Damn, guys. It has been a while. More than a while. Well, I don't think there is much for me to say except what you know already.
I'm never giving up on this shit
The Diary of a Young Girl
By Ymir Fritz
Entry #9
'There they are….' I thought to myself.
The Mid-Easterners' charge through No Man's Land was a paradox to the entire progress of the Cullens' original mission. Paradoxical in that it was a grand reversal of the Cullens' plans. Paradoxical in that it was a turn of fates. But that is war: a money transaction that abides by a different law, and instead of the gold currencies, there is the exchange of rejected metals that are not worthy of being traded for value and, ergo, find fulfillment in being fired from barrels.
The only thing these rejected metals can be a part of is the transaction of flesh wounds; they are not worthy of sitting in the crevices of customers' purses.
The MEs zipped between the grayed, X-shaped obstacles that stapled the ground with iron toes. The MEs' right legs went in front of their left legs and vice versa to run like the Marleyans' legs did, but the similarity between the races would stop there. These rudely defined "Mid-East rats" had reddish hats that covered their unfortunate haircuts, and a string attached to each head covering would flop around with their sudden movements like a possessed finger. These men kept propelling forward like their trenches vomited out soldiers.
To combat this vile human-infested vomit, the Eldian infantry and Marleyan military at the front line loaded their artillery shell launchers and fired them with no hesitation. The shells would arc midair, seizing a clump of enemies when landing with their rubble-filled plumes. They would assassinate in finite bursts. It was like cans of soda, shooting up with aggressive foam, yet, abundantly more deadly.
War is like soda: angry carbon fills the area if you bother the can enough.
Maybe I am belittling this battle with that comparison. But who minds that? I do not have anyone to prove myself to.
But Heinrich and Viktor were no longer the ones to shake the "soda." They had done enough of that in previous moments. In their trench position—tucked away from the madness of the frontline—they waited as the napkins that would soon wipe the "soda"-covered shirts. The boys seemed naked without guns in their hands. Instead, they each had one slung behind their backs and first aid equipment in new satchels. They left their old satchels and the book in the bunks.
"Do not engage until after the first wave of MEs passes. After they pass, get the stretchers and gather the wounded." The senior combat medic ordered.
Heinrich shouted above the cacophony of noise in his hunched and sheltered position near a trench wall. There was no possibility of being heard in a speaking tone. His voice rode on a lifeboat above the vast thunders of explosives and yelling that made an active construction site seem like a lullaby. "I can't believe these MEs got past all the Cullens stationed at all those checkpoints."
"They must have been ruthless," Viktor returned with a similar shout.
"Or the Cullens were just cocky and overconfident."
"It doesn't matter why it happened. Let's just deal with this."
In morbid curiosity, Heinrich peeked over the trench wall on the tips of his feet to observe the gnarly face of the battle. The battle was a grizzly-eyed monster that breathed behind Heinrich's back for the first few minutes, but it did not present itself as a single character. It came as chaos incarnate, separated between each member of the swarm of "Mid-East rats" as they were being plucked off the world, clump by clump, between each blink of Heinrich's eyes.
"What am I watching?" Heinrich asked. The noise pushed the question back onto him.
It is one of those rare times that words fail to work in presenting an image. They reached their peak function. Only a film could do this sight justice. Sometimes the eyes are aware they are watching something horrid yet cannot define it.
Heinrich quickly retreated from the incomprehensible sight and crouched next to Viktor. He was buzzed, not from nicotine, but from the electric fear that sparked within him. The friends would have to wait until their turn to play with their own lives. Unfortunately, this made for a more mundane perspective, so I wandered through the littering chaos, through the sidewalks of bayonets, the trees of shells, and the puddles of probability to find the action.
It was stunning, truthfully, how swiftly each action was handed to me, not on just one silver platter but on hundreds of rusty platters with missing food. It was astonishing but expected of battle.
It was then that the inevitable occurred.
Despite pockets of the ground being dug out by the Marleyan's shells, some Mid-Easterners made it past each obstacle and arrived at the Barnsil's frontline with their bayonets ready to plunge. One by one, the surviving Mid-Easterners pushed their blades into Marleyan and Eldian chests; hearts were caught in-between pumps, and breaths popped like their lungs were organic balloons.
The ravagement was swift and cunning, leaving minimal room for emotion.
In all of this, Milo had people skewered on his left and right. People he called bunkmates for a few months had their lives halted in mere seconds, but there was no time to process that. All he could trust were his deep instincts and the subtle intuition of his gun.
So, as the influx of enemies came upon him, Milo fumbled backward into the small trench wall behind him. His bayonet was his sole protector as he hugged the rifle stock against his body. Nonetheless, months of training vanished in an instant as he fell on his behind, and the enemy fleet's presence tore any sense of confidence he once flaunted.
Was it time for Milo's doom?
