The Diary of A Young Girl
By Ymir Fritz
Entry #14
While it is…pleasurable…to meander the streets of the Marleyan Internment Zone with two homeless bums, skipping such crucial parts of Heinrich's earlier life would be irresponsible. The time when Heinrich and Viktor return to their loved ones is something that cannot go unnarrated. After all, there is so much left to tell about Heinrich's fifteen-year-old self. The innocent musings of a teenage lad can often be enjoyable to reflect on, but Heinrich's "musings" were more relatable to stabbings without the blade.
850
Heinrich, Viktor, and other military folk had escaped their disgraced battle on a set of ships called into the ME shore on a whim. The stomach of the ship the friends were in contained worried men with stomachs that contained worrisome bread. Everyone neglected to check if there was mold on the food they crammed into their mouths, or maybe they saw it and tolerated it during that desperate time.
Bread slices do not crumble as much as pastries, except maybe when toasted, so the ship's stomach lacked crumbs. In place of those was fifteen-year-old Heinrich, who acted much like a crumb, sticking around on people's backs with a muted expression and shifting around based on the wave of soldiers surrounding him. He was simply matter, a substance, with a head low and shoulders thrown back as people shuffled through him, trying to get the last bits of bread from those handing it out.
Viktor did his best to stay near his friend. More than a crumb, the boy accepted the turbulent waves of people rushing by him like a fisherman's sailboat who decided to move with the ocean's surges instead of contradicting them.
Viktor's centered his focus on Heinrich, lingering on the friend that would not return the look. "Heinrich?"
The boy looked back, "What?"
Viktor's lips pattered momentarily as if he argued with himself about whether to say something else. The friends already conveyed all the worry they needed about the punishment that Magath could give their loved ones. What more could extra words do for them?
Heinrich's head slumped as Viktor grew silent, returning to his new status quo of grave worry.
All the soldiers in the ship's stomach jerked forward, signaling a sharp descent in the ship's pace. They must have stopped at a dock. "Finally," soldiers moaned; a few grabbed their stomachs as if the sudden movement aggravated their sea sickness. A door then flew open, and a man with a blue sailor's uniform immediately moved away as if he expected a mass trampling. But no, the people in that stomach were not scurrying mice; they were soldiers. These men had to ask permission before being excused to piss, so they would not move unless ordered.
The sun threw a small light curtain into the doorway, and Heinrich caught it with his face. It comforted a small group of soldiers in the center, or at least, it attempted to comfort. The men only winced irritably as their eyes had forgotten direct light after being in a dim area for so long. As if rejected by the poor welcome from the crowd, the sun withdrew its curtain, and some clouds reassumed their places.
The crowd of survivors left through the doorway once ordered to move out. They did their best to stay in an orderly line, not letting desperation show, but it would leak when two people would try to squeeze through the rounded-out doorway at once.
Viktor climbed a small flight of metal stairs with ample dirt lining the diagonal patterns on the steps. Each person's step in front of him added to it.
"I guess sarge is going to tell us the punishment on the bus," Viktor said.
"Maybe…" Heinrich returned from behind him. The young boy observed the waves of Viktor's uniform ruffle as he climbed the stairs and looked up at the deck they were stepping onto.
A set of folk shining with authority conversed among themselves, breathing in each other's authority as if to replenish their own. Only so much dominance could be produced from Kaslow as his plump glory was overshadowed by the more height-gifted men surrounding him like he was a golf ball at the whims of others' feet.
Kaslow's pebble eyes caught the breeze and drifted to Heinrich and Viktor as he turned around. Those eyes usually concealed how they felt, relying on the eyebrows and the rest of the face to do the heavy lifting to convey disdain. But there was no simple courtesy to show how he felt at that moment since his face appeared indifferent and flat. The friends were challenged to guess how their soon-to-be former sergeant felt about them, especially since he was not initially the one to make the threat-Magath was.
The military men descended from the ship onto a dock, making the initial climb up the stairs seem unnecessary. Some soldiers welcomed the stability with vomit as they had finally found a worthy place to dispel their stomach's roadkill. Heinrich and Viktor failed to share words as they looked across the bed of water they had just crawled across on the ships. Their lips pursed as the water threw small fits against the _ of the ship with its amateur waves.
