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Today Levi will think about eggs. Their shape, their taste, their gooey middles. Then he’ll think about every time he ate an egg. Every time he ever had anything to do with eggs at all. Small broken ones. The big fat ones. The chickens would lay them on the farm near headquarters, the one which serviced them with near enough everything they needed before Maria fell and the Interior sucked it all up. But he’s thinking about the eggs. Every Sunday before dawn they would send two recruits down to farm to pick up the week’s supply, on a rota, and then everyone would get one boiled egg for breakfast that morning while the Commander gave the weekly speech. The first few Sundays, Levi never listened to the speech – his eyes would be fixed on the egg. He’d had eggs before, of course, Below. Kenny would make eggs. Fry ‘em. They’d come out brown on the bottom, charred. Occasionally Mama could afford a few. Make an omelette. Once Levi broke a box and she cried. So he learned how to peel the skin of an egg, reverently. And he’d sit there in the mess hall on Sundays and stare at it. And then they’d be allowed to eat it and he’d pick the shell off so carefully he was only ready to start eating once everyone else had finished. He didn’t mind though. That was his ritual. Farlan and Isabel would laugh, until they died. After they died, on one of those Sunday mornings, Erwin knocked on his dorm. Come on, he’d said, briskly. Egg duty. Levi was not a recruit, and neither was Erwin. They set off in the pre-dawn. It was summer-almost-autumn. The air felt very clean and cool. The birds started to sing before the sun started to rise. Erwin whistled. They picked up the eggs. Erwin thanked the farmer. They carried them back in the egg cart, and had talked about things. The grass wet their ankles. The air was blue, then purple, then pink. By breakfast, Levi was starving. The Commander gave his speech. Levi opened his egg.
“Sometimes, Levi,” Zeke says, voice tired, or bored, or whatever else. “I get the sense you’re not really listening to me when we have these talks.”
The toasted bread. There would be fresh butter. Levi never got a taste for over-indulgence. He would always scrape it on. Waste not, want not. Each according to their need. Erwin would indulge. Levi would allow it. They were friends by that point. Their lives were likely to be short anyway. Levi liked to see him happy.
“Did you know,” Zeke says conversationally, sucks on the end of the cigarette, “I’ve forgotten what you sound like. I distinctly remember you were quite… gravelly. All man, yes? You’d strike fear into anyone with that voice. You used to be more chatty, I think. Not that you were saying anything nice, of course. You were just more…” Zeke trails off, tilts his head. “You really aren’t listening to me at all, are you? Tell me what you’re thinking about.”
That first crack, when you knock the spoon against the crisp shell. Levi isn’t a complete stickler for routine - he’s not unadventurous. He’d tried other ways of eating eggs, of course. Hard-boiled, peeled quick, scraped on bread with butter. Or soft-boiled, so the yolk is still liquid and runny and you can drink it out the open top. He’s had fried eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, of course, the cheapest way to cook them. He’s even eaten them raw when he has to, fresh from the shell. Erwin took him to a restaurant in Mitras once which served a late breakfast and he’d had an omelette there with onions and vegetables, and that had been very nice. But he would always come back to his egg. Medium boiled. Hard enough you can peel off the shell without losing anything, soft enough that the yolk is still sticky and soft and bright orange. Sprinkle a little salt. Eat it straight out of the shell, or scrape it on bread, or cut it up - like Levi prefers to do - and either way, it’s perfect. That’s his egg, that’s his way. No sense in trifling with perfection, inefficient, impractical, changing things just for the sake of changing them.
Zeke sparks the lighter, once, twice. Must be running low on gas. Maybe it’s been used up on someone else’s skin. It’s probably the same one They used on Levi’s flesh, letting it burn and scald like one of Kenny’s overcooked eggs on a heavy iron skillet. Zeke crosses his legs, holds his elbow, breathes smoke. “You realise,” he says, “that they’re not coming.”
Levi scrapes out the dirt from under the fingernails of his remaining fingers. They wanted to see if they would grow back. No luck yet.
“These people,” Zeke continues, waving the hand holding the cigarette. “Your friends, comrades, whoever else. It’s been a long time, Levi. If they haven’t come now, they never will, you must know that?”
He’d said, you’re not technically supposed to torture prisoners of war, either. But we tend to ignore that one, he admits. And that’s what Levi is, apparently. A prisoner in a war he didn’t know he was a part of.
But anyway. Zeke doesn’t get it. That’s not the Survey Corps way. Sometimes, you need to leave a soldier behind. Levi’s done it. He’s left people behind, to save his own skin. On orders. Sometimes you just have to. Unavoidable. He scratches at his head with the hand that has nails – he has lice, knows it, because sometimes he sees them on his fingers. He just wishes they’d shave it off. Although it’s a useful metric – his hair is long enough to be touching his shoulders, now. Itchy and lank and hanging in strands around his face. Filthy.
