This chapter took longer to write than expected. I think it's because of the strategy/problem-solving I had to do and assign it to the characters.

irosokuyammamato: Great to see you again. You said you're taking notes on my chapter? I have done that with a few novels before haha. It's great to learn how others are writing prose (prose is basically the grammatical structure, paragraph structure, and style of which an author presents their story.)

As for the imaginary Ymir, I guess you're just gonna have to see what happens (or doesn't happen with her) lol.

ikanisfish: Same with me, I have noticed how my family doesn't like to open things up either when it comes to tough subjects. I think that has a lot to do with culture. My family is originally from India, but while going through the American school system, I sampled history from different countries throughout the world. When I learned about WW2, I asked my mother one day what she knew of the holocaust and she knew nothing about it. It's quite interesting how history is taught so differently throughout the globe.

Yes, 1917 is somewhat of an inspiration.

And yes, I have noticed the increase in followers. However, without sounding too negative, I don't think those numbers are representative of who is reading. It's like youtube. You may subscribe to a channel but rarely check out their videos after a while.

An Eldian's Journal

The Tale of 1000 Men

Chapter 48: No Man's Land

Viktor and I stood outside the captain's office in the trench with uneasiness tingling our skin like a swarm of pesky ants. My skin shouted with hairs prickling up, reaching for the clouds. Anxiety swirled in my stomach like the acids were fist-fighting, and as a cherry on top, I felt the need to take a shit again. I am not sure why people have the urge to defecate when feeling nervous, but that is beside the point.

Viktor and I walked back to where Kurt was, trying our best not to stick out to people passing by. We did not want to alarm anyone with what we were doing or about our 'low number' situation. Panic is the last thing you want, especially in soldiers who need to carry out a mission.

After we tip-toed around neighboring soldiers lying on the ground, Viktor asked Kurt to stand up. "Kurt, get up. We need to tell you something."

"You can tell me right here."

I didn't want any more petty arguments, and like the knuckleheads we were, Viktor and I grabbed Kurt by each arm and forced him to stand up. He resisted, of course, but two knuckleheads are much stronger than a freckled carrot.

We pushed Kurt to the quiet part of the trench the wall-keeper introduced to us earlier. As Viktor recited our mission to Kurt, I took the envelope the captain gave us back from him and put it in my sack for safekeeping.

Viktor put his hands out like he was teaching a child. "Okay, Kurt. Heinrich and I just talked to the captain. He gave us a special mission-"

"What special mission?" Kurt interrupted.

"It's an important one-"

"How is it important?" Kurt cut off Viktor again.

"Let me finish!" Viktor took a breath as he threw a irritated look at Kurt. He pulled out a miniature map the captain gave him and described locations. Kurt looked confused why Viktor was teaching him geography, so I stepped in and provided a synopsis of the troops' situation and the mission objective. We didn't have much time to waste, so I kept it short.

Kurt pushed past me and walked away with more energy in his step than usual. I asked him, "Where are you going?"

He looked over his shoulder but kept moving. "I'm starting the mission. What are you guys still standing there for?"

Viktor and I looked at each other before returning to Kurt. I said firmly, "This is just for me and Viktor."

Kurt's boots stopped their progression. I stared at the footprints, feeling too guilty for the truth to meet Kurt's eyes head-on. Alas, I stared at his freckled face as his focus hopped between Viktor and me until he stammered, "I have to come."

Viktor stated, "No, you don't. You'll just drag us down."

"I'll be your strategy man. You need one of those to plan out the journey."

"Heinrich can already read maps well."

Kurt's eyes landed on mine, and I could see the begging forming with the slight opening of his mouth. "Uhh," he mumbled in confusion. "Just because you can read a map, doesn't mean you know how to handle a situation. I'm the most logical one out of us three." The entire tone of the plea contradicted the 'logical' statement.

He finally asserted with his voice stretching into a verbal jab, "I'm the calmest of us three."

I asked, "are you calm and level headed now?"

Kurt paused and looked around haphazardly once more before saying, "I'm not going to sit here while you two risk your lives and get to do something great." He came closer, "I want to be useful."

"You always say that," I shot back, irritated. "I want to be useful. I want to be useful. I want to be useful." I realized how rude I sounded and tried to convey my respect for my friend, "Listen, Kurt. Remember what that doctor said during the physical examinations? If you die, it will not be a titan's fault or bullet's fault. It'll be my fault for letting you join. How can I in good conscience allow you to go through with this?"

"This is not about you! This is not about some future guilt—"

I fumed, "it's not about you either! It's not about you trying to be useful! It's about giving these troops a fighting chance!" I remembered that getting angry never helps persuade someone and quieted down. "I'm sorry, Kurt. I couldn't let you join even if I wanted to. This is a Captain's order, afterall."

Viktor and I walked past Kurt, but in the last second, a firmness grappled my wrist, and I turned to see Kurt's pained expression. It tugged my heart even stronger than the most beautiful lines of tragic poetry. He made one last plea, "please." I jerked my arm away, but I felt the sting of ripping off a bandage.

Viktor and I plodded away without looking back. If we looked back, we would find guilt back there along with extra weight, which was molded in the form of a human. Unfortunately, this weight had a soul, making it all the more difficult to drop. We then walked through the pathway where we initially waited, and I looked back once to see what Kurt was doing.

