"DAMN SHIT!"

I threw one book after another against the wall. I did not find an answer to my problem in any of them. None showed me the way back to my world, a way out of this terrible universe.

I was glad that Hohenheim wasn't home. Surely, he would have been angry at how I was treating his books, which he had collected so laboriously. But as if I were interested in his small private library here in Munich!

I could barely prevent another scream of anger and instead kicked the chalk box in front of me over the floor.

Nowhere was an answer, nowhere was a solution. My question, this seemingly insurmountable task, stood big and threatening before me. Without a weapon in my hands, without instructions, I faced it defenceless and weak, was slain by its finality and thrown to the ground.

"Damn shit...!" I repeated quietly, my voice little more than a faint whining, as if my self-imposed task of finding a way back to Amestris would strangle me. I stumbled back from the half-empty bookshelf before turning around and rushing out of my father's office.

"It's all his fault...! If he had never started anything with this Dante! His fault, it's his fault! What did he have to be caught by her and sent here?! Why did he open the portal to this world?! All his fault!"

Angry, I looked around the apartment, grabbed one of the few framed pictures and threw it on the floor, right after myself. On all fours, I punched the picture without worrying about the shards of glass that damaged my skin and fabric coating and staining the parquet floor with blood. I hit and hit and hit the innocent image, repeatedly shouting curses.

It was an old picture, at least older than my time I spent in this world. On it were depicted in black and white Hohenheim, who was apparently unfeeling, standing behind a young man and had placed one hand on his shoulder. The young man in question looked happily into the camera, with a broad grin on his face as he proudly held up a certificate. I couldn't read what was on it, I didn't understand the language, but I knew it was a document from an English university, from the country where the boy had lived and died.

"Shit..." It wasn't until tears joined the drops of blood that I stopped in my actions and stared down at the chaos on the ground. Hohenheim had cleared the broken dishes from the previous day when he had come home that night. He would also have to remove these shards. I wasn't sorry for that though.

I got up tumbling, my legs were shaking and I felt like my automail leg was too heavy for my body. I had to get out of this apartment, I had to get out of this world.

Driven by this thought, I stumbled outside. To my surprise, it didn't rain today. My gaze wandered over the sky, which was adorned with the usual grey, but did not shed any wet tears.

I almost started to miss the rain when the well-known wind greeted me. It smelled like winter, cold and unfriendly, with such a cutting freshness that one wanted to escape inside again.

But I did the opposite and went out. This time my goal was not the cemetery. To be honest, I didn't know exactly where I was going. I just knew I had to leave.

The market was too crowded for me, so I walked through smaller side streets, which were hardly illuminated by the lanterns that glowed in the evening. The grey became more and more black, but I pinned my eyes to the ground, feeling that heaven would crush me, just like the books had done it before.

I should have paid more attention to my surroundings, because suddenly my path ended when I bumped into someone. Surprised by the encounter, I stumbled back due to the brunt and even fell on my butt.

"Watch out!" I was shouted at, but I paid little attention to it. I was too amazed that someone so suddenly was able to influence my fate.

Just as the Homunculi and Dante had suddenly entered my life, pushed me back and showed me my place as a human being, as an alchemist. As surprising as Mother had died, as the repulsion thwarted the transmutation. Just as Mustang had entered my life when he came to the Rockbells automail workshop and grabbed me by my shirt, only to almost gently give me new hope a few minutes later.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" The voice in front of me spoke again, before I was grabbed at the front of my shirt and dragged to my feet, almost as if my thoughts had been heard, pulled even higher, so that I could hardly touch the floor.

My big golden eyes lay on the man in front of me. It was as if my memories wanted to play a prank on me and show Mustang, but after a few seconds of horror I recognized the lie, recognized the mask. It was not Mustang who had pulled me up.

The man looked less and less like Mustang on closer inspection, and I was angry at myself that I thought that it could have been him even for a second.

But because no word had left my lips, the man didn't become friendlier, but let go of his rage with a slap across my face.

I felt my head snapping to the side by the force and coughed up in shock, my cheek fiery red and pounding. Almost like Mustang's fire, when we were almost playfully teasing each other in his office and he had burned my antenna or snapped against my cheek, only to get his papers thrown in his face by me.

"Haha..." I closed my eyes halfway. "You are not Mustang... Now stop acting like him..."

"What are you talking about? Say it louder again, you son of a whore!" The man pulled me closer to him and I could smell his stinky breath, which made me pucker my nose. Unlike Mustang's pleasant perfume, this man's smell could only be described as a stench. Stingingly sharp and rotten, as death would smell, plus a not inconsiderable amount of alcohol.

Anger flashed in my eyes before I punched the man in the face at close range. Frightened by the action, I was let go of his grip and landed on my feet again. After a short sway, I found my balance again and looked up to the man.

He seemed to like my resistance not at all, so it didn't take long before he took a swing at me with his hand. I reacted automatically, familiar with the movements of countless fights. It did well to fight, it did well to do something I was good at. The smile crept on my lips by itself as I ducked away under one punch, only to kick after my opponent shortly afterwards. Fighting, a skill that was hardly needed in this world compared to mine, where I had to raise arms against others so many times. But my opponent was not a monster, was not an artificially created human, not a corrupt military soldier, not a mad woman who strived for immortality with the excuse of protecting people from worse. No, my opponent was a simple human, a human like me, without alchemy, without a weapon, only a human!

My thoughts had overpowered themselves, had become too wild to prevail in the lurid river. They hurled me back and forth, briefly in memories, into old dreams, into desires for the future, before pulling me out and throwing me farther. I barely got behind after all this, desperately running after it in search of something that I had been asking for so long only for it to escape my grip when it had just gotten in reach!

Slap. Punch.

Unprepared, I stumbled back, letting my hands - raised to transmute, with which I had clapped - sink, as I was ripped out of my thoughts by the firm punch in my face.

Warm blood ran thickly from my nose and dripped on the floor, while I felt my upper lip awkwardly tingling.

With big eyes I looked at the man, who grinned confidently with victory, but leaned more and more backwards and finally fell over with a loud rump and was left lying on the ground.

Fear spread in me, but not because of my unconscious opponent, but because of me.

"It's my fault" I realized in shock. "My fault. I had suggested human transmutation. I went to the military. I started the fight against the Homunculi, killed Greed, I dragged Mustang and his team into this, I fought against Dante. It is my fault that Alphonse had to give his life to get me back. If I had fought better, he wouldn't have had to do it. If I had died correctly, it would have been over. It's my fault. Because of me, people had to die. I'm a murderer."

I looked down at my blood-smeared, dirty hands, which had suddenly begun to tremble.

"This is my punishment. Yes! My punishment! I have to be here because I deserve it! I am not allowed to go back! There is no way back! This is my prison, my hell, which I have to live through it until the end of my life! I won't be able to come back, I'm not allowed to go back!"

My voice changed with the realization, getting louder and shriller.

"It's my fault! It's my fault! MY FAULT!"

I kicked out a loud scream.

"MY TRUTH!"

With all the strength I had left I hit the stone wall, which immediately caused my left hand to hurt. My eyes burned like fire, spurred on by the discovery.

The truth, a cruel thing that had messed up my life so many times. It didn't let me bring back my mother, it didn't let me protect Al, it didn't let me help Mustang, it didn't let me go home without continuing to cover my hands with blood.

"I HATE IT! I HATE YOU! FUCKING TRUTH!"

Tears of anger ran down my reddened cheeks as I fell on my knees after the final punch against the wall.

"Damn shit!!!"