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The Diary of A Young Girl

By Ymir Fritz

Entry #12

The relentless angst of these war-ridden times would be excruciatingly draining for an ordinary person to observe. I, however, have seen many perspectives of these armed conflicts to numb redundancy. For that reason, I jumped ahead of Heinrich's life to a time when he occupied the streets with little more than the rags on his back. Dignity preservation did not restrain him as it did for everyday people. Society's expectations no longer barred him since he was relegated to the sidelines to observe like a tree. He did not have leaves coming off him, though.

His life continued to be wrought with challenges but with a rarer kind. Yet, there was still some gold there to be seen, which was extremely hard to find in wartime moments.

Unease was more than a temporary state of mind for the Eldian populace in Marley's internment zone, or as I call the area, a pig pen. It was a lifestyle everyone was conditioned to live by. But with the news of Eren Jaeger's attack on Liberio, the unease evolved to mental crippling for some. A fleet of Eldians I saw on the morning after confirmed this sentiment; their minds could have been wearing crutches, not because the people were physically slow, but rather, they could not think. They only reacted. They panic-bought all the food off the shelves of local stores.

On the other hand, society's rejects abided by different codes. Their primal urges were more apparent, with hunger at the forefront of their actions, in contrast to a working man anxious about bills. "Street-dwellers" of the internment zone, for instance, were deprived of home security, food security, safety, etc. Companionship, however, could exist among them. They felt unease too, but a different kind; this unease cared for immediate needs rather than self-actualization.

As different races separated themselves from each other, people within the same race separated themselves too. It was almost like they formed an artificial hierarchy for the more financially stable Eldians to oppress their less fortunate brethren when they were all oppressed anyway. Truly bewitching. It is not a concept I am estranged from, however.

A week after Eren Jaeger attacked Liberio, a brick wall propped a stain. Sometimes this stain would splay itself or lie down, but for this day, it sat. A tenseness kept its thighs tight like they were prepared to propel the stain away any moment. A butcher, a store owner, or any other standard vendor looking for their stolen goods could come around a corner near the stain anytime, and this unfortunate thing would have to remove itself from the wall with the stolen items in tow.

I spoke to this…thing. It had licks of murky blonde hair, which you could never find the bottom layer of. The ends of it curled away from the skin like it was allergic to it. The stain's thumbs lingered on the pages of creatively presented history, each groove almost restraining its exclusive page.

"Hey, Heinrich," I revealed myself.

The dusted forehead budged to face me, "Oh great, what do you want? Why the hell are you still here?" He set the journal aside, "I think I'm permanently crazy."

"I don't want anything. I just said, 'hey'."

Heinrich picked up the journal again like he had parted from it for too long. "I'm gonna sell this damn thing. Its the only somewhat valuable possession I have left."

"Is it really the only thing?"

"The only thing."

I guess he no longer possessed dignity, which is valuable but cannot be traded for monetary value. Regardless, the importance of this journal staying in Heinrich's hands could not be stated enough. Without it, there would be no An Eldian's Journal.

I said, "You were talking with that veteran a week ago. Did you forget everything he mentioned?"

"No…" He flipped past the first set of pages to something with thumbprints and palm prints littered around the page, "I remember quite well, actually. See? I tried what he told me."

I looked down, and I saw these words:

My Memoir

By Heinrich Steiner

I was a kid when I moved into Section F of the Eldian Internment zone. It was not different from my old section B except for the wall being closer. It was here that I met my first real friend, Viktor. He made me dress up…

I looked up at Heinrich, and he slapped a fruit fly against his neck without bothering to wipe away the tiny corpse afterward.

"You can do better than this," I said. Later chapters of his journal can attest to that.

"It doesn't matter if I can do better. Just look at how I'm living. I feel like my own skin would rub off like paint if I were to massage it. Mr. Kruger's canned food…and the stuff I've stolen…won't keep me alive much further." He cuffed his wrist with his middle finger and thumb, making a circle. An average person's wrist would fill ninety percent of it, but Heinrich's only filled seventy-five percent. "I need whatever cash I can get."

"What do you think this can go for?" I asked. In the olden times, people would rejoice for some paper since mass production of it was non-existent. They would be happy to take a stack of the ink-filled leaves. However, the modern era could not care less about a paper stack due to its abundance; the written content still greatly mattered.

Heinrich scratched his wisps of facial hair, and flakes fluttered like he was rummaging through a library of dead skin cells lacking natural oils.

