This is the last chapter guys...for this section. I highly recommend listening to "Liberio at night" when reading the later portion of this chapter. It's part of the official season 4 aot soundtrack. I'll put "(Play music)" when you should listen to it.

It's only a few mins long so loop it or repeat it if need be.

Once again, I apologize for the length and delay.

If you want to see the pictures included, read the chapter on an alternative fanfiction website called archive of our own. (It's free and doesn't require a log in). I drew the pictures my self.

An Eldian's Journal

Wartime Shenanigans

Chapter 30: A Tale of Two Riddles

The day after Lina cut me and the boys' hair, I revisited Section E to declare my conscription to my newspaper boss, Eld the Eldian. While adjusting the toupee on his head, I arrived at the stand with my bittersweet news. I puffed myself up to fake the appearance of confidence.

"Heinrich, you know the drill."

The drill was going to change.

"Sir, I..."

The toupee focused in; the faux hair leaned towards me. "Spit it out, Steiner."

"I got conscripted."

This time the toupee didn't react, but his face did instead. "I'm gonna lose my worst newspaper salesman..." He took a deep breath. "...I couldn't care less." He reached into a shelf in the back of the stand and pulled out a stack. "You better sell this whole stack today, or I'm gonna chase after you in those damn trenches."

"Yes, sir."

I took the stack and walked in the direction of the one corner Falco and I first met. Before walking too far, I looked behind me to see if my boss had a sliver of remorse on that unforgettable face of his. He stood there spaced out, not even cursing Joe "Shit" Schmidt on the other side of the street.

I headed to the oh-so-popular street corner.

As usual, the devils bustled around me, and the replacement newspaper boy I met a while back was sitting on some steps. The fragile building behind us seemed like a large cardboard box put together by the child-like engineers. The rising sun punished his face. Beneath the yellow tint, he said, "This gets harder day by day. I don't know how you keep doing this." The freshness in his eyes had been molded over by reality day by day. "I'm not going to be doing it for much longer."

After some more small talk, he said his goodbyes and went on his way.

***A NAME IN THE WIND***

"Heinrich."

I shuffled about, looking for who my name came from. Was it Falco? Did the little boy with a golden smile come to say bye to me? A short search ensued but ended with the result that's quite common in this journal: disappointment. The wind must have been teasing me as usual, getting my hopes up and breaking them down like a politician gets paid to do regularly.

I hid my disappointment the best I could because I had to exude some positivity for my job. I tried to say "Extra! Extra!" with extra zeal to it than usual. Despite these efforts, I was left with a large portion of my stack. As an added ingredient of discomfort, I remembered that I needed to find a conclusion to the various characters I had frequented those days before heading off for training. (I had the fate of the journalist that screwed me over running still running in my head as well. Death by getting run over seemed too convenient to me.)

The first on the list of tasks was to finally get the guitar strings for Mr. Kruger.

I gave up selling that day and went roaming the streets to hopefully find a music store. I originally thought of asking random guitar players on the sidewalks but realized that buying guitar strings from their own guitar is like asking to buy teeth from someone's mouth. It just didn't feel right for my developing morals.

Skipping through run-ins with various dogs, cats, monkey-like children, and monkey-like adults, I arrived at a music store. I was surprised to find one since having such valuable items bunched up together in one establishment isn't very realistic for an Eldian. It was unique to even find an Eldian with a valuable item in general, for that matter.

I'm going to briefly summarize how the encounter went rather than going into detail since who cares about me buying strings?

The guy at the front desk with a sore throat: "Whadya want?"

"Do you have an E string and a G string for a 6-string guitar?"

"You have to get all the strings together."

"I just need the two."

"Well, I can't have a third of the set missing. That's like selling individual keys on a piano."

I set down half my profits from the newspapers that day on the desk. Saying he was surprised would be an understatement. "Just take the whole pack. You can have this harmonica too if you like."

I returned to the newspaper stand with my remaining papers. As expected, Eld the Eldian yelled at me for not selling the whole stack, but that was ok since I wouldn't have to see his hair loss for the coming months. I then showed him the remaining profits, and he grew even more furious. He even squeezed out of his stand and chased after me down the block until his lungs gave out.

That's a conclusion to that relationship, I guess.

XXX

***RIDDLE #1***
What kind of seed doesn't belong in the ground but can always be found?
It starts in a conversation and puts you in the ground.

I returned to section F with guitar strings waiting, ready to be used. Snow was making its rounds, and I had to sift through it to find Mr. Kruger.

