From now on, I'm going to respond to comments at the beginning of each chapter. I saw someone else doing this and I thought it was interesting!
ikanisfish: Why are you afraid of guessing? And you're welcome, I plan on continuing until it's over!
An Eldian's Journal
Wartime Shenanigans
Chapter 17: The Fighter vs. The Two-Faced Warrior
After 20 or so minutes of strolling through the streets of section F, we arrived at a group of 4 houses. They huddled near each other, all cramped and scared. Some looked cold from the lack of warmth, and one of them looked burnt from the excess of warmth.
"Is it this one?" I pointed at one of the cold-looking houses that appeared to be was a giant shoebox on the side of the road.
"No." Viktor replied. "It's this one." He pointed at the burnt house. The shadows of flames could be felt in the chewed wood and scarred bricks. They must have been chewed by flamethrowers that needed to relieve themselves onto people but burned down the place as a secondary consequence.
"The house must have been burned down but the basement's intact," Viktor said. We all walked in the direction of the house, but as we walked there, we got a few puzzled stares from people walking about.
Charred wooden tables and chairs greeted us as we walked in. They must have been licked by the adulterous nature of flames and devils sometime before. A few toys were on the ground, including a small bear doll that looked amputated and burnt on the face. A short walk later, we found a flight of stairs that descended into the basement.
With each step-down, the staircase coughed with dust, and the whole room wheezed in uneasiness. The darkness restrained our feet as we wandered around for a light. So much so we were going at a turtle's pace. Lina lit a match as a light at the bottom of the staircase and the basement entrance. Viktor said, "There should be a lamp to the left here somewhere." After a few seconds of searching, we found a kerosene lamp waiting for us, ready to be lit.
When lighting up the lamp, I could see the awakening glow dance on Viktor's face. There were no unsettling expressions on the bruised cheeks, for he already visited the basement with the gang of 'titan shifters'. Lina walked to a diagonal corner of the room and lit another kerosene lamp. This extra glow made what was in the center all the easier to see.
The center of the room was the boxing ring. It consisted of four miniature poles that all held hands through the form of cheap ropes. They formed a square—a boxing ring. It was far from professional but 100% resourceful. Just looking at it made me get some butterflies in my stomach.
Or maybe it was butterflies for what Viktor would make me do next.
Viktor took off his jacket and t-shirt, revealing a skinny torso with poorly proportioned abs and average muscle (aka barely any muscle). All he wore were unwashed pants, shoes, and chocolate frosting hair atop his head. And most importantly, an imagination. He then put on his hand wraps as a replacement for actual boxing gloves. "Let's fight!" He said.
I yawned. "Let's not."
Viktor's hands hung dejectedly. He opened his mouth as if he would ask, 'why not' but he soon closed it. He must have thought that he knew what I was going to say.
"Ricky." I turned around to see Lina sitting on a chair in the back of the basement. "If you aren't going to do anything, come sit here. I need you to roll me a cigarette." She patted her hand on a chair with a missing leg.
I went over and sat next to her. As expected, teenage hormones kicked in for their regularly scheduled 'make an awkward scene' appointment. As usual, Lina was pretty as a flower but smelt like burnt flowers. The glow from the lamps added a contour to her face. Whenever she turned towards me, it was half-dark, half-light. It perfectly described her personality—full of discrepancies and contradictions.
I shifted my focus over to Viktor when Lina gave me the cigarette ingredients. He got down onto the floor into a pushup position. He conquered the first few pushups with good form. I thought he could do 100.
He collapsed after just 20.
Viktor defended himself with tired lungs and arms when he noticed that I was watching. "I'm just tired right now. I did 100 in a row in the morning!"
Lina whispered. Her words felt like they were huddling in my ears. "He was sleeping in." A light giggle came afterward.
Viktor continued with his warmups—jumping jacks—jogging—any warmup you can think of. He then went into the ring. He tilted his head back and forth as if he was cracking some knots and then rolled his shoulders.
He put his arms up.
'Who's he fighting?' I thought.
Lina answered my thought for me. "He's going to shadow-box. He does it all the time at home."
