To anyone still out there, Happy New Year!
The Diary of A Young Girl
By Ymir Fritz
Entry #10
"Why are you taking this body there? He's dead."
The callousness of this medic's words rattled Heinrich and Viktor and sunk them into momentary despair like a weight plunging through a frail paper. They stood at the steps of the medical tents, the cursorily built huts where lives would potentially meet the dull aches of sunlight for the final time. In their hands was the stretcher carrying a husk that spread more blood than it could pump. The foolish 'narrator' was no more—his cold tears cleaned lines of dust off his face.
The narrator was the second person in Heinrich and Viktor's training camp they witnessed perish. How many more would they see that day? One was more than enough.
Viktor and Heinrich walked aside to a patch of depraved soil to bury the man they once despised and clowned. Unsettled dirt surrounded them as corpses had already occupied the areas; they had to find a new piece of land to put their old enemy in, but that would be a tall order since there was death all around—so much of it you could fill a journal with poems about it.
Heinrich searched for a shovel until a medical tent staff intruded:
"Leave. We'll do this ourselves."
"But—" Heinrich tried to refute.
"It's more useful for you to spend time on those still alive."
Viktor and Heinrich returned the once beige stretcher to the tent since it grew plum colored with coagulated blood. They got a new stretcher. It was as fresh as one could be in these times. They then followed through the trench path again with the ant-like progression of medics bringing bodies to the survival-deciding huts.
All this saving was odd to me, however. All of these people would perish anyway in four years when an armageddon would befall them.
I revealed myself to Heinrich and asked, "Why were you trying to bury him? He cheated you." I was well aware of what his answer was going to be.
The solemn face refrained from eye contact. "I just did what they tell us to do."
"They?"
"The superiors. You already know that."
Death has an illustrious effect on people. For some unfounded reason, it causes people to grow a dollop of respect for those that have fallen, regardless of their past qualms. The narrator's qualms of being untruthful were forgivable to the friends since they must have subscribed to a falsehood: very few people deserve to die.
Heinrich and Viktor undoubtedly did not think extensively of that, for they rode along the conveyer belt of drudgery, clawing to escape from this dismal pit of existence.
Upon return to the Frontline, the two friends found the sight the same as they had left it. The buzzing humans were still obscure agitations, an evolving mass that extended across the ground, frantic and continuous, aching, making sudden convulsions and occasionally falling into exhaustion. Milo seemed to have experienced all of this, but instead of falling, he sulked like energy was wholly siphoned from his body.
Why was he still there? He should have been helping.
Heinrich's gaze lingered on the bully, but Viktor grabbed his upper arm. "Ignore him."
Heinrich yanked his arm back and dropped the stretcher to make his way to Milo. His curiosity smothered his goal. Without prompting, Milo urged some pleas. "I don't think I can do another wave, Heinrich. I'm tired already. Half of the boys we bunked with during training camp are already dead." He trembled, and his lonely stare wandered to Heinrich. "Did he at least survive?" He pointed to the ground where Viktor and Heinrich were helping the narrator.
The answer tripped off Heinrich's lips and did not make it anywhere.
"What was that? Answer my question!"
Heinrich shook his head, slow at first, then it got faster.
Milo gulped, and his teeth quivered in short anger as he tilted his head down. He made a tiny wail as it grew larger and roared like a fire. He hardly knew 'the narrator,' yet he sobbed at the news, almost like his cries were a summation of the first wave's tragedies. On the other hand, Heinrich's stare paused on Milo's arms; he must have been wondering a similar thing to me: how could someone with such physical prowess hold so many tears? It was like the idea of a man folded on itself into absurdity.
Milo asked, "Why couldn't you two save him?"
No response. Only the ambient dissonance answered him.
"Say something!" he insisted.
"Look…we tried!" Viktor implored, "We didn't just give up!"
"You could have done better!"
"Could you have done better, Milo?"
"No…but it's not my job."
Heinrich murmured something, to which Milo and Viktor looked over. "I'm done with this," he said.
"You're what?" Milo asked.
"I'm done with this! I'm tired of saving people. I just want to go home! I want to be safe. I want my parents to be safe. That's all I care about!"
"We all want that, but you don't get the luxury of it. You're not the one fighting on the frontline!" Milo answered.
"I've seen more dead bodies in one day than I've ever seen in my 15 years of life."