"Hey, are you even listening to me?" I asked.

He continued to scratch, "I was thinking. Mr. Kruger's story is in here, so maybe I can get that published and take the proceeds. But I don't think anyone would trust that it's real." He coughed with the sputtering of phlegm, "Trust and I don't seem to work together."

"It wouldn't work." My gaze remained on the mangy man. "You must be extremely desperate to even think about this, though, since Marleyan security will review the paper and bring you in for questioning. You are not on good terms with any of them. That's the whole reason why you kept it hidden these past years."

"I am that desperate," he brooded.

I gauged Heinrich bottom up, from the tattered soles with the big toes plunging out to the shirt sagging around the middle section like there was nothing to hold it up. I would be afraid to lift his flat cap, for there would likely be a habitat of filth under it. My words wandered, "It almost feels like yesterday since you had a baby face and a haircut…and that beige uniform…." How could this man sell something when looking like a lunatic with hair so dry it was practically fossilized?

Heinrich swatted his journal through my face upon reference to his previous life. In that blitz of anger, he forgot my transparency and the rules of my presence. Albeit, I fed him the incorrect set for many years, allowing the imaginary friend lie to exist.

This outburst caught the attention of an Eldian couple who stepped away from Heinrich on impulse. They closed their noses and winced in repulsion, "What're you swatting at?" The woman asked.

Heinrich's teeth simply revealed themselves, yellow as a dog's piss, and he behaved like a feral cat, making claws with the nails yearning to be clipped. The couple's faces scrambled in disgust, and they spat in his direction before scurrying away. The boy who once relished words did not use many when others interacted with him. That previous interaction underlined that exquisitely; his intimidation spoke with the primitive vocabulary of teeth and snarls.

Heinrich simply sighed and looked back to his journal, although I was unsure if he was doing it longingly or silently seething.

"Have you gotten used to people looking at you like that?" I asked.

"Of course I have," he snapped. "Most of the time, I don't feel like they can make any other faces. Marleyans at the gate do it, but now my own people are doing it to me too. It's a wonderful irony, isn't it? It's what I live for now…I've been like this for long enough that I can't expect otherwise. I deserve it, after all."

"How does it make you feel?"

"Why are you asking that? You're not my mother." He continued, "It felt like shit at first, and it still does. The spitting and those looks where children, teenagers, adults don't quite comprehend you….it's a…." He paused and said, "It's a tasteful experience." The sarcasm was somber, almost like he wanted to say more. Maybe I was not a real enough person to share the rest of what he thought with. I would hear enough, though, later on.

"I've felt-" I stopped myself.

"You've what?"

"Nothing."

I knew Heinrich's struggles to an exponential degree. People have stood over me for many years, looking down and leering with their self-proclaimed superiority. The only ones who did not go so low as to assert their stature over me were the kind animals who did not have enough intelligence to manipulate; their stupidity was my only bliss.

"That's enough of a break." Heinrich's nose sniveled, and he pressed against the bricks for support to stand up-the clay was indifferent to his unpleasantness-his gnarled fingers still gripped the journal. The book's spine faced the ground as if he worried the story would fall out if the pages faced the ground. He cared for it like an egg that would fracture at any slight impact. Another book, slightly smaller, was already stuffed in a coat pocket. He switched both their places as if one was meant to be copy…

"I don't know how that Kruger ever did this for so long," Heinrich murmured.

He could have picked up the journal after he stood up by bending over, but he held that book tight while getting up. The calculations of a homeless person were astounding. The micro-observations of food counting and energy expenditure were necessary to live in his state. Not a single movement, even bending over, was wasted. Every movement needed to be optimized.

"I can't stay too long over here for too long or my stuff will be taken from my old place," Heinrich thought out loud. "Okay, the publication building is a decent distance away. Less than a mile. The internment zone isn't that large to begin with so it shouldn't be a big issue. That chocolate bar I stole will get me a little farther but…" He paused his thought as if expecting his stomach to growl. It stayed silent. His stomach had forgotten how to growl since hunger was the baseline state. "I don't know how I will survive in the winter months like this…."

The young man began his short trek to the publishing station. He stuffed one of his hands in his pockets where a beer bottle shard was loaded.

