Another chapter. Thanks to Seele Esser Deutsch for following my content.
Just a brief warning; this chapter has some abuse in it. I know this whole story has had some pretty extreme violence so far, but I'll try to warn you guys if sensitive stuff like this happens.
Enjoy, see you in a bit.
"You've done it now haven't you."
Ludwig was kneeling before madam on one knee. He lifted his head.
"I know, I'm just-"
"Silence! I did not give you permission to speak."
He dropped his head.
"You know how important the rules are, Ludwig."
He watches her pace around the wooden floor of her home with the intimidating, expensive stilettos she always wears.
"Then why do you dare do this to me."
"I-"
"Ludwig!"
She stomps her foot, and he silenced himself immediately.
"Thank you. Now. Tell me what you did."
He lifted his head slowly and looked at her, fear rising in his mind.
Ludwig only wished he knew what he had done. He didn't remember having done anything to upset madam…
"I… I-"
"Ludwig, what did I say about stuttering? Speak clearly."
"I don't know."
She looked at him with the most infuriated eyes he had ever seen, and he looked down again, uncomfortable by her hateful gaze.
"I'm sorry, did you just tell me you don't know what you did wrong?"
"Yes."
She grabbed his chin and yanked it upwards to face hers, straining Ludwig's neck.
"Look at someone when they are talking to you!" She yelled.
Ludwig's eyes were wide in horror and when he tried to shrink away, she turned his jaw back towards her.
"So, you do not know what you are here for, Ludwig." She said, now face level to the boy.
"Correct." he said bitterly.
"Well then we can just assume it wasn't you then right?" She said in a quiet, sweet voice meant to mimic that of someone who was forgiving.
Ludwig looked lifelessly into her eyes, feeling helpless to her patronization.
Suddenly she grabs him by his hair and rams his head into the ground, breaking his nose. A shuddering cry escaped his lips as he rolled onto his side.
"Shut up!" She yells, kicking his stomach, as he let out another muffled cry.
She taps her foot impatiently. "Sit up." She sharpens her voice. "Now."
He lifted himself from where he had fallen over, sitting up to face her again, nose bleeding, and he kneeled again.
"Now. What did you do wrong."
"I don't know."
"Bullshit!" She steps on his right hand, and Ludwig clenched his teeth, holding back a scream.
"You are the one who stole my gold ring off of my wardrobe! You hoped to sell it while out doing errands today and keep the money! I know it was you!" She screamed. "Older boys your age are always such dirty little thieves…"
"It wasn't me…" He croaked.
"Enough of this..." She takes her foot off his bruised hand, picks it up and squeezes it as she drags him to his room. She lets his hand drop and walks back to the door.
"Come outside when you finally decide you're ready to confess."
She slams the door shut, and Ludwig just lays there on the floor, exhausted, dizzy…
And just so happy to be by himself again…
He stood up and walked over to his dresser and pulled out a first aid kit he bought for himself recently. He wrapped his hand with bandages and painfully readjusted his nose, again putting bandages on it. He took a deep breath, and walked over to his bed and lay down.
I'll get out. She just doesn't know it yet.
Ludwig's eyes flew open.
"Petra, get in here!" he heard Tenenbaum yell. He looked over to his right. Tenenbaum was sitting on a chair next to him. She was smiling. It was so nice to see her smile after the last time he saw her, he thought.
Petra ran in and squealed when she saw his face.
"You're alive!" she cried.
She runs over to the opposite side of the bed and shakes his hand vigorously, and he couldn't help but to chuckle at the sudden gesture. He sat up and noticed his chest and his head didn't hurt anymore.
"How long was I out?" He asked.
"Only two days. And your injuries are healed already."
"Wow. When my master said it wasn't that easy to kill a country, she wasn't joking." He thought.
"So do you just… heal yourself that quickly?" Tenenbaum asked in an odd voice.
Ludwig swallowed.
"Y-yes… My doctors are always surprised at how quickly I can recover from injuries, but what they don't understand is that…"
Tenenbaum was already holding out the piece of paper "Guidelines," to his face.
"That… I'm… my…"
"Mhm." Tenenbaum hummed. "It's also rather miraculous that you so suddenly suffered from a seizure so long after Viktor choked you."
She gave him a smug look and put the paper on his lap.
Ludwig's felt his face heat up and his ears turned pink.
Schiesse…
She reached over and ruffled his hair.
"Thanks for worrying about me." She gave him a warm smile. "But for your own good, it's best you don't."
He smiled back and fixed his hair.
"Well, now that you're awake, it's probably best we actually get to know each other before Viktor finds you again." Petra says.
He chuckled a bit and listened to her introduction.
"Hallo, My name is Petra Steinway. I'm 26 years old and I like baking in my free time. Everyone tells me to put my last name on my name tag, but I don't care for that because I want my patients to treat me like a friend and not a professor."
"Sehr erfreut." Ludwig said holding out his hand. She grabbed it and shook it normally this time.
He turned his head to Tenenbaum.
"Guten Tag, My name is Anselma Tenenbaum. I'm 30 years old and I have been a doctor almost all my life."
"Sehr erfreut." He held his hand out to her and she gave it a single shake.
"And you? I think more than basic introduction is necessary." She asked.
Ludwig's eyes darted across his bed, and he clenched his fists for a moment.
My life is a little more convoluted than that...
