Light… Light…

That was the only word set on repeat within my mind as I fumbled in greyness, as blind as a bat. My hand rummaged through the thick layers of dust on the abandoned wooden bench, drawing fresh patterns into it as I felt my way through in search for a lamp.

Come on you stupid thing. Where the fuck are you hiding?!

Next to me, I could hear the quiet groans of the corporal who I had hurriedly laid down on the worn out spring mattress that was thrown roughly on the wooden floorboards. He was in too much pain at the moment to be complaining about the dusty state my uninhibited cabin was in.

After all, when was the last time I was here?

Not that I was a cleaner from the start anyway.

My twitchy panicky fingers seemed to fumble over each other as I shakily grabbed onto the familiar curved glass, which was also blanketed by a thick layer of dust. Immediately, I dipped my fingers in, only to scoff in dismay.

There was no candle.

How on earth was I supposed to see anything now?!

Fuck this.

I’m doing it my way then.

Gunpowder style.

I felt for the revolver I snitched off Dieter in my pocket and pulled it out swiftly, unloading all the remaining bullets inside. Grabbing my little Balisong knife, I dragged its tip repetitively over and over again to remove the cap of the bullet, tipping out all the content in the fireplace at the corner of the small room.

After I was sure that every bit of gunpowder was in, the damp logs and branches I found outside were thrown in.

Here goes nothing.

My Balisong dragged across the side of my nape-slicer blade repeatedly, watching the many trials of sparks fall into the fireplace, resulting to nothing but failure, over and over again.

Come on. My voice growled between my gritted teeth in frustration.

I was starting to lose patience after so many failed attempts of getting a simple spark to evolve into a flame. Cursing loudly, I scraped my Balisong across my blunt blade harder, getting as many sparks out as possible.

Why was it so easy in the comic books when everything was so fucking impossible out in the real world?!

My eyes trailed after one little spark that fell into the dark pile of gun powder and immediately the entire place ignited up, enlightening my whole one roomed cabin with its blaze. My heart flooded with joy as something finally goes according to plan.

You could never have too much gun powder, can you?

The papers messily pinned on all the walls of the room rustled wildly, heaving shadows here and there all around the room.

Levi.

The corporal’s name resonated in my head, immediately pulling me out of my little mental fist pump round for successfully making of fire.

Hunting through the cabinets, I finally found my supply of alcohol and carried the tightly sealed bottles over towards where the unconscious lance corporal was laying.

I knelt beside the mattress where the man was groaning in pain, my blade digging into the green fabric I had tied around his wound, ripping it open.

Did I have to remove his bullets?

The blood didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon.

 If he didn’t die from blood loss, he still had a pretty even chance from the pain he was about to go through.

Gently, I pulled away the green fabric of my former Survey Corps cloak and looked down at his red stained shirt.

“Right…” I muttered to myself, “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

Uncertainly, I loosened up his gear straps, avoiding all unnecessary glimpses down at him. I uneasily reached out, hesitantly unbuttoned his shirt while biting down on my bottom lip nervously.  This was going to be really awkward, especially when he was my superior. Levi was forever going to hate me for this.

Everything just seemed so wrong, even though I didn’t have any ill intentions.

A blush instantly broke out on my face at once when I pulled his white shirt aside, getting a little side-tracked as I stared in awe at his perfectly built 6 packs. This small guy had … abs? Let’s just be honest here, he had a really good body. How could I ever deny that?

But seriously, what the hell am I thinking of now?

No, I don’t get turned on by abs.

Focus, Hazel.

Focus.

I shook my head in attempt to clear my unholy thoughts and flicked my Balisong blade open again, staring down at the deep bullets hiding inside his flesh, gulping anxiously.

“Levi, this is going to hurt just a tiny bit…” I lied timidly as I organized myself, “But you just gotta suck it up like a man.”

Chuckling in the most jokingly and uplifting voice I could mask on, my blade reached closer to his flesh. Once I began, there was no stopping.