-X-X-X-X-X-

Heinrich's age would seem like an illusion with how he dressed and carried himself on the streets of the internment zone. At eighteen years of age, nearly nineteen years, the young man walked more akin to an old fart widdling away his last ten years than a youth with something to live for. Nonetheless, I do not believe any youth can produce a coherent answer to what they are living for upon immediate questioning.

Heinrich walked delicately, mincing on the sidewalk. He was a tree, more of a branch that crept along and direly avoided making footprints than a lumbering log that bellowed wherever it went. The four years that passed since he moved to Section F brought him four extra inches in height: he was at around five feet and ten inches. His left shoulder was still slightly raised above the other; poverty would not alleviate that odd issue, obviously, but it did not make it worse, surprisingly.

His toil-worn eyes glanced about the area. He did not appear to be staring at the buildings but, instead, at the people walking around. For his safety, he had to notice if that walking would become chasing and if a free hand summoned a knife. If he did not always stay alert, he would be at risk of his flesh carrying someone else's knife hands-free. He did not like being a kitchen cutting board for death-hungry humans.

On the other hand, his neglect of the buildings made them sulk, but they would have sulked anyway.

Heinrich stepped onto a street but quickly pulled his foot back when a car horn threw a punch. Like a noisy neighbor, the car blared by with little consideration for public decency. Heinrich was equally publicly indecent.

"Hi!"

Heinrich glimpsed over his left shoulder to see who called, and his finger snapped awake in his pocket with the glass shard, forming an active lump. There was no one over his left shoulder except his demons and a small street intersecting with a road horizontal to him. He then looked over the right shoulder to see a young girl. The filth on her face could not mask the youth still present-she hardly looked a day older than thirteen with a little button nose and soft hair. The brown locks had not fossilized like Heinrich's yet.

Heinrich knew not to entertain other homeless people. It could lead to danger, but it could also accidentally lead to friendship, which could also be dangerous. He crossed the intersection to the little girl's disappointment. Small trails that cut through the filth were visible under her eyes like she had been recently crying, and with Heinrich's simple act of neglect, tears could pave those pathways again.

That was quite unfortunate; the girl could have been drinking that water instead of crying it out.

"You're mean," I told Heinrich when finally reaching the other side of the street.

He shrugged, "What am I supposed to do? Say 'hi' back? She could have a knife hidden somewhere in her clothes. Maybe her parents put her up to this, and she's just trying to get sympathy to steal some food and bring it to them."

"Paranoid."

"Saying a simple 'hi' to these people can lead to hundreds of things going wrong. The sidewalks follow a game of survival while the houses that stand by are more civilized with basic needs met." Heinrich approached an alleyway and spotted another street-dweller peering out, likely looking for something he did not deserve. "A hundred things could go wrong with this person here."

"Hey guy, you got somethin' to spare? I'm dying over here." A voice roughed up by alcohol weaseled into Heinrich's path.

"Aren't we all?" Heinrich murmured and continued walking, avoiding the disheveled fool.

The homeless stick with limbs bolted up and hurried over to Heinrich. He threw his arm around his neck and spoke in a tongue that could scrape like nails on a blackboard, "Hey! I asked if you got anything to spare." The ragged fool held a whisky bottle with a broken top against Heinrich's lower back. "You spare me something, and I'll spare you."

Heinrich unveiled his shard of glass, "I'll spare you if you back off."

The fool scoffed, "That's not how this works."

"I'll make it work."

The homeless population in the internment zone would often act like dogs. They would crawl and bark noisily. And much like how dogs immediately drop their activities when they notice a cat in the area, any mention of police or Marleyan officers would distract them.

"Oh shit," Heinrich looked over his shoulder and unsheathed his acting skills. "They're coming."

"Do ya think that would actually work on me?"

"..."

Heinrich left the shard in his pocket and lifted his hands, "Look, I have this book that you can sell. Is that enough?" His voice had a tiny trembling lick at the beginning of every word.

"Nuh-uh. What's so special about this?"

"I've heard this book has gotten extremely popular outside the internment zone. Rich people collect books like they're rare stones, but they barely read them. So, they may want this."

"We don't have no rich Eldians here in the internment zone."

"But the Marleyan ones visit once in a while for whatever reason…I'm sure you've seen them a few times. That doesn't matter, though. Our Eldian people love to seem rich even though they are far from it. Holding a book adds some sophistication."

"Sophis-tica-what?"

"It will make them look more valuable. They will look worthy of being stolen from. Holding knowledge in your hands is like having a golden necklace."