A mildly despicable hand fell upon Milo's shoulder. The grooves swirling around the knuckles were more chaotic than an average person's, signaling a familiar force of nature—Kaslow. He spewed some calloused words, "You all will get used to this soon enough."
All the pain the boys felt seemed to be dismissed by that one statement. The words made light of great struggle, disrespecting it, demeaning it, yet, still telling the truth.
Adding one kill to five seems to sting more than one kill to one hundred. It is like adding another straw to the straw field. Each extra death someone is exposed to in the beginning bares greater weight than the additional deaths following hundreds of killings. Heinrich, Viktor, and Milo were in the lower numbers, but once they crossed a threshold, they would not be so alarmed by taking a life. It is an unnerving prospect, but everything is unnerving if you consider it enough.
-X-X-X-X-X-
When the number of wailing and injured people on the frontline reached a minimum, preparations for the second wave went underway. There was talk among the Marleyan decision-makers concerning when to deploy the titans. They had already decided the approximate deployment time before the battle but seemed okay with last-minute debates.
The plan was to deal with the first wave in the standard fashion: the infantrymen would weed out the Mid-Easterners that rushed into the frontline. The Marleyan strategists thought there would be better paths to victory than waiting for the second wave to come to them. They believed utilizing the titans after the first wave would mean less opposition if they plotted a joint Eldian/Marleyan effort to rush to the ME frontline instead of waiting for the second wave.
The last-minute debates confirmed this plan.
After some clearing out, a few captains rallied the troops they needed; most were well, but those only mildly wounded joined too. However, the crowd was split by two people worth a fleet as they strolled through—Reiner Braun and Pieck Finger. Envy from lower-ranked soldiers would typically follow when these two walked anywhere, but it was hard to tell if the Eldian troops bore any. These lesser soldiers' mild fatigue existed like hands and gripped their faces with their palms and fingers, pulling their eyebags down, not giving any slack to express that envy.
Needless to say, Heinrich had seen Reiner a few times before, but he only got a glimpse of Pieck in person. Her brushing through the man-ridden crowd felt like having a deviant passing through. An anomaly. Her external daintiness with her petite stature contradicted the assertiveness she summoned in desperate moments. Regardless, it intrigued me why Marley would trust those barely past the trials of adolescence to command hefty powers like the titans. But I see that these warriors had little autonomy, regardless. They were nothing more than the very hands of their commanding officers, so their decision-making responsibilities were limited to the split-second decision-making required to combat enemies.
With arms behind their backs and chests out, the warriors stood beside their commanding officers. Heinrich and Viktor were in a different area, so they could not see. However, Milo listened with his hands limp on his rifle. He also held his chin low; I was surprised he did not drop it.
It was ironic. Even with the girl Milo direly sought after standing before him, he paid no attention to her. His chin stayed stiff, and his worn-out picture of her remained in his shirt pocket.
A captain, bereft of any unique features but status, made a guttural sound and spat to the side. He spoke in a voice coated with self-proclaimed superiority and discussed the general plan. "I will conduct the mission debrief now…." He rambled with the formalities before continuing, "With the first wave, we thinned down a sizable chunk of the ME forces. We do not know, however, what percentage of their troops are left over. Regardless, it will be safer now to utilize the titans, so we can use them to mount an attack before the MEs launch their second wave. This should take them by surprise."
"To carry this out, a wave of our troops will storm the ME's Frontline, but following that, a group of suicide bombers will travel as well. They will be packed between the Armored titan, which will take the front, and the Cart, which will take the back. The intention behind including the wave of troops is for them to distract our enemy as the formation of titans and bombers approaches. Once the special formation approaches, the Armored will destroy any heavy artillery. The suicide bombers will do the same. The Armored would be more than enough to care of heavy artillery, but using the suiciders would serve to split our enemies attention."
There was a baffling irony to this plan. The people that would die no matter what, the suicide bombers, would be protected by the titans. However, those trying to survive, the standard infantry, would not be shielded in their charge.
"The obvious struggle is that the frontline is much lengthier than the area of protection the armored can provide for the suicide bombers. That is why the Cart will take the rear to provide backup. All things considered, this is not the best plan." The captain was immediately aware of the missing confidence in that statement and tried to rectify it, "But we are placing our trust in it."
"To minimize casualties and friendly fire, when the suicide bombers arrive, all of you left surviving will have to make it back here. Don't let any bullets catch your back in that home stretch."