Who would have expected that? The water could get angry like everyone else.
-X-X-X-X-X-
An hour or so passed before a few buses arrived to carry the survivors and other folks back to the training camp where the friends trained initially. It was not entirely clear why everyone was heading to a training area since some of the people on those ships were too high of a ranking to visit a sweat dump with frolicking youth. It was the closest safe point and a solid place to regroup.
Heinrich and Viktor climbed aboard a bus, heading all the way to the back. Viktor stepped into a seat before stepping out shortly after. "You can take the window seat," he said.
"You always like the window seats, though," Heinrich responded.
"They don't like me. The wind slaps me in the face every time I look out the windows."
Heinrich sat, and Viktor plopped down next to him. Viktor placed his and Kurt's bags on his lap while eyeing the front of the vehicle as others boarded; the soldiers' steps shook the bus slightly.
"Have you seen that Hausenboogerdork or whatever his name is?"
"No." Heinrich focused on Viktor, "I totally forgot he existed with all that's been going on."
"I wish I forgot him too. He seems like a great person to forget…My mind is gonna spin itself dizzy with how confusing that man has been to us if I think about him any longer."
"His half-Eldian and half-Marleyan thing is…off-putting. He could be bluffing for all we know."
"I thought you liked mysterious people, so you could crack them and see what's underneath."
"I've had enough of them. I'm tired of 'cracking' things." Heinrich reached for the journal and shook it to Viktor's face, "This may crack Mr. Kruger for me, but I'm worried what will happen if I know what's in it."
"..."
"I know you've read a bit of it already."
"Yea…" Viktor pulled his focus away.
"Say something. Should I be reading this now?"
"It's not like a bomb that'll go off if you do," he gulped. "It's a different kind of bomb from what you'd expect, or maybe a grenade-"
"Viktor!"
"Alright, I think you should read it, but you need to be in a better mood than you are in now. If you do it now when so much has happened in a short amount of time, it won't be good."
"You're making it seem like this thing should be burned."
"It's a lesson. A cautionary tale. It shouldn't be burned."
Heinrich set the journal back in the satchel and stewed in his ponderings. "Why would he want to help us? He should have been the one to "
"I don't know. He's your mystery, not mine. Besides…we have another mystery ahead of us."
"There's always some mystery," Heinrich muttered.
The bus's engine mumbled its angry tune, and the cow-like vehicle wandered from its parking spot before increasing speed. The other busses followed suit as the ships in the rearview became nothing more than paper boats forged from iron paper. The edges of buildings blurred as the busses increased their pace.
Heinrich's gaze stayed glued out the window as the Mid-East-inspired architecture scrolled past him; a single blink would skip an entire house. However, Marley's claim to this land did not eradicate the history prior. So, to remind citizens this region was under a new lord, a new war-monger, and a new land-hungry toddler, some poor saps were forced to insert Marleyan flags into the buildings' skins like female mosquitos with their blood-thirsty straws. Marley would also roll soldiers down the dusty streets once in a while as a reminder, too, instead of an ice cream truck.
So many stories were contained in the buildings carrying the mosquito bites caused by those flags. Heinrich and Viktor had been in a few stories with oppressed buildings on that simple "fun" night.
"What stories are we going to tell them, Heinrich? Lina and your mama, I mean."
"We don't need to tell them anything."
"You know they won't accept that."
"They'll have to."
Viktor glanced at the bags on his lap, squeezing the straps on Kurt's bag. "There's a story I can't keep quiet about, Heinrich. I'll keep telling it so that I won't forgive myself. You know damn well what it is."
"..."
"The more people we're close to that know what we did, it will hold us accountable to never forget. I don't think I'll forget anyway, though. But why don't you want to tell them anything? Are you afraid they'll forgive us?"
"They won't feel bad for us, Viktor!" Heinrich erupted and took a deep breath before continuing, "When we explain why Kurt died, they'll hate us. They'll look at us the wrong way, the kind of way that will make us hope we were still out on the battlefield getting bullets blown past our ears. We've been away for too many months to return to our homes to see that look on their faces."