While Kurt squeezed through the resting soldiers, he muttered spitefully, "I'm just returning to my spot."

"Good. We'll be back soon, okay?" I whispered, loud enough that it sounded like a restrained shout.

Viktor and I stashed rations in our bags and filled our bottles with magically purified water. I didn't know the methods of filtration used, but for all we knew, those chef soldiers could have filtered the water through their unbrushed mouths. It quenched my thirst satisfactorily, either way. Afterward, we squirmed through the rest of the maze and shoved through the soldiers like they were decrepit, blades of grass.

A lieutenant laid on a bunk, and a few underlings played cards on spare sandbags nearby. Next to them was a ladder—one of the only few these trenches had. We needed to climb that to get to a starting point the captain suggested, where the barbed wire would be the least intrusive.

Viktor climbed a few rungs until the lieutenant woke from his slumber, "Oi! What do you lads think you're doing?"

I assumed the Captain would have already told the significant people like him, so I briefly mentioned. "We are going on the mission, sir."

"And what mission is that?"

I winced in puzzlement, "the mission to get reinforcements from the Cullens, currently under Commander Magath's command. I thought you would have heard about this, sir."

"Do you think I get the news from the captain's office as soon as they think it up? We don't get telephone calls here."

I gave the lieutenant the letter as proof. His eyes skimmed the page with a cynicism that could burn the page. He raised his voice, "you two are combat medics and they're sending you out. What the bloody hell is this?" He grumbled, "I don't understand a damn thing that goes on around here."

After some more cynical conversation, the lieutenant let Viktor and I pass. He went back to his bunk to lie down and play cards with his subordinates. Maybe he was content that he would never see Viktor and me again.

I grabbed one ladder rung after Viktor climbed out. My heart sprinted a kilometer with each step as I slowly ascended out of one unfamiliar structure to enter unfamiliar territory. Sweat lubricated my palms like oil as my toes stiffened on each rung.

I can't begin to tell you what I felt while standing above that ladder, on the edge of trenches. My devilish adrenaline spiked for a momentary sensory boost as I observed the wide plane laid out like a moldy mattress. Instead of the bed containing feathers, it contained barbed wire which stuck out and decorated the field like carnivorous bushes that carried skewered horses and poorly preserved humans. Eldian bands sprinkled the place like deprived leaves.

My feeling of awe for this extended field was corrupted by the impurities lying around, and I encountered the urge to climb back down the ladder. However, I swallowed it. I recognized that my surroundings were the natural consequences of large-scale conflict and tried to look away. Yet, I couldn't. These surroundings pulled me in like the teasing curves of a woman, oddly enough, but that is the lustful nature of terror.

I finally tore my focus away and looked to the clouds. They looked constipated with their bland grey. At least they would be decent wherever I go. I just hoped they wouldn't fart on us with its thunder since the battlefield was bad enough.

Viktor didn't spend much time focusing on the surroundings and moved away from me. His steps grew in pace. It was as if the uncomfortable settings fueled his determination greater than his goal for the future—the intent to stir up civilians in the internment zone and leave those walls.

I picked up my pace to catch up, "Viktor, why are you walking so quickly?"

"What do you mean 'why?'" he asked. "We need to get this mission done properly. I know it seems like I'm kissing up to the officials for some recognition, but we would need awards in the internment zone so people will listen to us."

"I'm not talking about that," my words crashed when I took a glimpse of a moving bush formed of flies. "We have to lie low."

"I'm not going to crawl."

Viktor's carelessness began to show, but I ignored it. "I'm not asking you to crawl. Just hunch over a little bit and keep your center of gravity low."

Viktor groaned and did as I said. If the mid-eastern frontline was about 230 meters from our trenches, someone from that distance could spot us walking with binoculars. I had confusion about who was there, however. I'm sure there were machine guns positioned in preparation to tear us apart, but the sudden change in mission still puzzled me.

I told Viktor my concern. "I can't tell if those mid-east people are waiting for us there or not."

"I don't think they're there right now."

"Why do you think that?"

"Originally with the sarge's orders, the Captain must have thought our troops could storm in while the mid-easterners were preparing to retreat. However, he must have realized later that if all the mid-easterners already left, this could end up as an ambush on us if we keep moving in." He paused. "I'm not surprised the captain only recognized the possibility of a trap a little while ago. This place is run by clowns."

"That makes sense, but be careful saying they're clowns. You may get some bad luck from that." I said dryly, "maybe even Kurt will show up out of nowhere. He was a clown once after all."

Viktor gave a reserved, "yeah." The word itself sounded depressed and needed medication. Viktor must have still felt guilty about leaving Kurt.

As we kept moving, the scenery of no man's land continued to evolve. Gaping holes revealed themselves with humans sleeping and wearing each other's dead bodies as blankets. Uniforms laid around like papers that were blown by the wind. Small, colorless, and leafless shrubs had the nerve to usurp nature's resources while everything else lay in eternal sleep. That is until they all get rattled in another battle. In that case, they would be like dirty dishes overstaying their welcome on a table.

I stared at my hands, regretting not taking a rifle earlier when I had a chance, but there were more than enough rifles lying around to make up for it. Another concern came to my mind, and I asked Viktor, who was still moving ahead of me. "Should we go around those enemy trenches?"

