An Eldian's Journal
The Soul of War
Chapter 43: Success and Failure
To end the day of assessments and reduce the stress of the final evaluation that was to follow, I thought to finish the first part of my little story. So, that night, I went through that process again of closing my eyes to see how the characters would naturally unfold. The scrawny soldier and his friends needed something disastrous to happen to them.
What's better to do that with than have them go into battle for the first time?
My mind's camera sputtered again for another long cinematic thrill, all in the comfortable recliners of my imagination…
XXX
Erich, his two pals, and the rest of his battalion stood warily atop a fort the Marleyan forces had claimed from the mid-east allies. They all wielded guns in their hands, for they needed to shoot down the mice that were approaching to reclaim their fort. It was the mid-east forces.
These mice came in large numbers to reclaim the large yet moldy block of cheese that numerous fly-like marleyan eldians claimed for their oppressors.
Erich watched his pals anxiously as they shot down these soldiers with minimal effort. At first, their faces grimaced in unease, but with each kill, their features softened out as if each one held less and less value.
Erich's fist-fighter pal advised Erich. "It's easier to shoot them down when you don't think of them as people."
"What do you think of them then?"
"Rats with clothing."
Erich lowered his gun. It hit his leg on the way down since he couldn't support it as well as he wanted to, thanks to his meager muscles. He backed into his Commander unintentionally.
"What's wrong with you, grenade boy?" The mustache bearing Marleyan asked.
"Nothing, sir. My arms are weak…and…shooting multiple people just doesn't come naturally to me."
He turned Erich's head to the field. "I'm sure one of those guys thinks the same as you. But there's probably also a guy who thinks killing is natural to them. It's hard to tell which is which at first glance, so we shoot all of them at sight. Except for the medics, of course." He then slapped Erich and told him to get back to work.
Erich looked down the length of the gun at the field below. His position atop the wall gave him a first-hand witness of one mid-east soldier evading shots expertly underneath him. He aimed and fondled the trigger as the gun wobbled in his weak grip. Ultimately, he looked away and let the man pass since he assumed someone else would get him, or at least the armored train would.
That excuse was a playing card he drew repeatedly. He used it as if it was a band-aid for every single move that required a gun, a band-aid for the turmoil behind every decision to make a shot, a band-aid for missing courage he once exuded proudly.
He kept at it until an explosion erupted behind him.
One of the trains circling around the fort came back in but attacked the Marleyan-Eldian forces sorting ammunition in the center of the fort. Thus, a powerful yet piercing explosion ensued. Some soldiers on top of the fort's wall got so startled that they fell off and splattered-they were like flies that got swatted without mercy.
It seemed that the train had gone rogue. A conniving thought crept through Erich's ear about who was directing the train. Was it the person he purposefully declined to shoot?
The Marleyan-Eldian numbers decreased, resulting in more and more mid-east soldiers going unchecked. More and more of them entered through the gates despite Erich's Commander's efforts with throwing grenades at the rogue train. The train went unscathed. It didn't help that the Marleyan-Eldians had resources to take over the fort, but they didn't have enough to maintain that stance. Not to mention, many of the soldiers were novices.
The cards were against the usurpers.
After a few more grenades, the Commander looked around while grasping a grenade so tight his knuckles went white. He swept a hand across the forehead to get rid of the sweat as he experienced a turmoil greater than Erich's. There was turmoil in the decision to surrender, especially when trains were hijacked, and they took down the battalions from the inside out.
Erich's toothpick legs trembled, and a wave of heat took over his minuscule frame. His gun slipped as he looked down to see half of his battalion, including one of his two pals, splattered like insects along the fort walls and on the ground. His position on the wall gave him a bird's eye view of the atrocity. He wished he could have summoned the strength he had that day with the grenade. He took his fist and punched his jaw in hopes of bringing it out. The only thing that came out was blood.
His Commander raised the white flag of surrender…
The mid-east soldiers ceased their fire and restrained the remaining Marleyan Eldian soldiers. The fez-wearing rats squeaked at each other with their unintelligible language, and they grabbed the Commander.
The Eldian-Marleyans gathered at the fort bottom, at the bottom of their dignity, and at the bottom of a new oppressor's feet.
Erich stood in the center of a few dozen remainders. His Commander stood in front while whimpering faintly with dizziness he was unaccustomed to as if waiting for his equal on the enemy side.
Some fungus plagued the air in the form of smoke and villainy. A more conniving mustache than the Marleyan Commander's throbbed from within the grey. It was the Mid-East Commander. He arrived at the mousetrap with the ego of a pirate rather than an esteemed war chief. He appeared to chase the cheese of suffering rather than just victory.
He surveyed the commander top to bottom before spitting next to his feet.
He had the demeanor of a pirate through and through. The missing tooth, scarred face, and awkward stance were all present, vying for everyone's attention. The only thing missing was a mocking parrot, but that was unnecessary, for his mockery was sufficient.
The mid-east Commander ordered one of his underlings in a language the Eldian-Marleyan's could understand, albeit quite fractured. "Get Titan-serum. Two shots. Two people become titan." He then looked at the crowd of newly created prisoners. "Titans eat the rest."
The subordinate brought two serum vials, and the marleyan-eldian Commander did his best to keep his chest high. Where was the same courage in Erich?
The mid-east Commander surveyed the cadets, a few seconds per soldier. He inspected them top to bottom briefly as if following some criteria. The hair on Erich's arm sprang up, and his breath burst in and out as if uncertainty was manually controlling it for him. His knees locked, and he looked for his fist-fighter pal within the rows. He had only one friend left.