After a typical bout of searching, I found him sitting by the barbershop that the Grinch owned. However, I caught a glimpse of someone tall and foreboding in front of him from a distance. I noticed that it was the wall-keeper as I closed in. The pair looked deep in thought, so I pondered whether Mr. Kruger had chosen to make friends with an oppressor.

The oppressor kicked Mr. Kruger in the stomach.

That's how friends communicate together, right?

"Mr. Kruger!"

The wall-keeper kept at his abuse until I yelled and sprinted towards the two. When I confronted them, the abuser ran in the opposite direction, running away from his mistakes.

"Are you alright, Mr. Kruger?"

"Yes... I'm used to stuff like this."

I sat down next to him and observed his skeleton frame for any physical wounds. There was none that I could spot, mainly since they were kicks rather than scratches or cuts from a knife. But why didn't the wall-keeper use a baton? That's a more helpful tool for oppressing, isn't it?

Mr. Kruger pulled out the journal I gave him a while before from a coat pocket and held the garbage green in his hands. "So, you're going to be a combat medic now, huh?"

"Yeah. I guess so." Since we sat by the barbershop, we had to keep an eye out for the Grinch with her bucket of embarrassment and snipped hair. I also kept on the lookout for a possibility. The possibility that Mr. Kruger may have spilt the secret I had entrusted him with.

"Mr. Kruger, did you ever tell anyone what I did with Reiner?"

"Of course not." An expected response. "Why do you think I did it?" I looked for a sign of deception on his face, but the features were perfectly still, and there was no suspicious fidgeting.

"Because you're the only one who knows it outside of my friends and parents." I looked down at his abdomen. "And I see you talking with the wall-keeper."

"If I was giving him information, why would he hurt me like that?"

He beat me at the game of logic. He then continued with, "He must have found the need to reinforce his superiority to me, that's all."

My doubt of Mr. Kruger's intentions crawled around on the sidewalk, evading all sense of clarity. I thought he would make for a perfect spy if younger, or maybe that's what he used to be. He had the advantage of being a man stripped of the curse and luxury of emotions/feelings. He controlled the narrative, and I had to believe it. I thought I uncovered what made the man tick, but there was still much to figure out, especially in the journal he was withholding and the labyrinth of his brain.

I threw in a distracting question. "Did you ever eat the apples I brought you a few weeks ago?"

"No, I gave them to the dog that always follows me. She doesn't get food that often."

The distracting question was interrupted by an ominous presence behind us. I'm sure you can guess who I'm talking about. The door complained as it opened for the destructive force that was the Grinch. Instead of carrying hair clippings in a dustbin, she had water in a bucket dancing to her unsteady movements.

"I told you not to come back!" she squawked.

Thanks to the nature of water, once it's flying in the air, nothing can be done to stop it from hitting someone unless you get in the way of it yourself.

That's the issue, however. I carried malevolent intentions for a second and let the water hit its target.

Mr. Kruger's back was soaked, and I shouldered an instant regret. I had forgotten that an old man mixed with water and cold temperatures is a mix for hypothermia.

The Grinch walked back into the barbershop as if she was making a statement. I haphazardly took my coat off and threw it on Mr. Kruger but noticed that his wet coat was still on.

"I'll be right back, Mr. Kruger!" I got up and ran back home, intending to find something warmer for him to wear. My coat-less body embraced the sizzling cold. As I ran, the breeze raced me and grew faster as I picked up my pace.

"Mama!" I opened the door. My lungs were still catching up to me because they were still somewhere else in Section F. "D-Do you have a-any...extra blankets?"

"Extra blankets? We don't have enough for ourselves as it is. And where are you breathing so hard?"

"Damn." I looked around for something that could help Mr. Kruger out. I looked around our raggedy sofa, around the kitchen, and managed to find something on the shelf that may be worthwhile. It shined underneath all the other scraggly things on top.

A scarf.

Before Mama had a chance to object, I sprinted off with the scarf and encountered some obstacles here and there with the potholes. I grew pretty acquainted with the scarf when I tripped in the hole, and the scarf landed on my face.

I approached Mr. Kruger with the cloth, for it was the only solution to his dilemma. He took off his wet coat and put mine back on. As expected, the waterlogged tree was too tall for a young boy's coat. The raggedy scarf was like gluing some bark onto the decaying tree.

His face teetered between various misleading directions like the faces of a pair of dice. I managed to catch a semblance of a laugh for the first time. "I guess this is my first bath in a long while."