"We would lose a lot of time if we went around them. This is not like a playground we can easily walk around."

"We could also lose our lives if we walk in there."

Viktor turned and opened his mouth to make a rebuttal, but his finger did the talking instead. It raised to something in the sky, and he hurriedly said a one-syllable word.

***AN UNEXPECTED OBJECT***

Plane

I couldn't hear the plane's propeller hum, but the image of the metal bird started as a speck of sand that itched through the blanket of clouds. Viktor and I wasted no time and sprinted away.

"Shit!" Viktor shouted.

"Where do we go?! Where do we go?!" I asked anxiously, without care if any enemies heard me.

"I don't know!"

Adrenaline spiked once more, and my perception heightened. However, my memory of those moments is a blur as a tradeoff. I remember navigating between potholes and debris like an obstacle course.

I was doing quite well until Viktor tripped on a rock and crashed into the ground. I helped him up, and we slid into a crater with a stranded tank that created a ledge for us to hide underneath.

I took deep breaths underneath the shadow the tank provided to calm myself down and Viktor did the same. However, I grew weary of a rotten scent emanating from somewhere. I searched what was near me to find a soldier wrapped in a cocoon of barbed wire. This deceased man yanked my breath out of me.

The soldier's eyelids were still open, and his eyes looked into a world not of our own. The snake-like barbed wire he wore posthumously constricted to no end, even worse than a corset. The spikes poked him like vengeful needles. He was one of the kills the battlefield must have made a while back without even an enemy soldier getting in the way.

Nausea gripped my stomach faster than a bullet reaps a soul. I breathed through my mouth to avoid smelling the expired body that still hadn't been decomposed. Viktor covered his mouth, trying to stop a shriek.

My body curled in a fetus position. I wanted to hide from this smell, this plane, and this world. I buckled underneath this want.

I simply looked to the sky to see if the plane would drop a bomb on us as an unwanted gift. After a few seconds of staring, the metal bird fueled by gasoline and anger passed by like a watchful eagle. It left us alone. It was a Marleyan plane.

A laugh curled underneath my tongue beside unsaid words.

All that worry for a Marleyan plane?

Viktor and I stayed frozen for a few minutes, still absorbing what had transpired. Maybe I was overacting, but my hands wavered as I tried to raise myself and I sat back down.

"We have to leave, Heinrich. We can't keep wasting time." Viktor continued tugging at my shoulder.

"Yeah, we have to leave, Heinrich." The freckled carrot I spent four months with in a stupid camp poked his frame into my vision. He came around the stinking corpse while plugging his nose.

I stood up immediately, as did Viktor, but I accidentally bumped into him, and his hand landed on a barbed wire spike. Viktor shrieked and said while gripping his hand, "Goddammit, Kurt! Why the hell did you scare us like that? And why are you out here?!" I wanted to ask the same thing.

Kurt looked prepared to provide a list of answers to this, but he pulled out a bandage from his satchel after putting a rifle down and rushed to Viktor. He applied an antiseptic and wrapped the bandage around Viktor's palm while Viktor stared, dumbfounded.

Kurt said, "you would be dead without me, Viktor. I'm sure you two didn't pack bandages, morphine, antiseptics, or anything like that."

"Okay, you got us on that one. We are bad medics," I said hurriedly, trying to get to the point. "But you didn't answer Viktor's question. Why are you here?"

"I already told you before why I want to go on this mission."

"How did you find us? I don't think Viktor and I were too loud."

Kurt finished wrapping the bandages and urged us to keep moving. I guess you could say Kurt's surprise appearance was a saving grace to my mental state at that moment. He wasn't my guardian angel per se, but more of a twitching devil.

We all left the area near the tank and continued our progression. Kurt took the front-most position, which was quite uncharacteristic for the guy, as Viktor and I trailed behind him. Nonetheless, he provided his methods of finding us while steering towards the mid-east front line.

Kurt explained. "I approached a lieutenant by the least barbed portion of the trenches. I expected you guys talked to him already, so I told him I was the backup person carrying supplies. I expected you guys rushed out quickly and might not have enough first aid supplies in case anything goes downhill."

Viktor sounded offended. "You assumed Heinrich and I was unprepared? You have some great confidence in us, don't you?"

"You guys apparently have great confidence in me as well," Kurt replied with sarcasm. "Anyway, we are missing a telegram system and powerlines so the communication is poor from the center of the trenches with the captain to the outside ones with the lieutenant. I took advantage of that. Also, the lieutenant didn't know the number of people required for this job so he didn't stop me from joining." He paused, "after complaining about medics being used as messengers, he gave me a flare gun that may come of use."

"You really thought that through," I said, feeling stupid for not thinking proactively enough. "I'm still not confident in you being here."

"I just helped, Viktor. You guys need me, you see. If one of us is missing, it just doesn't feel right."

I chuckled at Kurt's sudden ego, but I had one more question to ask the boy. "But how did you know what path we were taking?"

"You guys were discrete with your steps. I couldn't see your footprints quite clearly especially since the soil in this part of the world is dry. I just followed your bickering instead. This no man's land we're walking on is no park, so I was sure the sounds I heard were from you two because you're the only alive ones here."

