Wow guys two chapters in one day well this is an Easter gift for all who love my story.
Now to the guest who left the review I would like to thank you for if it wasn't for you I would not have discovered GATE: Thus the JDSF fought there, I love it thank you for telling me about it. If anyone has not seen it I would recommended it.
Now since I have guest's thanks to a certain corporal (Mutters a few curses at Levi) they now have to do the disclaimer
All: Oh come on do we have to
Me: Yes you do, Jean your up.
Jean: Thanks a lot jäger. Falloutfan158 does not own attack on titan, Hajime Isayama does.
Sgt. Paul McTavish
1st Infantry Division
16th Infantry Regiment
Fox Company
It's cold, freezing cold, as we marched through the snow to the town in the distance. Snow is already soaking through my pants. Even through our marching boots, I could hear the chattering teeth of the men who grew up in the south and tropics
"Poor guys," I think to myself, pulling my scarf up to cover my nose. Countless years growing up in the freezing winters of Alaska have prepared me well, as this feels like a normal spring day for me.
It's about thirty minutes until we reach the outskirts of the town. As we came closer, we could just start to make out a wooden sign beside a snow covered cobblestone road.
Willkommen in Rostock-(Welcome to Rostock)
No one says anything. Some of the younger soldiers don't know why, but they're scared at the carving. Someone mutters a curse under their breath. Not a single soul dare moves forward.
"Come on men, weapons ready. We still have orders," says C.O. Col. Hansen in a quiet voice. I don't know if the others could hear him, but I could, and there was a deep icy layer, even colder than the air around us, of fear. Not of the what they might find, but for his other men.
There's a chorus of sniffles and guns clicking out of safety.
I pull around my Thompson, and relay the orders back to the rest of the Infantry.
Silence greets us as we march into Rostock. The place is in shambles, reminding me of a war zone almost.
We are ordered to split up and cover the entire southern sector. They split us by company, then by squad to clear one street at a time until we arrived in the center.
My squad is given the street we first arrived at, when we got to town. My squad included our squad leader Lt. Wallenstein, Cpl. Johnson, Pvt's O'Mally, Miller, Jackson, Williamson , and Ramirez.
Advancing down the street, we go house by house until we encounter something. The only thing we found were rats, tattered furniture, and a few buildings too run down to even enter.
But as we are clearing the third street, we come upon what was at one time a fortified building, sandbags out in front in a semi-circle.
We look at each other and approach the building in caution. We crouch down and pass under the windows.
Lt. Wallenstein and I stack up at the door, him on the right and myself on the left. I motion for Williamson to kick open the door, as he did the lieutenant went in, followed by Williamson and I.
"Clear left," shouts Wallenstein.
"Clear Right," I shout.
"Clear Center," Williamson shouts, turning back to face the rest of us.
Turning around, I go back to the door and call the rest of the men in. We all circle around in the center of the room.
"Alright men, this building is three stories tall, so to cover the whole building we will divide up in to two men teams. O'Mally and Miller," he points to them. "You two will guard the front and warn us if you see any krauts heading this way. Johnson and Ramirez you two have the ground floor and the basement. Jackson and Williamson you scout the first floor, and the sergeant and I will search the top floor, okay? Fall out."
Wallenstein, Jackson, Williamson, and myself proceeded up the staircase. Jackson and Williamson, stopp on the first floor and proceeded with their search of the floor. We continue on, and when we reached the top floor, we see seven doors down the hallway in front of us, three on each side with one at the end of the hall.
Walking down the hallway, we stop at the first set of doors looking back at Wallenstein, we both nodded our heads, and cautiously opened our doors.
The sight that greeted me was of a mummified corpse, still in bed under the covers. I continue down the hallway, unable to process what I saw. The same sight greets me, a dried up body still in bed under the covers. Turning to the lieutenant, I see him at the last door on his side, staring at the bed.
I tap him on the shoulder, breaking him from his trance, and point to the last unopened door.
We stack up each on the other side of the door, and turn the door knob quickly and flooded in.
The room is bare, with a bed in the corner and a desk in front of the window. Advancing further into the room, I walk toward the desk. I don't notice it until my fingers graze the chair. This one still has some meat and gore, albeit dried out, on its bone. The windows are shut tight.
"Sir, it's another... One of them." I am unable to even get the word corpse past my lips.
Turning back to the body, I notice that it wore a strange uniform and that on the back of the jacket was a even stranger symbol.
It's of two wing intersected, one white while the other was blue.
Looking around the desk, I see a leather bound book by the hand. As I pick it up, something falls out.
Looking at the spot it fell, I see a silver ring. Picking it up I held it in my hands and turned it around looking at it. There was an engraving on the inside.
To my heart and soul -Erwin
I slip the ring into my breast pocket, shaking my head. I flip open the book. There were maybe a dozen or so entries, and beside the fact it was covered in a layer of dust, it looked to be in surprisingly good shape. I flip to the last entry in the book, and am unable to stop myself from muttering the words to myself.
"This will be my final entry, my strength is leaving me. Only a few members of my squad remain, but they are in extremely poor health, and I fear that the others that set off back to Wall Maria have mysteriously disappeared. We have no gas, no blades, no food, and there's a giant swarm of titans outside the wall. I can only comfort my squad as I watch them starve. We should have returned with them. What ever happened to them is on my head, more blood on my hands. If anyone finds this journal, please return this and the ring to Erwin Smith of the Recon Corps. This is Squad leader Gibson, signing out of my last entry. Erwin, I am so sorry that I can not return to you, just remember I will always love you no matter what."
