AUTHOR'S NOTE: HELLO LOVELIES!
Oh goodness me this was quite the adventure writing this. This is my first attempt at real angst, so let me know what you think! FYI, this actually is a history assignment that I did in class! We were supposed to write a personal narrative from the point of view of a WW1 soldier, and like the diabolical little scoundrel I am I used it as an excuse to write fanfiction XD Any who, on with the story!
WARNING: THERE BE MANY FEELS AHEAD!
My name is Jean Kirstein, and it's finally quiet. It's a strange feeling, not hearing the volcanic rupture of the artillery, the screeching of rockets, or the earth-shattering 'booms!' that just never stop. I had grown so accustomed to it that now that it's gone, there's like this void that has settled over everything and everyone.
I don't say that I miss it, because by god it's nice to have Big Bertha shut her metal trap for the first time in weeks, but there's just something about having something around for so long that once it's gone you don't know what to do with the space left behind. I don't miss the noise, but the feeling I have is akin to something like longing.
God, I must have been around Armin too much; his fancy book-worm nonsense is rubbing off on me. I'd start over, but I have limited writing space and I doubt I'll find another dead kraut with blank paper and a pen in his pocket anytime soon. It's been a couple days since the enemy stopped their advance, and we've all been holding our breaths, wondering when they will decide to start firing again. I don't even remember when exactly the firing stopped. One minute all I knew was aim, shoot, duck, repeat, minute I realized that the air was devoid of bullets. Personally though, I almost wish that it never stopped, that I was still in that wonderful little place where all there was, was 'aim, shoot, duck, repeat.' For now, in this limbo-like silence, I truly feel more lost than before.
You never really notice what a cesspool these trenches are when there are shells and bullets flying and the smoke clears. These dilapidated things are always on the verge of collapse, as hastily carved out as they are. There are people who are constantly building them back up and tossing out the muck and dirt that tumbles in, not that it does any good. My boots make disgusting noise as I slosh my way up and down the trench. I never think about all the filth that squelch beneath my always soggy feet, and that's when the ground is dry. Most of the time we are half-swimming because the water gets so high. I've heard of men drowning in the mud, though I have yet to witness this yet. So many people have gotten infections in their feet; we've started calling it 'trench foot'. The disease is nearly as obnoxiously horrible as the filth that caused it.
The worst is the smell though. That horrid smell. I thought that the alley behind my old man's shop was a pit, but right now that butcher-shop is like fancy perfume. It never goes away either, and just when you get used to having blood, human feces, metal, and rot be a permanent guest in your nose, you get a little whiff that throws out your built-up tolerance and leaves you puking.
You don't notice these things when the fighting's going on, but now I do.
I also have to acknowledge the death. Death is everywhere. I've been seeing men being torn apart since the day I got here, but now it's so different. Our squad is rather close, being a small group of Americans amidst the Frenchmen we came to help. I don't know why we were assigned so far away from the rest of the American troops sent over here, but I don't really question it. A lot of us went to the same boot camp, and it was nice to see some familiar faces. Not so nice when those faces are getting burnt by mustard gas.
They haven't used the gas in a while, which is good. Hopefully that means that they ran out, but I doubt that we are so lucky. I remember when everything had come to a halt, that there was a commotion down the line. I went down there and saw Armin trying to get out of the trench.
"What are you doing?!" I yelled at him.
"I have to go back!" he screamed as he tried clawing his way out of that muddy bank.
"Are you crazy?!" I grabbed his shoulders to stop him. "You're gonna get blown to bits!"
"Eren! He's back there!" he yelled, putting up a good fight for a kid that I had 5 inches on.
Eren Jaeger. That kid was a pain in my side since day one, always going on acting like he was going to win the war all by himself, and he wasn't even that good a fighter. He had guts and determination, I couldn't deny that, but his arrogant and hot-headed attitude always made me want to punch him. I did a couple times, actually. During training we got into so many shouting matches that turned into beating each other into the mess hall floor. We may have actually killed each other if it wasn't for the instructor threatening to skin us alive and pin our hides to the wall if we didn't straighten up.
