Falco and I ended our 'adventure' that day at the one place where we first met each other. It was that one intersection where the replacement newspaper boy stood. During the walk there, I wasn't sure if I would see Falco again in the weeks that would follow. My mind wrung that thought out as much as it could.

I wonder how he's doing now. Does he have a titan of his own?

"Don't die, Falco." I tossed that sentence through the wall of awkwardness that walked casually between us.

"I won't." He looked up at me and released his clenched fists. "Also, I'm not leaving yet. I'll be here for a few more weeks."

It was almost like Falco died in my head right there and then. Honestly, the fact that he was going to war made him dead in my eyes already. What a fascinating view of people, isn't it?

It's weird how some people that you've known for so many years barely make a mark on you. But then some people you know for a few days make you see things differently. You know, you lose your faith in humanity when a bunch of idiots destroy each other and a bar in the process. Still, then you meet some random kid that helps you out with selling some newspapers.

Some of the faith crawls back into you.

But you notice something. You realize this kid's reason for going to war is to make sure the girl he has a crush on doesn't get a titan. You can't tell if he's selfless to this girl or selfish to other people. It instead puts some curiosity on humanity rather than some faith in it.

It really makes a devil cry.

I'm not crying. You are.

XXX

As per the rules of this journal (and internment zones), wholesome things aren't allowed to last, and therefore something must happen to ruin the mood. But, unfortunately, that's just the order of how things go.

So, how did the wholesomeness end for me? It's pretty simple, really:

I went to see K the street dweller.

Wholesome things used to die in the stench that emanated from him. You know how I tested that? I tried to smile when I walked near him, and it automatically became a frown.

Oh shit, I forgot to write down the title.

An Eldian's Journal

Wartime Shenanigans

Chapter 19: Slaughtered Words

I experienced a dash of character development that day. Next, you'll see precisely what kind through the wonders of pencil lead, eraser dust, and paper.

After the wholesome moment, I trudged back to section F with something significant in tow. I thought it was the way through to the street-dweller's creaking and sputtering heart: a newspaper. A newspaper with an empty crossword puzzle.

Finding the street-dweller after I entered section F was quite a hassle. So, I looked through Hell-Street and shoved through the walk-in closet of fodder characters to find the specific one I was looking for. And of course, thanks to my luck, he was sitting near a barbershop. But, it wasn't just any barbershop though; it was manned by a particular character. Rather wo-manned and married to a cabbage-man.

Clouds were farting thunder, and people rained with their chitter and chatter. All of this signaled the beast that sat in the salon. It was something worse than an Eldian: an Eldian with scissors—The Grinch of Section F.

I introduced the Grinch of Section F to you in her most vulnerable state. I showed you her inner layers but haven't revealed the outer layers, which is quite the opposite of what I did with the cabbage. I kind of put myself in a predicament here because of that (oh well). Just take my word for it; you won't see the inner layers of her that often.

Near the salon was a pocket of stench on the side of the road. In it was the street-dweller. He was a cue-ball knocked into the pocket of the road by the pole made of life events. This cue-ball wore a skeleton suit and a costume stitched with poverty and the color of filth. (Not my best analogy. I know.)

I approached him with a newspaper in one hand and hesitation in the other.

"Why do you keep coming back to me?" He asked.

"I wanted to ask you something."

The sizzling texture of his words no longer surprised me. I pinched my nose and sat down on the sidewalk a few feet away. It was just far enough to avoid the shards of smell but close enough to hear the words. As I sat down, a logical consideration popped into my mind: 'How in the world can you ask a random guy some question about shooting somebody? Especially when the person shot starts with an R and ends in an R.'

So instead, I asked something more mundane and less lethal. Maybe it was small talk, but it was hard to see what was lying underneath the walls of homelessness and what was sitting close to the creaking, wooden heart inside. I needed to find out.

"Mr. K, why do you like crosswords so much?"