"We get it, Kurt," Viktor sounded agitated. "You're smart. Now, can we please focus on the mission?"

"Gladly."

The beauty I found in Kurt's being was not in his face. He wasn't the most handsome boy in the world. We all knew the 'what' (materials) and the 'how' (methods) to complete the mission, but Kurt had the strongest 'why' pushing him beyond what I thought he was capable of. He had the strongest reason. It's interesting how far people go to gain the approval and respect of others. Frankly, as I was a servant to my curiosities in people, he was a servant to always trying to be helpful.

After a few more minutes of prowling, I brought back an important question. "So, are we going to cross these trenches or walk around them?"

"I'm not so sure about that…." Kurt gave a short explanation similar to what Viktor said about crossing these trenches and possibly leading ourselves to an ambush. He added a new thing: "there seems to be some light fog coming in, so our visibility will be affected. I thought this place would be sunny most of the time, but of course, our luck is non-existent. Anyway, I say we go around and try to find a Marleyan train or some transport to make up for the time."

I nodded in agreement, "let's do that."

Viktor got annoyed, "oh, so you'll listen when Kurt says it, but you won't listen to me, huh?"

"I'm sorry, but you don't seem to have a great track record."

"What track record? This is our first mission." Viktor took a deep breath, "whatever, I know we are going to do this right." I respected Viktor's resolve and confidence, so much so I am still jealous of him for it.

We took a few seconds to observe our map and noticed that the mid-east front line was too long to go around. We would burn through a lot of time taking over-precautionary action.

Kurt turned the map upside down and reiterated something we already knew. "We are at a loss for information. The captain relied on faulty information to plan the original attack, and he relied on faulty information again when sending you two out here."

Viktor added, "what if the mid-easterners are long gone by now, but they left traps in the trenches so that our clueless troops would storm in like idiots and get killed in the rubble?"

Kurt responded, "hmm. That could be quite useful for us since we are only three people instead of one thousand. We could evade those traps."

Viktor objected, "but there is really no way of knowing. What if we walk in and the mid-easterners are sitting in dugouts and rooms, waiting to kill us?"

I replied, "I don't know." I wish I had something helpful to contribute to this strategy talk.

Kurt snapped his fingers but then frowned. "I have a really screwed-up idea."

Viktor replied, squatting as if he was tired of standing. "This is war. I'm sure you can't say anything more horrible than what's already happened."

Kurt shrugged. "We could use the dead bodies as bait."

"Yeah," Viktor nodded. "That's pretty screwed up."

I simply said, "elaborate," curious to know what our mastermind cooked up.

"Okay," Kurt reached for a branch and drew in the soil while explaining his thoughts. "If we launched dead bodies to the mid-east front line, there's a possibility that enemy soldiers would shoot them on instinct. If we hear gunshots, we will know that they are there. Maybe then, we could get a read on what's happening. Also, this fog could provide good cover for us." Kurt looked up at me and read my face, "what's wrong, Heinrich?"

"Nothing, it's just that we are strategizing in no man's land which is the least safe place on a battlefield."

"You mean, Kurt and I are strategizing. I haven't heard you add anything useful yet," Viktor kidded. He must have noticed how rude that sounded and said, "I'm just joking. Anyway, you're right. We'll position ourselves somewhere else."

The boys and I moved to a crater to stay out of view. Kurt kept staring at the map as my eyes wandered the field. I looked at the occasional stacks of corpses and wondered how us puny combat medics could fling those dozens of yards to the front-line. My eyes then grazed on the tank we saw earlier. An idea bubbled to the front of my mind.

"I have an idea," I said. Kurt lifted his focus from the map and twitched. I continued, "we could fire the bodies using tanks."

Viktor looked away, and I saw his shoulders shaking as if he was trying to laugh out of my sight. "I'm sorry, Heinrich. That's something I would come up with. That's not a compliment."

Kurt scolded Viktor and continued. "That tank we saw earlier is our best bet at the moment. We don't have a catapult or anything that makes less noise."

Viktor ceased his mockery and asked, "wait, we're seriously going through with this?"

I asked, annoyed by Viktor's attitude so far, "do you have any better ideas?"

"No, but how are you going to fire bodies from a tank? It's not like ammo that you can insert in a barrel."

I mumbled, "that's a fair point."

Viktor started swearing and itching his ears as if there was an insect in there. But he took a deep breath and did his best to summon a leader's voice that had a baritone that I hadn't expected before. "How about we just fire a regular tank round. That would definitely get attention."

I responded, finally getting a groove on the situation. "Viktor, if enemy troops were over there and we fire a large explosive, then we would be getting a whole onslaught of their ammunition."

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"Yes, not getting ourselves killed in the first hour of our mission." I looked to Kurt next, "did you find any cannons earlier? Maybe we can stick a body in there and load all the gunpowder from the guns lying around to fire it."

"That sounds…too cruel," Kurt muttered, avoiding my gaze.

"It also doesn't sound aerodynamic," Viktor retorted. "I don't think people fly well and I still can't believe we are seriously thinking about launching human bodies."

I started itching my hair due to the heat of the stress and the heat of the day. The overwhelming thoughts cooked me from the inside out like poison with a slow burn.

Kurt's focus sharpened on something past Viktor's body outside the crater and reached for it. It was a stick grenade. After picking it up, he opened his satchel and looked disappointed. "My bag is really full right now. Do you guys have a space to fit it?"

