The Diary of A Young Girl
By Ymir Fritz
Entry #11
While saddening to a handful of folks, Milo's death caused nothing more than a small gust of despair that a shell effortlessly punched through on its mission to eradicate. Heinrich and Viktor could not even shed tears for this young man. Maybe their eyes were experiencing a drought, but even if that was not the case, their tearlessness was plausible, considering their history with him. Yet, the nagging sight of Milo so brutally dying made its imprint as a book on the shelves of nightmare-inducing sights the boys exposed themselves to.
The grander issue was the titan formation's dismantling, however.
As Heinrich and Viktor paced back to their trenches with the victim with a higher chance of surviving than Milo, the Armored titan froze in a lunge position, and the suicide bombers were exposed. Marleyan watch soldiers peered through their binoculars to stay updated on this battle from their trenches, and as they covered their eyes with their contraptions, it was hard to see their expressions. However, the contortions of their mouths said it all-the shift from simple lines with their lips into scowls revealed much.
"Sir, the titans are down," one watchman said.
"Just as we feared," a captain retorted.
Viktor and Heinrich paused as they heard this until other medics urged them to move along. I followed this officer as he and a few others dashed to the other senior officers in a dugout.
The high-ranked officers shoved the curtain aside with panting, and Commander Magath asked, "Well, what is it?" The dim room was stubborn. The curtain opening did little to illuminate the pit of old men.
"The Armored is down!"
Magath cursed under his breath and looked over at the captain, who requested the titans in the first place with the letter. "You placed too much hope on the titans for this particular mission. They do not excel in this sort of strategy."
"It's too late to talk about that now, Commander. We came up with a plan in case this happened. Let's use it." He paused, "You can punish me later."
"Right," Magath refocused his attention on the other officials. "You all know what we need to do. We need to send someone out there as swiftly as possible to collect Finger and Braun. Save the men manning the Cart's gun armament, but leave the suiciders be if there's no room in the vehicle. We can get more of those by putting bomb vests on people from a nuthouse somewhere." He turned his back away, "For the time being, this is a retreat…as much as I hate to say it."
"Yes…commander."
The officers left the dugout and did what they needed to get the message along. However, retrieving two crucial weapons receiving heavy fire is an even taller order than what the two young combat medics endured. What would guarantee the safety of the vehicles going out there and picking up the warriors and others? Who would actually climb onto the titans and pull the shifters out?
Those were likely the questions that Heinrich and Viktor pondered as they ran to the medical tents. Even if they did not hear the plan's details, it was predictable, so anyone could have figured it out.
By that point, Heinrich and Viktor were numb to horrid odors I could not smell, numb to the noise, and numb to whatever things civilians typically are not numb to. They made a few more rounds to No Man's land and back, picking up a few more wounded. Viktor led the stretcher to a flickering life every time, taking the most initiative; no matter how many lives he saved, that would not right the wrongs of him letting so many die under a titan.
Heinrich looked upon the dirtied back of Viktor's uniform, his soldiers relaxed. "We failed so much these past few days…But I feel so relieved at the same time." They were back at the medical tents.
That comment received a glare from Viktor over his shoulder.
"I don't even feel ashamed to say it. It doesn't even matter to me that the mission failed."
"A lot of people died just so a mission could fail. Do you feel relieved about them too?" Viktor asked.
"Well, of course I don't! Those people matter…Y-you know what I'm trying to say."
"I'm glad it's over too. That's the only part I'm relieved about. And it goes without saying that—" He set the stretcher down near a medical tent. "—That it would have been damn great if Kurt could have failed with us for the rest of the trip. You know, instead of being one of our failures."
The wounded man released a lonely verse of gratitude, 'Thank you for helping me.' The friends neglected it.
Viktor asked while walking away, "When do you think Commander Magath will give us the details about no longer allowed in the military?"
"After they retrieve the titans, probably. We're not a priority to them right now."
"Or maybe they'll tell us on the ship ride back. What do you think we will do when we get kicked out and sent back home…I mean…back to the internment zone? To your mama and papa? Lina?"
Heinrich flinched at the mention of the name and his parents, "We're not done just yet. Let's not think about that stuff." He pointed out to the people in the tent, "We still have to be assistants to the surgeons and whoever else."
"Right, I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't want to have to think about how we have to tell Kurt's family about everything."
The officials sent out a squadron to rescue the warriors while the friends returned to their work. However, the squadron did not become much use, since Reiner raised himself out of the Armored's nape, and Pieck used the Cart's mouth for ripping him out. A few suicide bombers climbed onto the vehicle while the rest could not fit in and were abandoned. Those trembling ghosts 'oohed' until their vests went off under gunfire. The vehicle was practically running on fumes after the damage it received simply for staying still for a few seconds when people climbed on.
The grooves of Reiner's post-transformation eye marks cupped the self-loathing that dribbled from his eyes, which was already ingrained in his frame; it held it tight like a baby's grip on a finger until fading. Reiner sat in the Cart's mouth for a few extra minutes after returning to the trenches, even when his commanding officers urged him out for a debriefing. However, they did not spend much time on that debriefing since the officials did not want to risk staying too long in a vulnerable position. That would risk the MEs launching another attack.