But I'm getting off track. Armin was still struggling when all of a sudden he stopped. We were all wondering what happened, until we were startled by the sound that came out of Armin's mouth. I think back to all the horrible things I've heard during my time here, but I don't think any of it matched the scream that ripped out of tiny Armin Arlert.
I let go of his shoulders and we all took a step back like we'd been burned. It didn't sound human, it didn't even sound animal. No, this was the sound of agony itself. He went mad, flinging half of himself over the wall, trying to crawl out on his stomach, the whole time screeching like a banshee. We came to our senses and grabbed him and start pulling him back in, but as small as he was he had us all struggling to keep him from leaping out of the trench. I make the mistake of looking up to see what it was he saw. I really wish I didn't.
The smoke had finally settled, and the metallic fogged clearing up enough to make out whatever was out there. And there was Eren, sprawled out in the dirt, an arm and a leg blown clean off his body. His head is turned toward us, staring at us with dead eyes frozen in shock, mouth open like he was screaming, with blood dripping from his lips. My stomach does turns, and I want to look away but I am unable to tear my eyes from the horrible sight.
Vaguely I hear the others have seen him as well and are all having similar reactions. Armin is like a wounded animal, eyes wild and thrashing against us hard enough to leave bruises. As we pull him back, I see streaks of blood where his shredded nails clawed fruitlessly at the earth. In the end, Reiner had to knock him out with the butt of his gun to keep him from leaping back up again. We put Armin in the corner and then we all sit down, letting the news sink in.
Eren was dead. For all his annoying arrogance and recklessness, we all sort of thought that he really would take a chunk out of the enemy lines. It never occurred that the kid who with the fire in his eyes would ever succumb to defeat. I'd joked once that even if Eren died he was so headstrong that he would refuse to stay dead. I was wrong.
It shook us all.
As I'm writing this I just looked at Armin. He woke up about twenty minutes after Reiner knocked him out, and we were all waiting to see what he'd do. He didn't try to get out again, and for a while he didn't move at all from the position he'd woken up in. When he finally did, it was to curl in on himself, head in his knees. His shaggy blond hair hid his face, but I still caught a glimpse of his expression. He was the smart one out of us all, and he was always coming up with strategies, settling arguments. He had also found ways to improve the trench walls and ways to help deal with food shortages. He had these big blue eyes that made him look twelve, something we didn't hesitate to tease him about, but they were always sharp and determined; you could see that the cogs were always turning in his head. But in that brief moment I saw that they were listless, blank. The cogs had stopped turning.
Out of everyone, Armin and Eren were the closest, forever joined at the hip. I'd heard that they were both orphaned and grew up together on the streets. It must be tough to lose the person you saw as your brother. Connie tried to get him to talk, but after that didn't work we just left him alone. There wasn't anything we could do.
The day sure as hell didn't get better after that. We kept discovering more people had died, more people we knew. Clean up was always the worst. Most of the time people didn't even try to get the bodies out of the trench, just leaving them amongst the other wretched things rotting in the trenches. But every now and then, we go around and try to toss them out, make the trenches feel less live the mass graves that they are. You try not to think about whose body it is that you're heaving over the wall like a sack of potatoes. The rats are already trying to get to them, though we try to ward them off. These little bastards are everywhere, some of them the size of cats. They eat everything, and no matter how many we kill they just keep coming back. The food shortages are so bad sometimes people have started to eat them, but as hungry as I am I haven't gone that far.
I was making my way down the trench when I found him.
Marco Bott.
Let me tell you a couple things about Marco Bott. Despite the fact that we were working together, a lot of the French soldiers kept us at arms distance. During any downtime when we were being shot at, or the heavenly times spent in the rest camps, they had their own little circles, talking in French so we never knew what they were saying.