The mid-east Commander stopped at Erich for longer than usual. A punctuated pause followed. "This one weak. Let's make him titan. He become big and strong." The new oppressor's mouth contained teeth, all with differing levels of malevolence but combined to make one nefarious smile. "Why you looking there? Is that man your friend?" A mid-east soldier pulled out Erich's fist-fighter pal, the young soldier's face fractured in dread.
Erich and his friend were taken to the wall top while his brothers in arms lay trapped at the bottom with restraints.
"Lets do one first. Next one later." The mid-east Commander grabbed Erich's twig arm and pushed him onto his knees. His face was smothered by brick. Through his left eye, he watched his fist-fighting friend try his hardest to smile, but too much ash peppered his face as if he was always destined to be dead…
The subordinate stabbed the injection into Erich's neck and inserted the serum. The Commander kicked him off the wall and into the people he fought alongside. The mid-east soldiers on the ground ran to a safe distance. Erich watched the pitiful gathering of soldiers with tear-saturated eyes as the ambitions he once carried proudly went to waste.
Yellow lightning scratched the crude portrait of the sky. It thundered devastatingly as Ymir's accursed gift was passed onto another unwilling subject.
That's what everyone thought.
But Erich's gift happened to be a little different.
When he landed on the ground, the lightning fizzled out prematurely, and his bones began to ache. His growth plates reopened, and his bones lengthened on their own. He grew even skinnier until his muscle fibers tore themselves apart, and he screamed in agony. The sensation can be likened to a forest fire; however, instead of starting from one point and spreading, every nerve that could perceive scorched simultaneously.
He contemplated picking up the gun nearby and shooting himself to stop the torture. However, his muscles started putting themselves back together, starting from his legs then moving up. He went through rapid muscular synthesis, and his musculature caught up with his bone growth, all while his skin stretched naturally. Stretch marks came and went.
Erich was like a moth emerging from a cocoon into a more enormous cocoon lit by some human darkness.
Despite his full-body aching, Erich put one hand in front of the other and attempted to stand up. The shift from a 5 foot 3 inches stature to 6 foot 3 inches caused him to crash into the ground numerous times, and his ears rang endlessly, but he adjusted to it within seconds.
The mid-east Commander looked down in shock from above and his other military officials. Erich's friend took advantage of this and ran away along the wall despite his restrained hands. He too couldn't fathom what his friend became.
Erich looked down at his newly reinforced fingers, and the ground felt farther from him than usual when standing. He almost smiled until realizing what situation surrounded him. A few mid-east soldiers shot at him. He bolted towards his teammates, hoping to take off their restraints, but nearly crashed into a few since he still didn't have control.
An Eldian warned frantically, "Go save Michael first! If he gets turned into a titan, then there's nothing we can do. Don't worry about us. These rats want us eaten. They won't shoot us with guns now. They'll shoot you, though."
Erich glanced up at the fort wall to see the mid-east soldiers completely frozen in awe, but his friend was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't put thoughts together on what to do. His mind's processes clashed together like misguided trains. The static nature forced him to ride on the unreliable fuel of emotion and instinct.
He repositioned to a building nearby and went up the ladder, skipping multiple steps between jumps. Arriving at the roof, he saw a few more buildings in front of him that he needed to cross to get to the top of the circular fort wall.
He leaped for the next building. His limbs flailed in midair, and he crashed shoulder first onto the roof of one building. He massaged his shoulder as the pain subsided. He then noticed that the mid-east soldiers got out of their shock and were chasing after his friend.
Erich continued jumping between buildings, but he prepared for the final leap to the wall at the final one. The smokey air scratched his face in midair until he clawed into the grooves between the scarred bricks and used his new arm strength to climb the remainder of the fort wall.
At the very top, his face contorted in contempt. He stared down his enemies with immense bitterness, disgust, and acrimony.
The devil in his veins came out to play, at his opponents' dismay.
Michael, Erich's friend, ran to a position 180 degrees from him on the wall's circular formation, and the mid-east soldiers fired at him with poor aim. They needed him alive; some damage would be alright.
Erich removed his torn shoes and headed to the mid-east soldier closest to him. The soldier turned around and fired a bullet at the newly strengthened Eldian. It landed on Erich's abdomen and fell off like a paperclip. Some of his breath was knocked out, but he could only feel mild pain in his torso. He stepped on the bullet, and it flattened out.
When Erich got close enough, the mid-east soldier's mouth went agape, and his eyes trembled within their sockets. The Eldian grabbed the man's skull and positioned his thumbs on the eyes.
The man's head fractured under a split-second pressure in a barbaric display. The eyes splattered crimson as they were decimated, and his nasal cavity displayed itself nakedly.
With hands of foul rat blood, Erich picked up the rifle and moved on to the next closest soldier and slaughtered them as well. Bullets poured onto him from the remaining mid-easterners, including the ones on the ground, but it didn't matter. He picked them off one by one using different methods that would make a bystander queasy.
The only issue was, he struggled with aiming the rifle. His unstable mental state made focused decisions difficult. His new, fiery nature could only take him so far.
When Erich murdered the second to last mid-east soldier on top of the wall, the mid-east Commander had finally caught up to Michael and held him under the injection…
That one sight of his friend pierced a hole in Erich's new demeanor like a surgically planned cut. It was intentional and deliberate.
