An Eldian's Journal

The Soul of War

Chapter 37: Envy

Falco sat on the bed next to me, originally with his back turned away, but his head faced me. He then positioned himself towards me as if his whole body needed to face me in order for him to believe I was truly there.

He asked me one thing, though. "Why do you look hurt every time I see you?"

I searched for the words, but too bad they didn't want to be found.

He asked another, "Why are you here?"

That one, I could answer, "Commander Magath gave me this opportunity."

"He what?!"

The nurse originally helping Falco came over, and I went on an explanation you have all heard numerous times already. Let us speed through it, shall we?

It turned out the nurse was engrossed in my explanation as well, for she just kept her hands on Falco's foot with a solemn face of intrigue positioned on me. "Woah," they both said. A different nurse approached my bed and informed me that I was free to go. And for the first time that oh so fruitful day, I wanted to stay in that bed; I wanted to talk with Falco.

Alas, Viktor whined that he had to stay a little longer, and I exited the tent. The soldier in the sky was trotting freely in the blue, liberated from the clouds that hid his shining. Lowering my head back down to reality, I didn't know when I would be able to see Falco again, so I contemplated waiting outside until he got released.

I picked up some stones, trying to occupy my mind while waiting for the little soldier boy to show up. They failed to occupy me, and I was left with the realization that I had yet another near-death experience with a trench. My life seemed to be a magnet for these sorts of experiences. The thoughts transitioned back to someone that we all know.

Viktor.

I had always envied his abilities, but there was a slight malice lying underneath it all. What he led us into was so avoidable.

20 minutes of massaging the stones ended with Falco limping out the tent with some bandages wrapped snug around his foot. "Why are you still here, Heinrich?"

He caught onto my plan. "I was waiting for my friend to come out, but I think it will take him a while longer."

"Ok." Some small-talk followed, but for the sake of not boring you, I shall summarize it. Falco explained that he got his foot sprained thanks to some initial morning training. I sought to revitalize some nostalgia, however. I asked, "Do you want to look for newspapers?"

A smile bloomed. "Yea!" It became a frown. "But...I can't walk...and I should probably go to my drill instructor."

The boy's sense of responsibility was already greater than those over twice as old as him. "Well, fine. Let's look for newspapers on the way there."

"If we find some, are we going to sell them?"

"Oh yea...I forgot. People don't really have much money here."

Falco wasn't given any crutches, so I helped him walk by letting him put his weight onto me. I asked, "Which direction should we go?" Falco pointed in one direction and fortunately for us the mail tent was on the way. I kept an eye for Kaslow and the wall-keeper, since I assumed they would drag me back to training if they saw me.

Walking about with the little warrior in tow let a reel of memories play in the cinema living in the back of my head. The black and white film began with the time I first met the boy, a week after my father had been injured. The reel cut to a time when I was walking in section E getting some newspapers from my boss, Eld the Eldian. Some audio began to flicker, and Falco was talking to me after some girl kicked me in the balls.

It flickered to different moments. A moment where I wondered if I would ever get drafted. The film only gave me so much info, so I told Falco in real time: "I remember the time when you said I wouldn't be drafted." I put on a tone of sternness, for he was the only one I could do it to without getting beaten up.

Falco grew submissive. "Yea, but...I thought you wouldn't... You don't need to be here. It still seems odd that Commander Magath asked you to come."

"You don't need to be here either, Falco."

"You told me that already months ago. But I have to be here."

Old confusions of Falco rose again, as well as the anger for someone so young wasting their life. "I hope that girl gets the armored titan before you do."

He pushed my arm off and managed to stay upright for a few seconds before tumbling to the ground with a grunt thanks to his pained leg. He looked up and asked, "How could you say that?!"

"Because—" I tried picking him up again. "—If you became a titan shifter, there's less time for you to help me sell newspapers."

"But—"

"And there will be less time for you to help other people with their newspapers. I think you can help more people as you are now, instead of becoming a titan shifter."