Marco was the only one of them who made any effort to socialize with us, and was a year younger than me. He was a gangly man, all limbs and had a giraffe neck and huge hands. He had a face covered in freckles, and eyes like a lost puppy. His English left a lot to be desired, and any words he did know got lost in his accent. He was always trying to talk to us, to which most of the guys found his attempts at English amusing, especially when he eventually just started waving his hands around like it was charades. Still, like some sort of parasite he did worm his way into our affections, like a stray dog you felt bad for.
He was always smiling, which half the time I admired, and half the time made me want to punch him. He was just too carefree for someone in the middle of a war. When I told him my name was Jean, he got all excited and start spewing rapid-fire French, until I told him I had no idea what he was saying. I guess he assumed by my name that I knew French, and he looked disappointed afterwards.
Eventually we became good friends, somehow. I have no idea how it happened. I helped him with his English and he attempted to teach me some French words, which for the most part did not work; I did learn how to curse out enemies in French though. The guys were already referring to me as Horse, after Eren made the stupid remark that I had a horse face, and they started calling Marco Freckles for his speckled face. We became a duo I suppose, Horse and Freckles. To his credit, Marco wasn't always the naive nice-guy that he was. As soon as we would start fighting he would transform. He turned into a perfect killer, picking off men like they were clay pigeons. What amazed me the most was that he could have this stone cold stare as he fired, but the moment he stopped he was back to happy Marco. Made me glad that he was on our side.
So yes, Marco Bott was one of the few things that made these dreadful trenches bearable.
So imagine my surprise to find him slumped against the trench wall. Well, not all of him.
Looking back I realize that my first thought after discovering it was Marco, was that I was wondering what could have done it. That was honestly what I was thinking about. I mean, it can't be that easy to tear a person in half right? It wasn't even that messy, like the guys who were blown apart by bombs, it was right down the middle, perfectly symmetrical. I stared at him for the longest of times, transfixed. I couldn't help it, it was just so odd! What cuts a guy perfectly in half?! I looked around to see if I could find the rest of him, but there wasn't anything! Sure, the wall was splattered with blood, oh goodness the blood was everywhere, but there wasn't a trace of his other half anywhere to be found. There was always something left behind. It might have been pulverized or burned, but the limbs and organs ripped from a soldier were always nearby.
I...laughed. I must have looked like a madman, and perhaps in that moment I was. In hindsight I'm horrified to think my reaction to seeing him dead was to laugh. But I laughed, because it was just so bizarre. In my morbid fascination I noted that I could see parts of his ribcage poking through the tattered remains of his uniform, and some of his organs were almost slipping out of his open torso. How could one side be untouched and the other be decimated?! I laughed at the absurdity of it. I stopped laughing when I saw his face, or his half-face, I should say.
His one remaining eye was open, staring off into space. I'd seen a lot of dead with open eyes, usually frozen in terror or shock or pain, but not him.
He looked...bored. Half-lidded and listless, the eye that once shined with enthusiasm was now glazed and hollow.
It was so wrong. He wasn't supposed to look bored, he was never bored. He was Marco: the kid who was all smiles. He was supposed to be grinning, telling us to look on the bright side, telling me not to be so rash and control my temper-
He was supposed to be alive.
The moment it settled in my head that he was dead was like a lodestone being dropped in my chest. I wanted to be sick, and if there had been anything in my stomach I would have vomited right then.
There was somebody tapping my shoulder, and I slowly turned around. One of the medics was staring at me, a scarf wrapped around his mouth like a mask.
"Do you know this man?" I blinked.
"W-what?"
"Do you know him son?" I noticed the paper in his hand, and realized he was one of the people trying to identify the dead. It was a simple question, but it was like I hadn't heard it.
"D-did you see what happened?" I asked.
"Pardon?"
