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I killed my brother
I killed Zeke. I stabbed him 15 times, in a cabin in the woods. I didn’t hate him and he didn’t make me angry or hurt me. It was Zeke’s request. Yes, he asked me to kill him. Why? I don’t understand. I never understood what Zeke was thinking. He was always like that. He said something about how dying in the arms of someone he loved would be less painful, and that he didn’t have the courage to kill himself. I didn’t understand that, but somehow I agreed to help him.
That cabin was where I used to go in the summer when I was little. I remember fishing and bathing in the nearby stream with Armin and Mikasa. They had nothing to do with it, I was just reminiscing. Zeke said I needed a secluded place to kill him, I immediately thought of this cabin. We drove almost 5 hours from my house to that place. The cabin was actually closer because Zeke stopped a lot to smoke and I fell asleep at the end of the trip. I urged him at the 3rd stop to hurry up. My iPad was running out of battery, I wouldn't be able to play games anymore. He just smiled and pulled out a spare charger from the car's compartment. He said something to me about how he was about to die, he really wanted to smoke before he died. I don't remember it clearly, but I think he must have said that. He smoked almost a whole pack of cigarettes in 5 hours, the smell of the car was really disgusting. I had to open the window the whole trip because I felt nauseous from the smell of cigarettes. He kept apologizing to me but didn't stop smoking. I was annoyed with this guy so I wore headphones for the rest of the trip. We traveled from about 2pm to 7pm. Around 5pm I was hungry, he tried to give me a chocolate bar but it had already melted. He kept apologizing to me and tried to comfort me saying: "We're almost there, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, Eren". I was annoyed so I decided to go to sleep to forget about my hunger. When we arrived, it was already dark outside. I realized that Zeke had covered me with a blanket while I was sleeping. Zeke didn't wake me up. He was leaning against the car, right next to the window where I was sitting, smoking in silence. I don’t know how long he stood there, but it must have been quite a while. When he saw me wake up, he quickly wiped his face with his hand and crushed the cigarette. He leaned into the car through the window and stroked my face. It was cold that day and I felt his fingers were cold. I felt uncomfortable so I tried to pull his hand away but he still held my face. He said something to me but I don’t remember very clearly. I only remember his eyes and nose were red, maybe it was really cold outside.
We got out of the car together and Zeke took my hand towards the cabin. He held my hand so tightly that even if I didn't like it, I couldn't pull it away. He had been talking nonstop since we got in the cabin. Except for a few instructions on what to do, I can't remember what the hell he said. He put a raincoat on me to keep me from getting blood on me. He said if I got blood on me I would have to take a shower, it was very cold this time of year, I would catch a cold. Zeke went to the back of the car and got a new knife. The price tag was still on the handle. He instructed me on the necessary points to cut, like the neck and the heart. Zeke also wrote me a note on how to dispose of the body and what I should do next. This was his last will and testament. He was always so disgusting thoughtful. Zeke spread a plastic tarp out in the middle of the floor and planned to lie on it, so I could dispose of his body more easily. He took off his coat and hung it on the chair. He also took off his glasses but this time he paused for a long time. I quickly got impatient so I told him to hurry up. He apologized to me and then he lay down on the floor and handcuffed himself with an iron handcuff. He said this was just a precaution. Zeke said that humans have a strong survival instinct, he could rise up and attack me at the moment of death. Zeke said that it was sad that humans were forced to be born and then forced to live by instinct. I told Zeke that he had said that before, say something new. He looked at me silently. I didn't understand why he was like that, looking at me as if I had lied. But I didn't lie, he had said that before. I don't remember much of what Zeke said, but I remember very clearly what he said that time. Zeke was in the bathtub with his wrists slashed. His already pale face was even paler. It was the same color as the thief I had stabbed to death. If he hadn’t been sobbing, I would have thought he was dead. But actually, it was the most alive he had ever been, at least to me. He cried, clawing at his skin as I tried to bandage him. Between sobs, I couldn’t hear the whole thing, but what I did hear I remember. Maybe it’s because Zeke always put on a fake front, and the words of a dying person are always sincere, that I remember what he said then. Zeke told me:
”I don’t want to live, Eren. I try to cut my hand with a knife, trying to endure the pain, hoping that I will die. But I can’t. I try to cut as many times as I can. Each cut I make is excruciatingly painful. The pain makes me feel alive. It keeps me from cutting deeper. The pain makes me hope that someone will come to save me when I’m dying. It’s what keeps me going. Eren, humans are afraid of pain, because it’s our survival instinct. We get hungry when we need to eat, thirsty when we need to drink, hurt when we’re injured, and have sex to reproduce, all to leave our mark on this life longer. But if we didn’t live in the first place, we would never feel hungry, thirsty, hurt, or reproduce. Why did you live in the first place? Life is an endless pain, Eren. We are written in our genes to survive, to prolong our lives, to be stuck in a painful loop of our own instincts. I want to be free Eren, I want to be free from that loop. If I had never been born. Oh my poor Eren. I envy you but also pity you. You cannot understand what I say, but the frog in the pot of water slowly boils will be more peaceful. Consciousness is a terrible curse Eren. I have carried that curse for too long”
Those words and moments are some of the few memories of Zeke that I remember very well. Zeke’s words before he actually died don’t stick in my mind. Zeke said a lot before I killed him, but I don’t remember any of them. Maybe it was mainly his declarations of love to me. He said it so much that after living together for a while I learned to block them out of my mind. His love was as cheap as chips. He could give it to me unconditionally without expecting anything in return. But Zeke himself had told me that people can’t give what they don’t have. I thought back to Zeke’s attempted suicide. Was Zeke ever loved? Until his blood splashed warmly into my face, until his painful breathing stopped, I didn’t have the chance to ask. Zeke’s love was as cheap as chips. It is impossible to know whether it is true or false and it is not worth worrying about.