"But, I want to save her."

"She won't help people like you do if she doesn't get the titan, Falco...a lot of people won't." I kept on the lookout and said the next words carefully. "Think about how many people you will kill as the armored titan."

The sound of speechlessness followed. For once, I could mentor someone and leave them in awe thanks to what little I had learned in my 15 years. It was a selfish feeling that I longed for at times.

Falco stayed silent as we arrived at the mail tent. We peered in and a soldier with a southern Marleyan accent peered back. He sat with his legs propped up on a chair. "You kids lookin for candy or somethin?"

"No." We said in unison.

"Then whadya want?"

"Umm…" Falco answered. "D-Do you have any newspapers?"

The man smirked, an equivalent to a laugh in his frosty demeanor. "Newspapers? We got some. A lot of the cadets barely know how to read, so we have a lot of generals reading them. We got too many even though they're free."

"We can hand them out for you!" Falco exclaimed.

"Oh yeah? Don't you two got training?"

"Umm...we're injured, so there's not much we can do now."

"Well, as long as you can get rid of 'em, go ahead. Maybe those camp newspaper writers will stop breathing down my neck telling me to get rid of 'em."

Falco and I picked up some newspapers. I put a bundle underneath my non-Falco-carrying arm, and Falco put one under one of his. We stepped outside the tent and I set Falco down on a crate. The nostalgia of section E returned to me once more. 'Why was I feeling nostalgia for a place that only wronged me?' you may wonder. I'll tell you why, it's because a few of the people there somehow always kept me going.

The thought of the orchestra of trumpet blaring cars and the out-of-tune screeching violins in the form of mothers berating their children never felt so comforting until my tedious days at the training camp.

I pulled out one newspaper from the bundle and the threads of paper felt so familiar. The paper was titled, Trench and Camp. I flipped through the headlines to see if a crossword puzzle was in there, and fortunately for me, there was one. However, I was vaguely surprised there was no humor section, or short story section for that matter.

Falco sat like a bruised fruit on the little crate I found for him. He once seemed like a golden apple that was innocent and unscathed. But this apple rotted the longer he stayed out in the training camp. I didn't know what to say to dissuade him from continuing on his idiotic crusade.

I asked, "What should we say?"

"Extra. Extra?"

"Extra. Extra, it is then."

I huddled the bundle underneath my left arm, and kept my back straight as best as I could while ignoring some hunger pangs. I raised my right arm with the pages of thought-provoking propaganda, every word bleeding maroon in negativity.

"Extra! Extra!"

The negativity of the news on the paper bled onto my arm, and I lost stamina rather quickly. I had gotten rid of ⅓ of our stack, but Falco and I had lost 100% of our energy. I guess people with negative mindsets didn't want to read something that added even more onto that. The only decent thing was that I hadn't come across any of my bunk mates in my time "selling" free items.

I turned towards Falco in desperation, "Hey, do you want to do a crossword puzzle with me?"

"My vocabulilly isn't good."

"Vocabulary."

"That's what I said. Vocabulilly."

This boy was no Mr. Kruger, and I was no soldier. What a great pair.

I plopped onto the ground and threw the remaining newspapers back into the tent. I scooted over to Falco but despite his smaller stature he looked over me due to the crate. I asked, feeling a tad melancholic. "Do you like it out here so far, Falco?"

"No, everything is gross here." I was thrown off guard by the bluntness. "And, I got my leg hurt too, so I already don't like it."

"I have been here for slightly over a month, and I can't wait to go back...I can't believe I just said that."

"You can't believe what?"

"That I said I want to go back." My gaze teetered off from Falco and my words did as well. They fell into the depressed and mournful, gray air. Gusts of wind were praying for something more jolly. "Falco, you've been outside the walls before, right? Before coming to the training camp, I mean."

"Yea, the first time I went out was for a carnival outside the wall, since my brother is a warrior candidate. We got a special pass." He pointed to his chest.

"What was it like?"

