The Glass Alchemist ( An Envy x Oc Story )

♕Straight To the Heart♚

TW !! : gore, mutilation, human experimentation, and human trafficking / kidnapping are all mentioned and/or are topics that are covered in this chapter. If you are sensitive to these topics, please proceed with caution!

Glass shattered. Children screamed.

I could hear the wailing in the wind all over again, the cacophony of cracking, shattering, spidering glass surrounding me in an awful, disgusting symphony of death.

I cowered in my divot in the ground, crying and cradling my head.

I could hear their screams, shrieking, helpless and pained, calling out for me, for help, for anyone to please come to their rescue, begging to be spared from the agony.

Calling out my name, over and over and over.

Then, I was rocked out of my sleep, snapping up at first before blearily rubbing the tears away from my eyes.

Clementine was sitting beside me on the bed, a sympathetic look on her face as she gazed up at me, her paws on my shoulder.

She must have woken me once I started tossing in my sleep too much.

Despite my awful dream that had caused me to wake with a start and a cold morning sweat, I smiled down at Clementine, gently and reaffirming.

Maybe to try and reassure her I was ok, or maybe because her presence was enough to calm me down- maybe both.

"Good morning Clem. Did I wake you?" I asked. My voice was still quiet and slightly croaky from sleep, and I let out a yawn as I spoke, falling back onto the bed softly and smiling over at Clementine from the pillow, stroking her ears.

She lay her chin beside me, nodding softly.

Ever since she had started living under my custody, she must have realized my odd sleeping behaviors. It was often that I would awake to her shaking me awake- sometimes to the point of violently tugging at my clothes and shaking the sheets off of me because I was so deeply ensnared in the panic of my nightmares.

Clementine lay with me now, putting a single paw on my cheek with a whine and a concerned look crossing over her felinous face.

I chuckled, pulling her into a hug and brushing a loc of curly mane out of her face. "Just another nightmare." I answered her silent question, voice quiet and gentle.

Her face was still bent in worry, but she let out a huff, snuggling closer.

For a while, we lay in the comfort of bed, not fully wanting to get up, as the sheets were warm and the pillows were still cold, blissfully comforting and lulling us enticingly back to sleep.

However, with the room full of bright morning light, as white as a dove's wing, I found myself restless, and eventually got up to get ready.

I was buckling one of my travel pouches of alchemic material to my thigh, wondering where to go from here, when I heard a knock at the door.

I twisted around to glance at it. Surely it couldn't be Edward- he was in the hospital. Perhaps it was Alphonse? Had something happened?

"Hello? Who's there?"

"Yo!! Just your good ol' partner Hughes!"

Any tension I had previously unwound itself as I let out a half chuckle of relief that sounded more like a sigh. Finished with my buckle, I opened the room to the hotel to see that Hughes was, in fact, standing in the doorway- and with a pie in his hands no less.

"A pie?" I asked, my eyebrows immediately shooting up questioningly.

Hughes grinned, holding it forward. "Yup! My beautiful wifey made it for you~ She wanted to thank you for helping me out with my work so much- she made one for Sheska and my other employees back at the investigation center as well! Isn't she just the sweetest~" He cooed affectionately at the mention of his wife, and while he wasn't the one receiving the gift from her, he seemed just as grateful as if the pie was his own, seemingly delighted at just the fact that his wife had been so kind as to make someone else pie.