It was embarrassing, frankly. Two of the great titans of Marley had to leave with their tails between their legs. The soldiers would have to follow as well.
Camp Barnsil, a sign of Marley's firm ambition for conquest in other lands, would soon be abandoned due to the aggression of the land's home people. Maybe this was how it should have played out. It was just. Marley leeched what they could out of other races, especially the Eldians, and grew so fat and content that it became complacent with minimal technological innovation. The empire was a boiled egg with a bloody yolk. Nonetheless, when one observes the microscopic level of Marleyan society, like working-class people, many did not care for constant expansion. It is often just the government and the government's hands that genuinely care, and maybe a percentage of civilians.
On the other hand, the Mid-Easterners were not perfect victims. They likely had their own colonizing of other lands, and religions, despite not being as successful as Marley. Maybe they were not cunning or manipulative enough.
Regardless, what would the world be without colonialism?
That is a question to keep someone up at night.
-X-X-X-X-X-
The evacuation of Camp Barnsil was swift. The vehicles that Kaslow's soldiers initially came on before this entire ordeal occurred were intact, and obviously, with the casualties, there would be more room for those surviving to sit. Some soldiers complained about legroom during the initial travel from the shore to Camp Barnsil, but I am certain their brethren's deaths were not how they wanted to receive more of it. Regardless, these vehicles and the ones the Cullens brought would serve well to carry the soldiers and non-combative people like engineers to escape.
Heinrich and Viktor rushed to their bunks. The light trail of blood from Milo's ear getting chewed off by the rat lingered by the entrance. Having the living quarters blood-free appeared to be too much to ask. Blood was as much of a comrade to Heinrich as Viktor was to him, so much so that Heinrich glanced at this stain every time he walked into the bunks, including the evacuation time.
But on this occasion, he lingered on it for a while longer.
Viktor nudged Heinrich to move out of the entranceway, and the friends hurriedly gathered their items. They picked up their old satchels and bags, and Heinrich remembered Kruger's journal. I highly doubt he had ever forgotten it. He had not forgotten to give it a sharp look of disdain, either.
"What do you think will happen to all the dead bodies out there?" Viktor asked Heinrich. "We picked up the wounded people, but I don't think there's enough time for the people that usually pick up dead bodies to do their thing."
"They're going to decompose and feed the Earth."
"That was cold."
A panic attack from a fellow bunkmate disrupted the conversation as they entered:
"Where the hell is everyone? Is this all that's left?" He paused, "We just fail, and we have to leave immediately?" The bunkmate looked upon the beds with belongings without the people they belonged to. "Who's going to take all their stuff back!?"
Viktor and Heinrich looked upon Kurt's bunk. His items sat peacefully with a few red hair stands on the prison pillow. There was no Kurt attached, unfortunately.
"Should I carry his stuff, or do you want to?" Heinrich asked gently.
Viktor sharply inhaled through his nose. "I'd prefer him to carry it since my back is shot right now…but since he's lollygagging in the heavens somewhere, I'll have to pick up the slack for him myself." He picked up the items and, oddly enough, stuffed a piece of Kurt's stranded hair in his pocket.
Heinrich attempted a close-lipped smile at Viktor's attempt to lighten things up. Maybe the fighter was returning slowly to his original form. "Why did you take the hair?"
"Maybe I can clone him. I feel like science should get there soon enough," Viktor's lower lip tremored. "Or if we ask the Goddess Ymir nicely enough, she can build our friend. Not the titan version, of course." His voice cloaked itself as his misery threatened to show, "They're both equally likely."
Unfortunately, folks. That is not available in the playbook. It would be a waste to bring the boy back anyway for only four more years of life.
The panicking survivor continued sobbing in the background as the two friends left. Viktor patted the outside wall twice as if signaling goodbye. The friends then jogged over to the evacuation point. The funneling out of everyone heading in one direction formed traffic, and Viktor and Heinrich got caught in it. Thankfully, heavy items like the cooking pots used to cook the despicable mutton stew and other mildly edible slop were disregarded and did not add to the traffic. Those appliances would become the homeless dogs of the soon-to-be abandoned Camp Barnsil.
Heavy items that were not used for cooking, such as the Cart's artillery, were rushed to any vehicle that could withstand their weight. Shell launchers and ammo were loaded too. Just a mere few days before, the ammo was as abundant as grains of rice in a full bowl—the military truck made for a fine bowl, but it did not allow the rice to become fluffy. In the evacuation, however, the bowls looked to only have a few uncooked beads of rice at the bottom and a bunch of meat on top to make up for it.
Arguments swooped around the area, dropping left and right like a flock of seagulls' excrement. Skirmishes for deciding what materials should go where were relentless, and it forced these encouraging words from Commander Magath:
"Let's get the hell out of here!"
That doubled the evacuation rate.
