I don't entirely understand. Roy is dead, right? Did the Elric brothers kill Roy? Was it an accident? Was Roy in the basket? What reason would they have to kill him? It was written great as always, but I'm so confused by this.

Oh. My. God.
What did you just do?! I don't know whether to be horrified or amazed. :-o

Something kept nagging me from the moment I realized Roy wasn't at the picnic because it wouldn't match the prompt. I came up with the idea then that he might be 'around' but dead (although I could have never guessed THIS).
Then the sandwiches. Those just added to the unexplained nagging.
The human composition talk. It helped me establish that Roy was dead. But the nagging was still there, only stronger.
Al's thinking about emotions. Horrification began to set in, but I couldn't tell why. Or I could but didn't to.
Then he says they can never go back to Central. The nagging disappeared. It turned to hoping that two plus two equaled anything BUT four.

... But 4 it was. Apparently.

When I read that last part I was just a big 'WHAAAT?!', getting a whole new meaning from the beginning of Ed and Al's talk about what are humans made up of.

Turns out 2 plus 2 wasn't 4, but the answer somehow managed to be even more horrifying than 4. D:

For writing such a progressively darkening story, making me think I had already reached the bottom of the horror pit, and then opening the hidden trap door there... Congratulations?

Was Roy's head in that basket? That would be awesome. Nice job, keep writing in the future! I like how you set it up to not even say the investigation was going on until the end and left it like that - like a horror book. Nice way to end a story.

Oh my goodness. I... was not expecting that. O.o You certainly took the prompt in a different direction than I thought it was going. It turned out really well, though, and you built the mood at a good pace. At first, I didn't think anything was wrong and then as time went on, you hinted hinted hinted and I got this growing sense of unease but I didn't put things together until right before Al broke down and all of a sudden, my eyes went WIDE.

Love how you played around with Al's emotions here now that he actually feels them... and Ed's taking care of the situation like normal.

Beautiful story. And I can't believe how you managed to make this THIS horrific while still not really specifying anything.

Sapphireswimming

W. O. W. Wow. Have I mentioned that you're a great writer, cuz you totally are!

holy shit they killed him xD

This was so awesome, awesome, awesome. *_*

Haah, for a moment I thought they'd put Al's soul in Roy's body or something. xD

Stupid me. Even though I did wonder why they had they sandwiches in their pockets. :/

With my weak grasp of the English language I can't quite figure out what exactly Roy kept on doing and what Al did with the water to mak him stop. :(

But it is a good story, anyway. And a great way to use the prompt. :)

very interesting. A little morbid, but interesting. I'm WAY curious as to what Al did. LOL

whoa. awesome? yes, i think so.

definitely! although it does leave me wondering why this happened. but then, that wasn't really the focus here, was it? anyway, great little fic!

poor roy...