I opened my bag to find a decent amount of room, and I grabbed the stick grenade. When I tried pulling it, Kurt's grip stayed firm, and I grew confused, "Kurt? What are you doing?"

A cunning smile stretched out but stopped before it got too unhinged. "I have another idea."

Viktor rolled his eyes. "Does this involve throwing people?"

"Throwing grenades actually."

I responded, "I thought you said explosives are a bad idea."

"Large explosives like canon and tank rounds are a bad idea, but something milder like grenades may not be as alarming. Plus, they would be easier to swing across than people."

I added, "I don't think any of us have the arm strength to throw them dozens of yards."

"We have to optimize what we have." Kurt paused. "Have any of you played lacrosse before?"

Viktor and I shook our heads, and Kurt added, "neither have I. But do you know how those athletes use sticks? Flinging these stick grenades with a long stick with running momentum behind it may give it some distance."

I started to laugh. It began as a slight chuckle, but it expanded like how a flame grows. It wasn't out of mockery but instead hopelessness. "Only we could seriously consider flinging human bodies as distractions, then use sports as an inspiration. What the hell are we doing out here?"

Viktor's face softened, and he gave me steady eye contact, "it's too early to lose our minds now." He looked to Kurt. "Come on. Let's find some grenades and a long stick."

The next few minutes played out as a tough hide and seek game where the boys and I sought materials in dead people's satchels. The grenades themselves were pretty easy to find. We only needed two since our pathetic logic deemed that a safer option to test if people were in the mid-east front line or not.

Ironically, the poles were the hardest to find.

Viktor groaned, "you'd think a long stick would be easy to find in the outdoors."

Kurt answered while kicking a shrub. "They would be easy to find if were in Marley, but this place is a totally different climate. There are only dead shrubs in our vicinity right now."

I began to think outside of the box. Branches would be challenging to come across, but guns, on the other hand, were ripe for picking like rotten strawberries on a field. I thought somehow attaching two together could make up a long stick. I told the boys about this, and we went on a brief search for firearms.

I came across a body that held onto a rifle like it was his teddy bear. I grabbed the rifle stock and pulled it, so I didn't have to directly unravel the person's grasp from the barrel. Oddly enough, a severed hand came attached with the rifle even as I pulled it. No one wants to touch cold hands.

"Sorry," I said on reflex. I felt like the grim reaper, walking around expired bodies.

Viktor found another rifle, and Kurt found a roll of bandages. I attached the rifles lengthwise with some bandages and used another portion to hold the stick grenades together. I used the last bit of the roll to attach the rifles to the grenades' firing pins so the latter would get pulled in mid-swing and the grenades would launch.

I almost felt proud of my on-the-spot thinking. Almost.

Kurt asked while eyeing the newly created apparatus, "so who's going to use this is?"

No one volunteered. No one wanted to be the one to blame if this idea screwed up. Alas, we played an advanced game to decide who would do this.

***A GAME***

Viktor said with a stone-cold look, "let's play rock paper scissors."

I almost dropped the tool, "you've got to be kidding me."

"Kidding you, I am not."

I set my handmade "grenade-launcher" on the ground, and the boys and I gathered for a three-way game of rock paper scissors in the middle of disputed territory, surrounded by tragedy. We really were an exciting trio…were.

We said the usual chant, "Rock. Paper. Scissor. Shoot!" Whoever won the first game got eliminated, and the loser of the match between the final two became the grenade launcher user.

I'm sure you can guess my fate in this game.

That's correct. I became the "grenade launcher" user, and everything was placed on my unbroadened shoulders.

"Dammit…" I said while looking off into the light curtain of fog.

"No pressure," Kurt shrugged. In an attempt to increase my confidence, Viktor gave me a handshake. Not the boring one politicians do after scratching their asses and spitting on their hands. I'm talking about the one where you fit your thumb in the 'V' of the other person's hand and wrap your other fingers around the base of their thumb. (That was too complicated.)

Either way, I experienced a fleeting sense of solidarity from my chocolate-haired friend—my first friend in Section F. His brown eyes carried a simple gleam, or that may have just been some moisture from restrained tears.

The boys backed away, and I picked up the "grenade-launcher," making sure the bandages that connected the rifles were sturdy. I then walked to a clear stretch of ground and took a deep breath to hone in on that moment. The last thing you want to be doing is imagine all the things that could go wrong but haven't happened yet.

I gripped the "grenade-launcher," probably hard enough to choke someone's throat, and raised it to rest on my right shoulder. I looked back at the boys one last time, holding onto an inkling of a hope that they would bring up a more polished idea.

Silence. Their smiles spoke a thousand words.

I looked ahead and gritted my teeth to ignite a little ferocity in me, something I could channel to get as good of a swing as possible.

I started running, utilizing my peripheral vision to check on stones and rubble that could trip me up. When I reached a good speed where my legs felt comfortable, I held the tools tight and swung. I yelled with a fury that was charged by months of hardship and worry.

I did my duty.

I looked up slightly to view the trajectory of the grenades. To my surprise, they were nowhere to be found in the air. I then looked a few meters in front of me to see the grenades lying with their fuses still burning. I stood in striking distance.

