Sole Survivor
By Sainte Matthewe
Author's Note: Fujimiya, Schuldich, and other related terms are copyright Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiss. Warning: Very mild spoiler for the manga.
***
He picked his way through the rubble. It was his job to be sure there were no survivors. Well, not really, but it soothed his battered conscious.
"Aya! Shit. It's too heavy to move… Oh, Aya."
Schuldig rounded a pile of junk, and found the redheaded son of that banker, hunched over the still form of a dark-haired girl. "Aya…" he whimpered one last time, before realizing he was not alone.
The lanky German watched as the kid looked up and narrowed his violet eyes. "Hmph." The more he looked at him, the less he wanted to kill him. "Now you taste the sin of surviving." With that, he turned and walked away, ignoring the swirling mass of confusion that was Fujimiya Junior's thoughts.
He was usually not given to introspection, but as he walked away, Schuldig's own words echoed back through him… "Taste the sin of surviving."
***
He had not yet seen the passing of a decade, and knew nothing of the violence that drove his father's family from Germany. All he knew was that his parents were deliriously happy simply because a wall in a city far to the north fell. He didn't understand it, but it didn't matter. That was his last happy memory of them.
Fade in. Not quite three years passed, and the chaos from Communism's loosening grip spread. He hardly noticed. What did a few snipers on the outskirts of town matter to him?
That day, he went to school, as always, but the streets were too silent; the gunfire was too close. It only got closer.
He was bent over his work, when the screams and the machine gun chatter started. Teachers and students alike were cut down, though he didn't know it—no one in the room did.
The teacher's assistant left to find out, never to return, and no police came to their rescue…
***
Ten years in the future, Schuldig shook his unkempt blond mane, but those memories continued their firm hold on his mind.
***
It was only on the long walk home did he realize how abandoned and ruined the buildings that loomed were. Only then, did he really see the over-crowded cemeteries. Only then did he begin to taste survivor's guilt.
When he arrived home, his parents already knew, and their thoughts were of escape, but the roads were impassable, thanks to the snipers and the bandits preying on the desperate. They had to risk the No-Fly Zone.
There was no shortage of pilots, just few that would take the risks required, but they did find one. He was arrogant. Anyone could see that, but they, with two other families, huddled together in the cargo space of that little plane, anyway.
It was unbearably cold in that compartment, but it was bearable to him, because he and his parents were together. And time passed.
Time passed and they were safe. It gradually warmed, and his ears popped. The plane was descending.
But something went wrong. He heard it. A sound like a guitar string snapping. Then, the hapless passengers, himself included were tossed about like so many toys, as the plane tumbled nose over tail.
As abruptly as it began, it stopped, and he found flames lapping at his feet. The screaming began, and something in his fragile psyche ripped…
Beep. Beep. Beep. He had been in that Munich hospital for a week. He was the only one who survived and the guilt he tasted was bitter.
"Hey, kid," said the Aryan Doktorr as he leaned over the bed. Poor brat, was the unspoken words the boy heard.
"Excuse me?" he croaked through sore lips, sitting up.
Herr Doktorr looked at him strangely. "Just said, 'Hey, kid.' You feeling okay?"
"Guilty."
"Hmm?" The Doktorr peered over his chart.
"I am Guilty. They're all dead. I heard Everything, but I did Nothing. I am Guilty."
***
"I didn't want to be the sole survivor, anymore. That's why I didn't kill the Fujimiya brat. I am not Indecisive. I am Guilty." Even one not given to introspection, enlightenment is hard to ignore.
***
The Aftermath: Just some stuff you may want to know. First off, "Sole Survivor Syndrome" or "Survivor's Guilt" is a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, which is what I thought Schuldig might suffer from. Next, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and three years later would be 1992. The violence spoken of in this piece takes place in Bosnia. Although these events are fictional, much violence did take place in that area during the late 80s, and early 90s.