I smirked, and I let out a fractured laugh rather than a complete one, for my world would soon be flipped upside down. I let the slight humor rest, and we sat in our mutual shivering and unintentionally let our bones marinate in the simple flavor of the cold.

"What's this?" Mr. Kruger felt the pocket of the coat and pulled out the guitar strings. "A late birthday present, huh? You finally got some spares."

"How do I put them on?"

Mr. Kruger reached out to his guitar and brought the wounded instrument over to me. He showed how to remove the damaged strings and how to install the new ones. After twisting of tuning pegs and installing the thin metal, I set the guitar in my heat-lacking lap. I strummed the renewed guitar.

A ghost of warmth briefly haunted my body.

A slightly different palate of sound graced my ears, and there were some impurities in the sound. That is expected though, since new strings need time to adapt to the guitar body.

Mr. Kruger: "I guess I have an early birthday present for you. The journal is in the inside pocket. I wrote the memories in." I could only imagine how much pain Mr. Kruger had to put himself through trying to relive the memories that he supposedly had trouble verbalizing. On top of that, writing it all down in a journal.

I guess, in a way, we had traded gifts for a very early winter celebration. But I'm sure his gift was the most painful to produce. We then set the guitar aside, and Mr. Kruger's skeleton head aimed towards me. "I'm giving you this journal knowing that your future will end up the same whether you read it or not."

The bluntness was disarming. "Why do you say that?"

"Because, despite having cautionary tales that should teach a lesson, we end up falling to the same grave mistakes...I'm a firm example of that."

It stung that Mr. Kruger didn't have faith in me, but I could see what he was saying. Like the cabbage man, regular men keep making mistakes and falling victim to the same emotions no matter what their experiences should have taught them.

Without peeking into the journal, I asked, "Is there something that you regret?" I should have known the answer from his apparent state of being, but I still spilt the question.

He retorted. "I wish I had been killed instead of that puppy all those years ago."

"..."

"If you have a flower that sucks out the lives of vegetation around it, should you destroy it before it has a chance to grow or only after it's grown when you're 100% sure it's hostile?"

"I...I don't know."

"...the first option is called nipping the bud, Heinrich. I should have been nipped early on."

What was I to do with that response? I didn't know how to follow that up, so I didn't and instead looked up at the soft scarf made of clouds that overlooked us in the sky. I hoped in finding the answer there with the omnipotent knowledge of whoever knit that scarf with a solemn pair of hands. Interestingly enough, the white yarn kept falling over us—it was probably a fragile scarf.

The white yarn fell from the sky and melted on faces but clumped into unified sweaters on the grass. Despite the bite, Mr. Kruger put his twigs into the sweaters and put together a yarn ball.

He threw it at me with his usual accuracy.

It was better than gravel, though.

***RIDDLE #1***
What kind of seed doesn't belong in the ground but can always be found?
It starts in a conversation and puts you in the ground.

ANSWER: The seeds of doubt and deception.

XXX

This is an easy one.

***RIDDLE #2***
I'm woven together, but I'm not a string
When you drop into me, you cannot sing
What am I?

"Mr. Kruger, could I borrow the guitar? My papa made a deal with the cabbage man where I have to play some music."

"Ok. Just don't break it again."

With a renewed guitar, I walked over to the cabbage man's house. At first, I stood outside while putting together a game plan of how to attack this puzzle. His cabbage carts stood at the foot of his house, meaning he was at home. I needed to fulfill that promise, especially before heading off into those trenches.

I knocked on the door. A man with overalls stood out.

With some fake enthusiasm, I said. "I brought the guitar!"

He shut the door on me.

I assumed the cabbage man carried some underlying animosity for the position I received. Later, the idea of guilt-tripping him by standing outside and shivering came to fruition. It got shut down when I realized I was dealing with some of the least empathetic individuals in the entirety of section F. Guilt-tripping doesn't work on them.

I yelled. "I thought you wanted to listen to me play the guitar!"

His reaction felt justified; he was the one who destroyed my guitar in the very beginning, anyway. Alas, I grew a bit agitated as my yelling went unanswered.

The door opened, and I met someone wrinkle-less and...arm-less. It was the cabbage man's youngest and only surviving son. "I'm sorry about my papa. He's agitated since the cabbage sales are so low recently...I think it's because winter is starting soon." His stomach continued the sentence with a few gargles but stopped shortly after as if it realized that it spoke a foreign language to us.