***SHADOWBOXING***
A training technique in boxing
It's when an individual boxes an imaginary opponent
Even an imaginary enemy
Who did Viktor believe was his enemy then?
He started commentating to himself while I was fighting the enemy that was sleepiness. My parents were arguing about something the day before, after the declaration of war. Their words kept me up all night.
"In the blue corner," Viktor commentated, "we have the bearer of the armored titan. Marley's military shield—Reiner Braun." He scoffed at the very thought of him and turned around. "And in the red corner, we have a rat, a simple civilian—Viktor Dassler…."
That marked my descent into sleep for my vision flickered as did my consciousness.
Everything began to materialize in my dream. The kerosene lamps transitioned to above our heads. They dusted themselves off and gave off a hard white color. Through the walls of the basement came a crowd of military officials and their wives. Their patriotism emanated from the newly created seats.
The measly ropes wove themselves into something more robust, and the room smelled of superiority. The ref in the middle of the court was a grown-up, imaginary Ymir. She no longer wore a headband and dress but rather a referee's uniform with long, fat strips of black and white. She finished off Viktor's commentating. "—these contestants are both of Eldian blood."
A robe of yellow & red stood in the corner of the ring. Inside this robe was Reiner Braun. His face wasn't tearing up in misery as usual, but instead, there was a strangely out-of-character grin. In the other corner was the 'rat-faced commoner'. He scoffed before putting on his mouthguard. Reiner mirrored him.
A brief quiet arrived.
Then came the bell.
With the pings, Reiner launched himself out of the corner and into the center with Viktor. Reiner's post-adolescent physique towered over the mediocrely proportioned boy still in the strides of puberty.
Viktor let out a short hiss/growl through his mouthguard, and Reiner threw the initial jab of the fight. Viktor's head shot back from the shock. As a return hit, Viktor aimed a hook at Reiner's abdomen.
Mistake.
Reiner's arm was there to block the poorly executed shot. With the chance given, he threw a punch at the square-jawed fighter's square jaw.
Viktor retreated to his corner with his arms up as a defense. Reiner came in with a series of attacks. First at the lungs and then into the kidneys and stomach. Air kept coming in and quickly torn out of Viktor's body.
Viktor watched through the false mask of his hands as the military man pounded away. His brown eyes darted about as he looked through the rat trap he was put into, grimacing under the pain.
A similar routine ensued until the first round ended.
In the minute break, Viktor kept his eyes on Reiner with a suffocating stare. He was determined to show the audience of stingy military members the strength that regular Eldians have. He wanted to show them that they aren't pawns to be pushed around.
Second round.
Viktor had a renewed spring in his step with the beginning of the second round. He hopped around the ring as he surveyed his opponent.
'He couldn't do quick attacks earlier. Just a few really strong and well-placed hits.' Viktor remembered that his wingspan was shorter than Reiner's due to the severe gap in height.
***A DISADVANTAGE***
5ft 6.5in vs 6ft 2in
Reiner didn't allow the spring in Viktor's step to last, for he rushed into the punching bag civilian. He caught the scurrying rat on the run.
With the freshly placed attack on Viktor's face, his jaw silently moaned from the impact. Then his cheekbones. Then surely his skull.
Viktor's knees wobbled to the ground.
There was rat blood everywhere. Civilian blood everywhere.
That's what life is, isn't it? Everything Marley's military does, results in bloodshed for us Eldian civilians. All Viktor wanted was to put up a fight in this metaphorical match.
There was a roar in the crowd.
Then silence.
Ref Ymir counted down.
Reiner was waving his arms in celebration, for he assumed he already won. Red gloves with red blood as frosting formed curves in the air.
"…5…"
At number 5, the fighter raised himself up and attempted to make himself upright. He dropped a labored sentence from his mouth. "I can do this all day."
Viktor shot himself towards the distracted Reiner and placed a hit on his ear.
It was a foul move.
The crowd oohed like ghosts. It was a foul move worthy of getting arrested or turned into a titan for. Ref Ymir came around and restrained the fighter. A grimace curled onto his battered face.
I finally came to realize who this Reiner truly was. It wasn't actually him; instead, it was a caricature representing an idea in his body. Maybe it was similar to how Viktor viewed the actual Reiner. It was something removed from reality but in his eyes could have been the truth.
