Erwin was just outside the cave, sitting on a dry rock, watching the sky.
"A blue moon, almost twice the size of ours, with a smooth surface. Yet, its brightness is similar to the moon I know."
"Yet despite all that is new, why does it feel not so different?"
Erwin reached for a simple grill mechanism he'd made to cook meat over a new, larger campfire he'd spent the morning gathering materials for.
He had encountered a small critter. A rabbit mole mix. It had wandered around the cave, perhaps searching for warmth, but it ended up as his food.
"Long arms with big claws and a meaty body. Never seen an animal like you, hope your taste is good." He murmured as he approached the cooked meat and cut a piece with his pocket knife.
He kept it a little away from the fire, letting the surrounding air cool the meat before biting into it.
"Leathery and dry. But no weird taste or smell." He cut another piece. "Not the worst thing I ate."
Memories locked deep in his brain escaped and appeared to him.
A fire made from a broken wooden door, a can of half-frozen dog food warming on top of it.
Sounds of patrol helicopters in the sky passing far away, and shells occasionally hitting the next neighborhood.
Followed by a stale bread cut in half and used as a bowl for the cooked dog food.
Erwin smiled. "Certainly not." He then pulled a leather wallet with a single compartment from the inner pocket of his jacket.
The wallet was worn from use, its color faded, surface scuffed and creased.
But that single compartment in that old wallet held everything he valued.
Erwin pulled a thick stack of pictures from it, folded into one another.
Many worn pictures with thick, bent lines and faded colors.
Erwin's eyes glided through them. Names, smiles, jokes, dreams, desires, and deaths all flashed in his mind.
"Soldiers under the daring Captain Erwin." Erwin held a bittersweet smile, taking his time to look at each picture.
Around twenty-five people, only half the size of a platoon, but also the highest number they were assigned throughout the entire war.
Assigned under a captain who, by rank, should have led a company, instead of the second lieutenant who should have led them; if that wasn't enough, their equipment and training left them ill-prepared for the campaign ahead.
"Expected to cross one more name from the inheritance list, bastards. Wasn't expecting the kids and me to be so resilient."
Erwin looked at the fire, poking it with a stick. "But even resilience like ours had a limit. Humans, after all, can only endure so much."
The fading smiles, the cold bodies, covered in the red of their own blood. All flashed before his eyes.
Erwin shook his head. "What happened, happened." He pushed the stick further into the fire. "Then why can't I forget? Your faces, your smiles, the promise I made to keep going on, even when all ended, and I had no more reason."
He reached for what remained of the meat to finish his meal before sleeping.
*****
Erwin woke to the morning light hitting his eyes directly. Trying to get up, he flinched on the spot as a sharp pain echoed across his body.
"Shit." His lips tightened as he squeezed his knees. "Damned body, can't help but torture me."
With little option, he reached for his pills, taking his usual overdose of painkillers, this time without any water to go with.
Erwin stayed still, no different than a statue, waiting for his legs to get better.
Once he felt better, Erwin took a deep breath and stretched to test his limbs. "Good enough." He got up, looking at the snowy forest before him. It was calm.
In this calmness, he reached into his pocket, took out a single cigarette, and quickly lit it. All he could think was the hit of nicotine.
Smoke entered his throat after a long inhale, then moved to his lungs, burning and warming his chest on the way down.
With each breath, his world became clearer. His situation, what just happened, settled on his mind.
But he didn't react; he didn't know how.
"Monsters, passage to a different world, snow-covered forest. Started to repeat myself like a fool now, but... It just doesn't make sense."
Seeing his cigarette finished, Erwin flicked it away.
The scorched butt bounced twice before stopping.
"I wish I could wake up in my bed. Even that empty, cold house feels alluring against this." Erwin sighed, looking at the freshly piled snow before his cave entrance. "Do with what you got, not what you wish."
Feeling some sense of defeat inside, he stepped outside. "What can I even do? Scream for help, till my lungs hurt, till my throat rips."
Tempting as the idea was, Erwin pushed it away. "Don't even know what would respond even if I do; better to do my best until I get my things together."
He felt the cold weather on his skin, sharp and numbing, but bearable.
"Not that I have any supplies to stay on my ass and wait for something to happen."
Scratching his head, Erwin began to walk in a circle.
Constantly mumbling, but saying nothing of value.
Till he stopped so suddenly, took a deep breath, and screamed.
Loud as he could, till his throat hurt. "Enough! Enough! Enough!" He shook his head. Holding it with his hand, pressing from the sides.
"I am done with overthinking. What good ever came from it anyway?"
Erwin raised his head and looked at the scenery, then smacked his lips, then rubbed his stomach, and breathed on his cold hands to warm them.
"Find water, then food, then I can make a decent fire. Yes, that will be my goal."
With it, Erwin stepped forward into the forest, holding the hatchet he got from the skeleton.
As he walked, he marked the trees with the blade of the hatchet to ensure safe passage, or at least a known route, back to his cave.
And as he did all these, his mind cleared again.
No memories, no flashbacks, just a dire feeling of something forgotten.
"Did I keep the stove on? The lights? Is the door locked? No… This feeling, this is something different."
But he ignored it.
Or tried to.
It kept lingering in his head. Even when he found a small, half-frozen stream, it was foremost on his mind. A huge hole that never filled.
Even when he dug the ground to pull some wild vegetables till his hands hurt, even when he plucked berries, and his fingers bled from thorns.
"Something, something missing."
He felt something around himself, like a set of strings wrapping around his limbs, and some hunger, not for food, but for something he didn't know.
"I must go back home."
When he returned to his cave, Erwin stopped at the entrance.
Berries and vegetables alike fell to the ground. Bounced back and forth.
His eyes widened, locked onto one point.
A woman with lush white hair, in a long dress, standing barefoot. Laughter echoed in his mind; her face was so familiar, yet alien.
She turned to Erwin, her eyes hidden behind a cloth wrapped around her head. Cuts and stitches covered her body, her fingers missing nails.
Long lines of stitch marks spread from her mouth on both sides.
But neither where she appeared nor how she looked mattered to Erwin.
"I remember…"
That emptiness, the void.
Echoes of mocking voices that belonged to something not human.
Memories his mind forbade him.
"A planet not his, laughs of Twentyfour, a set of puppet strings, and a cursed mark." He repeated again and again, each repeat confusing him further. It made no sense, yet it brought back a memory he felt was important.
Frozen in his place, he didn't even see the woman in the dress approach him, his mind too focused on the constant flashes of the same memory. Same void, same darkness.
His hand was shaking, itching for a confrontation.
The woman touched Erwin's cheeks with both hands. Her presence somehow didn't register as a threat.
Her dead-cold hands kept the man's head in place; she looked straight into Erwin's eyes, smiled, and as she did, words appeared before him.
["I am sorry."]
Crystal, semi-transparent letters, appeared from thin air, forming sentences.
["But I am here now, don't fear."]
Her hands suddenly glowed with a strange, golden light, releasing a gentle warmth that penetrated deep into his body.
["I know you want answers, so please, forget about that awful memory, and look at me. I may not tell you all you wish, but I can help ease your heart."]