Erich stood twenty feet away from the Mid-East Commander, so he picked up the rifle and tried shooting but accidentally shot his friend's leg instead. The Commander laughed demonically before smiling with those vile teeth again. "All that killing. You can't kill me?"
Erich dropped the rifle and approached swiftly, but the Commander injected the serum with his conniving claws. Michael's ashy lips uttered its final words. "Erich, you're finally strong now. After all these years-" He was kicked off the wall as lightning fractured the sky once more.
Warm tears broke through Erich's eyes as he grabbed the rat's head. The pirate smile stayed as Erich mushed the man's head under his foot repeatedly, with malicious intent increasing with each smash. The Commander's cheeks first caved in, then his eyes, and finally, the brain was squeezed out bit by bit with each step. Erich's foot layered itself in dull crimson from the puddle of chunky, frothy liquid.
The Eldian's chin trembled and shrieked, "Michael!" Killing the despicable mid-easterner didn't help his friend, did it?
Erich jumped off the wall and sprained his foot on the fort's ground. His friend towered as a 7-meter abnormal titan approaching the Eldians in the center. Floors of the buildings were destroyed by the titan's arms waving sporadically. A bit of Erich hoped Michael too could have become some super soldier like him.
The static in Erich's mind finally landed on a singular channel. The Eldian's thoughts narrowed on his friend and how he needed to find a way to stop him.
The remaining mid-east soldiers on the ground tried shooting the titan with their rifles. The rainfall of bullets proved useless for each raindrop flattened on impact with its skin. They needed titan piercing shells which ran out in previous battles.
Erich had three choices.
***THREE CHOICES***
If he focused on killing the mid-easterners, the titan would eat his teammates.
If he went to rescue the teammates, the mid-easterners would just distract him with bullets.
If he tried luring the titan out of the fort, the mid-easterners would massacre all his teammates.
It was a lose-lose situation. Even with Erich's new power, the result would be the same.
Fortunately, the Marleyan-Commander had something to say about it from his restrained position in the fort. He had a better view of the mid-easterners than Erich, and he noted that the mid-easterners had no backbone without the confidence of anti-titan rounds. They scurried like the rats they were. Some of them would stay still and stand in awe of the titan as if asking nicely to get eaten.
The Marleyan-Commander and the other Eldians took advantage of the distraction and got up from the ground. They still had restraints on but had full use of their legs and full use of their minds. They all dispersed, but the Commander came up with a short plan that involved the newly strengthened Erich. He first checked if the armored train had ammo, which it didn't, so he came up with a different plan due to the lack of artillery and sharp blades to cut tendons and the neck. Someone had to get to the right level and pull out the weak point.
Thanks to the mid-easterners distracting the titans with their lives, the Commander found two rifles with sturdy bayonet blades attached. He then chased Erich, who watched the massacre as if it were a fireworks display.
"Dammit, cadet! What are you standing watching for?! I don't know how that titan serum made you like this, but use it!"
The Eldian made a crude joke as if still not 100% accepting of the reality. "Michael always liked eating a lot. Look at him now."
The Commander shouted in his face. "Listen! If you grab his leg, he'll fall over, and then you can cut him with these bayonets."
"You're going to kill him?" Erich's words finally stabilized. "But-"
"COMMANDER!" Erich and the Marleyan-Commander tracked that squeal to see one of the Eldians picked up by the titan. His arms and legs wriggled under the crushing force of the brute's hand as if he was an insect at the mercy of a merciless kid's grasps. His screams tore at the eardrums of the bystanders as the sounds clawed at the walls of the fort.
"But-"
The titan crunched on the abdomen. The lower body ceased its struggling and went limp in the monster's hand.
"I can't kill him-" Erich insisted.
The Commander went red in anger. "I can court-martial you for this, Erich! Your family will never become Honorary Marleyans if I do that. Who knows. They may even end up just like your friend here." Erich's bottom lip quivered, and the Commander continued, "How many more of your teammates have to die before you help me kill this thing?!"
Erich bit his lip and glared at the Commander. He then picked the mustached officer up and bolted to the titan, past the people's screams and past the cries of guns that used to be whining incessantly during the previous firefight. The mid-easterners continued fleeing and ignored them.
Erich stood behind his former friend, quiet in the ambiance of blood-curdling shrieks. He looked at the giant Achilles tendon connecting the calf muscle to the foot and tried grabbing it. The tendon was stubborn, and he pulled at it using his entire upper body. Even with the immense strength, his hands slipped off.
The titan didn't stay idle to this, though. It recognized the bug at its foot and shot its leg background. Erich landed back-first into a building, knocking the breath out of him. After panting for a few seconds, he squeezed through the pile of bricks that dislodged from impact and eyed the pipe running the height of the building.
The Commander stayed behind Erich for protection as the Eldian broke off the pipe. It swayed in the air until finally crashing on the ground. Erich formed it into a hook shape. He grimaced while lifting the ultra-sized metal, and the titan turned around to look down at him. The massive footsteps disturbed the rubble hibernating around them. Michael's original fudge hair and square jaw were replaced with jagged teeth and bloody lips.
The giant approached while waving its arms maniacally like a psychopath. The bayonets trembled in the Commander's hands while holding a creased lip expression. Erich played a bull-fighting game with the titan by waving the red flag that was the metal pipe. He waited for the right moment…
"Erich! What are you waiting for?!"
"Not yet!"
When the oversized titan foot positioned itself one meter away from the duo, Erich and the Commander stepped around it while Erich hooked the ankle and braced himself. The maniacal titan tripped, landing on its stomach.
