Dangerous Territory

Dots and Dashes

The next day, Levi rejoined his fellow Jews, being forced out of the prison before sunrise, hit to walk faster if the person in front of him was too slow, beaten for not working harder, slaving away in the rain on a nearly-empty stomach, given only a bowl of watery soup late at night, and then shoved back down into the dungeon for a few hours of sleep.

Levi bravely put up with the cruel bullying. He heard plenty of sneers and got kicked more than once. As much as he knew he could have killed these soldiers, for the sake of his companions, he just clenched his jaw and dealt with it. If Krista was right, he would be out of this any day now, and these Germans would hopefully all die at the hands of the incoming Allies.

Only, he hoped some of them survived.

Armin rescued him from bullies once, smiling kindly to him and asking in broken French if he was okay. Another time, a group of soldiers started to gang around Levi, pushing him to and fro. Just as Levi was truly losing his patience and ready to lash out, Jean stomped up, shouted at the soldiers to get back to their posts, and quietly told Levi "Fais gaffe, idiot." Watch out, idiot.

During this time, Levi did not see Eren. He hoped the young lieutenant was smart enough to kiss that bug-eyed captain's ass, anything to not be on his bad side when it was reported that Eren lost all sixteen Jews.

Upon returning to his cell after that first rough day back, drenched to the bone and exhausted, Levi collapsed onto his cot, only to hurt his head as it landed on something hard. He reached under his pillow, where he found another gardenia flower (slightly crushed now) and a carrot. All the other Jews were astonished by the miraculous appearance of more food. Levi smiled to himself, knowing this was once again Eren doing whatever he could to help them out. They had to eat long after lights-out so no one heard the sounds of them biting into crisp vegetables, but it was some solid food to fill their stomachs.

That night, Levi went to sleep with the gardenia still under his pillow, filling his nose with a pleasant scent and calming his dreams into fantasies of gardens.

As he worked, Levi listened to the chatter around the village, trying to hear any news of the war. Brussels, Kortenberg, and Leuven were freed by the British. Chalon-sur-Saône was liberated by the French. Canada freed the ports of Dieppe and Saint-Valery-en-Caux. The Polish liberated Ypres. Finland severed their relations with Germany and agreed to a ceasefire with the Soviet Union. As the Allies began to sweep over France, leaders of the Vichy Régime fled to Germany.

The Axis was rapidly losing ground to the Allies. While the news was good for him as a Frenchman, he knew it was putting the Germans into a panic. As a Jew, that meant his survival was getting more and more precarious with every passing day.

* * *

It was late when Eren came back into the house he had commandeered for the closest members of his platoon. He tossed off his peaked cap, shook out his rain-drenched coat, and gave a long, exhausted sigh. Officer meetings with Kitz Woermann were becoming unbearable.

"I seriously need beer!"

Most of his men were already asleep for the night, and he wished he could join them. First, alcohol. Beer, wine, something, anything.

He saw Armin with a map spread out on the kitchen table. He had his field radio next to him with his headphones on, and set up near the table was a huge new antenna, something he had been building during his free time. Eren had seen Armin working on it for weeks, slowly trading with the locals for bits of wire and metal parts.

"Anything interesting?"

Armin did not even look up from his map, his face pinched with concentration. With those headphones on, Eren wondered if he could even hear him. As Eren walked by, Armin put a hand on his ear, pressed the headphones closer to make out whatever he was hearing, adjusted a knob on the radio, closed his eyes to hear better, and then made a mark on his map with a few notes scribbled down.