The foot soldiers in the crowd were not patient enough to wait for the superior officers to leave before mumbling and groaning. The notion that people fated to die were being protected more than those with some chance of survival was ludicrous to them. But some people's hopelessness was so potent that they did not rebel, and they let this plan's absurdity walk on them, leaving footprints on their hair.
On the other hand, Reiner Braun and Pieck Finger appeared unfazed by the plan's idiocy and carelessness. However, they likely heard it before the infantrymen and were just there for presentation. Regardless, they formed hand-knitted masks to show compliance with orders to hide any discontent—masks with minimal movement for the corners of the mouth to restrict reactionary looks of hatred. A time would come for the masks to fall like the hardening capabilities being undone on a titan; some skin may be removed too.
While the captains were addressing the foot soldiers, the combat medics huddled closer to the center of the catacombs of trenches. Heinrich and Viktor listened keenly to what was likely their final mission.
"After the formation of the titans and the bombers depart from our frontline, it will be our job to rescue the wounded. But we must wait for the surviving chargers to be closer to the ME frontline. This way, our enemies will be busy trying to kill them, but they will not think about us. However, stay clear of that titan formation since shells will be thrown at them without question."
All the medics nodded. Heinrich scrunched his chin oddly while pursing his lip and looked over to his friend, "I think our 'warrior's minute' will finally arrive."
"The minute where everything happens…." Viktor trailed off. "This is probably our last battle as combat medics. So, let's make it count."
The captains arranged the squads in the frontline, and together they formed the hideous skeleton that would rattle across No Man's Land in the hope of meaningless victory. This orchestra of death was under the spell of their empire's ambition, which informed their own slightly misguided perspectives of their existence. Likewise could be said for the MEs.
But who cares what I think? I have simply been born into tragedy and have spectated some for the entirety of my lamentable existence.
The Marleyan infantrymen were lined up against the Frontline's wall, and the Eldians were positioned on the slope. It was much like the Cullens when they prepared to charge before Heinrich and Viktor got that message to Commander Magath. The combat medics were positioned in a trench path closer to the center, and warriors stood alongside the captains.
A captain roared a soldier's most feared command, the command that sparked devastation. How sad. We cannot have victory without devastation, however.
"Over the top!"
The fleet of men poured out of the trenches for a plan that did not favor them, but they progressed regardless. They had no other choice. On the other hand, the combat medics moved into the Frontline in the infantry's place and observed the bones they would soon have to rescue, preferably alive.
Heinrich and Viktor arrived at the Frontline and watched as Reiner Braun and Pieck Finger went over the top. The warriors pulled knives out and slashed their palms while facing the destitute No man's land, which by that point could be likened to a colossal burnt rag; the shells would rain upon them soon. Two ravenous spurts of lightning plunged from above, and out from the blinding luminescence came two of my devils, ones I had no choice but to craft perfectly every time. I remember it so clearly.
While the Cart titan's mounts were carried out and applied, the somber progression of suicide bombers passed through. With their entire beings trembling, these ill-fated men were pushed over the top by Marleyan soldiers—they were bomb dogs that actually understood their fates and whimpered more. Some of these men trembled so fast I had no clue why their explosive vests did not go off.
The titan and bombing formation gathered themselves, and Viktor and Heinrich looked upon it while clutching their rifles. The guns were supposed to be slung across their backs, but they held the things dearly in front of them like they needed metallic sponges to soak their stress.
The titan formation moved.
A warrior's minute began for the combat medics.
Like a slow and deliberately advancing bomb, the titans and suiciders moved in one direction as enemy shells bombarded the infantry. The infantrymen's numbers thinned in a mere instant, and the whisps of smoke temporarily hid bodies. It was an intense performance of smoke. Unchoreographed yet potently deadly.
It was unfortunate for the foot soldiers, but it gave the combat medics a job.
After ten seconds, the dozens of combat medics went over the top and scattered through the burnt No man's land with their stretchers. The rule of not shooting a medic was still in play but was loosely enforced. Heinrich and Viktor spared no time worrying about getting hit as they briefly passed the suicide bombers. The sight of the unfortunate lot would normally arouse sympathy, but it would act as a hindrance in this instance. Besides, the acts those suicide bombers committed to warrant such treatment were likely beyond despicable, and they deserved their early deaths. Or maybe they did not.
Who cares. All these swine would perish at some point anyway.
The friends directed their attention back to the men dropping faster than flies. They attempted to run, but their previous experience passing No man's land on foot would prove that to be foolish. The terrain's poor hygiene, with holes and scoops of decrepit dirt being flung everywhere, forced the boys to go at a cautious jog. If not, the smoke would scoop them up too, with little consideration for their limbs.