The nape laid vulnerable.
"Do it, Erich!" The Commander gave him the bayonets. The Eldian dropped the pipe and briefly observed his face in the rifle's rusty metal. His bloodied hands clouded the handles and stock. He muttered, trying to convince himself. "I killed dozens of people in a few minutes. What's just one more, right?"
"Do it! Before he gets up!" The titan's arms spazzed out, and its foot raised briefly before crashing back into the ground and creating a hole.
Erich dropped the bayonets. His hands shivered in the coldness of the decision he needed to make. His tears washed bits of his fingers. "I can't, okay!" He went on his knees and put his face into the dirt.
"Even with all this muscle… You're still that weak grenade boy underneath." The Commander took back the bayonets. "I'll do it myself." Erich held onto one gun faintly, looking up at the Commander with one eye, having one last hope to stop his friend from getting killed.
The Commander stepped towards the giant, evading the unstable feet and approaching the abdomen. He threw the guns onto the back and grimaced in disgust by how the skin had grooves and texture like a human, yet it felt so far from being human.
He climbed onto the back and walked along the spine to the nape. He kept his chest high and raised the bayonets. Erich's hand lingered in the air as he attempted to yell despite no thrust in his voice. "Wait…"
The fangs of the rust-soaked bayonets plunged into the titan's nape. They were pulled in and out repeatedly as if savoring the meat. The dark blood shed from the two wounds as the Commander thrust the rifles.
Finally, the beast moaned in protest, and the debris returned to a stable state since the limbs settled at last. Erich fumbled while trying to get up and reached for the titan's left foot as if wanting to say 'Goodbye.' But, before his maroon-covered finger could touch the sole of the monstrosity that stepped over multiple lives, the heel shattered into sand. As if being summoned somewhere else, the structure disintegrated, having not paid back for the lives it took…
Erich lost two humans he held dear that day but gained the strength of a dozen. It didn't really make up for it…
The Commander walked to the defeated Erich and gently knocked him in the head with the rifle stock. "We aren't done yet, Erich. Get up. There's more of these mid-east rats to kill." Erich stayed lost; his eyes were replaying days of street-brawls with his fight-fighting friend. But the Commander continued. "You know how to sacrifice yourself. But you don't know how to sacrifice others at the most crucial points."
Erich tightly closed his eyes and attempted to wash the ash off his face. But like a coat of make-up, it wasn't so easy. He stood up and joined the Commander in exterminating the rest of the fez-wearing rats.
When five mid-east soldiers remained, the Commander lined them against the wall and forced them to undress into only undershirts and underpants. Their faces wreaked embarrassment, of course, so in a display of humiliation, the remaining Eldians lined up across from the mid-easterners. They raised their guns and waited for the Commander's signal.
Some undressed soldiers babbled in their incomprehensible language, likely pleading for their lives. But the Commander smirked in a silent expression of his superiority in race and military standing. He lowered his arm, and the bullets sliced the air and punctured their targets.
The rats got caught by the rat trap.
XXX
I opened my eyes and returned mentally to the barracks. My fingers lingered on the page with the black pen, and my fingertips were faintly sweaty and put dimples into the page. I felt somber with an ache in my throat. Was I sorry for my fictional character? One that I ignited with the flint and steel of my own imagination?
How could I fall for my own illusion?
I felt less and less inclined to answer this question as the night went on. This is since it slowly revoked when the practical issue of writing came again, and I saw this story for what it was: a construction. Our reality played an integral part in this fiction, but this fiction didn't play an integral part in our reality. Not until I made it the best I could.
So, I had the first part of the story thought out, but I needed to translate it to a page. It's one thing to translate a language to another language. They benefit from both being written and verbal, but there's no calculator or transferring chart of an image to words. There are only approximations everyone decides by themselves, hence, diverse writing.
Who am I to complain, though? People have been telling stories for years. My struggles aren't new. Yet, the plights I had to go through writing that silly story AND now the journal you're holding in your hand are really getting to me…I need a nap.
Anyway, I went through the routine of writing shit down and crossing it off again. The pen danced the page with a lack of elegance that mirrored the one who held it. I say that about myself, but you could also say that about politicians in this country. I'm sure our lovely dictator has a clown suit in his closet that he wears when writing his domineering speeches. He probably says, "Marley is Good. Marley is Great" every time he flirts with some mistress.
I'm ranting again. If you don't mind, I need to ask you a question. Should I give you some time to cool off from that depressing story and stow away my sarcasm? If so, come to say it to my face. I know you can't do that, though… I'm probably dead somewhere in a gutter, so it's too late.
See, this is precisely what I did that night. I got so annoyed with figuring out how to put everything together that my mind just wandered off into different topics. (I specifically remember drifting in unsavory thoughts of lewd people, but please, cut me some slack. I was 15 years old then. I'm sure you're older than that now and think of even worse things…)
After my imagination took a pit stop in the pervert's alley, it went through an enigmatic alley of sentence structure again. Each building of this place represented something different. The subject. The verb. The adjectives. I walked into all of these and shopped for some words haphazardly. I stayed in the front of the stores and took the regular ones instead of walking to the back to find the great stuff like I should have done.
Who wants 'good' when you can have 'stupendous'?
I won't bore you with the details. Let's just say I went through ALL the papers I had taken from the wall-keeper's office to write out a draft for just one chapter…
The following evening, Colt, Falco, and I walked over to the mailing tent. The man in the chair greeted us with his usual coldness, and the typewriter sat waiting for us. I dodged a few packages and sat on the accompanying chair until the soldier protested.
