a lasting sense of hot apathy.

Eduard tried to shrug off the emotions, tried to not let them show on his face. But, really, it was quite hard to try and ignore something so very potent.

"I'll leave you two to visit for a moment." the nurse said, walking out of the room once more.

Hohenhiem pulled a chair to the side of the bed, smiling as he did so.

"How are you feeling, Eduard? You gave me quite a scare you know!"

"Everything considered, I'd say I'm feeling alright." Eduard said happily, still trying his best to ignore the bitter feelings the voice was directing towards his Father.

"Would you like me to bring you anything from the apartment? Your bible maybe?" Hohenhiem asked, scratching his chin.

"If it doesn't trouble you to do so, that would be wonderful."

Eduard could hear the voice scoff at this and say something about 'Damn piety'.

"Could...could I ask you something, Father?" Eduard asked, very, very softly.

Hohenhiem's head tilted slightly in surprise.

"What is it, Eduard?"

"Do you...do you know exactly what happened to me last night?"

Hohenhiem's face became somewhat more grave.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, a lot of peculiar things seemed to happen. Truth be told, I can't remember a whole lot of it either, just bits and pieces mostly. Please don't think me queer for saying this, but now there's a voice inside of my head and I not quite so sure what to do with it. It wasn't there before last night Father, so I was suspecting that maybe whatever happened last night may tell me why I'm hearing a disembodied voice now." Eduard answered, he's already soft voice growing softer as he admitted to hearing a bodiless voice.

In this day and age, a proclamation of that sort normally meant either social suicide or a one way trip to an asylum. Or, more often then not, both.

Hohenhiem was quiet for a long moment before speaking again.

"Eduard, would it be possible for me to speak to this voice in your head?"

Of all the reactions Eduard had expected, this was certainly not one of them.

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Yes...I have made Eduard religious. Can't you just see the comic tension rising from the situation? Every time I think about it, I laugh heartily on the inside. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the second chapter!

PS: Remember, we're back in the 1930's here. Queer isn't going to talking about someone of the homosexual life choice; it's going to mean weird, you know?