AN: So this is something based on a school project I did last year for English. We read All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, which is a story about a young German soldier in World War I who struggles through the horrors of traumatic stress disorder (because it's during the war, not after). He's so depressed and so grief-stricken as his friends die one by one and as he makes his first killing that he welcomes death with a smile at the end of the book. Our project involved creating a persona (unfortunately girls had to become males because there weren't any female soldiers at the time) from whichever side we were on (I was on Germany's side) and write a narrative. Then last night, I wondered what it would be like to be the only one to return home instead of joining everyone else in death and whipped up this little one-shot. The other characters, other than the parents, are based on my own sister and friends (female friends who have had to become male for the sake of being soldiers) except my friends aren't dead (thank God).
AN 2: I'm so sorry for the long author's note. Enjoy…if you can.
I remember seeing families crying of happiness as they see their loved ones return home, lucky to have survived. I remember the shriek of Mutter as she ran towards me and nearly suffocated me with her unbearably tight embrace, completely unaware of the physical injuries I sustained from fighting. I remember the sting as Vater slapped me on the back to congratulate me on being a winner, a survivor. I remember Anneliese's expression, half-broken from the news that her husband died in battle and half-relieved that I came back. I remember the baby in her arms who cooed at the sight of seeing his uncle for the first time. I remember the fake smile I force and the real tears that fall down upon my face. Of all of my friends, I was the only one to come back.
Where is everyone else, Kyler? Mutter asked, still looking around for the five familiar faces she knew for years. She did not know. None of them did.
Vater stared expectantly at me, but Anneliese looked even more devastated. She figured out what happened. She knew why they were not here.
I could not answer. It hurt too much. They thought I was so lucky to have survived. The truth is, I am so unlucky to survive with my mind haunted with the gory images of what I saw and did. I am a murderer. I am inhumane. I am a monster. I am…I am broken for life. Unfixable. A puzzle piece that will never be put with the rest again because it has been distorted and mangled and bent and ruined. Because it is the only one that can be found.
My best friends…they are all gone. Died with the war. Died, unlike the memories that burden my mind and sanity. Died, unlike me. I survived…but I feel dead inside. If only…if only I was dead outside too. If only I was dead everywhere and completely.
I cannot step inside my own house. I cannot step inside the very house I grew up in. I was not the only one to grow up there. My adopted brothers grew up there too. My other best friends were honorary residents, as I was at their homes too. It was also the place where Anneliese's then-boy friend proposed.
Coen Schwartz died in the war too. I was there, as I was for everyone else. He was actually, out of the seven of us, the first one to go. The British blew up a bomb, and he was in range of the explosion. He was dead within minutes. It was a heavy loss. We all looked up to him. He was like the older brother I never had. He was the father my own nephew will never have but should.
Voss Mehler was next. A black-haired lad with brown eyes and pale skin and the youngest of us at age sixteen, he was easily excited and hyper. Despite the age difference, we treated him as an equal. He was one of us. He always was. But then he got gunned down by a British officer in the middle of a battle. It was heartbreaking when I returned home and told his parents and his twelve-year-old brother that he was not coming back. I did not want to believe he was coming back.
Then went Jessen Glockner. Bold and confident, the heavily tanned brunette seventeen-year-old dove into battle like an expert diver in the ocean. I was actually worried when he seemed to kill off enemy soldiers like they were merely target practice, but Voss said that he broke down in front of him once sobbing for forgiveness and begging to get the images out of his head. Jessen knew how to bottle things up. While he easily showed his sarcastic nature to most people, the really dark stuff was kept down deep inside. He was crying when he bled out from a stab wound.
Dresden Eisenhauer and Oberon Strauss went out together like a pair of lights. They were fighting together in a three-against-two battle. They managed to take out the first two, but the last one fired at the auburn-haired Oberon cleanly. Dresden, with his dark brown hair flopping about his head, jumped in to save his secret lover, taking the bullet and dying instantly, but it was unnecessary for the enemy soldier took out Oberon just seconds later. Secret lovers? Yes, that was actually true. They had to keep it a secret from the entire army, but we knew. We always knew. It was not unacceptable in society, but we did not care. I remember when they would crawl into each other's beds at night for comfort, and I would silently cry alongside them. They came together, and they left together.
Clove Zeppelin "CZ" Eisenhauer was Dresden's cousin and was the last one left with me. We mourned for our lost friends whenever we could with our sextet hymns that we modified for the two of us. We stayed close to each other constantly. He once said to me with his blue eyes sad and dull, I wish we could just go. I cannot take this anymore. And then he got ill from trenchfoot, lost his blond hair, and died a slow, painful death in the hospital.
That just left me, Kyler Eisenberg.
In the present a hand touches mine, and I look at Anneliese who sits across the table. I moved into Coen's house to be with her. Somehow, it is not as painful as the place I used to call home. It seems to me it is the company. Anneliese and I, we will never be the same again and we know that. Mutter and Vater do not understand. They just do not. But we do.
I once met a man such as myself during the war. Paul Bäumer. He had just lost his mentor Stanislaus Katczinsky. Before, he lost each and every single one of his friends. Just like me.
Do you think it will ever get better? I once asked him.
He shrugged and muttered something like, As soon as life ends and begins anew.
He was right. When he died in battle, I saw the smile on his face. He was finally free.
Not me. I will never be free. I cannot die yet. The time is not right. No matter how much death seems wonderful at the moment, I just cannot go. Not yet.
They once said at the battle that it was all quiet on the western front. Battles and battles, fighting and fighting, dying and dying. Minds haunted forever and minds haunted forever.
Sometimes, I think it is too quiet on the western front.
It certainly is here.
But not in my head.
AN 3: Reviews are greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance to those of you who do!