"What are you going to use that for?" He asked.
Colt started giving a reason until the man stopped him. "I know you write reports, but…." He pointed at me with his pen. "...what are you writing?"
I set the papers down on the counter. "A fiction story for the newspaper." The man's eyebrows squinted as I kept talking. "Every newspaper back home has one, so I thought if the newspaper here has one, more people will read it."
"Granted, if it's good writing."
I rocked my head. "Yes, if it's good."
He glanced at the papers on the counter. He got his boots off the chair and picked them up while grunting. "If this story is a political commentary or disrespects our country in any way…well…you know the consequences."
I knew this already, thanks to Colt but I still shuddered. "Yes, sir." He handed the scribbles to me and gave me one last piece of advice. "You can't redo something once you type it. It's like writing with a pen. I've had my fair share of troubles with it when writing shipping labels."
I gulped and nodded, a typical reaction for me in front of officials.
One paper was already installed in the typewriter. It was littered with random letters since it must have been scrap paper. I pressed a key with my pointer finger, and a click sound accompanied a tiny arm, slapping a letter onto the paper.
"A"
Colt directed me on how to take the paper out, but I ended up tearing it instead. He stepped back in shock and offered hesitantly, "Heinrich, you can read the story out loud, and I can type it for you. It's probably quicker that way."
"No..." I started reading over my draft. "I think I should do this myself." A magnifying glass could have benefited me since I had to squint so much. It didn't help that the sentences on the pages looked like a bunch of broken shelves that happened to be made of letters.
I set my fingers on the keys, took a deep breath, and slowly but anxiously prepared myself. Not making a single mistake was definitely a tall order.
The assembly line of ink began, and the twenty-six black arms puppeted by my fingers received their first order. "Erich."
The carriage of words grew fuller as the minutes passed with extreme focus. It also held the paper and moved left as I typed as if being pulled along by a mechanical set of horses. After every line or so, I had to move the carriage back to its original position, and the mechanical horses would neigh their usual clicks.
Of course, this extreme focus had to be broken at some point. One finger tripped, and another fell down the staircase of keys resulting in my first typos. I cursed, and the mail soldier commented, "Welcome to my world, cadet. Suck it up and use a pencil to cross out the errors."
Falco handed me a pencil before going back to twiddling his thumbs or whatever kids did those days. I kept at this tedious process for forty minutes.
I cracked my knuckles by the end of it and sat afterward, trying to soak in the one thing I accomplished in my time at that training camp. Falco and Colt interrupted, of course, with their groggy voices. "Are you done yet, Heinrich? We're sleepy."
"Yes." I picked up the freshly typed papers and tried to align the pages.
The mail soldier came over and pulled the papers out of my hands, nearly making a paper cut. I sucked my thumb quickly to soothe it. For the next ten minutes, he read the story as I stretched my back and let the butterflies fly in my stomach in anticipation of his thoughts.
"Hmm." He flipped to a blank page. "This is some decent propaganda."
"Really?" I asked, trying to hold back a smile.
"Yeah. You made the mid-east allied forces seem evil here and made sure they were punished. That supports our fight right now." He shrugged, "and you made the Eldian main character really strong, which will be fun to read for the cadets. Despite that, the Marleyan Commander was the one to slay the titan. The generals here would like that."
"Thanks." I couldn't hold the smile back anymore. Falco came around and gave me his signature golden smile, and Colt put his hand on my shoulder.
***AN IRONY***
I accomplished something.
"What's the thing people say…." The mail soldier scratched his shaved chin. "Show don't tell. Yeah. You could probably use more of that. And the editors will fix your grammar."
"Oh." I revoked my smile.
"Do you have a name for this story?"
"Name?" I froze. I had done everything but that.
He scratched his chin with the paper. "How about…Captain Marley."
Colt added, "Captain Eldia!" Falco shook his head in disapproval and added. "The Human Titan!"
I flushed in embarrassment. The mail soldier then set the papers down on the counter, and I took back Falco's pencil. I reminisced on what Erich had become in the progression of words. He began as a scrawny young man with a strong sense of courage, but his killing instinct towards enemies heightened after getting his titan serum. It almost became a lust for killing. So, I appropriately named it "The Devil-A Prologue."
I scribbled the title in pencil lead above the legions of ink.
The mail soldier shrugged in acceptance of the name and told me he would get it to the newspaper editors as soon as possible. Apparently, those people work into the night since they have other duties during the day. I watched in gentle gratitude as he put the papers in a folder.
The soldier gave a word of warning before me, and the Grice brothers left. "They may not acknowledge you as the writer."
I stepped back. "Why not?"
"They don't give credit to anyone who writes things for the paper." I sighed and looked away from the tent before the soldier said one last thing. "Who knows? You may be lucky to have it in the paper at all. You'll find out tomorrow, though."
"Tomorrow? I have my weapons assessment tomorrow."
"Well, you're just going to have to get the paper after it."
I walked out of the tent properly this time. Multiple buffers were placed on my accomplishment, but I still savored it like one typically would with a scrumptious chocolate cake after eating piles of slop for weeks on end. I consumed a morsel every few seconds until the sobering stress of the following exam took over as a rotten apple dessert.
XXX
It was well known that Kaslow's assessments were the oddest compared to other training camps, but thankfully after Kaslow's rundown on the weapons assessment, I grew relieved. The initial tests happened to be standard procedures instead of another "capture the headband" catastrophe.