He resists the urge to spit. Tch.
“Why so loyal?” Zeke asks, incredulously. “You said it yourself, they treated you like scum for half the time you were alive. Why, because you were born beneath the ground? Please,” he scoffs. “Of all the arbitrary reasons to hate people. At least we Eldians turn into monsters, on occasion. It sounds like your people just like punching down,” Zeke comments, casually.
Levi doesn’t remember telling him that. There are lots of things he doesn’t remember saying. He doesn’t even remember the sound of his own voice. They have done many things to him.
“Or,” Zeke sighs, crosses and uncrosses his legs, tips ash onto the floor outside Levi’s cage. Levi rolls his eyes. Filthy. Making a mess. Leaving mess like that, no respect, no respect. “Maybe that’s just the natural way of things, hmm?” He seems to be thinking. “On and on it goes. If we haven’t bred it out of ourselves yet I don’t suppose we ever will.”
Levi thinks about the hens. That’s what he called them, in his mind. The had the same kind of officiousness as the chickens from the farm. At first, he felt sorry for them. He thought of them as unwilling participants, the same way Mama was, the was Levi has been. He went as far as to pity them because he thought they must be desperate, poor, forced. He was sorry for his lack of hygiene, for his stinking empty eye socket that never healed right, because the scientists wanted to see if his eye would grow back, and it never did. In his cell he agonised about what they were going to make him do. He considered every way out. When it finally happened, they tied him down in one of the experiment rooms. The hen climbed on top of him. She wore a grey medical smock and it looked like it didn’t suit her. She seemed healthy. Wealthy. Levi tried to meet her eyes, because he wanted to show her how sorry he was for this. He wanted her to know he didn’t want it, either. But she wasn’t afraid. She only looked disgusted. Most of the hens do their business roughly. Most of them do it silently. Some of them curse him – call him the names he is used to now, Eldian scum, devil, pig-blood, stinking lowlife, degenerate, animal. The worst enjoy it and make their pleasure known. Eventually, there are complaints. They start to place a thick cloth bag over Levi’s head while the women work. This has been better for everyone involved.
Zeke is quiet for awhile. Good. Good, Levi prefers that anyway. He can feel lice on the back of his neck. He can feel them under his knees. He can feel them trying to crawl into his ears. He imagines them all living inside there, right inside his ears, the tight, skinny canal where you ear wax. Levi used to clean his ear wax when he bathed – hasn’t bathed in a long time, though. The lice will burrow in there, all of them, fill up his ears until he can only hear their rustling. Then they’ll probably crawl into his brain, under his skin and come out his nose. They’ll live behind his remaining eyeball, no doubt, chew the jelly. They’ll make a nest in his empty socket.
When they’d done it, they’d put him on a table, and they’d put metal on his head to hold it still, to open his eyes, to keep his mouth wide. The doctor had looked squeamish. He’s supposed to be asleep, the doctor had said, and They had responded, you’re an eye doctor. How about you do your job and I do mine? And Levi had wondered why he needed an eye doctor, why this place even has doctors whose job is just look after people’s eyes, and why you would to be asleep for this anyway. After they’d scooped it out, they put it on a clean white plate. It had rolled around some, left little smears of blood, but otherwise was intact. “Aren’t you hungry?” They’d asked. “Wouldn’t you like to eat it?” They put it over Levi’s open mouth. “Filthy fucking cannibals,” They said. “Pig-stinking degenerates. Devil-blooded. Don’t you want a taste? Aren’t you hungry? You must be hungry. Beg me for it. Beg me and I’ll let you eat it.” It looked like yolk. Levi thought they would squeeze too hard and send it all dripping into his mouth. They’d used a spoon to scoop it out of him. Levi used to have a spoon. He’d use it to crack open his egg on Sundays. Eventually, they’d packed the empty socket with gauze and taped it shut. They’d put it in a box and sent it away.
“Levi,” Zeke says, quietly.
Levi pays him no attention. What does he want to think about today? Eggs, he remembers, with a thrill. Today he’ll think about eggs, all day. Their shape, their taste, their gooey middles. Then he’ll think about every time he ate an egg. Every time he ever had anything to do with eggs at all.
“Levi,” Zeke says again. He’s standing against the cage. His fingers are curled around the bars. His cigarette is smoking between his fingers. Disgusting, tch. Tch. Tch. Levi spits onto the floor, then spits again.
“I don’t believe we’re going to meet again,” Zeke is saying, voice low. “I’ll miss these talks.”
Eggs. They come from chickens. Levi can picture a chicken in his mind, their soft feathers. One morning, after Farlan and Isabel died, he and Erwin had gone to collect the eggs from the farm. The run had not risen. The birds were starting to chirp. The chickens were sleeping. Levi had never touched a chicken – he hadn’t wanted to put his hand into the coop. Disgusting, he’d muttered, you want me to touch a chicken’s ass? Erwin had laughed. He'd done it, and then Levi had copied, and they’d walked up and down the coop and put all the eggs into a basket. Chicken feathers are soft. Levi had wondered if it upset them when they took away their eggs. They put all the egg baskets on the egg wagon. Erwin paid the farmer. He’d asked Erwin, when they walked back. Does it upset the chickens? Erwin had shrugged. I suppose they must be used to it by now.