A mid-easterner loomed on the bully for a heavy second with the rifle pointed at a vital point. But this enemy held the gun in limbo; he was slow to react; maybe he was too green, too new to the world he was in.
Milo shut his eyes and propelled his weapon forward, penetrating his enemy. The mid-easterner winced and groaned before the tension in his limbs went limp, and he became a fresh husk.
Avoiding eye contact with his victim, Milo touched his pocket and felt for the slight impression of his bloodied photo of Pieck. He sighed like the thought of her provided safety; it was a momentary relief until he met the blank eyes of the man he skewered.
"I…I…" Milo said incoherently.
Another enemy came upon Milo from No Man's Land and did not allow the young soldier to process his actions. But that was okay since he just needed instincts. The one he called upon was a cursory reflex to use the new husk before him.
The new enemy soldier plunged his bayonet into the fresh husk Milo used as a meatshield. Milo forced the corpse onto the enemy, distracting him, which gave the Eldian a chance to escape.
Shock propelled Milo upward as he gripped his armband desperately as it was a handle to center himself in the swift mayhem—even if the armband was a center of oppression. Once again, there was no time for Milo to ponder the philosophy of his actions, the mental ruin it may bring him, or the possibility that nothing will change, albeit that would be unlikely.
In newly sprung cowardice, Milo pried his legs to drive through the crowding of violence that flooded the trenches with hundreds of scenarios mirroring his but ending with tragedy. It caked his vision with thick molasses that applied ankle weights to his legs like he was already a prisoner of war without being captured yet. There was no room to escape, only room to confront.
Milo, the bully that preached his strength to those younger than him, was a boy of cowardice when the moment mattered. How deeply ironic. Nonetheless, the ones that plan to become heroes get trapped in their dreams instead of getting trapped in the reality of themselves that they only discover in desperate moments.
As fellow bunkmates were killed, Milo was forced to bring the same fate to the enemies, aligning with an obedient soldier's miserable calling.
I had my fill of that mayhem, so I wandered back to Heinrich and Viktor, who were still huddling in confusion. They were still in a more protected region but needed help to wrap their heads around why Pieck and Reiner were not deployed yet.
"Why haven't they released the cart and armored yet? They could clear through this easy," Heinrich mentioned.
"I'm not so sure about that. With all their advancements, I don't think we can underestimate these MEs. And of course, there's the truth that—"
"The titans are not easily replaced."
"Yes. Marley put a lot of investment into them. If they die now, two random Eldian children will get the titans, and the Marleyan military wouldn't want to spend time finding them. But we are replaceable, so it's much easier to have some of our infantry break down some enemies, and then the titans can go in to finish the rest."
Heinrich nodded and sharply covered his ears as someone fired a new spray of bullets in the vicinity, peppering noise candidly. Viktor mirrored him. It almost looked like they were worried their ears would fall off from how quickly they reached for them.
Viktor then dropped his hands hesitantly only to put them back on his ears, "I opened my ears just for a moment, thinking that would help me get used to this sound."
"I think it's best if we don't get used to it. If we do, then we know something is wrong."
I wished they would cease their unnecessary squabbling. It was unneeded with the guns already shouting over them.
Heinrich and Viktor continued to huddle, likely wondering when they would get to observe this battle's action instead of hearing its destructive presence playing behind their backs like an overly-realistic radio system manufactured by human nature. They also must have been thinking about Kaslow's "Warrior's Minute" since their positions spared them from experiencing it yet. Or maybe they were thinking about nothing at all, but that is challenging to believe.
As Kaslow once described with lips curling, the Warrior's Minute comes after the wait where an enemy is in front of us: "It is the minute where everything happens all at once—it defines your near future, and if you're unfortunate enough, it will define your long-term future as well." Not every soul gets to experience that minute for themselves since, for some, their time gets stopped after a pair of seconds when the bullet lodges between a pair of hands on a clock or a pair of arteries in the body.
What would Heinrich and Viktor's minute be for this battle?
They would not find out in the first wave of that battle, unfortunately (or fortunately) since the gears of the fight would grind regardless of their non-existent contribution. Many contributions were already made with blood, so the battle was a self-sustaining vessel with a mechanical nucleus and uncompromising metabolism. A mitochondria of bones.
As the chaotic song of war dropped to an anxious stall, the Marlyean leadership tossed commands among each other. It seemed that the first spurt of action had finished, and there would be silence for the time being, except for some shouting. The silence called for significant unease since the reduced activity strung it with uncertainty.
"Medics!" The leading combat medic shouted. "It looks like the first wave has ended."
Heinrich and Viktor struggled to stand up as if the previous noise locked their knees but did not return the keys.
"Get the stretchers! You all know what to do."
The boys listened to their superior officer as they cooperated with their legs to be of use again. They followed others to get their supplies.