Viktor and Kurt didn't revel in the same kind of relief. They sweated in their training uniforms even while the drill sergeants debriefed us with the remaining cadets in the training field.
The sergeants emphasized. "You all must pass every single portion of today's assessment just like those from two days ago. If you cannot, you will fail! And those of you going into specializations will be delayed!"
I began sweating just like my friends after my skin prickled in dreadful anticipation.
One drill sergeants announced the first test weapons test.
***WEAPON TEST #1***
March with a rifle
We practiced this test nearly every day of training for numerous weeks. Even a monkey could do this the first you train it to.
We all formed a matrix and took planks of wood that happened to be carved in a rifle shape. We set the weapon vertically on the ground as a starting position, then quickly lift it with the left hand under the barrel and the right hand on the stock. Then we rest the gun against the right shoulder. We repeated this a few times until the sergeants started yawning.
It felt more like a presentation test than playing a practical part in the fighting. This is crucial to an army, though. As much as we needed to be skilled, we also needed to look good in our skin. Marley has an ego to uphold, after all.
***WEAPON TEST #2***
Cannons
Unlike the previous test, this assessment had critical value to offensive strategies.
The sergeants broke us into groups and assigned each one a cannon. Due to the lack of resources, we were provided wooden cannons that couldn't shoot anything in any circumstances except in your imagination. It just didn't seem practical for us to use actual cannons since that would ruin the exquisite training fields lined with dead grass and tilled with the sadness of cadet souls.
I got placed in a group with Viktor and Kurt. That day was the first time it happened during the training camp, and thankfully it happened to be the last. Working with your friends can be a dumpster fire occasionally…
The cannon barrel aimed 45 degrees into the air, and the loading compartment was around waist level. We had to handle three components: picking up ammunition, loading it, and pulling the drawstring "trigger."
Viktor took the brainless activity of picking up ammunition, Kurt loaded, and I pulled the trigger.
With a real cannon, the ammo would be metal cylinders packed with gunpowder and other explosive materials, and depending on the model, loading it can be like an assembly line. The loading person would put the ammo in, and the trigger person would activate it. The entire cannon would pull back in recoil, and the trigger person would unload it, thereby ejecting a shell. Smoke would erupt in the trigger person's face every time they unloaded.
We used a lot of imagination during our test since the spectacle of explosions could not be replicated without actual ammunition. We imagined the rubber ball as the gas cylinder and the constant ejection of smoking riding up our noses.
Fortunately, when it mattered, we lucked out and did well even though Viktor occasionally dropped the ammunition on his foot.
***WEAPON TEST #3***
Takedowns, knife evasions, and whatever
I am honestly tired of describing all these tests, so I will speed through this.
We were broken into groups of ten to match with the ten drill instructors running the assessment. We essentially had to counter all the moves they performed on us, like stabbing with an imaginary knife from the front. We also had to counter takedowns, but these were all moves we went over during training. If we had a gun near us, we had to prove we knew how to use a bayonet.
The boys and I passed all the tests until we got to the final one.
***WEAPON TEST #4***
Rifle accuracy
All the cadets were broken into different groups of ten, and we were taken to a rifle range.
This range had a longboard for people to lie on and stand on, and past the legion of dry grass happened to be ten targets. After each group finished their tasks, old targets would be replaced with new ones. You would see people break down from failing the very last test and be shoved off immediately to give room for the next group. Absolutely deplorable.
When my group's turn came around, an electrical storm broke out in my mind-nervousness. The anxiety could be best described as a headache but teetering on an intense frozen panic. My friends looked at me with brief encouragement, the kind where they know you're going to screw up but add a layer of padding so you can accept it better. They hadn't completed the test yet, so I was the first out of us three.
I took a rifle from the rack and the other nine participants from my group. The wooden grooves were lined with sweat, likely from previous cadets. That definitely would not help with grip stability, so I wiped some of it off with my shirt. Gross. But hey, cut me slack again. I was nervous. I'm sure you act the same as well…maybe not with a gun.
The other cadets and I stumbled to a position on the longboard, the material feeling more like a music stage than a firing range. A music stage where you can sing your soul away. The only thing I missed was a guitar.
The soldier in the sky smiled down on me like always, which soothed me for a second until I heard a sergeant's instructions. "This is the first part of the rifle assessment. You all have ten rounds by your feet. For the first minute, you must fire five rounds while lying down. Four of them should hit the yellow or red parts of the target. With the remaining five, you must stand up and do the same thing."
I laid down on the board that mirrored a music stage and kept my finger on the trigger. My heart boiled in a panic until a sergeant blew a whistle to commence.
I aimed at the target and pulled the trigger. Nothing fired. I heard the claps of bullets around me, yet mine failed to do the same. I looked around haphazardly until realizing I hadn't even loaded the gun yet.
What a splendid beginning to my performance. The crowd behind me must have pitied me.
I loaded the five bullet magazine and positioned the gun again, but a familiar character walked across the plain of decrepit grass. It happened to be a man who lacked grace but was bountiful in self-loathing. He didn't dawn his military uniform but still dawned his permanently mournful expression with his steely eyes looking downward.
Enter my secondary imaginary character, Reiner.
He walked to my target and stood right in front of it, shoulders drooping and all.
A new wave of panic settled in as I tried to recall Colt's thoughts on the matter: "I don't know, Heinrich…But I have a feeling you aren't the only one. Maybe talk to someone with the same issue." I grunted briefly in annoyance and tried a shot anyway. I strummed the trigger, but the piercing note zoomed past Reiner's body and missed the target. The one mistake I was allowed to make for the first five shots wasted away.
