It's cold, but I can't feel anything.
My broken body lay scattered here, amidst the blood of my comrades. Slowly, my eyes open. A sharp, pained breath moves through my lungs as I survey the damage.
"Guess I'm not making it back this time," I say, glancing up at the sky. It's snowing. Soft, cool flakes that gently flutter down onto the scarlet ground around me and plant cool kisses on my cheeks. It's alright, though, I thought. I've made it long enough. I served my cause. I gave my all- all the way to the end. That's enough for me.
I drag my eyes back to my dying form. My blood lay there, pooling underneath me - scalding the fresh-falling snow.
I'm broken, but it doesn't hurt.
What hurts is my head. My head is throbbing and I feel empty - so alone among the bodies of my friends. It seems like none of us will be going home again. They're already gone, anyway - at least we're all going together.
My only wish would be to see my husband just once more before I die.
I'm not that lucky, I thought. I can feel myself slipping away. There is nothing anymore, only silence. As my eyes darken, the light in front of me grows even brighter. Thinking once more to my husband, I let out a small, unheard whisper. "I'm sorry, my love."
I'll wait for you. As long as it takes.
Levi surveyed the battleground as he walked through the snow. So much loss, he thought. His expression remained impassive at the carnage - as it had to be. He remembered something you had said once.
"Levi," you started. "Once you start blaming yourself for their deaths, you'll never be sane again." You had found him on a particularly hard night. You heard a thud from his room, only to find a fist-sized hole in the wall and a silently shaking husband curled upon the ground.
No matter how much he tried to fool you, you knew. He never didn't care. If he let his emotions surface, he wouldn't be able to keep functioning. You always knew. That's part of what drew him to you. You were his crutch. His steady constant. He could never lose you, because the rules didn't apply to you. In his eyes, you couldn't die. He had to believe that.
If only he knew how wrong he was.
Levi strolled into a white-blanketed clearing.
Littered with bodies, he thought. Nothing new. He needed to help with body recovery and identification.
Suddenly, something among the broken bones and shattered skulls of his friends caught his eye. Hair. Your hair. The hair that he loved to play with on sleepless nights on the battlefield. The hair that gleamed in the sunlight like frost on a bright winter's morning.
He stalked towards your lifeless form, with eyes unfeeling and dark. Dead eyes. Haunted eyes. Breaking eyes.
My love, he panned in his mind. Is that you?
He stood over your lifeless form. He crouched down beside you and looked at your features. Your face, once so full of laughter, now lay in a grim frown. Your eyes, once so full of life, now rest in eternal slumber. Your voice, which once sang to him sweet melodies in the cool spring evenings, lay silent forever. Your lips, which once kissed his, are now chapped and bloody.
Slowly, something built up in him. A dark, tumultuous feeling in the pit of his stomach, rising up from his soul into his throat and out of his mouth. A quiet cry rang through the empty clearing, swallowed by the falling snow.
The tears flowed down his face and dripped into the hair he once braided each morning. He held you close, rocking your lifeless form as the sobs subsided.
I'm broken, but I can't feel anything.
His eyes deadened once more, his face set into a stony countenance. He looked into your dull, lifeless eyes. And that's when he realized.
You finally broke him.