He called me in. He appeared to have more manners than his parents had multiplied to the 100th power. As a plus, the simplicity of the house interior was digestible (unlike the cabbage man's cabbages).

"My mama is in the salon. It's just papa and me at home right now." The veteran seemed too casual for a man that should have been traumatized. "Do you have a rope?" He must have noticed my surprise. "I'm sorry. That wasn't a normal thing to ask."

Never mind.

He set me down on his living room couch. "Why are you here with a guitar?"

I told him of the one promise my dad had made with his dad a while back in the basement. It was the one where the cabbage promised to exchange some coffee beans and wheat flour for me to come to play the guitar for him.

"We just ran out of coffee beans," the veteran mentioned.

I said, unsurprised, "That's some perfect timing."

The baby steps of the conversation went blank after a few lines. But the veteran then asked something that was bound to be brought up at some point. It was inevitable. "You're conscripted now, right? Are you ready?"

"I'm getting ready."

"I think you'll like the trenches, Heinrich."

"W-what?" I was caught off guard by his statement.

"It's peaceful there. All you hear are the guns talking. It blocks out the people to some degree. You don't have to hear them complaining about the islanders or anything else."

That statement caught me even more off-guard than the previous one. The veteran must have noticed my surprise again and said, "I'm just trying to think positively. That's what mama always tells me, but I think she needs to listen to her own advice more."

"Yea.."

"Your combat medic position is a blessing and a curse...Did I ever tell you about my experience with a combat medic?"

"Umm. No...today is the first time I talked to you."

"That's right." He laughed as if we were friends already. "I've heard so many things about you and seen you do so many things recently in that basement. I almost feel like I know you."

The veteran braced himself for his own story. While he did so, I had a petit perverse wonder of the missing arm. How does it feel to have it off? Having three-fourths of your total limbs must be a recipe for an assortment of troubles.

"I knew a combat medic when..."

He detailed a time when the military botched an attempt to inject Eldians with titan serum and throw them out of blimps. Apparently, they were launched when Eldian soldiers hadn't yet returned to safe positions. (I'm sure you can guess where this is going...it'll be different than that, though.)

"As I saw the titans falling from the sky, I was retreating from the enemy trenches..."

Pouring out this story to me as a stranger he thought he knew was beyond uncomfortable. Maybe he confided in the inevitable future that I would soon understand what he was talking about. The beginning details of this story aren't essential for you to hear, so let's move onto the portion that the veteran placed the most emphasis on.

"...A stick grenade was thrown behind me. It appeared to be delayed, so instead of blowing up immediately, one of my arms got caught in the blast...I don't remember if I screamed or not since everything was a blur..."

"...In the middle of the battlefield, in the middle of falling titans, I barely noticed that medical cross approaching me. When he kneeled in front, I saw it was a medic, and he had morphine in one hand...it was a man whom I called a coward during the whole training camp..."

"...He told me I was going to be ok even though my arm felt like a swarm of fire ants had chewed on it. He stuck that morphine in my shoulder, and the pain reduced..." The veteran slammed his one hand on the sofa cushion. "You know what the worst part of it was? People called him a conscientious objector...They called him a coward because he didn't believe in holding a gun when training for certification. I called him that too."

His eyes returned to section F from the imagery of the trenches back. "Heinrich, no matter who granted you this position, you can be called a coward if you don't act right out there."

I held the veteran's words in a gentle cloth for storage.

He continued. "The worst part of it all is, he died on that field getting me into a safe zone...I had to get an emergency amputation when returning to the medical tents."

"..." As usual, I didn't have anything to say.

"You don't have anything to say, do you? Well, everyone else did. They said one word, not about the medic, but me. Coward."

He repeated it.

"Coward."

Again. Each time he said it, though, it grew just a bit more tensioned, and he mimicked it by pulling his hands up to his head.

"Coward."

Was he saying it to prove to himself that he was a coward? Or wasn't one? He looked blindly to the air as if the word was floating in front of him like a target of disdain. He grew more and more scrambled with himself, as the one word tormented him like he was a caged animal.

"Are you ok?" A voice asked the veteran.

I turned around to see the man with overalls behind the sofa. It was the cabbage man. He looked over at me furiously as if he assumed I had manipulated his son to let me in. The scrambled veteran calmed himself. "I let him in, papa. He wanted to play some guitar for you because of some...promise..."

The cabbage grunted and turned away for a short monologue. Before he could begin, however, the veteran asked me again. "You have an extra rope?... Shit, I should really stop asking that. I'm going to keep scaring people away."