"The buildings looked nicer. And people smiled a little more, but everything else looked the same...The carnival food was really yummy." I was not expecting any deep answers from the boy. He was 8-9 years old, after all. There was not much complexity to his psychology; that's what I assumed, at least.

But I was right about something else.

When me and the other cadets rode through Liberio to get to the train station, I wondered why so many things looked the same. All in all, the outer portion of Liberio wasn't much better than the internment zone. People didn't wear armbands; that was the primary difference. Other than that, it seemed like everything was doused in a faint cover of make-up and that was it. The wind of a bomb could blow away that make up and reveal the place to be quite similar to the internment zone.

I sighed a fragile gust of wind, not enough to blow anything away.

Falco's mention of his brother reminded me of the boy that I saw the day before. He appeared to be an older derivative of Falco. "Did your brother come here?"

"Yea, all the warrior candidates came."

"I think I saw him."

"Really? I think he's your age. I'll show you to him one day!"

I churned a smile from the little energy that I had. "That would be nice." He churned one out as well while we observed the plank-like soldiers walk about on the makeshift, dirt sidewalks. They splintered the ground with their hollow woodiness.

The talk about Falco's brother reminded me of my parents, which led me to the letters they sent. I still hadn't sent anything back. "I need you to do me a favor," I told the little soldier boy.

His back went straight up as if he grew more attentive.

"I got some letters from my parents yesterday, but I don't know what to write back."

"I can help!" He looked up at the sky as if he was looking for the sun to tell him the time. "But I should probably go back to the training camp. Even though I can't run, my drill instructor probably wants me back."

I put an arm underneath the little warrior and helped him up. We said bye to the soldier in the mail tent, and he replied, "Gettin rid of these papers is hard, isn't it?", with which we gave a solid nod.

Falco and I wandered through the wooden-planks carved in the shape of animated uniformed soldiers. When the tents became more barren and clumps of half-sized people sat in a field, I realized we had arrived at the warrior training field.

Falco pulled out my arm from underneath him and turned towards me awkwardly. "Maybe I can help you write your letter at night."

"Meet me outside the dining room after your dinner."

"I'll see after 9 o'clock."

Falco's drill instructor approached, and I began my walk back to a more populated area. A voice yelled behind me. "We can do the crossword puzzle too!"

Anticipation for a night filled with words of all sorts welled in the little pockets of my uniform.

On my walk back, I got whipped by a familiar voice, one that was specifically pitched for insults and berating. "Steiner, where the hell were you?!" I looked for the owner of that voice and found Kaslow with a group of cadets.

"Uhh-"

His whole body screamed insults, from the toes to the stomach overflowing his uniform. "I looked for you in the medical tent, and you weren't there. Anyway, go to the bathrooms."

"But, I don't need to pee, sarge." I caught a glimpse of a man running wildly towards us in the distance.

"You may not need to, but other people do. You and those other scoundrels are going to be cleaning up the place because of what you three pulled in that trench."

My tongue was squeezed dry of words.

"Viktor and the circus monkey are already there. There's an extra set of janitor clothes waiting for you, so leave your training uniform in the barracks."

The man from the distance was the janitor. He interrupted our one-sided conversation by shoving through the cadets and landing by Kaslow's feet. "Oh, thank you, Sergeant Kaslow! Thank you for giving me a vacation day. May the lord bless you."

Kaslow looked down on the petite man, who was temporarily free from the restraints of his duty. "Alright, alright. You're fogging up my boots. Get going."

My tongue stayed bereft of words as I walked over to the barracks. I unbuttoned my dusty training uniform and caught the freshly squeezed laughter of the cadets as I walked in a vest, underwear, and slippers. I ran out to the communal bathrooms and found my uniform sitting on the sink. Scum and sinful scents sizzled like flames around me.

"Oh Heinrich," someone sang in a sing-song voice. A fighter and a circus-monkey peered from two bathroom stalls with clothespins clasping their noses. "Where the hell have you been?" Asked Viktor.