I bolted back to my friends and screamed, "Get back! Get back!"

Everything was a blur. The grenades roared with greater fury than I could ever muster, and the explosion threw me off balance, knocking me into a crater.

I fell unconscious…

When I roused awake again, Kurt's words blended together like an alphabet soup that I couldn't comprehend. A stinging sensation occupied my neck, and I could only make out two words from what Kurt said: "morphine" and "burns." My eardrums rang like an unsettling, relentless buzz that sang without harmony—it only sang with notes of blood.

Kurt wrinkled his eyebrows in tension and tried lifting my upper body up to do something. I bit my tongue to jolt myself fully awake, to no avail, but Kurt lifting me sent a shock of pain through my tender back. I yelped. My attention was like a shattered glass with false sensibility, and I couldn't capture the entire picture of what was happening. I experienced the world through a kaleidoscope of madness.

Was this the infamous shell-shock condition?

I heard gunshots next that rang like screeches in a cave, and Kurt shifted his gaze over to something else. He yelled, "Viktor! What are you doing?!" Kurt looked back at me and almost sounded like a soothing mother, "I'll be back, Heinrich. I need to stop our stupid friend."

Kurt set me down, and he went off to stop Viktor from whatever he was doing. Even with my fractured thinking, I wondered if the enemies were coming to murder us.

My thinking started repairing as Kurt appeared in my vision again with two blurry versions of him fighting for my attention—he really was a guardian angel. I then felt a sharp sensation in my thigh. That must have been a morphine injection. Viktor kneeled next to me but looked back in the direction of the mid-east front-line. We all then stayed still as if expecting to hear more sounds.

I grabbed for Viktor's face and tapped his cheek. I asked with a newly withered voice, "am I okay, Viktor?" He looked back at me, and my words watered down into tears, "I can't die yet, guys."

Viktor said adamantly, "Heinrich, you're not going to die! Stop talking so loud."

"But I'm bleeding."

"No one's bleeding! Shut up!" Viktor covered my mouth and tried honing in something, likely the enemies.

Perhaps, at that moment, I could have died without even understanding what went wrong with my swing. Without even understanding what would be the fate of the mission. Without even understanding the deceit and beauty of the people I was stolen from. I accepted that thought like rich honey as it dissolved into me patiently, unlike the morphine that surged through my veins.

Did I jump to conclusions too quickly with that? Yes, I believe so.

Kurt looked back at me, and he shook his head like a loose screw as if he couldn't believe what had happened. He said, "we're taking you back to our trenches."

I responded, "wait. I still don't understand what happened. How come the grenades didn't fly over?"

"The firing pins probably got pulled too late so the grenades may have launched later than expected. They landed too close to you."

I was about to ask something else, but Kurt shushed me and said, "no more questions. We're taking you back."

"No!" my thoughts fit together coherently, finally. "I'm not leaving."

"You're delusional. You got hit the worst out of all of us, and we don't have enough painkillers for you to push through the pain."

"No!" I refuted. "I'm not going to be the useless one." I raised my back up once more and pushed through my disorientation like it was a person restraining me. I shoved Kurt's arm off me and set my hands on the ground to lift myself up.

While looking down at Viktor and Kurt, I reiterated, "I'm not going to be the useless one."

Kurt bolted up, "that's what I said, but you left me in those trenches anyway."

Viktor got up and stopped the argument before it escalated. "We don't have time for this drama. No one retaliated to the explosion which means no one is in the mid-east front line."

I asked. "Then who fired those bullets?"

Viktor sighed. "That was me. I was frustrated that you got hurt and I fired that rifle randomly."

"Idiot," Kurt seethed. "What would we have done if there were people there and you fired at them through some of the fog?"

Viktor left the question unanswered and started looking for something. I asked, "what are you looking for?"

He responded, "a stretcher so we can get you out of here."

"For the last time, I am staying with you two," I barred myself from yelling. In an effort to push the guys along, I picked up my satchel with belongings and broke off a rifle from the "grenade-launcher" tool that had been lying on the ground. The magazine was still full.

I could tell precisely where the grenades landed due to a freshly created crater. The explosives scooped the Earth uncleanly like it was a tub of expired ice cream.

I forced my lips shut and walked past the crater to show my friends that I was serious about continuing. Aside from a few missteps here and there, I stepped fine. The ringing in my ears also lessened, and it seemed like I avoided shell-shock in its rawest form.

I licked death and spat it out. It wasn't my time yet to face it.

XXX

The boys and I approached the mid-east front line. Kurt insisted that I return to the Marleyan trenches, but I only met him with silence.

Despite expecting no enemies to be in the front-line, my friends and I kept a hunched stance and a low center of gravity. We wanted to be careful as possible, especially after our botched strategy. We even stopped talking, but I can reason that to be their disappointment in me on top of being discreet.

A line of sandbags revealed themselves in my visibility, and I knew right then that a checkpoint of our mission was lingering at the edges of my vision. The boys and I grew alert and disassembled from our single-file line into a row.

The rustles of our uniforms became the singular sound that prevented a complete silence; yet, the general calm made me wonder if the world was hiding some secrets from me. I didn't need silence to know that was true, though.

Viktor reached the trench edge first and held his gun head level. He motioned Kurt with a nod to move in first, and Kurt slid down the nearly vertical slope into the pathway while holding his materials up.