But it must have irked the boys to see people they could save in the distance, but they had to avoid being in the shells' range; they would have to wait for those explosives to blast closer to the ME line for body retrieval to be safer.
"Heinrich, there's one there!"
"You gotta be more specific than that. There's bodies everywhere."
"That one!"
"That one?"
With differing people in mind, the friends' stretcher folded around like a toy animal pulled at both ends by two bickering toddlers. It wavered.
"Viktor, just lead to where you want to go. We don't have time to argue."
"Fine."
Viktor led Heinrich to a Marleyan soldier that lay limp near a crater's center. He was like the last drop of water in a cup, unattended.
"We have to be quick," Viktor said.
"Obviously."
The friends went into the crater and swiftly inspected the body.
"This one is dead," Viktor said simply.
"Dammit, Viktor! I just saw someone that moved a little before. We could have went to them."
"Then let's go."
The friends left the crater, and Heinrich led Viktor to the other body that budged. They checked the body. A puddle sat like a pillow underneath that soldier's head.
"I swear he was…" Heinrich trailed off. "I though he was alive."
In these moments where life stories were being ended at every angle you could turn your head, the combat medics had to conduct constant analysis. They helped decide which life stories should continue and which would be a waste to help. They had so much power. Every second had weight.
This warrior's minute was one like no other.
Yet, stupid comments like "I swear he was alive before I put the morphine in" meant wasted resources and wasted time when medics could have applied a tourniquet to someone else with a higher likelihood of surviving. This game of survival was a tall order for the friends. They were way out of their domain despite being trained for these actions. Their decisions before this battle proved their grave incompetence.
Fortunately, Heinrich and Viktor found someone alive and put them on a stretcher without shells ringing their eardrums. There would be no time to celebrate that, however. They paced back to their trenches.
When arriving at the home trenches, the friends dropped off the wounded man and returned with the same stretcher. There was not enough time to get a new stretcher.
They then looked at the titan progression still advancing. The frequency of shells clocking the Armored titan in its upper body increased. As long as the explosives did not get to the nape, there would be a decent probability of success. However, he would have to take a break if enough explosives landed on his armor. The brass was still swallowing a significant risk with this plan; it was rotten with contradicting pride and desperation.
"We can't worry about what's happening to the titans," Viktor said. "We have to worry about our own tasks."
"I know."
The friends repeated the grave analysis of scanning lives and deciding which they would have the most success saving. The decisions grew more complex as casualties increased, and the combat medics worked thin.
"That one! His legs look disjointed!"
"Okay!"
Two saves became three.
"How about that one?"
"No, he looks too far gone."
"Do you think we can pile him on top of this one? It could be quicker."
"Two people is too heavy for us to lift."
Three saves become four. It kept increasing, but there were tens of more to save. Heinrich looked upon the progress Viktor and him made, but his face dropped at the legion of bodies still bleeding, broken, and groaning for their parents. Heinrich's shoulders caved, and he grimaced with his voice choking up.
"Viktor, we've barely done anything. Look at them…there's so many. I can't do this anymore. We still haven't even mourned yet…for Kurt."
"We don't have time for this! Stop being selfish! We could make up for those people that got killed by Kurt's titan. We could make up for that mistake now!"
Heinrich scoffed, "Those were people you let get killed. Why don't you go save them all."
Viktor launched a slap across Heinrich's face. Without a word, Heinrich turned his head forward again and stood up. He pointed to another soul they could save like nothing they discussed transpired. "Let's go get that one now."
A shell's explosion licked Viktor's back as the friends looked up to see the titan formation's progress. The formation was within range for the Cart to use its artillery against any of the ME's heavy artillery. However, the Armored titan's front continued to meet massive resistance. It crossed its forearms over its chest, and its face was tuckered in, but the violence was unrelenting.
If Reiner went down, would there be any success for this plan?
The armored leaned forward and attempted to rebalance itself before lunging. Steam emanated from the mouth like the head was a combustion engine that needed cooling. The number of shells decreased, likely signaling depleting ammo.
"Is the Armored…" Heinrich gulped, "Defeated?"
He received no response.
The Cart and the suicide bombers were exposed from the front view.
Viktor said, "We can't worry about this. Let's just save as many as we can."
The friends were, fortunately, a decent distance behind the titan formation. So, they did not receive the brunt of the force. But a tingle in the air sprung up that caught them off guard; it was not the smoke.