"We deserve to be hated."
"We do. I'd gladly take it, but not from mama."
"That's selfish."
"What can I say?" Heinrich looked back out the window again. "Selfishness is what got us in that predicament in the first place."
-X-X-X-X-X-
The frequency of buildings lessened to make way for free space. The longer the buses traveled, the more remote the area around them became; however, the frequency of stabbing flags was the same as they progressed. The quiet of the surviving soldiers on the bus allowed the vehicle's mechanical squeals to squirm into everyone's ears. Maybe Heinrich and Viktor could have talked more to prevent that, but they had already drained themselves of worthwhile words.
Heinrich peaked over his seat to notice a more pronounced Marleyan flag; its crest menaced the sky with a sinister wave in the wind. It stood atop a ring of fences with soldiers-in-training in its bounds completing their lessons.
"We're here," Heinrich said.
"And still Kaslow hasn't told us anything."
The busses stopped at the training camp's entrance, and the friends stepped out to find the grumbling clouds throwing thunderous tantrums with percussive tension. Rain was a rarity in that climate, but its imminent arrival was foreshadowed by lingering moisture in the sky like a word the clouds did not want to say. Viktor and Heinrich's apprehension gripped their feet, and they would have stayed where they stood had it not been for other soldiers shoving them along.
The commanding officers called everyone to enter the training camp, and the failed men's walk-through collected the stares of those managing the camp. A marching group on a path nearby paused their dramatic stepping and saluted to Commander Magath; they likely did not know the failure he returned from. He then raised his hand to signal at ease. On the other hand, the surviving soldiers and the medics, including Heinrich and Viktor, held their heads low. Their scalps received respect in place of their faces. Contrastingly, the engineers and non-combative personnel had their heads level; they did not appear burdened by the neck-straining embarrassment of some of their counterparts.
The superior officers blathered in their authoritative tones like they still had self-dignity reserved in their neck fat after that failure. Reiner Braun and Pieck Finger did their best to mimic that, but their faces did not listen. Kaslow, in particular, leered at the boys with his neck fat pronounced, crawling under his chin. Fortunately, the officers separated everyone and demanded they rest before discussing further moves.
Heinrich, Viktor, and the rest of their original group—those he trained with—were told to return to their original bunks; a new training group had not yet occupied that set of housing. However, Heinrich and Viktor caught Kaslow's leering. Unable to handle its scathing, they shifted their focus to his gut. The wicked penguin they called 'sarge' waltzed over to them and crossed his arms like a shield of false superiority.
"Heinrich and Viktor, I think you know what I have planned for you next."
"Yes, sarge," Viktor responded. "Commander Magath told us that we will be discharged from the military when we return from the battle. And we've returned so-"
"You will be discharged in due time. But until the next round of transportation comes by that can return you to Liberio, you're going to clean the bathrooms like the original punishment I had given you two and Kurt weeks before."
"Yes, sarge…"
Kaslow set his paw on Viktor's shoulder and clamped hard. The boy squirmed slightly, and Kaslow seethed, "You two are dirt." He spat, but the saliva-filled assault landed on his own boot. He took his hand off Viktor and ordered, "Clean it off, boy. Now."
"W-With what, sarge?"
"Clean my boot."
"I don't have a paper or a handkerchief-"
"But you have hands. Clean. My. Boot."
Viktor looked at his friend as if seeking refuge, but Heinrich stayed silent while facing away. Viktor swallowed and kneeled before his sergeant. A relaxed smile prompted on Kaslow's face as Viktor wiped the spit off the boot with his hands. The boy attempted to stand up before Kaslow pushed him back down.
"That's not clean enough," he seethed.
Viktor answered with a slight nod. His hunched position made him appear like a weak, feeble ball that Kaslow would often be among other superior officers' feet. Viktor's dull eyes were glossed over, unmoving to the deterioration of his dignity. On the other hand, Heinrich stayed silent. He had nipped the bud of his revulsion early on before it could flare and further stimulate Kaslow's outrage.
