France, 1944. As the Allies land on the shores of Normandy, an unlikely friendship strikes up between Levi Ackerman, a widowed French Jew, and Eren Jäger, a deeply-in-the-closet lieutenant in the German Wehrmacht. The two deal with love, loss, digni...
Trigger Warning: This chapter contains homophobic slurs and suicidal thoughts.
I've been admonished in the comments for not using more trigger warnings. In my own defense, I write professionally (it's actually my job) and neither life nor literature come with trigger warnings. Psychological studies have shown that trigger warnings can actually be harmful for people with PTSD. So my choice not to use them every single time something is "triggering" (a term people toss around so much that it has lost its very real and debilitating meaning) is based on psychological studies as well as personal preference.
For this chapter, I feel a caution is needed, just a moment to take a deep breath and realize: this is fiction, and you can use the safe space that literature provides to come to terms with your trauma and grow.
I'm not going to coddle you; I'm going to challenge you to be strong. Because I know you are!
Deep breath. Now, let's go check in on Levi and Yelena.
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Deep under the streets of Metz, in a cold and damp tunnel, Levi sat at a desk in a rickety shed, his head buried in his hands. Beside him, headphones for a radio had been thrown aside, still with the sounds of German, French, and English sputtering out.
Blame it on the dampness, but Levi sniffled.
Quietly, Yelena entered the tiny shack that was her office. She saw Levi slumped over and frowned.
"I take it you heard."
His eyes lifted enough to glare at her. In those eyes, deep-set with dark circles under them, she saw a tint of pink around the eyelids. Not that Levi would ever allow himself to cry openly.
She whispered, "You have my sympathies."
"Shut the fuck up," he grumbled. "He could be alive."
Yelena's lips twisted to hold back more words. Instead, she forced up a fake smile. "Of course he could." The reports were that no German survivors were found, but she reasoned that it was best to let Levi hold onto hope. "What's the latest?"
"Not much. General Patton visited Maizières-lès-Metz. I bet he's so fucking proud of himself."
"He should be. It was quite a victory."
Levi slumped his head back down. Yes, a victory for the Allies. A whole battalion of Germans slaughtered, and the Americans lost only fifty-five men. Maizières-lès-Metz was a massacre.