I harshly wipe tears that have leaked from my eyes as I check the date it was written.
March. 4, 830
I unzip my jacket and shove it in the inside pocket. I don't remember Wallenstein had been behind me.
"We need to show this to the commander as soon as possible."
As we walk out the door, I stop and turn, looking back at the mummified remains. "I promise to give this back to him." I say softly. I turn and continue out the doorway, then down the stairs to the ground floor right behind Wallenstein, and then outside where the rest of the squad is.
We turn to continue up the street when we hear the clanking of tanks coming from behind us.
"Its okay Lieutenant," I say, placing my hand on his shoulder. "It's just the 4th."
The tanks get closer and the lead tank stops, its commander popping out from the hatch of his Sherman.
"Hey fella, ya mind givin' us a ride to the center of town?" asks Lt. Wallenstein
"Sure, hop on," the commander shouts, waving his arm over.
We all climb on and try to find places out of the way. The gunman returns to the depths of the tank, and lets the driver know to start again.
The ride is uneventful as we near the center of town.
Rolling to a stop, we see that everyone has arrived. We hop off the tank, and started out search for our commanders. The Lt waves the rest of the squad off to join their unit, while we head to a building that M.P.'s are guarding.
We salute and ask if our company commander is in there. The man on the left alerts us that he is in a meeting with the divisional and lead commanders.
We tell him we found some vital Intel, and as soon as we show him the diary, he allows us to enter the building. Both of us head up to the top floor, where the mayor's office, and now our makeshift war room is.
As we near the office. we hear the commanders talking.
"We need to find another source of food, the rations we brought with us won't last forever," says Davis.
"We know Eric," sighs Smith. "as soon as we can, we will send out a scouting party to find the local animal population. But what is more concerning for me is this old field report, from one of our own no less, about some how the entirety of civilization collapsed from these titans. The question of why they would leave this secure city for this research base Sina, is of the upmost concern. What ever the answer is, it is either very good or very bad."
"How far is this research base from here?" asks Stone.
"From here," replies Smith "about twenty miles."
Hearing enough, I knock on the door. We hear boot steps, and see the door opening to reveal Smithson. We salute.
"Sir, permission to enter?"
"Granted."
"Sir, Lieutenant John Wallenstein, and Sergeant Paul McTavish reporting."
Smith looks between the two of. "What do you have to report that is so important, men?"
I step forward and slide the journal across the table to him.
He gives me skeptical leer, one eyebrow raised. "A book? And of what importance could this be?"
"Sir, it is a journal."
Smith leafs through the aged page skimming each entry for information. The only one he reads completely is the lasts entry. His face hardens, and a solemn mood washes over him. "This explains a good bit about what we are fighting and who is fighting them. Thank you sergeant, for bringing this to my attention." Smith sound genuine, which makes me internally breathe a sigh of relief.
I salute, but my gaze lingers on the journal, something Smith picks up on. My thoughts drift to the promise I made to the mummified remains of Gibson.
"Don't worry sergeant, after we copy down all useful information we will return the journal to you, after all you found it, by all rights its now yours," he assures me.
Smith's a smart man that I've worked with for a long time now, he probably already put two and two together by now.
A knock on the door draws our attention. Smithson is again at the doorway, a colonel standing on the other side. He salutes Smithson and enters. "Sir's, the engineers that you sent to the wall have radioed back. They need your assistance on the wall. It is important, they said."
Smith nods his head. "Thank you colonel, you are dismissed and are to report back to your post."
He salutes and walks out the door and back to his post.
We go to do the same, but Smith stops us mid salute.
"Hold on a second Lieutenant," he says "can your squad provide an escort for myself and the other commanders?"
"Of course, sir" Wallenstein replies in earnest. "McTavish, go gather the squad and scrounge up a couple of jeeps for the generals, and see if any of those tankers want to help."
I salute him and turn on the heel of my boot. Not knowing what would happen in the next few hours would completely change everything.
The Wall, Rostock
POV Change
third person
The engineers stand around waiting for their compatriots to report back in from their exploration of the inside of the giant wall.
"Still can't believe that the wall is actually a giant base as well." one man remarks, leaning against the battlement.
"Yeah, bigger than any thing I've ever seen. Only found one wing of the damn place by ourselves. Glad we got that elevator rig up and running, would a fucking hassle to climb those stairs to the top every time."
"Amen to that brother!"
"Atten hut!" someone cries out.
They all turn and saluted as three jeeps drive across the top, with two Stuart tanks bringing up the rear.
The convoy comes to a stop near the two men that were talking. Getting out, the generals survey the area.
A door that leads to the inside of the massive wall is open with men going in and out. To the left of that is two gates, one for people and the other for larger vehicles.
Smith turns to the two men. "I want to see your commanding officer, soldiers. He said it is important."
"Sir, yes, sir!" the man on the left replied and left to get him. A few moments later, he returns with his C.O., but just as they were about to speak...
BANG... BANG... BANG...
The sound reverberates through the air, startling some of the more light hearts. Someone presses their ear up against the smaller gate.
BANG... BANG... BANG...
Quiet a cliff hanger I say what will happen next. Find out next time on A New Hope
R&R please.
