"WHAT? Brother, you ain't talking seriously, are you?"
"Al, come on! Don't be so childish! You're far grown up for fairytales." Ed said, a little annoyed by his brother behaviour.
"Try to understand! Mustang just told us that these guys don't collaborate at all, right?"
"Uh, right...."
"And furthermore all the disappearances take place at about midnight - 1AM. Isn't it?"
"Well, that's true...."
"Good! Then visiting those places at that time will be enough to find out what's going on there!"
"Okay, but where do we begin? Eastern Lands are huge. And there are many villages and towns in that zone."
"Well, I noticed that most of the people in the dossier have vanished right in this town..."
Alphonse eye fell right on a line telling "Rauhsang", right were his brother right finger was pointing.
"...so our search will begin there."
“But it’ll be far more dangerous this way. Didn’t you think about it? I heard the most terrible things about those villages. The strangest events take place there, the most terrible and incredible ones. I saw some people who were telling around about their travels in those lands forgotten by God. You had to see their eyes, brother. I will never get those scared eyes out of my mind…”
“Stop it! I heard enough! Now look at my lips: those-things-does-not-exist. Got it?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Ok, then I don’t need to explain that anymore. I don’t want to hear that refrain again, is that ok?”
“Well, ok…” said Al, lowering his head. Ed whispered and then approached to his brother.
“Hey, Al…I want to be clear with you: I’m not treating you like an idiot, just trying to make you reason. They’re just legends. And, by the way, how many criminals we caught before? I’m sure this mission will be a piece of cake. So, are you ok?”
“Uh…yes, I am.” Al said, reassured by his brother attitude.
“Come on, let’s go to prepare what we could need for the travel.”
And they both walked fast through the corridor, reaching for the exit.
The rest of the day passed without nothing special happening. When Alphonse and Edward woke up the morning after the sun was still rising up in the sky and there were still stars hiding behind some thick cloud. After having clothed up, they got outside their home, where Havoc was waiting for them with a car. They left without hesitating. They didn’t talk much during the travel and Edward spent most of the time looking outside the window where he could see the country landscape changing into wide green forests with strong and tall trees, a brilliant curtain of leaves partially blocking the sunlight.
The car braked almost suddenly and this caused Ed and Al, who have fallen asleep in the meanwhile, to wake up almost jumping inside the car. With an upset and still half asleep face, Edward took a look at his clock, noticing that the car had stopped right after only two hours from when it left aunt Pinako’s home in Reezembool. Quite soon, Edward thought. He poked his head out of the window, just to see that they were in the middle of a huge desert dusty clearing. There was no trace of vegetation and the sky was covered with a menacing dark grey veil, making the air heavy. The only sign of life in all that desolation was an wooden house with some old coaches with horses parked near. Fullmetal was quite impressed by those ancient vehicles, and he recalled he had saw some of them just in one of those antique museums or in a nineteenth century paint.
“What does this mean, Havoc? Why did you stopped?”
“I’m sorry, guys, but I shall leave you here. From now on you have to keep on travelling in one of those coaches.”
“Uh? This is nonsense! You’re joking, right?”
“I’m not very good in jokes, Fullmetal. Furthermore these roads are incredibly bumpy and totally improper for cars. We could risk to break the oil pan.”
“I got it, but you could have let us take a train, instead of having this useless trip!”
“Well, if this can comfort you, there are no railways going through the Eastern Lands.”
“WHAAAAAT?” Ed and Al faces distorted in that full sense of surprise.
“Ok, then. It looks like you don’t need me anymore. Have a good trip. Oh, and send some postcard to the Colonel! He’d be glad…”
“Oh, sure! I can imagine….” Edward said, ironically.
Edward and Alphonse took their luggage out of the car, which, some minutes after, disappeared through the horizon mist. The two Elric brothers stood in silence for few seconds.
“It seems we have no choice, bro…we have to take that coach.” Al said.
“Al, when you talked about “land forgotten by Gods”, did you mean the fact these guys cannot even afford a railway?”
“Well, not exactly.” Al said, a little embarrassed.
“Ok, ok, I get it. Let’s take this stupid coach and make this thing quick.”
They reached the coach park with slow steps. They strangely noticed that nobody was there.
“Hey, is there anyone here?” Al screamed, but nobody answered. All he could hear was just his echoing voice through the vast moor.
“Hehehehe…HEHEHEHE!”
“WHAT THE….!”
“WHAT WAS THAT?”
“Ehehe….hello to you, strangers! Ehehe…and welcome…ehehe….how can I help you? Ehehe…”
The screeching laughter coming from Elric’s brother back was an old little man’s. His head appeared to be incredibly big, if compared to the tiny skeleton-like body. But the petrifying thing was his hugely developed forehead and his left eye, bigger and more rounded than the right one, in which a clear grey iris loomed, constantly watching the two alchemists.
“Uh…sorry, sir, but we’d like to rent one of your carriages. You see, we’re going to Rauhsang…”
“Eheheh…Rauhsang, you said…ehehe….I see….eheheh…follow me….ehehe….” That strange creature said, with his almost metallic and hoarse voice.
Then, limping conspicuously, he led the two brothers inside the old structure, into a huge almost empty room. Most of the wood panels were half broken or full of holes, and screeched under the footsteps of the two alchemists, while many dark corners were full of spider web and had few cavities, probably lairs for mice. The old man sat behind a big dark desk and opened a dusty registry. Many of the papers had nibbled edges and their surface was thickened by the halo of dirt and some big stains on them.
“First…eheheh…I have to know your name…eheheh…and where you come from…eheheh….strangers.”
“Oh, right.” Edward mumbled.
“We are…”
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