I cut Zeke's neck first because that was the place where he died the fastest. I wanted to make sure Zeke was completely dead so I stabbed him until I couldn't stab him anymore. In the note Zeke said to cut him up but I was really tired at that time so I gave up on that idea. After taking off my raincoat, I went to the dining table and ate the hamburger Zeke bought me. He had left it in a thermal box so it was still hot. I was too lazy to wipe my face so the blood was still on my face, making the hamburger taste saltier than usual. I don't know why but I suddenly remembered the old days when Zeke used to wipe my face when he was alive. I hated those things because it made me feel like a child, but he just smiled and patted my head. The saltiness made me thirsty. I opened my water bottle and was surprised to see that there was milk in it. Zeke had prepared milk for me! He must think I was a 6 year old kid, I'm 12! I glared at the culprit lying on the ground. But then I realized that Zeke was dead. All the discomfort in my heart suddenly disappeared. I poured milk into a cup and drank it. Warm milk in the winter made me a little sleepy. But I knew I couldn't sleep now. I used the tarp to roll Zeke's body and dragged him to the hole we had dug earlier. Zeke's body fell into the hole with a thud, blood flowing out of the tarp and seeping into the ground. I rested my chin on the shovel, looking down at the hole while finishing my hamburger. Zeke had lived to be 22 years old. 22 years of leaving his mark on life and ending in this remote and temporary place. No coffin, no wreath, no one to mourn. A dull and meaningless death. It seemed that he really hated this life. I remembered the time Zeke suggested that I kill him. He invited me to eat at my favorite hamburger restaurant. Zeke hesitated for a while but couldn't say his request. It wasn’t until I got home and was about to go to bed that Zeke grabbed my hand. He said, please kill him. He stared at me with a look I’d never seen before. Zeke’s hand was cold and trembling, but he held it tightly. I don’t know why, but I nodded. Something about his demeanor made me agree. I sucked on my greasy fingers, remembering Zeke’s words.
“I want to be free, Eren. I want to be freed from that loop.”
Looking at the body in the hole, I wondered if Zeke was free now. A warm feeling suddenly ran down my face. It felt wet and warm, like the feeling of Zeke’s hot blood splashing on my face when I cut his throat. I touched my face and the wet feeling was more obvious. A drop of water fell into the hole. But it wasn’t raining, was it? I looked up at the sky. Far away from the city, the stars were shining brightly. If it doesn't rain, where is the water? My nose suddenly stings. I hiccupped. I was crying. Why? I didn't understand? I didn't know why I was crying but I couldn't stop. My legs suddenly went weak and before I knew it I was in the hole, lying on Zeke's body. I buried my face in his bloody shirt and cried. I suddenly remembered the day Zeke took me to get vaccinated when I was 5 years old. When the needle pricked my arm, I was so scared that I turned my face to him and sobbed. Zeke's shirt smelled faintly of laundry detergent and Zeke's hand was in my hair. My hand clutched Zeke's shirt tightly. My face was buried in his chest. I cried on Zeke's cold body like a child.
I don't know how much time passed, but I finally got up from the hole. I threw the knife, raincoat, and trash into the hole and shoveled dirt to bury Zeke. When I was done, I walked to the main road and caught a bus home. Zeke had prepared some money for me to buy a bus ticket. When I got home, it was almost 12pm. My parents weren't home that day. They had been on a business trip since last week. I fell onto my bed and fell asleep. I didn't feel any sadness or regret for killing Zeke. His missing person report appeared on the news. My parents and the police, after a long time of not being able to find him, finally gave up and moved on. I graduated from high school and started dating Mikasa. Recently, not long after my 19th birthday, Mikasa revealed to me that she was pregnant. I was so happy that I decided to go buy something to celebrate the occasion. On the way, my mind was filled with images of being a father. The child would grow up, healthy and beautiful. I would hold its hand to go to school, take it out for ice cream and wipe its face. The child would smile happily at me. And what about me, I would marry the girl I loved. I would have a child, a crystallization of my love for her. I would be satisfied, right?
Suddenly, the image of my brother with his bloody wrist appeared before my eyes. I suddenly felt hot as if I was in a pot of boiling water. Lights flashed before my eyes, as dazzling as the stars in the sky