Oh Lord, wish me the very best of luck.

I slowly ran my fingers over his perfect muscles before digging the tip of my blade into the bullet hole. Immediately, Levi screeched like banshee at the pain and I watched more blood dispense out from the tiny but deadly pit. My hand trembled as I dug deeper, the tip of my blade hitting the hard casing of the lodged bullet.

Alright, I’ve found the stupid thing.

I can totally do this now without cutting Levi in half.

Levi wouldn’t stop squawking now. I watched the beads of sweat form on his head as he endured the agony, his body twitching and moving in discomfort. I held my hand over his mouth, pushing him down hard on the mattress as I continued digging out the bullet.

Tears sprung in my dark eyes as I craved to snatch my aching hand off his face straight away, but I couldn’t. He was biting onto it. I bit my lip to stop myself from yelping out in pain as I watched the blood seeping out of the skin from the back of my hand.

Levi was putting up with more pain than I was dealing with. I couldn’t possibly be pouting now about a gnawed hand.

Come on Hazel, you’re better than this.

Stop sulking you piece of shit and just get it over and done with.

A sigh of relief was heaved at once when I caught sight of the bullet upsurging from his flesh accompanied by more of the thick red blood. At once, my slim fingers hurriedly plucked it out and I instantly moved onto the second hole, repeating the same process and fought persistently to his continuous grievous sounds and yelps of pain, tortuously begging me to stop.

The corporal stopped jerking after the last bullet was pulled out of him, and I held my hand over his wounds, applying pressure to stop more of his plasma from leaking out. His chest was rising and falling and I watched him catching his breath.

Good, he was still alive.

There was only one more thing to do before I bandaged him up for good.

And that was the shittiest step of all.

The alcohol.

Honestly, I didn't know if we were going to make it through. 

I sighed gloomily, getting myself ready before I had to apply the soaked alcoholic cloths on him.

The sound of my own breathing was the only other noise over the crackling of the fireplace now, as the wood was fuelling the only source of light in the room. My eyes watching the shadows of Levi’s figure growing bigger and smaller as the flames danced heartily in the hearth.

That was enough time for him to rest.

Here goes nothing.

My arm was placed on Levi’s shoulder, restraining him down as I quickly positioned the wet cloth on his injuries. I closed my eyes as I listened to the uproars of his painful screeching bouncing off the walls once again.

“Levi…” I muttered at the agonizing man, “Stay down.”

No matter how much Levi pleaded and how many excruciating sounds he made, I never removed the fabric from his abdominal. It was hard to see the corporal in so much pain, but he just had to deal with it.

If alcohol wasn’t applied as a disinfectant, he could potentially die.

His arm elevated up from the mattress and grabbed mine, digging his claws into my flesh, trying to inflict his pain off. And I was forced to keep quiet and examined his stressful face as he painfully suffered.  

“Levi.” I stated the man’s name through my own gritted teeth, my jaws clenched down to the state where it was beginning to hurt, “Please… just stay down.”

“Just a little more.”

My own hand stung from the alcohol as the liquid made contact with my open wounds too. I gulped as Levi clawed into my forearm harder, practically tearing my skin open with his blunt nails.

With my low tolerance level, I would probably never end up as a nurse.

That’s one job off the list, not that I’d ever wanted to be one anyway.

Levi settled down a bit, finally letting go of me as I tightened the clean bandages around his torso area. I sat back, leaning against the wooden wall next to his sweaty exhausted figure while he slept on the old mattress soundly.

I was so glad that was over.

Sniffling a little, I observed the papers messily pinned with no particular order on the wooden walls across from me. Some of them were photos, of other criminals I had to deal with, of cargos I had to smuggle, of friends who were already dead.

They were part of 'jobs' I took up for money. Whether it was assassination, smuggling or staging, I did it all for the leafy greens.

I know… sickening, right? I couldn’t believe I resolved to that direction just for the sake of filling an empty stomach when night crawled in.

