A/N: This is not my story! This story rightfully belongs to Jayne Stark and it'scalled by the name Dachau. I decided that it would be a great idea to share this wonderful story with the English-speaking community.
Original author: Jayne Stark
Original language: Spanish
Translated by: Me
Disclaimer: Shingeki no Kyojin belongs to Hajime Isayama!
- Dachau -
Prologue
Why me?
For the past few hours she had been asking herself this over and over; one for each jump of the unusable vehicle, one for each sob in her surroundings, one for her own faltering gasps. Her mind, normally filled with kindness and understanding, sinks into an endless seaquake of distress, diligently representing in two words;
Why me?
She keeps her head down even though, in such thick darkness, her vision remains useless. She plays with her fingers, hoping that with this she would be able to refrain her mind from wandering elsewhere.
All around her she hears people praying in low, choked whispers and she, more driven by inertia than by faith, does it too.
Why me?
She touches her face, maybe trying to infuse worth in herself through the dark spot that covers her left eye, matching with the split lip that has begun to heal.
She isn't dumb, she knows that in comparison to the horrors of her chaotic flight, a few bruises on her face were, in fact, a benevolent punishment or even equivalent to a gentle touch.
She feels like crying but it's impossible, she already used up all of her tears; she remembers all of them, children, women, elderly, all trying to flee from the pandemonium, all falling one after another.
Marco, a boy she knew, was one of them...
Why him? She wonders unconsciously.
She stops playing with her fingers seeing that at this point any form of distraction is useless.
While emitting dry sobs, a part of her, perhaps her darkest part, wonders whether all of this is worth it; she nods in the darkness without a second thought, it was all worth it.
She thinks about her father (or rather, the one she uses to call ''father''), she thinks about her friend Sasha, from whom she hasn't heard, she thinks about herself and about what she will do once the freight truck comes to a stop.
She starts trembling; but she doesn't feel fear. Fear has been with her since the moment the door of her house had been demolished; whatever fear is, has merged in her being. She doesn't feel fear. All of her is fear.
''Get off, trash!'' She didn't feel the truck come to a halt, she didn't feel her tightly shut eyes until she felt obliged to open them up. ''Didn't you hear me? I said get off!''
Nobody moves, only she has enough will to take a look at her surroundings and wonder what's going on. With difficulty, her eyes start getting used to the dim light. She fixes a lock of her blonde hair and she rests her blue orbs on the soldier.
He's blonde and has sharp features, his hands tremble against his own will.
She knows him, she remembers him. He was the one who separated her from those civilian men who were attacking her on the streets. If he hadn't arrived on time, they would have probably done so much more to her.
She swallows and, with a bit of relief, prepares to face him.
Her legs are trembling. With her small stature she manages to pass between the prisoners; the soldier, who looks away once he recognizes her, helps her to get off the truck, perhaps a bit abrupt but not without some paradoxical gentleness that manages to disconcert her.
Once she lets go of the man's trembling hand, she begins to follow the indicated path towards the formation of prisoners.
All eyes are fixed on her back, on her face and on her chest. some leering, others just curious. She hears the excited whispers of the soldiers and, through intuition, knows that they're talking about her.
All those whispers scare her and make her feel uncomfortable. She has always been very beautiful. She wonders if it's because of her fully Aryan traits, or because of the fact that she isn't Jewish, which attracts the men's gazes who guard the infamous labor camp of Dachau.
It's the year 1938. The National Socialist regime, led by Adolf Hitler, takes force and the civil riots in defense of German supremacy begin to be managed. It's in one of those riots, which later would become known as Kristallnacht, where she, Christa Renz, citizen of the German Empire, is captured by the forces of the Third Reich.
Christa turns around after hearing a sound. An impatient soldier dragged an elderly out of the freight vehicle, the latter by being unable to stand, fell sideways to the ground amid a huge crunch.
She thinks about running, she thinks about helping him out immediately, but that one soldier, the one who seemed to have a special sort of sympathy towards her, holds her back by her arm with force, almost hurting her.
''Don't forget why you're here.'' He whispers carefully. She nods and wipes away the tears of which she believed she couldn't shed anymore.
He's right. The impulse to defend the indefensible had dragged her to this prison, her habit of worrying about others had negated her all of her racial privileges; but they didn't misunderstand, she didn't regret anything, that's what Christa Renz was like.
A goddess willing to sacrifice herself for her faithful - That's what Sasha had called her, after she had convinced Mr. Braus that it had been her, and not his gluttonous daughter, who had devoured the pieces of bread who were intended to be their dinner of the following three days.
Helping others out and disregarding her own wellbeing, that's what the goddess was like.
Including now, in that unfortunate situation, the goddess worries about her faithful.