K appeared to have a fascination with words. He seemed to like crossing them out and building them up again with letters and playing with them.

Does that sound familiar to you at all? It's almost like I do the exact same thing…

K replied, "It's so I don't have to talk to annoying people."

He wasn't as approachable as he was the day before. But, nonetheless, I didn't have the same idea of words then that I do now writing this journal. To me, they were just another way people would attack each other. They seemed like a supplement to fists.

I handed him the newspaper through the middleman that was the stench. He took it and flipped through the pages. To my surprise, he even flipped past the crossword puzzle. He instead flipped through to a regular page without a crossword on it and pulled out a retired pencil stub rather than a shard of glass. (He must've stolen that pencil from a child like I did a few days ago.)

He appeared to be playing a game, a genocide on ink, really. Every adverb and every adjective that graced his loathsome fingers was crossed, cut, beheaded, mauled by the dulled and edgeless pencil stub. I could almost hear their screams as I watched in bewilderment. He slashed through entire streets with careless flicks of the wrist as if he were a god. His eyes were as wide as an owl's.

'Who is this man?' I thought. The thunder transitioned from flatulence to crackling. It was a warning sign for the rain to come.

My brain dumped my bewilderment of Reiner. Instead, it had a more important task—a new enigma to decipher.

"W-Who are you? Why are you here on the streets?" I asked.

K answered with the usual amount of serration. "There are two reasons why someone can become homeless…they have no money…or…they screwed up."

"Which one are you?"

"Even if I tell you, it won't matter…."

"Why not?"

"You can't understand anything about me unless you see the world in the shade of color that I do."

That line surprised me. Not because of the way he said it but rather the contents of it. It was a tad too eloquent for a man on the sidewalk. A layer of filth shed, and I saw a tiny nugget of gold in the man—I saw his value.

He huddled his face as if he said too much. "No one can understand." K took a break from his genocide on adverbs/adjectives and printed his sentence in the air for everyone to see. I'm sure I was the only one to listen.

I was afraid that K would throw gravel at me again, and I wanted to run away once more.

But no. I sat; I needed to learn who this was.

Instead of K throwing me gravel, a door complained behind us as it opened. The Grinch rushed out and stood behind us. Her presence interrupted the thunder, and the hair clippings in the dust bin quivered in her presence.

A snarl lit on the cardboard face as she gazed at the street-dweller. "How many times have I told you not to sit here. You're scaring customers away!"

The Grinch stood over K.

Their position was similar to the other events in this journal: someone of power standing over someone weaker. I thought back to how the Grinch pleaded on the day of the bombing threat, but when her life security came back, there she was harassing people.

It was ironic since she also cared for her son so much and did her best to relieve him of his pain during his panic attack.

***THE GRINCH OF SECTION F***
Married to "Dick the Cabbage Man"
I didn't know her name, so I gave her my aunt's since they share a trait:
harassing people for existing too loudly.
She used to complain that her armband restricted her rights.
Me and Viktor used to call middle-age women like her, "Karin"

Why are Eldians like this? No, why are people like this? Why can't they just be good or bad? Why are they both? (I ask these questions to myself these days…despite having already learned the answer through the events that will transpire in the following chapters.)

The position also reminded me of the days when I was in elementary school, and people would bully me for no reason. They just stood over me as I laid weak on the ground. The cabbage man stood over papa with a blade on the broadcast day, but their roles switched on the bombing day.

It's the concept of "standover-men," a concept one of section F's characters would soon teach me, but I'm giving you an early glimpse of.

I watched the concept play out in front of me for the 100th time. Maybe the 100th time's the charm…since I finally took some action against it.

The Grinch took the bin of leftover hair clippings and raised it above K's head. Before she could flip it, your narrator rushed in.

Detached devil fibers laid all over me and the abundance of keratin dug into my clothes: the dust bin was emptied all over me.

The Grinch: "H-Heinrich…I-I didn't even see you."