The cabbage: "Military people are bad omens to me since I always get damaged by them. My second son came back from the war, and even he's one now. Look how many bad things happened in the past few weeks...but he's my son. I can't get rid of him." He turned back towards me. "Since you're involved with the military now, you too are a bad omen."

I responded a little annoyed since it felt like he was blaming me for something he promised. "I'm only here since you made a promise with my dad to exchange coffee beans and flour."

"I only did that in the heat of the moment."

"But in the heat of the moment, the guitar made you feel better, didn't it? Why can't it now?" I countered the logic. I felt worried that I was coming off too desperate, though, so I faced the main entrance to make it look like I was going to leave.

I wanted him to say, "wait, come back" or something along those lines. I walked to the entrance with that hope in my ear. Yet, with each step, I was disappointed to not hear it. Finally, my foot stood on the door edge, and I waited for a second for those words to tickle my back. Nothing.

I closed the door behind me and walked onto the sidewalk. Still, nothing.

The door opened, and I heard, "My son wants to hear you play."

My relief made me forget that the cold was still handing out its punches. I grabbed that guitar just a bit tighter and headed inside. The veteran sat on the sofa, confused about what was going on, and the cabbage man plopped down next to him, suffocating the cushion. It seemed like the cabbage wanted to listen to as well...

I sat down on a chair nearby.

My fingers were confused since I switched between the faint warmth in the cabbage's house and the chilly world throughout the day. Confused fingers don't make for easy nor enjoyable playing. Since when do people care about how I feel, though? They just want to hear the end result. The music. Not how my fingers feel.

So, I grasped the wooden fretboard carrying not just new strings but memories that weren't mine. It was a weight that I needed to get used to around that time. I needed to etch my own memories onto it one day, one strum at a time.

Without waiting for song suggestions, my cold-bitten fingers began to dance on the warm tundra that was the strings. They made footsteps here and there to remember where they went to repeat it on a future day. If there was a future day.

Sure, there were a few missteps, and the fingers lost their path occasionally, but they kept chugging along. It was simple.

My song must have felt like a warm blanket, for the veteran and the cabbage was dozing off little by little. But through the cabbage's flickering eyelids, I heard him ask, "Do you forgive what I've done to you, Heinrich?"

Good question.

After ruining my parents' bar, my guitar, and causing my first traumatic experience with cutting my dad's forehead, I could have easily said no. The anger I felt against him that first day could not be summoned. Not because I dug out some good in him, but rather my mental wounds healed over the weeks. I didn't forgive his actions, but I accepted him.

Even then, I forgave him for being a human.

It was ironic really, the man who blundered my guitar from chapter 6 sat in front of me, dozing away listening to one.

***RIDDLE #2***
I'm woven together, but I'm not a string
When you drop into me, you cannot sing
What am I?

ANSWER: A noose

XXX

The cabbage man handed me the flour that was promised after his nap. Of course, he did it disgruntledly, but that was ok since he didn't shed one word of disrespect. That was quite unlike him, to say the least. The veteran waved bye to me with his available arm. "Goodbye, Heinrich."

"Bye, _."

What was his name again?

Of course, I forgot.

I wondered why he said "Goodbye" instead of just "Bye". Did he assume I was going to die?

And why did he want a rope so severely?

I carried those questions with me and gave up after a while since I assumed I was overthinking things.

Looking back on this, however, those concerns were justified.

Upon arrival at home, my mama took the bag of flour without complaining about who it was originally from. Even then, she looked upon the bag without much interest. "I won't be needing this flour as much when you and your papa are gone."

"You can make extra food for yourself," I said as a failed attempt to cheer her up.

I went to my room and let the cold sadness lull me to sleep for the afternoon. I didn't know right then, but I was about to be surprised by the artistry of words and imagery that I would witness in the coming hours. Especially the words that I would conjure up.

(Play music)

I visited the Dassler siblings in the evening since Lina mentioned that she wanted to do something before Viktor and I left. We said our greetings, but I was confused about what activities we would be able to do in the darkening day. It was harder to see the shedding scarf above since the sun was following its routine, and the moonlight was behind schedule.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

Lina replied smugly. "Poetry."

Out of all the bizarre things Section F's characters made me do, poetry seemed like the most random. Who in the world writes poetry for fun? But then again, who shoots a man through a camera and calls it an accident?