“For what it’s worth,” Zeke says, and then doesn’t seem able to finish.
Levi would use a spoon. He had a favourite. Lots of the spoons at headquarters were mismatched. Decades of use. Levi’s favourite had a decorative patten on the end and was a burnished silver. It had the perfect weight and balance to it, see, so when you cracked up the egg, you got the perfect crack – just enough to start picking and peeling, but not enough that you leave a hole, or damage the entire structure. There was an art to it. Levi stole the spoon. Erwin had caught him, returned it to the group pile. After a while, though, everyone knew it was Levi’s spoon. They’d let him have it. And when he was finally moved up to the officer’s table, the recruits would always lay that spoon next to his plate on Sunday breakfasts. It was just his, everyone knew that. And they’d let him sit there and peel his egg, too, and no one rushed him through it anymore. So every morning he would have as much time as he needed to crack it gently, pick off the shell, place the perfect white boiled egg in the middle of his plate, cut it in half, quarter it once, twice, and then have each bite with his toast and his tea. Erwin would read his newspaper next to him. He would top up Levi’s tea when it grew cold. The mess hall would empty eventually and then it would just be them in the quiet, with Erwin’s newspaper, and Levi’s spoon, and tea, and eggs.
“Good luck, then,” Zeke tells him.
Later that day, or that year, They come and take him to experiment rooms. It’s alright, Levi’s thinking about eggs. He’s built his own wall of eggs that nothing can penetrate, not fear, not pain, not humiliation, not loneliness. They put things on the sides of his head. Levi thinks of this: wet ankles, pink air, the smell of straw, feathers. The morning birds. Eggs, he thinks, they’re so beautiful. Erwin had knocked on his door. Come on, he’d said briskly, egg duty. Levi had not wanted to go. He was still sore and hurting from losing it all. They’d walked down the lane. The birds. Erwin had whistled to himself, hands in his pockets. Levi had watched the hair on the back of his neck and thought it was trimmed very nicely. Levi hadn’t wanted to put his hand into the chicken coop. Erwin had done so for him. Then he’d taken Levi’s hand, showed him how to do the same. His hand had been warm. They’d collected the eggs. Levi had complained about the chicken shit, Erwin had laughed, the first time Levi had ever made him laugh. After, they’d loaded the eggs onto the egg wagon. Erwin had talked about how he used to do this, when he was a recruit, and how he sometimes misses those days. Levi had asked whether he felt bad about stealing from the chickens. They’d talked some more. At the end of the lane, Erwin had stopped. He wanted to apologise, he said. About how things had been. It’s alright, Levi had replied. No, Erwin insisted, it’s not. They’d stood close together. The grass dew wetting their ankles. Erwin had said: I would like for you to be happy, Levi. He’d brushed Levi’s shoulder, then his arm, rubbed it over and over. I don’t need to be happy, Levi had said, gruffly. Erwin had nodded. He had said, I could make you happy, I think. I would like to make you happy. Levi didn’t say no. By the time they reach headquarters, things were better. Levi felt lighter, like things would not be so bad anymore. At breakfast, Erwin sat at the officer’s table. The cooks brought out the eggs. They were perfect. Medium boiled. The recruits handed out cutlery. They gave Levi his spoon. Levi had met Erwin’s eyes, across the table, and Erwin had smiled at him, a knowing, shared thing. Levi had felt the warmest he’d felt in a long, long time. He’d cracked the spoon against the shell —
They burn him. The things on the side of his head ignite. Shells crack. Hurts bad. Levi forgets — he doesn’t know if —
They do it again. Eggs, Levi thinks, with the gooey, soft middle. The mess hall. Headquarters. Erwin. The eggs. Erwin —
Again. Levi can’t remember what — how — it had been so good, that morning. It had been so good. There was a smile for him —
Why? Hurts now. Smile for… in a place… long ago, Levi does not recall. E - E - a smile for him. I would like you to be happy. There were eggs. “Well?” They ask him. “Soldier. What is your name?”
Levi is… Lee-vai is…
“Soldier,” They order again. “Where are you. What is your name. Where do you come from.”
Where does he come from? Smile, happy. Wet ankles. Birds. Pink air. Er - Erw - there had been… there was —
They slap him. “Soldier,” They spit, “what are you? Tell us now. Identify yourself.”
Levi blinks his eye. “Egg,” he croaks. “Egg. Egg.”
They do it again. The fire hits his temples. Over and over they hit him with spoons until his shell cracks, and all of what he is goes running, gloopy and bright orange, all across the floor.