«One day, the man who made us believe, that we followed him, we would gain total freedom for life, died before our eyes four minutes after the promise.
But they voluntarily took that freedom from him.»
Floch looking at the sea of corpses.
He remembered well, how he's caught on the battlefield.
Floch don't wanted to join the Survey Corps.
He remembered well, how he woke up from a nightmare for the first time. With a jitters, with in a cold sweat, with bursting hands, senselessly grasping at the frantically pounding heart and swallow lump in the throat like a heavy knife.
This is how his cellmates used to wake up.
Yes, just cellmates.
For while they are being led to faithful concession by manipulations, and in Garrison Regiment they teach to keep quiet and don't fuck around, they are all locked up like a princess in a tower, but no one is coming to save them.
Floch remembered well, how several friends get out of their beds anxiously pulling on Forster's shoulder.
«Floch? Floch, look at me please!»
«He's like a enchanted, what's bullshit...»
«What the hell, Floch, you've never woken up in the middle of the night all wet before!»
Yes, he is never woken up... Floch saw, how the rest of bedroom is sometimes disturbed, he heard, how shout out his cellmates, but he is not feeling that's.
It won't affect him, Floch is not afraid of anything, he holds his nose high and wags his ass, so he doesn't plan to react to how bad it gets for others at night.
But they did respond to it.
That night Floch felt like a bastard for the first time.
Neither pleas nor prayers helped.
Floch is chokes his dinner, while listening wild stories from Eren and the scouting guys. But he isn't believed in us, that it's all just a made-up fairy tale, but already through closed lips and a dumbfounded look.
Forster hears Eren bellowing back, but this suicide bomber is shooed away by Jean, asking him not to cock his head, to see how bad it is for the kid who just came over from the garrison, and points his palm right at the pale-green face.
«Just fuck him!» — says Yeager, but afterwards they and a few other people in the dining room are surprised by the thunderous slamming of the door, looking at the empty seat and the full plate of soup.
Floch remembered well, how woke up from nightmare in second time. Before the rockfall.
«Flock, what the hell happened? What, were you dreaming?»
«There was something about the sea... And Eren was there... He asked something about Erwin Smith.day» Forster clings to his head as they cover him with a warm blanket and ask him to sleep just a little longer, for tomorrow is the big day.
Tomorrow it's all the end.
Its over, but no for Floch.
He remembers perfectly how he listened to Commander Smith's words before he flew out to attack, and how his stomach gave a sharp yank, humiliating Forster so tactlessly in front of his squads of comrades and in front of Smith himself.
Erwin pays no attention, but only for a moment does Flock cling to his worried gaze. He looks like a father at a sick child.
With the same eyes he counts all the fighters.
«CAPTAIN, ARE YOU HEARD ABOUT SEA EVER?»
Yeager rips his throat out at the elder Ackerman, thinking it will help. What a naive boy, it is already clear: the serum will go to the commander! Had so many men died for nothing? Was it for nothing that Forster, with the warming hope in his heart, dragged on his frail ass this unwillingly heavy, wiry body?
In a mind, Floch had already chuckled and laughed wickedly a few times.
«So... Just Armin»
Something is broken down at the moment in a Forster's breast.
Hope was, is, and still is, even when the captain takes the hand of the barely alive Arlert, even when the decision has already been made, even when the syringe is empty.
Floch squints; they'll change their minds, change their minds, change their minds...
He tries to understand where he heard Erwin's voice from, but with his eyes open he only watches the titan gobble up Berthold.
Floch are vomits a second time. Only the already worried blue eyes look fatherly from under his dark bangs, and Levi immediately hides.
That night Floch woke for the third time from a nightmare. No one asked, no one touched the redheads hairs, no one stroked his back in a friendly way, and he had to cover himself with a blanket. Forster screamed at the top of his lungs. To the point of tears, cramps, probably severe arrhythmia.
Floch in a burst of emotion smashed the glass tile that stood in the room which served as something of a very bad mirror.
Then no one but Jean took Forster by the shoulder, trying to cheer him up. As they stood there in their green trench coats, Floch felt his insides clench, bleed, and unclench again.
The bad view. Very bad view.
Amidst the stone faces and dark foliage, someone's voice hoarsely tries to call out to Erwin.
Several years later, Forster wakes up from anxiety nightmares every night.
She wraps herself in the blanket again, trying to sleep. It doesn't work on mind.
Before going out on another outing with the Yeagerists, Floch looks at himself through a new plate of shiny covering, already with a new crack.
He turns pale as he notices a couple of gray strands and fumbles for huge bags on his elongated face.
He hides white hair in a red mop, adjusts his black uniform, and is already in a hurry.
"Hey, Forster. Go back to sleep, I don't want any more nighttime debauchery here." - A gruff baritone calls out to the kneeling young man.
"Yes, as you say." - defiantly obeying, Forster rises, walking out of the hall.
"Good night, Captain."
Levi corrects Erwin's portrait, but casts a glance toward the shadows, noticing a smear of blood on Floch's cheek and a pair of gray hairs on the patterned frame of Erwin's portrait.