Viktor cursed and whispered. "Actually, Kurt. Come back up. If we can hop between the ledges, over the pathways, maybe we can avoid any traps."

Kurt went along with this idea, and he threw his rifle over the edge to me. When he struggled to lift himself out of the trench, I grabbed his hands and pulled him up.

Viktor whispered again, "pick up as many stones you can and put them in your pockets. We can activate landmines at a distance with them." We did as Viktor told us, and my legs carried another weight in addition to my pained torso. I prepared myself to jump across pathways like how an adventurous thief and flying men (if they exist) hop between buildings.

Viktor hopped across first, and a few of his stones dropped from his pockets. I backed away in case the petit rocks triggered a bomb, which they thankfully didn't. Kurt and I followed next without much struggle.

These trenches were a crossword puzzle much like the Marleyan one, and I took a few seconds to observe any differences. It was silly to expect any in the first place, however. The stray guns still looked like guns, and some curved swords were lying around, but there was no sign of unique culture anywhere. Who cares about culture when you're busy protecting yourself from a bloodthirsty Eldian and his Marleyan oppressors?

These trenches appeared deserted except for a dog resting in a pathway a few meters below us. This was a stupid place for a mutt, but I remembered from my training that they can alert if trespassers are around. I even saw one in the Marleyan trenches and tried to pet it before it bit my fingers.

We needed to avoid waking the dog in the mid-east trenches at all costs.

Viktor noticed the mutt and said while looking down the length of a rifle he stole. "I'm going to kill it."

"No," I pushed down his rifle. "It's not doing anything wrong."

"If we wake it up, it's going to bark like crazy. We don't need that."

I looked to Kurt to play as the tie-breaker. "What do you think, Kurt?"

Kurt stared at the dog as if its cuteness hypnotized him. He said, "let's leave it alone."

Viktor submitted to the majority opinion and eyed the next portion of the trenches we could jump to. He took a stone and tossed it onto the area. Thankfully, nothing exploded, but I began to question our methodology. I wasn't sure if the mines were advanced enough to recognize pressure since the ones I knew required tripwires.

I brought up the previous point to Kurt, and he replied, "I didn't think of that. The mid-easterners likely expect everyone to walk in the pathways below us for their traps to work. If there are traps, at least."

The boys and I continued with our jumping. I felt like a frog, but the only difference between me and an actual one is that I don't like to eat flies. On the other hand, Kurt was the least qualified to be a frog. After a few successful jumps, we encountered the center pathways with the greatest width. Viktor and I cleared it fine, but Kurt's foot landed too close to an edge, and he slipped into the path. He yelled, "help!" like someone falling down a well.

I pulled Kurt back up onto ground level and asked, "are you okay?"

Kurt replied darkly while wincing, "I'm never okay."

"I hope we didn't wake that dog up." To negate that statement came a single consonant sound people can make if they try hard enough—a bark. We had awakened the mighty, four-legged demon that can be cute on occasion.

Viktor cursed and said, "I told you guys we should have killed it."

Kurt added, "it's not too big. I doubt it's that dangerous."

"Think about it. If there are trip wires set up around here, that mutt could set them off."

"These mid-easterners are smarter than I thought," Kurt responded, brushing off his knees.

"Anyone is smarter than us," I stated. I had adopted a cynical outlook worse than that lieutenant in a matter of minutes.

"Let's outrun this dog," Viktor said, preparing to jump over another pathway in this extravagant maze.

The barks intensified in volume and frequency, but I didn't wait to watch it claw a wall below us. I followed Viktor for an extreme chase that I'm sure no soldier in this petty war has done in a set of trenches.

***A STUPID CHASE***

A sweaty mutt and sweaty trenches

Vs

Three even sweatier lads

The humid wind combed my hair as gravity grabbed my ankles and pulled me down with each jump over the pathways. I bit through the impact shock of my feet landing on jagged rocks that were even more jagged than Kaslow's teeth. I thought my adrenaline couldn't spike higher than it already had, but this running and jumping gave me a thrill that felt so invigorating. I could have been an obstacle course master.

I looked at Viktor in front of me. His satchel hopped up and down with his body, and his rifle looked like a broken spear by his side. He was doing well, too, even when he had awkward slip-ups here and there.

The trench exit crawled closer and closer in my visibility, yet it felt so far. So much could happen in the dozens of meters between it and me— I could twist my ankle—the stupid mutt could bite my leg—ten bombs could go off—I could experience shell shock in its raw form. All of these were possibilities.

I made one glance back to see how Kurt was doing. His hops had the bare minimal thrust to get him across and nothing more, but his stamina was weak. I could see it with how his body folded into every impact instead of bracing himself with his legs.

Turning around was a stupid idea, unfortunately. You can glance over your shoulder when riding a bike or a car, but when you're using your own two legs to move somewhere, you must focus on where you are heading. When I looked forward again, I ended up tripping on a large stone, and all the little rocks in my pocket dug into my thigh, causing a sharp ache. I protected my head by landing on my forearm.

"Heinrich!" Kurt called.

'We're almost out of here,' I thought as I tried lifting myself up. I threw out all the rocks from my pocket since they weighed me down anyway.

Kurt caught up to me, and I told him, "I think we can make it."