The homeless fool snatched the book out from Heinrich's raised hand. He attempted to flip through it with one hand still holding the broken whiskey bottle to his back. The finger gymnastics were horrendous, like arthritis possessed his finger joints, and he needed oil to grease them. The book fell to the pavement-it did not crack open to unveil a golden yolk, but the cover did show off gold lettering. It was not actual gold, but it was hard to tell what the fool believed.

Ultimately, the intruder said, "Fine, I'll take it. Now, fuck off." He lowered the bottle.

Heinrich spared no time and jogged away. The strides were small, for he would risk spraining something if they were any longer. His labored breaths trailed behind him as if strung together and stubborn to let go.

After a block, Heinrich stopped the jog, tapped his coat pocket for a rectangular shape, and sighed in relief when he felt the corners were still there. It was the journal; it was still safe.

"Why did you have that other book, Heinrich?"

"For fools like that."

"Was it really that special?"

"It's an entry-level book that teaches a foreign language from the west using Eldian. It's somewhat special." He paused to real in his labored breathing, "That knowledge is still like having a necklace. It's not all that practical for survival but knowing multiple languages feels like a prize that sounds pretty."

"And how did you get it?" I asked, well aware of how he got it.

"I stole it from a teacher's bag after I came across a teacher sleeping on a bench."

"You're a book thief."

"Shut up," he tilted his head to the side as if ruminating on it. "There's something to that name, though."

-X-X-X-X-X-

The Internment zone's primary news building was located in Section E, an area dense with melancholy souls living in the cages of their bodies. The space contained a high concentration of Eldian veterans attempting to get by with their mediocre lives. Pieces of themselves and their comrades were dispersed in whatever lands they fought in like malignant seeds that would not grow.

On the other hand, there was also a news publication station in Section E, and since privatized media was illegal, it was government own and run.

Heinrich flirted with the news for a few years when he rode along the miserable streets trying to sell the papers. The constant jostling on the bicycle seat while riding over potholes must have been a distant memory he did not welcome. But the memory was forced to re-emerge when his short trek from a street of Section C ended him in an area he wanted to avoid. He had a journal in tow instead of a bicycle with lingering rust threatening to plague the chains.

Going into a government-run building would be impossible in Heinrich's state. His financial disparity, his appearance, and his sour demeanor made him the least likely individual to be allowed into any building with some societal order. He was too alienated to be allowed back into anything civil.

And while he knew where the newspapers were printed, he needed to find the area where the articles were written. For some odd reason, the same building did not house both aspects of newspaper production. This decision was potentially meant to be a safeguard by Marleyans organizers to prevent tampering from writers.

A familiar character lingered on the horizon of Heinrich's view. Heinrich's eyes creaked open at the sight of it. It was a "chirpy fellow who looked like a civilized penguin with a toupee atop his head," as he would write in his journal soon enough. It was Eld the Eldian and his newspaper stand. This man was Heinrich's weasely and undignified boss from years before.

"Its Eld," Heinrich mumbled.

"Do you think Joe 'shit' Schmidt's stand is here to?" I asked.

Heinrich failed to respond as he likely contemplated if he should approach Eld. He became a roadblock on the sidewalk as an Eldian family steered around him with distasteful glares; that is to be expected.

"I can't talk to him," he said.

I stepped back and watched Heinrich deal with this conundrum. His feet dragged as he stepped closer and closer to the stand. The late morning sun was kind to shine behind him instead of in front since the staring would have left his eyes vulnerable if otherwise. With everything withering in him, he did not need his eyes to wilt too.

Heinrich's knuckles grew further punctuated as he made a fist like he found resolve for something. His lagging steps reached a standard walk pacing, and he murmured unintelligible noises. After a customer walked away while flipping through a new paper, Heinrich stood limp in front of the stand where a shelf of papers sat by his knees.

"Sir," he said simply.

"Yes, would you like a paper?" Eld asked.

Heinrich honed in on Eld's missing toupee; maybe the man had accepted his aging. Heinrich then tripped on his words like he had not planned his side of the interaction out enough-quite unlike the adult him. "Do you have good business?" he asked oddly.

"W-Why, of course we do!" Eld chirped in a salesman's excitement, seemingly unfazed by Heinrich's appearance. "I can guarantee that I deliver quality straight from the source! My salesmen are top-notch. I'm sure you've seen them all around the internment zone. They're good kids!"

