Schlof mein Fegele

(The title is yiddish and it means: sleep my bird, it is a lullaby)

Good night guys, this morning was especially cold and I remember my grandmother who was Russian, how she always told me of this deadness in Russia.

They speak german in this story but just sometimes and I wrote the translation underneath.

English is not my mothertongue, so please tell me all the bloody mistakes I have in this story ^^

A little bit ErwinxLevi

Hope you like it.

ATTENTION: IT DEALS WITH WORLD WAR 2 AND THE SHOAH

SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHILE READING

"Wir muessen los, Levi. Der Zug kommt in einer Stunde."

(We have to go Levi. The train will soon arrive.)

Erwin shakes his head. Why does he now remember this day? He sighs deeply and puts his sheet tight around him. Russia is too cold. How can anyone live here? His feet are numb and he is sure he lost again a toe. He bites his lips to at least feel something and is not really surprised as he doesn't feel anything. It is too cold to feel anything.

"Kommandant (Commander)?," he looks up to see Armin's worried face his cheeks burned from the snow. Poor boy, he thinks. You will die too early here. He nods at the young soldier.

"Soll ich die Wache uebernehmen? Sie sehen muede aus."

(Shall we change the guard? You seem tired, Sir.)

He wants to smile, but his muscles are too numb for that. Bloody snow. He nods again and stands up. A tickling, burning feeling floods his veins, like hot poison. But he stands still and waits till it is gone. He removes the sheet from his shoulders and hands it over to Armin, who gets bright eyes.

"Aber Kommandant sind Sie sich sicher-?"

(But Commander are you sure-?")

His eyes get smaller and the young soldier rejects immediately.

"I thank you Commander," Armin answers shakily and takes the sheet carefully into his hands like a newborn baby. Erwin doesn't reply but goes slowly back to their shelter which is nothing more than a bombed house in which one apartment is not completely torn into pieces. There is no one and he wonders why. It seems not long time ago someone was here because there is still hot water in the can over the oven. Erwin holds his hands over it.

They did not talk . Levi was staring the whole way at his feet and Erwin couldn't find any words that would fit this situation. Not after this month. So much had changed. Nothing was anymore as it had been and to understand this, was quite hard.

It had snown the night. He hated Berlin in Winter. It was always that damn cold. Hopefully the train would not get stuck. The snow sighed under their feet like paper that you smashed in your hand. He was tired. He hadn't slept at all the last three day, spending as much time with Levi as he could, before he had to go. And it was even Erwin's idea. But it had to be. Levi couldn't stay here anymore. Not after this November.

Levi must go.

At the entrance both men stood still for a moment.

StrangelyErwinhas to smile. Although there is no reason to. They are in Stalingrad, there is no way they will win this bloody war, he and his soldiers will die not because a poor Russian man with no shoes or something to eat will try to kill them no, because of this bloody cold that is everywhere and never seems to vanish they will die. As easy as that. He sighs deeply and for a second he thinks about taking his gun and shoot himself. As easy as that. He got that sentence from Levi.

When Erwin had said that it was unfair Levi couldn't go to Univeristy anymore, the young man had shrugged and meant: "Well I am a Jew. I am not allowed to go. As easy as that."

When Levi wasn't allowed anymore to go into the parks, when he wasn't allowed anymore to go shopping, when he wasn't allowed anymore to go to hospital, when he wasn't allowed anymore to have his pet cat Nocturna.

When everything a normal human being was allowed to do was prohibited for Levi.

And Levi just stood there and said: As easy as that. Never complaining.

Probably because he couldn't understand. Or mostly he didn't want to understand. Erwin shakes his head again.

As if he had been any better. As if he had understood any of this.

But then November came.

And like a bomb it had blasted and it was like a slap in their face. There was no way Levi could stay. Not if people like rabid dogs, their spit dripping down their grinning lips, dance like witches with the devil, laugh while destroying stores, dragging people out, hitting them, killing them, burning them.

In that moment Erwin had known that Germany had found its path.

And its path was the path to hell.

On that day Levi had been out looking for the bookshop that belonged to his family and when the raging mob started Erwin had felt as if someone stabbed him deeply in his chest. Fear fell like water down on his body bathed his skin in cold sweat.

He found Levi, near to the bookshop that had belonged to Levi's aunt, till it was burnt down that night. The only thing the younger man managed to say was that he was glad his aunt was long dead by now. That neither she nor his parents had to see anything of this.

And Erwin just stood there a strange sickness tightened his chest as he realised that Levi had to go.

And that Erwin would never see him again.

"What is that?," Levi sat in front of him. Still some scratches from that night on cheek and neck, the arm blue. SS-Idiots had pushed him on the ground. And he stared at Erwin with these grey eyes, Erwin knew so well and long. For ten years they had known each other.

And now everything was over.

The blond one sighed deeply. And he had never sighed like that. And when his blue eyes detected Levi, his small figure, his skinny body, he could not believe what he was going to do.