Most of the photos of the people were dead. Including the picture of a young blond girl, smiling happily in a white lace dress while holding a bunch of daisies. 

Luisa.

Other papers were drawings and music transcripts I had pinched off during my travels.

My eyes glanced down at the musical instrument which kept me company whenever I was out of the walls alone. Some of the steel strings were already rusted and broken. The whole guitar itself looked so worn-out, so shattered.

There was a picture of a stick figure girl in a chef’s outfit as my eyes scanned across the wall again, and I slightly recognized that the ugly draft was supposed to be a picture of me cooking a casserole dish or something. Must have been another one of Clara's random sketches.

There were too many memories at this place I had left behind.

My Safe Haven.

Why did I leave in the first place?

A yellowish, coffee stained, simple piece of ordinary paper pinned onto the wall with a few dart knives caught my attention soon afterwards. My drowsy eyes squinted as I attempted to read the text in the low flickering light that the small flames provided by the corner.

There were a few horribly drawn stick figures of people along with the coffee stain at the side that was supposed to be a diagram of a dog, although everything was extremely off at a huge scale. The picture was really sweet and the sketch was so stupid, I couldn’t supress my uprising laughter, the cheesy memories revisiting me once more.

I’ve finally remembered what the heck this picture was supposed to be of.

Our family.

Clara.

Ruth.

Hazel.  

I smiled as I noticed the messy side writing in the brackets next to my scribbled name.

(aka. Miss Bossy Boots who can’t cook)

My eyes finally lowered to the brown splodge of coffee with 4 wriggly lines sticking out of it.

Diablo.

The fourth member of our family. He started off as another stray pitiful dog off the street that I extremely disliked and shunned, but I’ve grown to love him just like another human being. The black Corso was family to me. They were the first people I’ve grown to love again when I thought I would give up on everything.

They were all gone, of course. Off to a better place now.

Even loyal Diablo met his end, leaving along with the other two, heading off to the other side.

I was the only one left.

“Hazel…” I jumped to the sudden sound, startled as my head turned towards Levi who was muttering my name. The corporal was still on the mattress, as still as ever.

“What?”

The corporal didn’t answer me, and I crept closer and took an observant and attentive look at the drained man in confusion and wonder. Levi was still asleep. My dark eyes watched his pupils move, racing rapidly behind those closed lids of his.

The idiot was dreaming, he was calling out my name.

Unless if there was another Hazel, which I highly doubt.

Soundlessly, I scooted over to where his white polo shirt was thrown and scooped it up from the ground swiftly. Giving it a quick shake to get any dust off, my hands slowly dropped it over his shirtless chest after a long glance.

I scoffed unpleasantly and took his hand in mine, lying down on the wooden floorboards beside the mattress where Levi was resting on.

“I’m here.” My hand squeezed onto his, a bit sceptical that I was the type to even do something like this, “I’m here.”

The frown on his face slowly drifted off, his furrowed brow slightly relaxed as my voice projected softly within his hearing ability. My tired lids started to drop as well as I gently held onto the corporal’s hand. I vaguely watched Levi’s sleeping face, wandering if it was just me or

… was he suddenly smiling in his sleep?

The edges of his lips were slightly raised. It wasn’t one of those huge toothy grins or anything, actually… it was pretty faint, but it was really something, considering that it was Levi. The Levi, the OCD idiot who was unrealistically gifted at every field, even snowball fights surprisingly. I let out a slight chuckle to the sight, inspecting him as I slowly drifted off to slumber.

It was indeed a rare sight seeing Levi’s unconscious expression.

I wonder what he was dreaming about.

Probably more cleaning supplies. I laughed.

Whatever, that was Levi’s ‘million dollar’ smile. It was pretty heart-warming to see him, able to smile after such bloodshed.

Letting out a little sigh of exhaustion, I slowly closed my tired eyes and saluted the darkness once more, still holding onto his hand as I listened his soft breathing.

“Hazel…”

His voice muttered unconsciously.

 “Hazel…”