Viktor!
Heinrich!
"Do you hear that?" Viktor asked while helping a soldier onto the stretcher.
"Yeah…it's probably a soldier." Heinrich responded.
No other victim had called their names before.
Viktor! Heinrich! Please!
The friends could hear those shrill callings even through all the noise pollution. It was likely someone that needed help.
"What are we supposed to do?" Heinrich asked.
"This person comes first. We worry about them next."
Heinrich nodded, and they returned to their trenches with another wounded person while the shrills repeated. However, upon their return to No man's Land, their names ceased to be called.
"I don't hear it anymore."
"Where were they calling from? Do you remember?"
"I have no clue."
Heinrich waited briefly before saying, "Forget it. The people we see first are the ones we can help the most. Some other medics can take care of that person."
Viktor! Heinrich! The names were called once more.
Heinrich defied his logic and urged Viktor in a vague direction. The calling was still roughly muddled by other noises, but the friends followed their intuition as the sounds grew more apparent.
"It sounds so familiar, but I can't seem to put my finger on it," Heinrich said.
"Wait is that…? Hmph, same here."
They weaved through the horrendous terrain as other medics tended to those they skipped over. The curiosity was quite cunning and pulled them along. Through a curtain of debris, a body with three-fourths of its limbs attached laid with another arm severed. A helmet sat to the side.
"Milo?!" The friends called simultaneously. They rushed to the man's side.
"You two heard me?" Milo said weakly. "I guess that was the loudest I've been in my life…."
Viktor examined the shoulder joint and cursed. "Your arm…"
"You don't think I know its severed?" He attempted a chuckle. "I think I'm fainting."
The friends attended their old bunkmate and pulled out bandages and morphine.
"I got to see Pieck for the first time, you know? To be honest, she wasn't as pretty as she was in the photograph I have of her."
Heinrich injected some morphine as Milo continued his rambling, "And to be honest, I think she was the one that injured me. One of her gunman must have been new and did some friendly fire before they were in a safe range."
Milo tilted his head to the side gently and observed the friends working. "Look at you two. You barely know what you're doing."
"We're trying our best, you asshole!" Viktor retaliated.
Milo did not fight back but directed his attention back to Heinrich. "You know, I never did thank you for doing first aid on me that one time…that time where Kaslow shot me in the leg while I was running laps. I still don't understand why he used me as a demonstration tool for that."
"..."
Milo tugged Heinrich's shoulder. His lips were indecisive between grinning and revealing the pain with a grimace. "I'm serious. Thank you, Heinrich."
"You're welcome, Milo." Heinrich nodded while attending to the severed arm. He had not seen a wholly separated limb like this before. "The punches you gave a while after that still sucked, though."
He sighed. "I'm glad I got that off my chest."
Viktor whispered something to Heinrich before attending to a different soldier.
"Am I going to survive?" Milo asked.
Heinrich looked up at the titan formation falling apart in the distance. The hope for this battle descended with the amount of blood in Milo's body.
He finally answered the man's question. "Yes, Milo. You'll be fine. You're going to survive…and you can tell Pieck that she's not as cute in real life as in photos."
"I wish I could," Milo glimpsed at Viktor, dragging another body over. "But if you think I'm going to survive, why are you putting him on the stretcher?"
Heinrich sighed.
"Cat got your tongue?" He coughed, "I get it. I really do…Am I dying like a hero though?"
"Yes. You are."
"I don't think so. One of my own people shot me on accident probably. So many others probably died like that …it's so….I don't even know the goddamn word. The words are leaving me like the blood is."
"Anticlimatic?"
"That's the word." Tears began to dribble. "Keep writing that story, Heinrich. That was a good fit for you, believe it or not. This…" He circled the combat medic sign with a surviving finger. "This isn't for you. But anyway, I'm glad to have been your bully. It was so damn entertaining…."
Milo's tears accelerated like the constellation of pain he felt overpowered the feeble morphine that circulated in him. It must have been a fiery hell in his head, reliving memories of joy, embarrassment, anger, and excitement. His nerves likely only spoke in misery as the agony would climax in his death.
He made one final sob, "Fuck this world."
Milo's cries sputtered out, and Heinrich and Viktor picked up the man they chose to rescue over their bully. This person had all limbs attached and less fatal bleeding.
"Thank you for choosing me," the victim muttered.
"Whatever," Heinrich answered.