What could I do to solve this turmoil?
I thought about a man who seemed to have more of it: the wall-keeper. His points of advice played rapidly. "Maybe you can go to the camp psychologist…" and then "if you shoot a different person each time, the image that gets leftover keeps changing." How could I apply these to my situation? I wasted fifteen seconds of the initial minute with all this, and if I divided correctly, I needed to fire a bullet every twelve seconds to stay on top of my time.
I pulled the rifle bolt to reload. I stared down the barrel again, trying to broom away the tangled judgments in my mind. The crowd of grass in front stared eagerly, and the crowd of humans behind me whispered like crickets.
I fired again. The recoil shot into my shoulder, and the bullet pierced a hole into the white, outer ring of the target. I needed it to land in the red or yellow. The manifestation of Reiner stood still in his transparency, not even shuddering from the impact.
My third shot landed in the yellow, resulting in a brief pang of positive energy. My jaw loosened, and my shoulders freed up as if the weight of my negativity gave up clawing at them. I pulled the bolt, ready to go for the next shot.
It worked again. My fourth shot pierced through the imaginary warrior's abdomen and landed in the upper part of the yellow ring. Another pang of positive energy shot through my head.
However, for the fifth shot of that minute, my left hand's grip weakened from the lathering of sweat. The overall heat of the weather outside and my reaction to anxiety must have caused it. Despite that, I tried gripping harder, forcing my palms to keep the gun at bay.
I fired, and the shot landed in the white, and another seething pain landed on me. My score was 2 out of 5; I needed 4 out of 5.
A whistle followed, and the other cadets on the board stood up instantly for the next part of the test.
I put my hand on my knee, trying to get up, but my joints stayed still as if locked up from the realization of my failure. The dejection weighed on me like a thousand lead bullets, each one biting me incessantly.
All the months' struggle climaxed at that moment, only for it to fail just as I accomplished something with my newfound creative energies. This raw juxtaposition bewildered me as my mental state tendered, and I began envisioning the day of that alley again…
The dusty grey of Section E's arrived piece by piece with its drab bricks. The whirlwind of anxiousness raised from my feet up to my eyes, blinding me of spatial recognition. Reality broke down around me, brick by brick to be replaced by different ones.
The cackles of an old journalist sniveled with the suffocating traffic of depraved humans and their gasoline-powered contraptions. An even more depraved human stood against the bricks that broke through the grass-a fully-fledged Reiner Braun. Not a transparent one.
Through his ash-smitten clothes, he bled like all the blood of those he killed was stored in him. It would ooze relentlessly until it would rewind and go back inside him. A gunshot would follow, and he would pour out all over again. A loop of immense torture ensued.
I had fallen into an ocean of anxiety, no doubt drowning in it…
Someone pulled me out of it. I gasped for air and waved my arms at the person, trying to defend myself, but found two familiar faces.
Viktor and Kurt glared at me with a shared expression between fear and a bit of sadness. Their eyebrows lowered and pulled together. Their mouths hung slightly open, barely exposing their teeth.
I lay confused on the board, and a drill instructor walked over with a neutral face. "Cadet, due to not finishing the second portion of this assessment. You automatically fail." I looked back at my friends, and Kurt spoke up pleadingly, "Sir, he's had issues with-"
"He isn't the only one. I've seen this dozens of times." He paused. "Pick him up. We have another group waiting to go next."
"But-"
"Pick. Him. Up."
The boys' put their arms around my shoulders and lifted me up. My mind slowly returned to the real world, and I asked them, still displaced, "Did you guys pass?"
Viktor replied hesitantly. "Heinrich, we didn't even go yet. You just broke down for a minute."
"Really?... It felt longer than that." The disorientation stayed strong even until the boys set me down at a bench near the crowd of other contestants waiting to go. These other cadets stared at me with that silent superiority look where their faces stood tall but aimed down as if I was mentally handicapped.
It irked me. The pressure built up, and the stares penetrated more than they should have. After a few minutes, the boys attempted the test.
After they finished, they approached with the same look they used when pulling me out of my slump. Viktor said with disdain, "I failed with a 7 out of 10. I was so damn close." Kurt murmured. "I got the same…if only I had one more."
I said with a sheepish smile, trying not to break down again. "At least we all failed together," to which they only replied with silence.
The sergeants talked for ten minutes after everyone finished, saying false thank you's and good jobs and whatnot. We then ate a much-needed lunch before going back to the barracks. I longed for a nice nap every time I put a spoonful of food in my mouth. I needed a mental reset because I thought it would cure the overbearing tension.
Even my new (but dry) mattress looked appealing when I saw it through the barrack door. I pushed the influx of Eldians entering and immediately jumped onto it. The spring-less cushion never felt so attractive before as my back allowed itself to be sucked into a much-wanted nap. The sweet darkness of nothingness is always something worthwhile going back to.
My nap ended when a quiet story fell upon my ears. I opened my eyes to candlelight, licking the walls, and a group of cadets huddled in the barrack corner. Some other cadets followed my queue from earlier and went to sleep as well, including Viktor and Kurt-they too must have needed a mental reset.
I saw 'the Narrator,' the resident storytelling cadet, moving his arms briskly in front of a small crowd as if playing out the minutiae of a story himself. When first listening, it sounded like he was telling a story about war since he mentioned titan serum a few times.
