An Eldian's Journal

Part 2:

featuring in any order:

a titan in human form – a street dweller – a headline– a cabbage seller– attack – sharp hats

And more

Another Prologue: Useless info – useful headline

Pain. Sorrow. Regret. Melancholy.

That was what the boy's face was screaming at me. Yet, his words were saying otherwise. It was not a boy's face really, but rather a murderer's with a regretful conscience. A murderer that was on a "heroic" mission: obtain the Founding Titan from the devils on Paradis. Only if I saw him for more than his duty that day, I would have understood his great divide.

And could have prepared for the great divide that would consume me in the months ahead.

***THE TWO-FACED WARRIOR***

A celebrity in this story

And like all celebrities, has secrets

Let's take a step back to a few weeks before then. But a few years after I picked up a guitar for the first time. A day that involved:

*A bicycle.

*A few newspapers.

*A slightly older me.

*A "hero's" return.

A light re-cap of an uneventful two or so years:

*Many skills learned: fighting, newspaper throwing, guitar-ing

*Many things grew: jaws, limbs

At the age of 14 (and a half), I was a paperboy and as the name implies, I used to sell newspapers. Throughout the months of my illustrious career, I developed a finely tuned throwing arm baseball pitchers would envy.

The abnormally eventful day began with a normally uneventful routine:

I picked up a stack of newspapers.

Every morning I would pedal down to the most cheerful section, section E. I would pick up a stack of newspapers from the local printing place, The Liberio Daily, and have to sell out the whole stack by the end of the morning.

***THE CHEERFUL SECTION E***

Population: warrior pricks, soldiers, and their families

Common hobby: jumping off of buildings

Suicide Rate: above average

Noun: Depression

Riding through section E's prideful streets, I used to smell the color gray (or grey). Human street art was commonplace as well. Although, I started getting tired of the same repetitive art since 'soulless bodies hugging the pavement' got boring really quick.

The characters here were pretty much all the same and they all reeked of brainwashing. Unlike my section, there were no jolly musicians like my parents. These people held hate close to their hearts. I guess the soldiers would use it to help reason out what they were doing on their deployments. It was almost as if, they lived in constant reminder of their oppression.

Let's skip to section F so this can be less depressing. Even writing this makes me sad.

I returned to section F.

After riding through section E and selling papers there, I would always have roughly two-thirds of the stack left so I would finish my route in section F. Every morning I would have to transition from seeing the grey in section E to the blue in section F. Even though they were both slums, section F's characters made it seem like a home. 'It's a ghetto. But it's our ghetto' my dad used to say.

I passed by many of Section F's characters and chucked some papers.

Upon my entrance to Section F, I would always be greeted by the neighborhood bakery.

On occasion, I would even see…

***THE WALL-KEEPER***

On the unusually eventful day, the Marleyan wall soldier was taking a break from his wall-keeping outside the bakery. (Whenever I used to see him, I had a seething urge to ruin his day.) While I was riding by on the bumpy sidewalk, I chucked a newspaper at his steaming cup of coffee and it fell on his feet. Burnt feet can't stand. Not being able to stand makes for fun wall-keeping. It was typically accompanied by a satisfying scream, but this time it was rather mute.

In my early days of paper chucking, I unknowingly grew a habit of not reading the newspaper headlines until I was done with my route. During the route itself, I would just keep an eye out for the people's reactions. What can I say? It helped build tension.

But why was the Wall-keeper on mute?

A few blocks down, in the less shitty looking part of town, I came across the grinch.

***THE GRINCH OF SECTION F***

While the grinch was dozing off on her porch outside, I shot a newspaper at her face. It was to protect the children from the black hole of happiness for at least a second before it slid down. It was my civil duty to my fellow Eldians.

After passing by those customers, I would pass by some of Section F's less interesting people. These streets are where I used to practice my throwing by making a game out of it: one point for throwing the paper into the trash can, two points for hitting the pets, five points for hitting a face, 20 points (jackpot) for throwing into the mail slot in the door. My sidekick Ymir would track points for me (I'm sorry, she still exists).

I wasn't on my A-game that day, so I only got like 113 points (margin of error: + or - 20 since Ymir sucks at counting)

After rolling through the boring streets, I arrived at Hell Street. As usual, groggy customers were yawning outside their homes. Cigarette smoke shook my hand and potholes said hi by letting me ride over them. Some of these groggy customers would crack a warm grin at me and give me semi-uncomfortable morning hugs.

But on that day, each morning cheer individually turned off as they received the paper.

Just when I was about to reach home, a pothole grabbed my front tire with its wet claws and threw me down. After the pavement welcomed my tumbling body, I noticed my last newspaper was staring at me while it slowly sunk into the watery pothole.

I breathed in the headline.

Ignoring my broken-down bike and ringing head, I burst into my home. I set the soggy copy of The Liberio Daily on the wooden kitchen table my dad was sitting at. He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee. His adam's apple went up and down.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I replied with silence.

He went in for another sip while he took up the paper, folding it in a way so it wouldn't fall apart. The coffee didn't make it inside his mouth; it fell at his lips and dribbled down his chin. My mother called out from the other side of the kitchen. "Hey fool, are you reading those magazines again I swear…"

She came by the table and took in the words of the headline. A one-syllable word left their coffee ridden lips simultaneously.

"Fuck."

An excerpt:

THE LIBERIO DAILY

A WARRIOR'S RETURN

Reiner Braun, the current bearer of the Armored Titan, is set to return to Liberio in the coming weeks. Four years ago, Braun embarked on his mission at 12 years of age to retrieve the Founding Titan. After what must have been a four-year-long hell with the devils on Paradis, he will finally be able to return to his friends and family. But a question arises, what has come of the other warriors that left on the journey with him: Annie Leonhart, Marcel Galliard, and Bertholdt Hoover? What does this mission failure mean for the future of our great nation of Marley?

The Real Author's Notes

I'm back motherf*ckers.

Just to clarify, the narrator (Heinrich) is writing from the time after the attack on liberio about the events IN BETWEEN seasons 3 and 4. So, he's 18-19 years old but reflecting on his younger years. The last couple of chapters, he was reflecting on his 12-year-old self. In this "another prologue" he is reflecting on his 14-15-year-old self.