"Don't feel, Heinrich," I said to the boy. "Just pick a body up and put it on the stretcher. And do it again and again. Put the water in your bucket. Pour it out. And put some different water back in."
One could think Heinrich was attempting to start a fire with how aggressively he rubbed his palms together, but I do not believe that was the case. He must have been making sure his hands were working or at least trying to get the dirt off. He then gripped one pair of stretcher handles while Viktor grabbed the other.
I thought he blatantly ignored my question until he murmured, "What bucket?" His voice was tame—too much so.
I replied, "Don't be here right now. Be somewhere else in your head. Think about my jokes. Think about your cigarette friend."
"That's probably the dumbest thing you said," he replied.
"Lie to yourself, Heinrich. See an illusion. They're useful once in a while. Think of something better than this. Love, maybe. That's something the ones you'll be picking up may not experience again."
A hint of confusion lingered on Heinrich's eyebrow until it dribbled away with his sweat, "I already know that." Viktor and Heinrich lifted the stretcher with a corpse of dead air lying on top. It would need to be kicked off soon. "I already know that," he repeated.
"Yes, I only know the things you know. That's how I exist."
With backs tightened and coordination tested, the two friends shuffled through the showering of stretchers and their bearers. They were brisk in their steps like autumn leaves shuffling on the ground. However, Heinrich's steps deadened in their pace when they picked up on the harrowing presence of limbs; there were so many, with some trembling and others solemn in an impoverished state. Some had torsos attached, while others had not. The rifles, on the other hand, did not tremble. They signaled a warning with their bloody bayonets that were consistently ignored, or maybe, everyone had just been desensitized to the sight.
The stretcher raised as Viktor attempted to keep moving. His back was facing the foot soldiers, so he had not absorbed the site yet. He must not have wanted to either. Heinrich, however, resisted moving any further.
"Heinrich! Come on!" Viktor urged.
Heinrich's eyes were wandering, strolling upon the grains of filth clinging to the trench walls and the combat medics brushing past them. It was a stroll with very little leisure but one that helped distract. Ultimately, Heinrich's eyes landed on Viktor's, and they gripped each other's eyes for an instant. Nothing firm, nothing tight—nothing warm, nothing cold. It was a point of focus for Heinrich. Something familiar in the havoc.
I was wrong. The eyes…almost moved in for an embrace. Ironic, quite interestingly.
The friends picked up their pace and shuffled in the frontline to aid those that needed them.
-X-X-X-X-X-
There was significantly less room to feel sympathy in this situation than Heinrich initially anticipated. This reality was due to the medics' hurried communication, which left minimal time to consider the devastating wounds that littered their vicinity. Gashes in stomachs were just like wounded bark one may come across on the tree—it was simply a natural part of the environment.
The leading medic ordered. "Steiner! Dassler! Help any other medic who needs assistance!" The order got smothered quickly by more desperate requests from other medics.
As the red medical crosses buzzed about the front line, Heinrich and Viktor ran to their first potential patient. It was a Marleyan with a wounded thigh, and an even more wounded dignity seemed to have remained. He presented the standard hatred for Eldians with the demeaning sneer that employed all the muscles of the face, which Heinrich and Viktor were too busy to be bothered by. This unnecessary look swiftly dissolved as Viktor wrapped a bandage around the leg circumference and helped him onto the stretcher. There were more pertinent things at that moment than petty race squabbling.
The boys continued helping the souls that needed it. What made this more complex, however, was the numerous Mid-East corpses littered around the area, mingling with the Eldian and Marleyan deceased. Those that survived the initial attack with minimal wounds were deeply distraught and wandered, looking for something. Something somewhere. Nothing tangible, I assume. The medics employed these survivors' help to move the critically wounded. It also gave these soldiers a purpose that helped them shovel through the suffocation that a distraught state entails.
However, one survivor no longer had the mental wherewithal to search for anything. Once chaste to legitimate violence, this man became a stone in a river of rescuers surging around him. His ambitions had already been degraded by the deaths he made, but now he looked upon the bunkmates he slept beside, once bullied with, and laughed with, lying burnt, bled out, and silent.
Was he a hero?
Or is that role a fallacy? A fake?
Viktor grabbed the handles on the stretcher when Heinrich noticed that survivor, or maybe a frozen "hero," around twenty meters away from him. Someone looking from afar would not know this man was once a proud bully and once an eager cadet in training.
"Why are you looking over there? Focus here." Viktor demanded, irritated.
"It's Milo," Heinrich replied. "He's…not dead yet."
"Did you want him to be?"
Viktor pulled his friend back into focus, but Heinrich glanced back at Milo before returning to the patient at hand. His old bully's head poked through the crowd of soldiers with their heads down, figuring out what to do next. But Heinrich knew what he had to do. He continued with it.