While gripping his ear, this 'Reiner' cleared his throat and faced the crowd. The lights above kept their stares on the man. They listened to him for he was about to make a statement.
He pointed at the civilian rat.
"Look at him. He's like a rat that scurries about. He tries to win using dirty tactics."
The crowd murmured in agreement.
"He doesn't appreciate that we do what we do for the sake of our empire."
'Reiner' looked down at Viktor with disgust curled on his sharp features. He dusted off his wounds as if they were grains of sand.
"He doesn't appreciate that we suffer on the battlefield so that he can eat his cheese and scraps in safety like the rat he is."
At the ending of the speech, a security guard entered the ring with a box in his hand. The ref restrained Viktor harder as his eyes darted about in their sockets. They recognized what was to come. "N-no. No! Please no!" The squirms and squeaks of the rat echoed through the ring and audience.
The guard pulled out the titan serum.
Reiner walked to the corner of the ring. It slowly morphed into a field. The ropes went down and were replaced with yard lines.
"Let's dance. Titan on titan." Reiner had gloves on his hands, so he bit his tongue.
Lightning landed from above.
XXX
"Heinrich. Wake up!"
The field collapsed into the appearance of the basement. I returned to Section F with Lina tugging at my shoulder. "You fell asleep."
I looked at the ring. Viktor was wandering about with wobbly legs and droopy arms that barely stayed up. He kept saying. "J-just one more." He threw a mediocre jab and some momentum-less words into the air. "I-I won't let you kill us all, you bastard."
"J-just one more." He dropped onto the ground and let out a sigh. Eyes almost shut. "Did I beat him?"
"Are you okay Viktor?!" I called out to the collapsed fighter and stood up, but a hand pushed me down back into the seat. "Leave him be, Ricky," Lina said. "He does this all the time at home."
I sat on the seat, absorbing what I saw in that dream. Like typical dreams, it included people from my daily life but added twists to them. Nonetheless, there was still a lifeline of truth—a shell of meaning. The Reiner that I saw in it was a far cry from the one that I met in person, but he still symbolized some reality, a message.
I would have this dream a few more times, that's why I wrote it here in such detail.
That's the magic of a burnt house, I guess.
You can have such exciting dreams there.
Lina yawned and raised her only functional arm and waved it in the air as if she was mocking a boxer. "Sometimes, in the living room, I just see him shuffling about punching at the air…heck, it even motivates me to exercise sometimes." She took a pause. "Then he would collapse to the ground since he would do it for so long."
"Why do you let him do it for so long?" I asked while rubbing my eye.
She turned her head straight at me. Once again, I could see one part of her face shaded out and the sharp features emphasized. Yet, there was something duller about them—the jewel didn't shine. "In a world full of people like those walking above us, his blind spirit is refreshing to see. On top of that, watching him is very entertaining since he doesn't know actual technique." She giggled for a second before it turned into a flat sigh. Her emotions fell and rolled away on the floor.
What was she hiding behind her sentences? Maybe it was the sadness from the lack of a cigarette. Or was it something more mature?
I looked back over to Viktor. He laid on the ground with eyes shut; his stomach raised up and down ever so slowly.
"How long did I sleep for?" I asked Lina.
"I don't know…I fell asleep too. I didn't sleep at all last night."
She glanced at Viktor. "He slept for a few hours in the morning, that's it."
I thought there was a mutual explanation at that moment for why we didn't fall asleep that we didn't need to explain. Nonetheless, I was glad that I wasn't the only one being kept up by the over-looming fact of the war.
I was glad until I learned it wasn't mutual.
"I couldn't fall asleep…because…I was thinking about you, Ricky."
Her voice was blue but curled up at the edges. There wasn't the dash of sweetness in there that I'd expect a girl would use to say something like that. Her cheeks raised as her eyebrows slightly firmed; her question trembled along the soft ridges of her lip and landed in my ear.
***A QUESTION***
"I was wondering, what did it feel like to shoot Reiner?"