She looks back secretly. She knows the old man, with just one look she's able to recognize this man as one of her neighbours, a retired teacher, German-born and Jewish by conviction. Her soul hurts after each blow that lands on the old man and, before everything gets worse, she decides that she should take action again.
She squeezes the fabric of her white shirt trying to find the value that she's lacking, in her eyes there's an air of boldness that only appears occasionally. She observes the troops around her, the soldier on her side and then she sees a chance.
What would happen if, perhaps, she grabs the gun of the distracted man who's guiding her? Of course, they'd kill her immediately, but that wasn't of importance.
Would she give the prisoners enough time to escape? Possibly it would, possibly not, but the fastest ones would certainly manage to seeing as, once you put one foot outside of the resort, there would be a lot of places to hide.
She slides her hand towards the man's gun, nobody sees her, drops of sweat run down her forehead, she touches the metal and thinks that it will all end soon...
But then, the old man's head explodes.
The uniforms of the soldiers surrounding the old man are impregnated with blood and small gray pieces that make Christa gasp in horror; the Jewish prisoners scream desperately while they search for a place to hide to protect them against the bullets.
Renz backs away, the determined look with which she shaped her plans breaks down and in its place appears a look of panic and anxiety, she falls to her knees and starts trembling, observing the bloody remains of what used to be a sweet old man.
She doesn't feel the steps behind her, she doesn't feel the unknown arm encircling her waist, lifting her to her feet and, of course, she doesn't feel the barrel of the gun until it touches her skin.
She feels something wet touching her ear (she supposes it's a tongue), a chill runs through her body through her spine.
''Oh...'' She hears behind her, ''your prisoners are interesting, Reiner.'' A hand covered by a leather glove caresses her belly, the gun moving from her temple to her cheek, ''having the guts to steal the gun of an SS soldier isn't something usual...''
The voice is hoarse and powerful, poignant and malicious unlike any she had ever heard before. It's difficult for her to relate such an ambiguous sound to a certain gender, so judging from this person's actions, she assumes that it's a male, perhaps a young militant with airs of greatness.
''What are you even saying?'' Reiner, the gentile soldier, clicks his tongue in annoyance. Christa sends him a pleading look while the soldier behind her draws small circles on her cheek with the barrel of the gun. Luckily for her, the gun leaves its post to point at him, at Reiner, more like a distracted gesture than a real threat.
The place it was pointing at was obvious: the case of his gun.
''See any difference, idiot?'' Yes, even she notices it, in her attempt to steal the object, she had left it slightly but also notoriously outside of its original place. She feels the cold sweat run down her face while the hand that was resting on her belly starts to go up her body very slowly.
Suddenly, that hand grabs her left breast, it molds and squeezes it hard, with such force that Renz's innocence led her to believe that the goal of all this was to brutally tear it out.
''Next time, Reiner,'' he says scathingly without letting go of her breasts, ''pay more attention to her hands than to her breasts, or the high brass won't be content with you.''
Before the man has any chance to reply, the soldier with scathing voice takes the young blonde by the arm and forces her to follow him.
She walks behind him (or what she supposes is a ''him''), he walks with huge strides with which she can barely keep up. She observes him more carefully, he's tall and slender, with slightly brown hair in a hairclip.
Her breasts are still hurting and, the mere thought of those men who had tried to assault her on the day of her capture, causes an overwhelming horror to shatter her composure.
Tears start falling down her cheeks; she doesn't want to weep, she doesn't want to draw his attention. She's afraid, more than she was a while ago while she was immersed in the dark pleading to a god she doesn't believe in.
It's that abnormal fear which forces her to let out a sound that hits her own ears like a death sentence.
The stranger stops, she, filled with horror, also stops; she shuts her eyes tightly, she hears the small sounds being caused by the rubbing of the fabric, which indicates that the stranger is turning around to face her.
''Look at me,'' a hand covered by a leather glove lifts her chin carefully. It's the rhythmic breathing, so close to her, that causes her to obey. ''Well done...''
Those brown orbs stare at her fixedly. Inadvertently, her tears stop running, another hand wipes away the traces of tears on her cheeks; she feels an emphasis on that area of her left eye darker than the rest of her skin. She sees a small smile on that cold face covered with freckles, the understanding that she discovers in that gesture exceeds all of her expectations. For a moment, while those feelings merge with her being, she feels the need to return the smile.
But that's too much and this she knows.
''Ymir!'' She hears Reiner yell out and, immediately, the calming face that she observes turns into that cold mask that had been responsible for pulling the trigger of the gun, and that had rested the gun on her temple. ''What are you going to do to her?''
Their eyes meet again, but those brown orbs staring down at her are different from before. It's the look of a soldier. When she sees the swastika on his left arm, Christa Renz realizes that, without having said a word, her fate was sealed, for better or for worse.
Ymir smiles.
''Whatever the Führer wishes for...''