"Yeah."

Nope. That dirty mutt had other ideas.

Like you are used to in this journal, random bullshit happens when random bullshit wants to happen. Instead of explosives falling from the sky and having to hide in a bone-chilling basement surrounded by poison and even more poisonous humans, an explosion bloomed as a carnivorous flower mere meters behind us. The malignant cloud plumed as the shrapnel-like wood and stone launched outward as serrated petals.

I covered Kurt with my body as some stray rubble hit my back. I expected a bombardment of agony but only faced some mild discomfort since we were farther from this explosion than the grenades from before. I've heard sentences that stung worse.

I waited for a few seconds until standing up again and lifting Kurt up. He shook my soldiers, "are you okay?" He looked to where the explosion happened, "looks like that dog tripped on a tripwire."

"I'm fine. Let's keep moving."

Kurt and I caught up with Viktor. My mind was consumed with getting out of the trenches alive, so I couldn't have sympathy for things that didn't have sympathy for me. And with that, I didn't care that the mutt from before could be dismembered horribly by something its own masters laid.

The rest of the jumping carried along similarly. A few other dogs showed up, and the little demons activated two other explosives, but we made it through those safely.

When reaching the exit, my lungs somehow pounded as fast as my heart. A sense of relief wrapped me like a warm, human hug as I used a sandy dirt wall to keep me upright as my lungs calmed down. The boys' reacted a similar way. They drowned in relief instead of water.

"We lucked out," Kurt said after consuming all the air his faulty lungs could bolster. "Imagine if all of our troops came in here and activated all the traps. We only hit a few."

"Looks like that Captain did think in advance about this." Viktor grabbed for his water bottle and took a few gulps to only cough half of it out. He wiped his mouth with a sleeve. "What's next?"

I lamented. "Come on, we just evaded like four explosions in an hour, and you're already wondering what's next? Actually, I don't know how long it's been since we met that lieutenant."

"We can't just stop. This is war." Kurt replied, but he looked to the side as if rethinking his statement. "Actually, we have to anticipate where mid-east troops are right now." Kurt collapsed onto the moisture-deprived ground and rummaged through his satchel for the map. "If they aren't in these trenches, they must be in a village re-stocking while expecting us to get blown up in their traps."

Viktor whined, "where are these mid-east bastards? Why does none of this make sense?"

Kurt stared at the map and answered, "this is their home turf so they are taking advantage of how unfamiliar we are with their territory."

"Well, is there a general direction we should head in now?" I asked, checking through my satchel to ensure I still had the envelope and Mr. Kruger's journal.

Kurt thought out loud, "we are lacking details on just where the mid-east troops are but also where other Marleyan troops are aside from the Cullens. We need to travel—"

"How about we travel in disguise?" Viktor interjected. "I'm sure we can find some stray mid-east uniforms around here so they won't shoot at us."

"The enemy will be able to tell we're Eldian or at least Marleyan from our skin tone. Plus, the actual Marleyans may get confused and shoot us as well, thinking we're traitors. It just won't work."

"What do you want from me?" Viktor shouted, "we aren't professional strategists here."

"Even if we had professional strategists, I don't know we would do that great," I said. "Anyway, what can we do now?".

"Stay alert, I guess." Kurt said unconvincingly while shrugging his shoulders.

Viktor shook his head slightly as if not satisfied. He then mouthed something to himself before mentioning something unrelated. "Did we ever take a minute to think what we would do if the grenades worked properly and we did get a signal that people are here."

Silence.

I said simply, "we would be dead since we would have pissed of hundreds of soldiers."

Kurt scratched his scalp, likely also annoyed by the heat. "We lucked out big time. Anyway, I need a break from all this strategizing. I can actually feel my brain overcooking."

"We can just face the soldiers as we meet them," Viktor sighed. "Let's get going." He then tapped his pants briefly, making sure he had everything.

Kurt and I nodded in agreement.

"One more thing, actually." Viktor added as he observed remnants of smoke hovering. "We need to make a pact."

"What pact?" I asked.

"A pact we will swear to where we all agree to kill mid-east soldiers on sight." This seemed rather basic, but as you'll see in the following chapters, killing has a learning curve in how it makes you feel, rather than the act of killing itself.

Kurt scratched his chin, "what happens if we break the pact."

"Whoever breaks the pact must give up their food rations to the ones who stick with it."

"This is stupid," I said, not even trying to hide my thoughts on it. "But I'll go with it."

"Are we shaking hands?" Kurt asked, confused about the logistics. "Are we using paper?"

"No," Viktor handed us a sly smile, "blood pact."

I said openly, "I'm not doing that. You can steel my blood after I'm dead, but not right now, please. I'm busy using mine right now."

"I'm just kidding," Viktor's smile became more responsible, "let's tap our rifles together."

I picked up the rifle I had stolen from a hand. That's right. Just a hand was attached to it. We all tapped our rifles together like tapping shot glasses and saying cheers.

We said simultaneously, "let's do this." An edge was in all our voices, a roughness like someone rubbed our vocal chords down with sandpaper enough. Nonetheless, we were going to do our damn hardest to succeed. After all, we survived no man's land and solved a crossword puzzle that most would call enemy trenches. You're never going to find soldiers like us.

Checkpoint one, complete.