Viktor lifted his head and looked up at Kaslow.
"Is that enough, sarge?"
"Not quite." Kaslow thrust his foot into Viktor's chin, knocking the boy backward. His torso paused vertically but collapsed shortly after.
"Viktor!" Heinrich called out and kneeled next to his friend.
Kaslow pebble eyes plunged from above despite staying locked within his depraved birdcage of a skull. Within this cage was a pigeon that could not muster any weight among the falcons and cooed incivilities to cope; therefore, it reverberated toxicity through its hollow bones, rattling and whining. This feeble bird found contentment when it stood among those deemed inferior.
Those pebble eyes stabbed the friends like needles that continually dug even when there was nothing to dig through. The two boys were a carpet to him, but his needles did not knit. Kaslow turned away from his mat and walked off with his flabby chest high.
"Scum," he mumbled. "I can't believe we're sparing these lives in place of twenty-plus abled body soldiers."
Heinrich glanced up at Kaslow as he walked off, but his features stayed tense. They had little hatred to give.
"There's a story for us to tell," Viktor murmured.
-X-X-X-X-X-
The friends wandered to their old barracks. The same as before, the buildings looked like shoeboxes made from cheap wood that misfortuned factory workers had to handle in their eternal working days.
The friends entered the building, and Heinrich chewed on the sight of his old bunk: the sticks of metal that coordinated to hold a crummy sack of cotton that fooled many into believing it was a mattress. It left a foul taste in his mouth as he noticed two empty ones next to it where Viktor and Kurt once slept. A greater foulness arrived when too many of those bunks no longer had their original occupants.
Heinrich shook the mattress as if checking if a rat claimed it for temporary lodging while they were gone. Dust evacuated instead.
"Never in my life did I think this room would be quiet aside from nighttime. But here we are. I could hear a pin drop," Viktor commented.
"Or a rat fart. There's more rats than pins here."
The friends dropped their belongings on their bunks. Viktor gently set Kurt's items on their deceased friend's bed.
Heinrich and Viktor searched for janitor uniforms, but when they could not find them, they simply left the barracks and headed for the bathrooms. They thought that if Kaslow did not leave the uniforms in bunks, he would leave some in the bathroom. However, when they arrived, those uniforms were nowhere to be seen. Streaks of orange surrounded the drains in the sink, and the only thing left in that bathroom in general was the husk of sinful scents.
The friends went into the janitor's closet, which had been unlocked, and pulled out a mop. Like the hair of the mop head had been dragged through gunpowder, the friends were astonished by how grey it was. It was a far cry from the original white.
Viktor gulped when first gripping the broom like he swallowed his dignity with his saliva.
"I wish we had clothespins for our noses," Heinrich said.
"Being sad will keep our noses occupied. Don't worry."
Like using a faulty eraser on pencil lines, the mop failed to thoroughly remove the urine around the toilets that had been lingering like ants around a bread crust. They held their complaints tight and did their best to make the bathroom appear somewhat sanitary.
After an hour of this cleaning, the friends returned the cleaning supplies to the closet and left through the main door. They found a short queue of people outside with nearly spilling bladders, covering their groins like their hands could somehow catch the piss if the bladders decided to give up and let the floodgates relax. Viktor turned the "CLEANING" sign they were on the bathroom's main door, and a handful of folks rushed in.
Two of these folks were about to rush in until they paused their signs of discomfort. One was short with blonde hair, while the other was taller but also with blonde hair.
"Heinrich? Viktor?"
A smidgeon of excitement cracked through Heinrich's dullness at the sight of Colt and Falco.
The older brother's grin muted as he looked at the blank space behind Viktor. He looked closer at Viktor and looked back at Heinrich. "I'm sorry about, Kurt."
Heinrich took a step back, "H-How did you know?"
"There's a space behind you two…Kurt used to fit in there."
Heinrich turned to look at that space and returned to Colt. "He could have just been somewhere else. How could you jump to that conclusion so quickly?"
"I could tell from Viktor. You're always glum, but Viktor would look more neutral and smile more," he scratched the back of his head. "Viktor somehow looks even more glum than you do now."