Lina didn't explain her reasoning for choosing such activity and simply forced Viktor and me to comply. She first brought out a few papers that appeared to be ripped from a notebook. We all sat inside the house by the window on a table that limped whenever we put pressure on it.

I had to ask. "Lina, why are we writing poetry? I thought we were going to do a snowball fight or something normal."

"Because I know you've never written some before. I thought you should try it before going off to those trenches." Upon hearing Lina's explanation, Viktor groaned at the thought of using his brain for creativity. Most likely since it was already fried from all the hits he took up there.

I looked down at the paper and pondered the subject of my poem and how it should rhyme. That was the limited knowledge I had of poetry around that time; I didn't know what else they were supposed to include. Either way, I took a pencil stub and tried to ignore that this felt like a language class at school.

I looked out the window and put a short word on the paper. Snow.

With this simple word came two words and a nibble of a rhyme. I repeatedly looked outside for some inspiration for the nature and life of my poem. The outside world became my source material, and I used it well. I completed my first sentence.

***FIRST LINE DRAFT***

The dirt-like humans carried snow as roofs on their heads.

I realized that I sounded too pessimistic about my species and changed it accordingly. The line itself was too long as well. I kept at this process and crossed things out numerous times that the page became a cloth stitched from scribbles.

Lina told us to share what we had as if she were a high-school teacher making us present our writing.

***VIKTOR's POEM***

Reiner bad.
Heinrich sad.
Lina mad.
I am glad.

Lina looked at the paper and Viktor back and forth. She asked with a disgusted look on her face, "What...is this?"

He replied, "Art."

***LINA's POEM***

On a leg, there's a sore.
The ground wants more.
Guns go boom.
Men go into tombs.
Humans mop them away with brooms.

Lina explained herself as if she was an actual writer. "This isn't my best work. I write this stuff occasionally when I'm waiting for clothes to dry."

***MY POEM***

The humans carry snow as roofs on their heads.
Their flesh is the mortar and bricks.
They are houses with many shades of red.
Some of the furniture you never get to pick.

When you open the heart, there's a woman.
She's the emotions that seduce you for centuries.
When you see her, you go soaring.

When you open the head, there's a kitchen.
In the corner, there is a fridge of cold memories.
A faucet of thoughts keeps pouring.

Lina and Viktor read my work, but after completing it, they fumbled on their words and couldn't come up with a thing to say. Finally, Viktor asked, "Y-you wrote this? It's not professional, but it doesn't seem like...you." I too, was surprised by what I put on that page. Lina stayed speechless as the paper cooked under her vision.

I had learned about poems in school before, but I had never actually written one. I guess my time with Mr. Kruger made me see language in a different way. I'm thankful for that since I wouldn't be writing this journal the same way without him.

"What are we doing next?" I felt an unexpected interest in what we were doing all of a sudden.

Lina stayed glued to the paper, so I asked her again. "Oh...let's draw next."

That was another activity I sorely lacked experience in, but I hoped it would turn out good like the writing did. Lina told me to draw Viktor; Viktor drew Lina, and Lina drew me. We had a LOT more time to complete this activity.

Let's start with my masterpiece of Viktor.

Lina covered her mouth trying to hold back the laughter. She asked afterwards, "Is this a 5-year-old cabbage man?"

"Where is my beautiful jawline?" Viktor took the paper, and ripped it one centimeter in on top before Lina snatched it away and said, "We have to save this."

Viktor presented his art next.

Lina ignored the fact that Viktor's drawing was more accurate to herself than mine was to Viktor. "What is this? You made me look like some dirtbag whore!"

Viktor said defensively, "Smoke less and maybe you'll stop looking like one."

Lina took the drawing, and she too attempted to rip it but only managed to do a centimeter before Viktor got it out of her hands.

Then came Lina's drawing of me.

Viktor and I just gazed at the drawing in front of us, for it was the most accurate one of the whole day. Lina had captured my likeness relatively well except for the lips. Trust me, I used to have lips, but she apparently didn't think so.

All I could do was fumble on my words. "W-wow...this is...pretty good."

Lina sat tall in her chair with her chin high, and her eyes gleamed. A satisfied smile was planted on her face—nothing too joyous but just enough to know she felt validated. Her voice sounded like a smile as well. "I should draw something with all of us in it." She went to get another piece of paper.

Then came a surprise.

The imaginary Ymir.

She stood next to Lina in my vision, and I caught her glaring at the fresh leaf of paper. I was unsure what she was looking for. Lina put the pencil stub on the paper, and the lead danced gracefully on the page, sketching out our likenesses. We were all mesmerized, but the useless goddess specifically tracked the lines.

