A/N: this is an attack on titan highschool au regarding both main and side characters. It's set most likely in the late 20th century, including a quite harsh political regime.

Prologue

~10 years earlier~

"I'm only 18,

I love, I'm broke and crazy

No one stands in my way,

I have my own long one-way road

It will take me somewhereeeee….."

"Cut the crap out, sappy idealist, you'll never make it as a poet haha." Sigh. There goes the whole mood. Today, you can't even feel alive without someone complaining that you're not sitting in your spot, minding your own business. I put the guitar beside me and drop against the cold sand, I light a Marlboro in my mouth, I feel the heat of the sky upon me even though its night and chilly, mid-September and everybody left. Everybody except me. And him. And her.

"How about you stop talking like those boys who pretend to read Tolstoy, Farlan?" I look at the night sky and I remember the voice of some poorly-paid scientist saying how much bigger and overwhelming the whole cosmos-crap is. Year-light. Milky Way. Ten thousand times bigger than our planet. Every time I ask someone smart about the Universe, all I get are numbers, reactions, compositions. Bullshit. In truth, universe is just another actor, another faker, who likes to pretend it's big, but in reality it's not. I know it, because now, as the leather bites my skin, my fingers are frozen and I feel his gaze down at me, all the stars, colorful gases and infinite black holes can fit in my soul and I can feel them growing inside, running in my guts, killing me softly, clashing against the walls of my heart. A frail spirit with a hurricane inside that no one is gonna understand.

"What are we gonna do about the army, Levi?" this pragmatism in his voice is what is gonna kill me, tho.

"I'm not going."

"What do you mean? Are you crazy?" I turn on one side, there he is. 2 inches away from me, but the whole world between us. I like to smirk at him and open my mouth slightly, then stretch and arch my back. When I do that, he says I spoil myself, but the truth is, I do it because I know. I know that at this age I can't be vulgar, I can't be gross. Because right now, I have the day of tomorrow by my side, I'm however old I want to be, I'm whatever I wanna be. In two years or so, I will only be able to be myself.

"I'm not like you, Farlan. I'm free and I'm not gonna bow."

"The head that is bowed, the sword doesn't cut…"

"But with shame it will bend the chain on its back. " I spit back and take another drag

"Can you please not act for once like you're the holder of the world's essence? You're so full of yourself…why? Because you read some books, play guitar and think you're gonna throw the society over? Please, just make sure the Military Police doesn't throw you in a cell and tear you apart." You see? Like I said, no one, however close he may be, is gonna understand your inner tornado. They are always gonna come with stupid reasons why you're a mess. Ideals, parents, bad education, hormones. It's not their fault.

"You're not free Levi, not at all" in the distance, I hear the sweet voice of my favorite girl calling us to drink a beer and sing till our throats hurt. She's sweet like a caramel apple and she looks like one. Isabel is one of the reasons I won't throw the world on fire.

"Well, my children will be…" I look at my guitar and the trace it left on the ground. The chords look like they're glowing and the wood looks like it's breathing. "We lost. We were happy that we discovered Coke and let the Titans take over. What are they gonna do?"

"Don't you get tired of always chewing on your own smart shit?" I raise an eyebrow, but I can tell by the way he is smiling and running his fingers through his hair, that a part of his own hurricane is tying hands with mine. I start coughing, and I loved it, because somehow it meant that my soul was too big for this body I throw left and right, through alcohol, nicotine and howls with lyrics.

"Can you please stop smoking those cigarettes? If only you didn't have a stupid reason for it…is it about that song you said you're gonna sing in 10 years? That the horse from Marlboro is going to wait you on your street…you're starting to run out of muses."

"Pf, as if. Stick to your drums, sweetie. It's a symbol."

"It's the horse from a banned American commercial that we sometimes catch when we steal the TV signal…no big deal. I saw it too. Pretty, liberating, but that's about it"

"Well, eyes can't get in the depth of things."

"haha, funny. Then mind explaining it to me?"

"Well…" I get up and close my eyes. "Some things you simply can't tell because there are no words in this world that fit the meaning in your eyes."

"Do you say that to every person that doesn't understand your endless struggling to search a meaning?" he winks at me.

"Do I smell a hint of me in your thoughts?"