That question put my teenage hormones to sleep. Hearing it mirrored precisely what happened that morning. The only difference was that Lina shot me with a lazy bullet that dug and plunged its way through my ear ever so slowly and patiently. There was still silence, however. A silence thick enough that someone can come by and dig their claws into it.
I couldn't answer right then, for my brain became immersed in tar. It suffocated to think of an answer, but I drudged through it to find some words to match what I felt. I needed the correct nouns—the correct verbs—the correct tone.
I tried my best to answer the cigarette wielder's query.
"I didn't feel anything when I shot him."
"You didn't? How—"
Wrong words.
Try again.
"I was surprised but...it just didn't hit me fully."
"..."
"It was when I ran back home that I realized fully what had happened." I stared across at the kerosene lamp. The weak, yellow light distributed between the faint seeds of tears that started growing in my vision. "I realized that I saw all the bad signs before I got tricked into doing what I did. Yet, I just kept going along with what he told me."
I looked at the crystal face, the all-knowing crystal ball. The seeds of tears in my eyes grew to ugly flowers—vines.
"There was something that the journalist said to me. 'I'm a slave to a goal' and that I would follow him to his goal because of it." I could feel the tightness in my throat. The hand that was emotion took its fingers and tugged at my trachea. "Lina, what does that mean? You always say that you understand people. You predicted how the cabbage man was going to act. Why did I act the way that I did?"
The 'crystal-ball' tore her gaze away. Her head faced forward but she shot sideways glances at me. "Umm..Uhh". Then came a swallow before she threw up some words. "I d-don't know, Ricky."
"What do you mean you don't know?!"
"I d-don't know what to tell you…"
"You talk all about how you understand people and—"
"I don't know, dammit! None of this would've happened if you weren't so naïve!"
The nicotine-depraved Lina yelled loud enough that the fighter in the center of the ring started growing conscious again. Lina must have noticed the reaction that I gave her for she started fidgeting about in her seat.
"W-was Reiner at least hot?" A nervous giggle fell pitifully from her mouth. The neighbor that I found so intriguing and interesting was trying to apply a band-aid on our conversation after she called me naïve. I saw right through the pitiful attempt of diverting what had just transpired.
"I'm just kidding…Ricky.." Her gaze kept shifting from me to the basement entrance. "I'm trying to make things less depressing. I-I'm sorry, okay?...This is what happens when I don't have a cigarette."
Lina stood up without looking down at me. "I can't help you, Ricky."
"…Then who can?"
She walked to the ring.
"Maybe someone that screwed up in their lives…those that screw up can provide advice …those that screw up can also become homeless…maybe you should ask the homeless guy."
XXX
When I arrived home later that day, I went up to my bedroom and locked the door. I pulled up a stool to the open window and dug through my pockets to find Lina's cigarette ingredients. I took out the wax piece of paper and put the plant inside. I rolled it up and lit it with the help of one match lying underneath my bed.
I took a drag on the wonkily rolled cigarette. Despite the wonkiness, I could feel the bite of the drug at the back of my throat. It kindled a response in the form of a cough.
I coughed,
and coughed,
and coughed until a hand touched my shoulder.
It was papa.
"Let's share." The barkeeper said. He must have gotten in, but I didn't notice through my bouts of coughing.
He took one drag and threw it out the window. 'What a waste of tobacco,' I thought.
Cigarettes don't seem to fix problems. No wonder Lina used them a lot.
***2.5 OBJECTIVES***
1)Go back to Section E and try not to lose my newspaper gig
1.5)Avoid Reiner and Falco
2)Come back to Section F, talk to K the street-dweller without getting dusted by gravel
The Real Author's Note
Grammarly came in clutch big time.
Reference: The dream in this chapter is inspired by a scene in the Book Thief (a huge inspiration for this story). In this scene, a Jewish fist-fighter by the name of Max Vandenburg dreams in a basement during the years of WW2. He fights Hitler in a boxing ring in this dream. Yes. As you can guess, Max lost. Hitler then makes a speech to the crowd about how conniving Jews supposedly are. With this chapter, I changed the theme to represent military vs civilians, and obviously the characters.
Tell me in the comments if you guys are interested in me putting my references here. I won't do it all the time but it may be interesting.