"You're right. Kurt's gone, but there's no need for you to say 'sorry.' None of this was your fault."
"Yea, but saying that is all I can do."
Falco looked up at his old brother as he reciprocated the solemness. "I'm sorry too." He leaned into the friends for a hug.
Heinrich nudged Falco back, "Don't hug me." Falco moved in anyway, and his arms wrapped around Heinrich's midsection. He paused there, and Heinrich's eyes grew increasingly moistened with each second. He used the back of his hand to rub off the tear and tore Falco off him. He pointed at his eyes, "That's why I told you not to hug me."
The child stepped back while worry ate at his cheek.
"I think this may be the last time we'll see you guys," Heinrich continued, sniffling.
"W-Why?" The brothers asked simultaneously.
"We're not wanted anymore. You'd expect us to save lives as medics, but we did something that cost too many of them. So, going back is our punishment."
Colt's eyes flared open at that statement. He must have known something.
Viktor slumped, "I did something that cost them. Heinrich tried to stop me."
"The blame doesn't matter now," Heinrich responded.
"Easy for you to say. It'll eat at me more than it ever will for you."
"You have to tell us more than that," Falco urged, but Heinrich gave a sheepish smile and a slow wave as he and Viktor walked off.
"We cleaned the bathroom the best we could," the friends responded.
Falco looked up at his brother as if asking permission to follow the friends since they left so abruptly. However, his bladder cared little for those two, and it urged the child into the bathroom to relieve itself. When the brothers returned from their bathroom break, the friends were nowhere to be found.
-X-X-X-X-X-
"I feel bad for leaving the Grices like that. Should we say bye to them?" Heinrich asked.
"I don't think these two will let us," Viktor responded.
A few days after the battle, two soldiers entered the barracks in the morning and restrained Heinrich and Viktor's arms behind their backs. They led them to the doorway, and the friends' said a rushed 'goodbye' to fellow bunkmates they would likely never see again.
The friends stepped out of the barracks to find the clouds grumbling and throwing thunderous tantrums as they had been a few days prior. But unlike before, they did not hesitate to sprinkle the world below. The drizzling increased to a downpour, littering the stage Heinrich and Viktor made their dismal walk of shame on.
The stares of onlookers must have ached the friends even without looking directly at them. Something about starers on the rims of your vision makes the shame hurt more than looking directly at them. It is the assumptions one could make about what these onlookers think that direct contact can help narrow down, but there were too many to make direct contact with. So, Heinrich and Viktor closed their eyes and let the soldiers push them to where they needed to go.
Heinrich briefly opened his eyes to see a familiar mail tent and a familiar mail soldier sitting outside, letting his newspaper get soaked as a piercing glare sat at its edge. The man lifted the paper over his eyes as the paper continued to wilt under the excessive rain. He went back into the tent as a lock of hair slumped over Heinrich's forehead. Heinrich closed his eyes again at the man, shutting the memory of the story he once wrote.
A few minutes later, the friends arrived at a bus with other rejected military personnel waiting. The restraining soldiers let go of Heinrich and Viktor's arms and returned their personal belongings to them with sharp tosses. It caught them off guard, and the items fell to the ground.
"Get on," one of the soldiers said.
The friends nodded and hastily picked up their items as they climbed onto the bus. The other dispirited folk followed suit.
"I'm surprised Kaslow didn't come to see us off," Viktor said.
"I'm not. I'm sure he hates the look of our faces more than any other cadets' faces."
"Hate brings him satisfaction," Viktor whispered. "I thought he would come to spit at us once more and say 'You'll regret everything' or something like that."
The friends sat at the back of the bus and relegated their views to the backs of the seats in front of them. They did not look out the windows. As the bus engine began to sputter alive, they continued with this resolve to not look back as if they wanted nothing more than to forget all this as soon as possible. But that did not seem possible for Heinrich since he made one final look back out the window.
The bus began its journey to the closest train station, as the training camp where pain, joy, embarrassment, and dignity were experienced diminished into a walnut in the distance. Heinrich tore his view away from that walnut as the worry of what would come bore even deeper into his consciousness.