Lina completed her masterpiece a while afterwards, but the imaginary Ymir came over to me and asked. "Can you draw me into it?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to be in the drawing." Ymir's demands were always peculiar for an imaginary friend, but this was by far the most abnormal.

"No, you are not even real." I grew frustrated because my brain still chose to produce this useless vision that contributed so little to the events of my life. She simply hung her head dejectedly and wandered off into nothingness.

Viktor must have caught onto what was happening. "Heinrich, what are you staring at?"

"Nothing."

Lina gathered our "masterpieces" and looked around the room as if she was deciding where to store the items. She asked Viktor for his opinion, but he proposed instead, "Maybe we should put them in a time capsule."

Lina and me, in unison, shot out, "A time capsule?"

"Yea, why not? We can put the items in a container and bury them. When we get back from our duties months down the line, we can look at them again." Viktor walked into the back of the house and brought out a small tin box with miscellaneous razors and blades. He tossed them onto the floor and put the papers in instead.

"See?" He closed the box. "It works just fine."

After some initial hesitation, we discussed where to put the tin and the general plan for the evening. This was followed up by the Dassler siblings going to their rooms to get ready for some outdoor activities. Luckily for the imaginary Ymir, that was my chance to scribble her in.

I took it.

I opened the rust-bitten box and pulled out the group drawing Lina produced. I took out my pencil stub and scribbled her to the best of my abilities which wasn't much, but rest assured, it captured her likeness. Somewhat. I made sure to scribble the headband as well.

The siblings' footsteps approached, and I slid the paperback in. A depressed winter coat containing a Lina said, "Let's go", and picked up the tin.

We headed out, and our feet were greeted by the sidewalk wearing a hat made of snow and dandruff-like ice. We slipped a few times while walking, but the box was safe every time. It carried gold after all; we had to keep it safe.

"Where are we planting it?" Lina asked.

Viktor replied. "In the ground."

"Which part of the ground? The field? A park?"

"The part with dirt."

Lina's winter hood frowned in annoyance. "I can't wait for you to leave."

After searching for a 'perfect location, we grew tired and gave up with the search. Nothing in the damn internment zone had what we were looking for. We hoped to find a giant, wise-looking tree in the center of a luscious greenfield, but the whole of the internment zone was just a field of walking and breathing skulls.

Thus, we settled with something not ideal but satiated our laziness.

Behind the alley between mine and Viktor's houses is a patch of grass with a tree sapling in it that's about 6 feet tall. Viktor dug his shoe into the ground to produce a hole forgetting that he was still wearing his summer shoes. He moaned when his big toe got hit.

We uncovered a patch of snow to find a hole leading to something next to the tree roots: hibernating ground squirrels. Viktor's dumbass decided to put his hand in there to pull one out, but Lina swiftly kicked him away.

We found a small patch unused by creatures (and most importantly, barbed wire) a few feet away. I dug a bit with my hands until it grew unbearable and repeated it when my hands warmed up in my pockets.

Upon creating a hole, Viktor put the tin in and shoved the dirt on top. I caught the metal lid peeking out almost as if it was begging for its life. We suffocated it successfully with snow.

We all let out sighs, for our task was complete but soon grew quiet. I'm sure we shared the same unsaid reason: the trouble that was to come. The moment was swiftly culled over when Lina told us we should return home, for it was already dark. On the way home, the streetlamps craned over us, and warmth did too; not the warmth of the light or friendship, but the general uneasiness crawling through my veins with axes.

It continued as I sat by the window in the siblings' home. I hoped that watching the snowflakes' slow descent past the glass would close off this feeling, but this hope just stayed as a hope rather than becoming a reality.

Fortunately, it eased for one infinitesimal second, not because of the snow, but something more unpredictable.

Lina sat next to me with the diamond face shining with a faint dullness as usual. She smiled not with just her mouth but her cheeks and eyes too. The corners of her mouth upturned, a slight crinkle occupied her eyes, and the muscles in the apples of her cheeks awoke. Below the raven hair was a gift that I couldn't tell was counterfeit or not.

She moved in and dropped a small peck on my cheek. A kiss.

The life in my vision wavered, and I eased into that one infinitesimal second.

But it soon descended into poison, like her action was a parasite that entered, and everything got knocked down as it plowed its way through. A dream-like state transitioned to unalloyed rage.