The friends would repeat this process of picking up strangers and dropping them off at a safe area to a mind-numbing point. They did it to the degree that each person's wounds blended together in the boys' minds, and they would struggle to recall the differences. In truth, it was intriguing how Heinrich placed a great effort into being frozen and indifferent to the victims because I knew he carried tremendous empathy. Sometimes, I would look upon his face while he bandaged wounded folk, and he was always somewhere else, in an unnamed land, with angels or demons for all I knew. His simple cerulean eyes would wrinkle in the singular way they knew how: red veins made webs around his sky-colored ring-like iris with clouds sinking through the pupil. It appeared he took my advice of mentally being somewhere else in stride. Either way, the strain this boy took on was hardly flamboyant but was loud in the right places.
"Steiner! Dassler! Over here!"
While returning to the Frontline after dropping off another critically wounded patient, the two friends received a call from the leading combat medic. They hurried over to him and followed his ash-ridden finger—which was hardly clean enough for a medic—but it pointed to one of many men. This fellow wore a familiar face; even from the distance that the friends were away from this person, they recognized the facial features which produced countless lies and countless false narratives.
This fellow bore a trifling lack of integrity. He went beyond plagiarism when it came to Heinrich's original story from the training camp by having the gall to pass it off as his own work. He attempted to collect the praise from peers that Heinrich deserved and stuck by his lie incredibly, even when others caught his bluff.
This man was 'The narrator,' a young man whose name I do not care to share, mainly since it means little to most people and me. What would you do with his name?
Regardless, once terminally wounded, one finds little purpose in perpetuating their dishonesty, as the two friends would learn soon enough.
As Heinrich and Viktor rushed over to 'the narrator,' they found Milo standing by statically like he was struck by lightning. Frozen. Distraught. Yet limp at the same time. The narrator had a permanent grimace on his face as a reaction to the pair of bullets that passed through his lower torso. He nearly entirely shut his eyes, too; from my view, it appeared like he was looking out of coin slits. No amount of money would stop this bleeding.
But those coin-slit eyes spread when the sacred red cross graced his view; the medical armbands are a signal that becomes more comforting in the darkest of times. Comfort does not directly correlate with living, however.
"Help me," the narrator murmured with a trembling arm reaching out.
Viktor lifted the torso slightly to see if the bullets were lodged inside, "There's exit wounds here." The narrator made slight whimpers with the movement.
"That means we don't have to operate, but…" Heinrich's eyes flashed around. "I…I don't know how to deal with this much blood."
Viktor pushed Milo aside and pulled out a gauze. He swiftly pressed it over the bullet wound, but the narrator writhed in pain from the touch.
"Stop moving," Viktor said. Heinrich then injected some morphine into the man, hoping it would dampen the pain. It was useless.
"This is out of our experience, Heinrich," Viktor said, hands coated in red.
"I know…" Heinrich shouted to two medics passing by with an occupied stretcher. "Help, please! I don't know how to stop all this bleeding."
"We can't help right now. If we don't take the victim we're carrying right now back to the medical tent, they definitely won't make it." The medics rushed off.
Heinrich and Viktor hung in silence before rushing to find a stretcher to transport the narrator. They found one, set it on the ground, and cautiously moved the narrator onto it; all the while, Milo stared uselessly. With the friends' quick raise of the stretcher, however, the narrator confessed as his breathing deadened:
"It was your story all along, Heinrich. That thing with that super-powered Eldian was all you." He took a shallow breath, "I was just jealous that you could escape the stress of what we were doing…and put your effort toward something creative." He coughed weakly, "I wanted…I wanted….to do that for myself."
The confession was carried away on a different stretcher. Viktor and Heinrich's lips were stitched shut.
"Am I going to die?" That is the question etched into every military man's mind.
Viktor hesitated, "You lost a lot of blood."
"I guess that means yes, then." The narrator breathed sharply through his nose, "I'm going to die."
The boys produced no refuting comments, no words of comfort, and no sweetness in the desolating grief that consumed the narrator like a viral disease. Instead, Heinrich and Viktor's eyes met, and they conversed something unreadable. The crinkle in their eyebrows spoke volumes, however, and they slightly shook their heads. The hints of whimpers then rose from the occupied stretcher like a crowd of prisoners stretching as far as they could despite their frailty. It was the kind that called for pity, the kind that denounced a respectful passing, and the kind that would leave one undignified. Regardless, the whimpers burned out like a rolling coin struggling to keep moving forward with its weakening momentum. It had to topple over and collapse at some point.
I will admit, Heinrich and Viktor. You two did not do your job right. Despite the likelihood of someone dying, you must tell them they will survive since dying without grasping for hope in the final moments is a soul that did not fight till the end. Telling them they will survive means more than simply being correct.
That reasoning was valid all those centuries ago and still holds today in the land of combustion and industrialization.