Like trash he threw the tickets on the table. And there they lay like rotten flesh no one wanted to touch or even look at. There was a moment of silence where no one spoke and the noise of the cars drowned and the rushing of the leafless trees silenced, even the cracking cold had shut its mouth.

And then Levi asked again.

"What is that?", although he knew. Levi wasn't stupid. He never was. Always the best in Gymnasium, the best during their study.

Again silence. But this time it wasn't empty silence. The cracking cold sang again, the cars drove again, there were children laughing, the trees muttered softly, the wind sighed.

Slowly Levi stood up. But before he could go, Erwin had taken his wrist tightly.

"Levi," he said. "Listen-"

"I am not going."

Erwin looked up.

"You must."

"Stop this nonsense. I am not going. What on earth shall I do in Warshaw?"

The blond one breathed in and out.

"You once told me you have family there."

Levi chuckled.

"Yeah, I have a uncle there whose name I can't even recall. Great. And with him you think I am going to live with? I haven't seen him for ten years. I don't even speak polish-"

"Please," Erwin begged. He sounded like a wounded animal as he spoke and he felt as Levi's whole body flinched.

"I won't go, Erwin. This is my home-"

"Not anymore!," he stood now, tall as he was he looked down on Levi. His hand still around the younger one's wrist.

The sound of granates smashing ground rips him from his daydream and he turns around. Suddenly screams fill the air. Erwin's eye widen. What is going on? He looks at his hands, a little bit red from the hot water. His blue eyes looking for a gun in this room, he has left his own for Armin. There lies an old thing, probably stolen from a Russian, but he takes it anyway.

More and more screams fill the air, more and more whistling granates fall and smash.

The Russians attack.

A moment he stands still, holding his gun tight against his chest. He closes his eyes.

"And you think in Poland we get better treated? Erwin it doesn't matter, being a Jew means being fucked up. For God's sake! It is just a a little phase. Soon they all will calm down, believe me-"

"They won't! They burnt your store! And they would have burnt you too, if they had had the chance to!"

"And what is with you?"

He chuckles slightly. Yeah, what is with him? He is Commander of poor little boys, children, sending them to death. That is with him. He bites his lips as there are tears coming.

He should have gone with Levi.

But now it is too late. And he can't do anything else than silently apologize for his decision.

He breathes and counts to ten. Then he runs out seeing his soldiers fighting for their lives, their eyes wide and frightened, their hands shaking as they try to pull the trigger, unable to cry for their tears would immediately freeze.

Erwin thinks about what a strange picture it is. It looks so weird, as if not from this it isn't. Nothing here seems to be from this world. From a known world. This world is different.

This is hell.

Nothing else.

And he is in.

He is in hell.

He dodges as again a granate flies and lands not far away from him. They must retreat. This makes no sense. It is early in the morning. His men are tired from the cold, their clothes too big for their skinny bodies. They can't fight. Not now.

He opens his mouth.

"RETREAT!," he screams to the fighting men, still kneeling on the snow. He has to stand up. But he remains in his position.

"RETREAT!," he yells again.

He sees Armin turning his head, staring at him with tired blue eyes, a wound on his forehead, his face almost black from the blood. And then he hears Armin screaming as well : "RETREAT!" And heads turn, and the shouting voice of Eren and Guenter fill the air.

Erwin sits there on the snow. He knows he has to stand up. But he doesn't.

There is a voice in his head, a voice he knows well. Very well. And he can't stop it. He doesn't want this voice to stop and he is somehow afraid that if he moves, it will stop. It will stop existing.

And because of this voice he doesn't hear the granate, this whistling sound.

He doesn't feel the pain as the explosion smashes his right arm .

He doesn't hear the desperate screams of Armin calling his name over and over again.

He doesn't hear the Russians chasing his men.

He just lies in the snow and waits for death.

Still this voice in his head. What did Levi like to sing sometimes?

What was it again?

Schlof main fegele

Mach zu dein Egele

Lailululu

Schlof geschmack mein Kind

Schlof and sei gesindt

Lailululu

shlof un cholem zis fun der velt genis,.
Kol z'man du bist yung, kenst du shlofen gring, lachen fun altzding,

Lailulu

Something like that, didn't he? He can't breath suddenly. He blinks and looks at the sky reminding him of Levi's grey eyes.

He feels like back when the war had started. When they have occupied Poland and he had begged every day that Levi wasn't there anymore.

And then he had heard of the ghetto in Warshaw. How the people died there like flies.

And how the Jews got killed by the SS.

And he had understood then that Levi was dead. And that Erwin had sent him to death.

And that it all was Erwin's fault.

He blinks again and hopes there truly is a heaven. And that although he doesn't deserve it, he can see Levi just for a moment: to tell him that he was sorry.

He looks at the right. The snow looks pretty with his blood on it. He can see pieces of bones lying around.

And for the last time he looks at the ceiling. And before he closes his eyes he again listens to that voice he knows so well.

But strangely this voice isn't in his head.

It sounds like it is somewhere outside not far from him.

And never he had heard this voice screaming his name that way.

Did you like it? Tell me your thoughts!

Laila tov ( hebrew means good night)