"Lina, you think I'm going to die, don't you?" I limited myself, trying not to yell.

"What? Why would I think that?" She moved back in her chair as if she was offended. Her reaction was counterfeit but seemed so natural. So believable.

"You said this evening was about doing fun things before going off to training. But when you drew that portrait with all of us in it with so much attention to detail, I knew something was off. And this." I tapped my cheek. "Can't die without a girl's kiss."

I didn't wait for Lina's explanation. I took my things with me and left the house.

I avoided the siblings for the following days until the final day. It wasn't the best option, but I believed I would see her again after my duties were over, unlike Lina. Avoiding her was my stupid teenage statement of saying, 'I know for a fact that I'm going to see you again.'

On the final day, the clouds held their cold droppings in as a generous consideration for the military members that would be taken away that day. I stood below them, waiting outside of the Dasslers' house for Viktor.

Viktor came out looking fresh in a uniform, and he made some comments looking at mine, of course. Behind him was Lina; I turned away to avoid confronting her, but that apparently didn't work since I felt some rustling in the bag of things I had on my back. I wondered if she put something in there, but I didn't want to check it and hand her that kind of satisfaction.

She didn't shut down my statement from a few days before either. She just walked behind Viktor, and my parents and I followed as well. We walked together as a clump of devils approaching the inevitable.

We arrived at the main gate for the internment zone to see even more clumps of devils saying goodbye to uniformed relatives. The amount of tears could come together and produce gallons of contaminated water. Alongside these people were vehicles ready to scoop the uniformed persons away and travel outside the internment zone.

Viktor and I stepped into one of these vehicles, and Kurt (the third member) came running behind. His parents followed savagely with swollen eyes. It came to me and Viktor's attention that Kurt hadn't actually told his parents he was coming with us. He had somehow gotten his legal documents behind their backs. Kurt's family members started cursing Viktor and me out until some of the Marleyan officers detained them.

I tried my best to ignore what was happening, so I looked past the legion of waving arms. I caught a glimpse of the wall-keeper walking towards the bus. Mr. Kruger waved from a different corner, and the homeless dog wagged its tail nearby.

My throat closed in as I watched section F's characters wave their goodbyes to me. The loudest were mama and papa, of course. The ironwoman and the biggest perv screamed above the crowd, and Lina stood lonely next to them despite the abundant number of people surrounding her.

The tightness in my throat flattened out when I caught the wall-keeper sitting in the same bus as us in military uniform rather than the standard Marleyan security uniform.

The busses and the military vehicles began to rumble, and the world around me slid past the windows. The gates opened with the metal moaning and a final thud when they fully separated. The Marleyan houses looked closer than ever before, and I could see them without the layers of the gate.

The real world was right before us.

The wall of oppression moved behind me, and the world began to take on a slightly different color. The houses looked like they could breathe, and the streets were ventricles that pumped healthier blood in the form of cleaner humans. Liberio is the heart of Marley with a palpitation in the form of the Eldian internment zone.

Viktor whispered a statement that rephrased something he said so many chapters ago. "We are finally paying for the military's crimes, and its idiocy...why is that the reason we're finally outside these walls?"

I pondered his question as I looked in my bag to check if I had everything. There were two special items outside, some miscellaneous things. One of them was Mr. Kruger's journal that I still hadn't opened yet. Next was a paper bag containing some tobacco and rolling paper.

We all know who that's from.

My throat closed in as I turned back and said,

"Bye, Section F."

Viktor added on with, "Hello world."

PART 3

Complete

The Real Author's note

Once again, I recommend listening to the "Liberio at night" song (it's part of the aot season 4 official soundtrack. I mention in the story when to play it. Repeat it as need be.) It's a slow track that matches the mood of the later part of the chapter.

If you want to see the pictures included, read the chapter on an alternative fanfiction website called archive of our own. (It's free and doesn't require a log in). I drew the pictures my self.

I'm planning on fixing up chapters 1, 2, 3 in the hopes of more effectively luring in readers. Afterward, I will remove the italics from every chapter for the same reason.

As for an update, part 3 has finally finished. I've been writing this part 3 for a whole summer now and time's for the second to last arc: part 4. Since I've returned to college and need time to settle back in, I'm going to be taking a break for a week. The next prologue should be releasing next week. Regular chapters will return to 2700-3000 since this 6000 words and above has become very unsustainable.

Can't wait to show you guys what I have planned. I need to keep building the fuse in part 4 before I light it in part 5.