The narrator narrated with his finger pointing at the ceiling, "Yellow lightning landed from the sky. Ymir's gift was being passed onto another subject."
The following words were the ones that genuinely shocked me.
"Erich landed on the ground, but the lightning fizzled out early. His bones began to ache, and they lengthened. He grew even skinnier until his muscle fibers tore themselves apart." He paused. "He felt like he was on fire, every nerve he had scorched simultaneously."
I smiled briefly while sitting up. It looked like the story made it into the newspaper. It happened to be an antidote to my failure that day, and I felt some soothing relief.
I focused on the mini-audience's reaction. Milo watched while leaning inward as if fully invested in the story. Kurt and Viktor were also sitting down, likely wanting an escape from their failures.
"The mid-east Commander looked down at Erich in shock from above along with his other military officials. Erich's fist-fighting friend, Michael, took advantage of this and ran away even though his hands were still restrained." Kurt and Viktor looked at each other upon hearing "fist-fighter" as if it sounded eerily familiar, then looked at me.
The audience members grew excited when Erich brutally killed the mid-east soldiers on top of the wall as if they had a hero to cheer for. Smile stretched wide across their faces. It seemed like Erich wasn't exclusively in my head anymore, but also in the words of people around me.
When Erich was faced with the decision to kill the titan, the cadets quieted down as if feeling a portion of the emotions themselves but got happy again when the handful of mid-east soldiers died at the hand of the underdog Eldians. They then took deep breaths as if totally drained from it; some looked around as if they forgot where they were.
Milo stood up and complimented while stretching his back. "That's a great story. Where'd you hear it from?"
"Thanks." The narrator replied with a smug smirk. "I actually came up with it myself these past few weeks."
"Really?" Milo and the others stepped back in surprise. Even people sleeping on their bunks clapped along as if they got the end of the story.
I, however, felt a rage even more potent than when I failed my rifle test. It shot through my veins in a matter of seconds.
"You thought it up, huh?" My voice sounded more menacing thanks to it sounding deeper from waking up. I got up from my bed. "You should be careful. I saw it in the newspaper this morning. Looks like someone stole it from you."
The narrator looked startled as I approached. He said, "That's because I sent it to the newspaper."
"You published it in the newspaper? Man, I wish I could do something like that." Milo said, sounding envious.
Viktor retorted. "Shut up, Milo. You'd probably write some story about you marrying Pieck and living in a log cabin." That drew a few chuckles.
"No. You shut up, dumbass. At least I didn't fail my rifle exam." That drew even more laughs. Viktor sat back down, lowering his head.
I returned my attention to the narrator. I tried to contain my rancid fury. "Stop lying!"
He tried to play dumb, staying calm. "I'm not lying."
"I'm the one who wrote it!"
A brief silence followed until Milo scoffed, and everyone laughed. Kurt and Viktor stayed silent. I then ran back to my bed and searched for the draft as evidence in my bag. All I could find was a few rolling papers and a small paper bag of leftover tobacco.
I turned towards the narrator, and he said. "I have proof I wrote it." He walked casually to his bunk and revealed my papers with his stubby fingers. "Look, these are my drafts." His lips curled underneath his stubble beard.
Milo stepped in front of me. "Stop being delusional, Heinrich. This is why you failed the rifle exam too." I shoved him away and put out my hands towards the narrator. The veins around my neck tightened as I seethed my most desperate words. "This is the only damn thing that I did correctly. Don't you dare take it from me!"
I yanked the papers from his grasp and repeated my statement. My whole face boiled. Milo then came rushing towards me and pummeled me to the ground. "You're pushing me, Heinrich? I'm the one that helped you win a few days ago."
"Get off me!" I let go of the papers and clawed onto the ape's head. I positioned my thumbs on his eyes and pressed. He squealed while trying to pry my hands off.
Kurt stepped in. "Heinrich wrote it! The friends in the story are based on our trio."
"That's bullshit." A random cadet said.
"Viktor is the fist-fighter in the group." He paused and twitched. "And I'm the one with the abnormalities." He looked at Viktor and then back at me. "Right, Heinrich?"
I wish I could say the drama got solved right there. But unfortunately, I can't. Kaslow came barging through the door about irrelevant issues, but he first had to comment on Milo and me fighting. "Goddammit! Milo, Heinrich, are you two having sex in here?! Let go of each other!"
I let go of the ape's skull, and we swiftly got up. We all stood in our designated positions, upright and secure. Kaslow continued screeching, "I don't wanna know what the hell was going in here before I came in. But there is something else I wanna know. Why did 30% of you fail the rifle exam?" His eyes dotted about the room.
Everyone kept their mouths shut.
"I need an answer!" Kaslow insisted.
"I don't know, sarge!" A random cadet yelled.
"Of course, you don't know, Hans. You didn't fail." He ceased belting his anger out on everyone and quit his interrogation. "Anyway, for the buffoons that failed, I bought you a second chance to do the test since so many cadets throughout the camp failed." He murmured to himself. "I guess the more people we recruit. The more cowardly daisies we're gonna get."
I almost broke my posture and turned towards Kaslow in shock. He turned back and yelled. "Say thank you!"
"Thank you, Sarge!"
"That wasn't loud enough."
"Thank. You. Sarge!"
"Alright." He slapped Kurt in the face for no reason and walked out.
I floated in the thought of retaking the exam and went to pick up the papers until the narrator came to fight. Thankfully, Kaslow re-entered the barracks with a specific order…just for me. I desperately had to resolve my rifle skills, or I would not be able to become a combat medic on time.