"Please bite your tongue. You act like you invented hot water or something…" I laugh like a tease, more than I'm supposed to.

"Levi…" he asked and I turned around on my heels, walking backwards. "Please, don't turn into one of those strict, dull adults whose only joy is to mock others, the world will probably end in that moment" I stop my steps and I face him like you face your demons: no smart way out, no place to run. Simplicity in things like that are sometimes the key.

"These are things of the surface. Maybe they'll change me too, the Titans, or force me to. But then again, this is just like molding some metal to keep what's inside. The Tin-man with the Andromeda galaxy inside."

Farlan keeps walking straight while I roam circles after circles, like a spiral of not following. Are they going to take this from us too? This beach I run on, the footprints I leave the sand in my hair? This really special place. It's the closest place to the sky I've felt, so I have this bitter feeling it will soon find its end. I start to imagine what i would be like to be burried here,under the sand, an anonymus grave where people stop to make love. Really pretentious. Hoards and hoards of others are far away, maybe in Shingashina, Trost or the rest. Because here it's the end of the world, made for me and Farlan and Isabel and…

The moon shines and a drunkard collects rocks from the sand, with shame and betrayal. Behind him there's a nasty looking cart. A young girl sits on it, her feet dangling over the edge. She's all dressed in old fashioned clothes, her hair is a mess, her arms are long and her feet are clean like the sea. Pretty eyes with too much black. She looks like a doll that started a rebellion when it was still not in fashion, and now she's all poetry in rags. What a view. She braided seashells in her hair and she's reading Milan Kundera in French. Black market business. Not allowed here. I feel like I'm melting more and more as I lean against her cart. She's holding a cigarette between her lips. Marlboro. A meant-to-be, perhaps, creature, in whose hands I place my utter admiration.

"What is this place called?" my voice was raspy, and standing next to her, with leather jacket and a guitar behind me, I looked like I'm the demon myself, next to a diaphanous creature.

"It doesn't have a name. It's just…here. Here."

I don't believe in love at first sight. And neither should you. That's only falling. And even with all this and the rest of the cynical explanation that we're nothing but atoms; it doesn't mean it's not real, alive and elevating. It would be frightening to believe that in this cosmos full of laws and harmony, only our lives happen at random, only our destinies have no meaning.

"Levi, I'm going to leave you here forever if you don't come right now" someone yells in the distance. Yes please. Let me be. Fragile soul, ready to take if not given, gripping on the dreams with my teeth. I'm never going to forget this complicated language so few of us still speak: youth, the beautiful craziness of time's boulevard. . So I'll raise steps for my dreams to reach high and mock down everything that's not a dream and I'm going to gladly pay for it.

"You should go…" the head of this pretty creature leans to the side.

"What's your name, at least" I whisper, and the silence is so heavy, it's swallowing my pride, her thick hair strands, my guitar, her book, until there is nothing but her eyes. I see stars in her eyelashes. Her pupils look at me and mock me and I love it, because they act impertinent and they dare me to come again next summer, when I will return a man.

The cart starts to move and together with it this thing that is both child, girl, and woman. Her foot is out of the cart and her toes are drawing spirals in the sand. What a picture.

Although her mouth is not moving, I can hear her toes spelling "if we're meant to, if there's something, if there are ties that bind us, we will see each other again .H-E-R-E." And gone she was. A princess of meaninful memories. I sigh. Sometimes, i run out of nice epithets too.

Paradise Island. An underestimated country, which, in order to be put in its place, is controlled by the party known as "The Titans". Problems bigger than love such as heat, food, money are in the minds of the inhabitants, and that is because the titans know only to steal, corrupt, never to teach, never to know. It's worse than Orwell's 1984, which is banned, anyway. Here, everybody is saying "I want to live better", "I want to live healthier", "I want to live like a star". No one is saying "I want to live, I want to stand and face danger head on, I want to fight and fly and spit out my color dreams to this grey world". But as they say, you don't need the schools from the West and the money from the East to learn to live. No excuses this time. And no regrets. Even if I'm the only one against this world, I'd rather break my bones against your shitty rules. And so I thought, until…

A/N: hope you like it. More to come. Leave a review please, or suggestions! Also note this is only the prologue, the main characters together with their struggles will show in the next chapter. Sorry for the crappy grammar, I try to improve as much as i can