"My name is Ludwig. I'm almost 17 years old. I was born in Germany and raised in an orphanage until… well, until they realized I was the thing being described on that piece of paper. Apparently leaders lost the first Germany, and immediately jumped at the chance to make sure they wouldn't lose him again. They reported my odd symptoms it to my doctors, but they told the orphanage that I was to be sent into an area of the hospital where they investigate strange disease. I was then put into private care. They wanted to make sure I didn't get "lost," like the last Germany, and so I was given to my master, Velona Brum. She was a poor woman around 28 years old, but she was their best candidate, being that she was so far away from everyone."
Ludwig shifted uncomfortably at the thought of her.
"I'm happy to have met you both. Truly."
Tenenbaum and Petra smiled.
Suddenly they heard yelling from outside.
"Get ready. Quickly!" Tenenbaum said. "If he sees you unprepared, he might actually kill you."
She grabbed his shirt and jacket and threw them at the bed.
He got up and quickly put them on. Not much after, she took his boots and put them down next to him, and put those on, looking around the room for anything he had missed.
"Here!" Tenenbaum threw his cap over from across the room. He quickly put it on and stood in a saluting position towards the door.
Immediately after they were all positioned, he burst into the door. Ludwig noticed he looked almost… Happy to see that he was awake. Viktor shot a look at Tenenbaum.
"What's his condition, Tenenbaum?"
"He had been injured with two broken ribs and a concussion at arrival. Shortly after being brought inside, he woke up. He was able to stand but then suffered asphyxiation. This caused him to have a seizure, landing him in a coma for 2 days. As of today, all of his injuries have miraculously healed."
He turned to face Ludwig again.
"You are to kneel in my presence. Understood?"
"Nothing new." Ludwig thought, annoyed.
"Yes, sir." He kneeled down on his knee.
"Now. We will go outside to begin your training. When you walk, you will have your head down, and you will keep a one and a half meter distance from me. Is this clear?"
"Why so damn specific?"
"Yes sir."
"Okay. Let's go." He turned to leave, and Ludwig stood, waiting for him to get far enough to start walking.
Tenenbaum gave him a worried look.
"Keine Sorgen." He whispered comfortingly, and started walking.
They got outside to the training ground, and Ludwig made sure to kneel when he got there.
Viktor waited for him and started pacing back and forth with a bag slung on his back, and holding…
"A whip?!"
"Well. You've finally come around from your injuries. In that case, we can start training right away." He takes the bag off and opens it.
"Your training revolves around discipline."
He drops something on the ground in front of him, and Ludwig looked up at it.
He felt an icy hand gripping his heart as he realized what it was.
A skull.
He felt something rise up in his throat and he lifted his gloved hand to his mouth.
The skull was marked with a name and something else.
Phillip Henlein
Failed to obey the rules.
"Your training revolves around punctuality." He drops another one.
Killian Strauss
Failed to report to roll call.
"Your training revolves around strength."
Edgar Loewe
Failed to withstand training.
"And most importantly, your training revolves around respect."
He dropped one more. This skull was different though. Ludwig noticed it had a huge crack at the top, and several teeth were missing.
Arnold Mann
Directly disobeyed his commanding officer's orders.
Ludwig swallowed hard and closed his eyes.
"Do I make my point clear?"
"Yes, sir." He tried as hard as he could to hide how horrified he was, but Ludwig knew it wasn't working.
"Good. That is your training for today. You may go to your dorm. Doctor Steinman will escort you." He turned to the building, but he couldn't bring himself to stand. "Doctor Steinman!" he yelled.
He heard her run out to the field.
"Yes sir!"
"Take our new student to his dorm."
There was a moment of silence.
"Is he… Injured?" She asked, obviously confused at Ludwig's position.
"No, why do you ask?"
"No reason!" She responded quickly. He heard some steps toward him, then a warm hand on his back.
"Ludwig?" He heard her say quietly. "Come on, you should rest."
He finally got up, snapping himself out of his daze. "Yeah. Thanks."
Petra helps him up, and she directed him to the south building and showed him his dorm. Not too bad overall, he thought. A simple bed with a blanket, a table.
But one thing put Ludwig off about it all.
The color.
The room was completely white. Ludwig couldn't help but to shudder at the coldness of it all.
He saw his dinner on the table, or rather, his "dinner."
It was a simple baked potato with a fork on the plate. Next to it was a glass of water.
"You sure you'll be okay? You seem kinda dazed." Petra asked.
"No… I'm okay." He lied, sitting on the bed. "But don't you think he changed a lot after I woke up?"
"Yeah… I don't know why, but it seems like he's acting much calmer."
"Should I be worried?"
She hesitated before answering. "I don't know. He's never like this. We'll have to wait and see."
He shrugged. "Yeah. We'll see."
She smiled nervously and walked over to the door.
"Well, sweet dreams!"
"Gute Nacht." He replied.
She left the room closing the door behind her.
He let himself crash on the bed, and let out a deep breath.
"What suddenly happened to Viktor? I thought he hated my guts..."
He got up again, realizing he really should eat something, even if his "training" made him lose his appetite.
He picked up the fork and started to mash the potato, eating it and washing it down with the glass of water.
It was his first dinner away from home.
He couldn't help but to think of what madam would have for dinner.
"Probably using the money she got from taking care of me to have a feast." He thought, rolling his eyes.
He got up and placed the dishes to the side, took off his uniform and folded it, keeping it neat for tomorrow. He settled into bed, nervously wondering what tomorrow's training will be.