Usually, I would let someone get berated, embarrassed, and hurt. But for once, I didn't. A small, pathetic win in my book. I guess this is what you'd call character development? (or is it just being a decent human?)

As brown and black shards of hair licked my skin as they slid down, I noticed something on the street-dweller's face. It was a fracture. The bone-colored skin broke into an emotional reaction: wrinkles strained themselves to wake up and move to make way for the eyes—the mouth pried itself open enough to make me realize something.

I helped someone for the first damn time in my life.

I couldn't help but feel a jolt in my head. A jolt of something that isn't really tangible and I don't know how to explain it to you now….Whatever it was, it made me smile. With this realization, the clouds began to relieve themselves onto us. A late morning piss-break, I assume after their bout of flatulence.

The Grinch ran back into the cave that was her salon. K hid underneath his coat, and I ran back home with the hair chewing me.

XXX

"Heinrich, you're always going on some adventure, aren't you?"

Mama took a towel and rubbed my head as if it was a bowl in desperate need of washing. She took it off, and there was still deceased hair clinging on for their lives. She put it back on ferociously rubbed as if she was trying to sand my skull.

"Ow! Mama!"

"Sorry, I imagined that I was smothering your papa." She took the towel off and landed on an unsuspecting stool. Its legs whined after she plopped onto it, and a sigh dripped from her mouth.

"I had a dream yesterday."

I thought back to the imaginary fight between Reiner and Viktor. "I did too mama."

"In my dream, I heard a knock on the door. You were eating some breakfast then. You just came back from your newspaper route." Her posture stooped. "I walked to the door and opened it to see a man dressed in military uniform. 'May I come in?' he asked. It was customary of course, he was a Marleyan…."

Mama continued by describing her dream.

"…He sat down at our table and had the gall to tell us how you dying on the field for Marley would somehow bring honor to our race." Her shoulders drooped, and she looked down at her hands. The so-called iron-woman had difficulties keeping the iron exterior after that bombing day. "If that ever happens for real, Heinrich, I don't know what I'd do. That's why me and your papa fought. We don't know what to do."

We heard a knock at the door. It peered through and looked at us shyly.

"Please, no…" Mama put her hands on her face and wiped at her nose. "No…"

The doubt rang in my head as well, wall to wall and between crevices. Everything was fully lit.

Our doubts were thrown out when the knock morphed into a sound. "Heinrich." My name was chopped in half by a voice crack.

It was just the neighborhood fighter, Viktor.

Mama dropped a sigh of relief, and I walked to open the door. I looked to see the whole gang with Viktor. "Let's go to the basement," he said. After dealing with mama's objections to me going to an abandoned building that was lit on fire once, me and the boys went to an abandoned building that was lit on fire once.

After entering and setting up the lamps, everyone except Viktor stood in a circle. Viktor spun a can to decide who would be his first opponent for that day. It landed on the 'warhammer' who apparently thought it would be a good idea to eat some late breakfast before all of this.

After Viktor beat up the temporarily disabled boy, he pounded his chest like a gorilla and yelled, "VIKTOR FUCKIN' DASSLER BITCHES!" like the buffoon he was. Blood lined his teeth as red candy.

I miss that boy sometimes.
Too bad he had to die so early.

The Real Author's Note

Sorry for the short chapter. I guess I'm balancing out the three thousand worded one from two weeks ago.

I just wanted to clarify how this story will progress. I mentioned in the notes on a previous chapter that things are going to be slower. What I meant was that there won't be an obvious direction like the chapters with Falco/the Journalist leading up to Heinrich shooting Reiner. I'm trying to focus on character exploration/development right now so that these OCs won't stay trash.

In essence, these chapters will be similar to the initial three to this fic. They'll be stories that don't have plot but simply cover the everyday lives of these characters with an over looming threat of a war over their heads. I'll make it as interesting and nuanced as I can.

I think in hindsight it will be good that I did this especially when the war properly begins.