The glob of hundreds of people divided like cells into evacuation trucks. With the inclusion of more non-soldier members, the trucks grew more stuffed than Heinrich and Viktor initially imagined. Each vehicle became stuffed rolls; there were no air bubbles; airy heads replaced them with airy egos.
Heinrich and Viktor thought they could avoid this coloring in member variety in the trucks by traveling with the combat medics. But these trucks were too glutted with saviors to include the mildly helpful duo of Heinrich and Viktor. Those seats could only be occupied by heroes that eluded gunfire to rescue their brethren. Maybe if the pair saved a thousand more lives in five minutes, they could sit on the floor among the heroic boots with the heroic mud.
So, the friends had no choice but to sit among the engineers. It would have at least been pleasant if they sat among their bunkmates, the very people they slept alongside for months. Yet, the friends had no other option but to relish the view of grown men with a number of skills larger than the number of these teenagers' ages.
The friends were trapped in a cage with these breathing toolkits next to them. The mental accordion of confusion played its imaginary tune in the corners of everyone's minds as the metal cows that were the trucks mooed to the shoreline.
The ships towered over the military folk as the scurrying ants approached. Seeing these metallic giants would be a wonderful sight to an immigrant hoping to move to another country. It was also a magnificent sight to those fleeing, even if those fleeing were a group of the feared Marleyan military. And like shuffling decks of cards, the officers shoved all their subordinates into the ships' hulls, regardless of their branch in the military.
Conversation sputtered as all the fungible subordinates were stuck in the hulls. They fought over the limited supply of bread and jam; unsurprisingly, Heinrich and Viktor got none of it. Instead, they watched two young infantrymen gag on their freshly fought-for food. Their words wrestled the carbs in their mouths:
"Do you think we really had to evacuate? Should we have held our ground?"
"I have no damn clue. I don't know what the hell we're doing half the time. I don't even know how these ships got here so fast."
"Don't tell anyone I said this, but I think Commander Magath may have called to evacuate even before the titans did their mission with us. They were here already, probably."
"Say whatever you want. Gossip is the least of our worries right now."
As can be applied to most of life, understanding the actions you are forced to make often comes long after you actually do them. Heinrich and Viktor felt much the same. Like how people sit in their baths mulling over how they could have better argued in a fight with their spouses, all the subordinates mulled over in the showering of bread and jam how the battle could have been better played. They became strategists moments after their superiors performed with mediocrity.
"Maybe if we had more time, we could have set up explosive traps in our trenches like the MEs originally did for theirs. You remember those explosives, don't you?" Viktor asked.
"Of course I do." Heinrich returned. "We jumped along their trenches like we were jumping across rocks on the river."
"If you actually forgot it, I wouldn't know what to say." Some buffoon pressed against Viktor's back, but he ignored it and focused on Heinrich. "Hey, don't throw up, okay?"
"What was that? I can barely hear you. It's so loud in here."
"Don't throw up, okay?!"
"I won't! I barely ate anything."
"I don't want to stand in it if you do."
"Yea, neither would I, idiot."
Their abrasiveness had not diminished. The cluttered hull did little to soothe anyone and their tensions.
"Do you think…my sister would have smoked her brains out by now?" Viktor asked.
"What? I don't think she's so desperate for food that she would smoke her own brain on a stove. That doesn't even make any damn sense."
"That's not what I mean. Are you even listening? I'm saying she's desperate enough for pleasure that she would consume cigarettes like candy. And with us gone, I have no clue what she's been doing to busy herself."
"Maybe she's working at my parents' bar. With me and my papa gone, my mom needs someone to exploit anyway."
"Hmm."
"Maybe she's swooning someone."
"Hmm. Both seem plausible."
There looked there to be a quandary on Viktor's lips that he did not want to share. It was noticeable despite the cramped area's hindrance to conversation.
"Spill it, Viktor. You have something to say."
"Commander Magath warned us before that he would do something that would make us regret for the rest of our lives letting those people die."
"I think he was just making a threat. He probably won't go through with it. And he won't need to do anything to make us regret…We regret it already. What would we be if we didn't regret it?"
"These are military officials. They don't bluff."
"Military strategy often bluffs." Heinrich paused and said, "They may just force heavier taxes on our families. We can manage with that. At least we would be alive."
"Being in financial ruin would be more miserable than what we've been doing."
"They could throw my mama and papa in prison."
Viktor's face buckled with paranoia, "But what if it's worse than that?"
"How bad can it go?" It only took a flash to remember, "No, you can't be talking about that."
"Heinrich, it's possible."
"No! No! No! Don't you dare mention it. Sergeant Kaslow and Commander Magath wouldn't do that. That's too extreme."
"It's been done before for much smaller crimes. And those are military officials we're talking about. They don't give a shit about us. They can do damn well whatever they want."
"No… Why did you have to remind me of that punishment? Right when I thought we escaped it all."
Heinrich and Viktor ached with new anxiety.
"Mama, please, when I get back….please be there. And papa, be safe wherever you are."