"..."

"So, would you like a paper? I can give you one now for free, and you can pay me back later…when you get some money…and you have to pay back with some interest, of course!" It looked like he did pick up the homelessness.

"I was one of them," Heinrich said quietly.

"Excuse me?"

"I was one of those kids. I was one of those salesmen." Heinrich pulled his draping hair behind his ears, revealing his face.

The newspaper seller's manufactured smile that successfully drove sales for many years split for reality to begin in the conversation. He leaned forward enough for the dry dome of his head to illuminate in the morning light.

"When the hell did you get back from the war? And why the hell do you look like this?" Eld asked. The words sprinted.

"I got back three to four years ago."

Eld leaned back like memories were returning to him in a wave that trumped the wind threatening to shove the papers off the shelves. He rested his hands on the small table where customers and him exchanged money for years. "You never came back to work for me. I never really cared at first, but then I heard….everything….and I wondered what I could have done if you were still under my wing."

"We don't need to talk about all that, sir."

"Screw you. Whatever you want, you're not getting it from me. Go talk to that 'shit' Schmidt if you'd like. I put that asshat out of business, so he's got all the time for any bullshit you have loaded up in that filth of yours now."

"I'm just trying to get a story out there, sir. I need money." He pulled out the journal.

"I only sell. I don't write. You already know that."

"Then where does it get written?"

Eld held his lips and brows tight as if trying to pull himself out of the conversation.

"Please, sir. Tell me! I don't have any food. I don't have any money. I don't even have a fucking home!"

Eld continued his silent protest.

"Please," Heinrich continued. His eyes dampened. He had not been anywhere near moisture for weeks, yet he could summon that.

"It's outside," Eld gave in.

"Outside where?"

"Outside the internment zone! Where else would it be? Here?" Eld waved his hand in Heinrich's face as if shooing him. He then took a cracker from the small bowl of snacks on the table and munched it with his mouth open. It was like an owner eating in front of his hungry dog.

"I'll need to get special permission to leave the internment zone, then," Heinrich murmured. "But I won't be able to file that unless I pay a fee. Sir, can you pay it for me, please?"

"Leave!" Eld ordered.

"I'll give you a bit of the profit!"

"If an officer comes over here to reprimand you, that's going to bring bad attention to my stand."

"I'm not being a nuisance. I'm just asking-"

"I don't need anyone like….you…in my life."

Heinrich's desperation reached a dry spell, and his eyes narrowed on his former boss. His filth only served to accentuate his anger. "Am I not one of you? Do I not suffer under the same armband with the same crest?"

"You dress like a man that believes he has nothing to live for," Eld responded. "How can you expect someone to buy something from you when you look like that? Your chest is down. Your chin is soft."

"Do we Eldians ever have anything to live for?"

"We have to act like there's something to live for aside from getting thrown off planes. That's why we have children." Eld reached into a pocket and gently pulled out a razor blade for facial hair. "I keep this to cut packages, but I'll give it to you. Start with this. Shave."

Heinrich took it and spun it for one rotation as he slowly tilted his head back up to Eld. Heinrich's bottom lip quivered, and he stuck the blade in a pocket before reaching into the stand. He pulled out the small bowl of snacks and munched on them.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Eld asked. He turned away and swiftly left the back of the stand as if he was about to kick Heinrich out himself.

Heinrich shoveled his right hand into the bowl and clawed the crackers into his mouth. Each shoveling knocked a cracker out of the bowl and hit the ground, but enough got into his mouth that he cleared the bowl effectively enough. No quantity of food could satisfy his voracious hunger.

For the last bite, Heinrich ground the shattered crackers quickly and spat them back into the bowl. He handed it to Eld. He said simply, with crumbs outlining his mouth, "I don't even have a mirror to look at while shaving." He wiped the crumbs off with the back of his sleeve and wandered away from the stand.

Eld the Eldian bellowed obscenities as the young man walked off. There was no urgency in Heinrich's steps. Maybe he lost hope, but to be frank, he did not carry that much to begin with. His face was sharp from disappointment, sharper than the new blade he gained from the interaction.

"I let myself into society for once," Heinrich murmured. "And they push me back into the forest again."

"That's why trees stay rooted where they are," I responded.

The Real Author's Note

If anyone is confused about what's going on, this chapter skipped ahead 3 - 4 years after Heinrich left the military.