"Target practice so I can actually pass my rifle training,"

"That answer's more shit than the shit in this room."

"Well-"

"And who was that kid you were talking to in the medical tent?"

"His name's Falco and he's a warrior candidate."

Viktor turned around and set his mop against the wall. "Well, Kurt and I had to make up for you not being here. We're taking a break now." Kurt handed me his mop and he gave me a wonderfully timed flinch; his freckles quaked. "Have fun, buddy. We left one toilet uncleaned just for you. Aren't we great friends? It seemed like everyone threw up in this one place after the trench adventure."

The boys' walked out to get some fresh air. I could hear the exact moment they took the clothespins off their noses, for I never heard air being inhaled as strongly as it was then.

I put my janitor uniform on and faced the mirror. Spots of filth got in the way of me being able to see perfectly how I looked. I felt a bulge of tightness in the bottom of my throat for how humiliating my life was. Alas, this tightness faded, and my mind ceased reacting to the situation. After nearly dying in a trench, all of this was menial. It was nothing.

So, I grabbed the cleaning supplies and headed to the unclean toilet. One would hope it was a bouquet of roses, but instead it was a bouquet graced by a devil's underpants. There was ample there for a poet to describe.

I yelled, "Hey, guys! How do I clean all this?"

Half an hour passed and we dealt with the deplorable toilet. We moved onto the sinks next and we were faced with verbal silence. There was plenty of noise while cleaning but there was no exchange in conversation. A whole back-log existed of things needed to be talked about.

***A BACKLOG***

Horrible rifle proficiency
Milo
The wall-keeper
THE EVENT FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE

I stood against the back wall and glared at Viktor. I was hoping to find a sign of sadness or anger for anything. But it stayed neutral. "Viktor, I still don't get it. From the day we got here, I've never seen you angry about what's happening to us."

He let a sheepish chuckle. "Where did that come from?" He looked at Kurt and went back to work.

"You know what I'm talking about. Don't look at Kurt."

"Why are you asking that? I'm just trying to clean a sink here."

I threw down my mop. "You almost got us fucking killed yesterday! Kaslow hit you in the head with a baton, and you're here making jokes."

The boys dropped their cleaning supplies as if caught off guard by my profanity and my outburst. Viktor watched as if he was curious to hear what I would say. "Well, do you want me to cry about it?"

"That would be a normal reaction, but you can't even do that. You didn't even say sorry to Kurt and me for dragging us into that mess….You're a clown, dammit. A damn clown."

"Fine." Viktor bowed towards Kurt and me and said mockingly. "I apologize." He looked back at the sink.

Despite me telling myself to not react harshly to things, despite the whole events with the bar fight teaching me not to react emotionally, I did just that. I swung the mop towards Viktor and all the dirty water got into his chocolate hair.

"You want me to be angry, do you?" He rushed towards me and grabbed my collar. He looked as closely as possible. He put his fist up as if he wanted to punch me. "For old times sake." He pulled it back, but then lowered it. "But you get punched enough already."

Kurt pulled Viktor away. "Heinrich, you're angry about something else, aren't you?"

Viktor continued, "There's a lot of things I could be angry about you for, Heinrich."

"Huh?"

"For example, where did you go with the wall-keeper that one day? You came back looking startled...Second, what happened to that book that was in your bag? Third, you never told us you know a warrior candidate...Fourth, what was Kaslow telling you when we were getting ready to go to the trenches?!"

I kept my mouth shut.

"I could be angry about the fact that you don't tell us the things going on that could affect all of us...In fact, I am angry about it every morning." He gritted his teeth and put his hands into claws. "You know what? I'm angry every morning because I'm jealous of you, Heinrich... I hate the fact that I was only able to leave the internment zone because you gave me a chance...I'm jealous of you...I loved it when Milo punched the shit out of you."

Sometimes, I truly wish I knew exactly what people were thinking. That day, I didn't know if Viktor was the worst friend I had, or if he was the greatest actor.