"Did you see it? Did you see how he died?" I started yelling it to everyone.
"Please! Did anyone see what happened?" Some of them men looked at me, some with blank expressions, and some with pity. Nobody said anything, some just shrugged. I started to get angry.
"Somebody had to have seen something!"
"Son, please calm down."
"No! Somebody had to have seen what happened how he…"
"Son, we don't have time for this." I looked back to the medic. His scarf covered everything except his eyes, but that was all I needed to see. They were empty, stoic as a statue, and his voice was forcibly mechanic.
"We've been trying to identify the dead for days. Sickness is already starting to spread, and we are the first line in preventing a full on epidemic. We will have time to mourn later, but right now if you know this man's name I need you to tell me."
Somehow I managed to say it.
"Bott. H-his name's Private Marco Bott."
I hear the medic thank me and move on, but I hardly acknowledge it. It didn't seem real. How could nobody have seen what happened? How did he just go and die with nobody noticing? How did I not notice?
I understand now, just how expendable we all really are. Why are we even here? In all honesty why are we fighting here, in somebody else's country? World War...this shouldn't be the world's war! How was this our problem to bear? What are we doing here fighting somebody else's battle? Why were men like Eren and Marco dying over something that didn't even have anything to do with them?
We all had plans. Every last one of us. We all talked about what we were going to do when we got back, the people we wanted to see, the places we were going to go. None of us were even twenty yet. How can our times be coming when we haven't even lived yet? We all wanted to grow up, to have futures.
Marco, he told me he wanted to study music in Paris. He told me that someday he'd visit me and let me hear him play the viola. I don't even know what a viola is, but I humoured him. He was always humming "Clair de Lune", and we were always telling him to shut up because it would get stuck in our heads. Right now I'd give anything to hear it again, no matter how much it gets stuck in my head. But I can't, because Marco's dead. He's half a bloody skeleton and I don't even know how it happened.
Is this how it's going to end? Am I going to rot in a ditch waiting for somebody to recognize my corpse? It can't be...this can't be how it's going to end. My life can't be over already. I'm not, god I'm not even nineteen yet! I've never even kissed a girl yet! I-I don't want to die. Not now. There's so much left for me to do. But I suppose that's how all of us feel right? Every single body in No Man's Land belonged to somebody who still had things they wanted to do, to people who believed they were going to be among the ones to go home. I'm just like them. Just. Like. Them.
Jean Kirstein. My name is Jean Kirstein. I know I've already said but I'm saying it again. My name is Jean Kirstein. My name is Jean Kirstein and I wish to god that the silence would end. My name is Jean Kirstein and I want my ears to ring with the sound of gunpowder and pain so that I don't have to think about how I probably won't make it. My name is Jean Kirstein and I don't want to think about how I'll never see my country or my family again. My name is Jean Kirstein and I don't want to think about my ma's face because the memory of it has started to fade from my head. My name is Jean Kirstein and I don't want to die alone. My name is Jean Kirstein and I wish that Eren was here annoying me. My name is Jean Kirstein and I wish that Armin was trying to reason with him and not sitting on the ground like a statue. My name is Jean Kirstein and I wish that Marco was here with one of his sappy speeches in his cruddy English. My name is Jean Kirstein and I wish that I could stop crying because I don't even remember when I started crying but I know that now I can't stop and it makes really hard to write. My name is Jean Kirstein and I keep saying it so that I won't die a body with no name. MY NAME IS JEAN KIRSTEIN!
…
My name is Jean Kirstein, and two of my wishes have come true. It's not silent anymore, and I've stopped crying. My name's Jean Kirstein and I'm running out of lines on this paper.
My name's Jean Kirstein, and right now I'm humming Clair de Lune.
My name is Jean Kirstein, and I am in hell.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm so sorry ;A;
Goodness that was hard to write. Sorry for anybody who got upset, I have been told that this is very sad.
Reviews and advice are most appreciated!