He was so foolish.

No amount of training could have fully prepared him for his first real encounter with the titans. It was so easy to go flying through the trees, slicing the heads off of stationary targets that shredded like tissue paper against the edge of his blade. It felt like victory to hear the results of his efforts, to be patted on the back for excellence in theory. That illusion of security that was created from his foolish faith in his own strength made it all the more painful to face the harsh truth before him.

Titans were monsters – formidable, terrifying monsters that dwarfed the members of their unit in all imaginable ways. They were strong. Some were even faster than them. And all of them were resilient. A single slice here or there meant nothing unless they succeeded in targeting and removing their most vital area. Their instructions made it look so simple, obvious, but the training couldn't express the sort of fear that a titan could instill in someone when they were staring them down with their bulging eyes and unsettling grins.

He was too foolish. He believed that if he just made it through the training, he would be able to make it into the military police and then everything would be smooth sailing. Things would be safe there. There'd be nothing to worry about. His blades could be hung up and forgotten about, left to rust as he idled his time, enjoying the finer things.

But now that he was caught up in this, he couldn't imagine setting down his weapon.

Franz... Minna... Thomas...

They had already lost so many good friends. It nauseated him to imagine the horrors that they experienced, the terrifying world that their eyes beheld before it all went black. They were people they laughed, cried, and shed blood with and now they were...

"Jean."

Annie? It was Annie's voice.

Once he began surveying the damage left by the titans, it was hard for him to get his head back where it belonged. The world around him was too surreal, carnage everywhere his eyes fell. On the rooftops, the alleyways, and in the streets, piles of lifeless, grotesquely mangled corpse littering the area. Already, he'd counted too many familiar faces among their numbers. He couldn't believe they'd lost so quickly when he thought that they had just as much of a chance to continue.

"Jean." Annie moved to his side and he used all of his might to focus on her, to tear his attention away from the mess of bodies surrounding him. "We should move on. There's nothing left for us to do here."

How could she be so cold? Sure, he wasn't always the most tactful person himself, but he knew when the moment called for a certain amount of respect. As much as he wanted to just... move on, he still had someone he was looking for. In the bottom of his heart, he held the hope that he had survived, that he was just hiding somewhere, resting, treating some wounds – anything but this.

"I'm still looking for someone," he told her firmly. "I... I have to keep looking, just in case."

She followed him as he began walking down the street, between the ruined remains of what were once peaceful homes. For a while, she stayed quiet, following at a slow, uneven pace until she appeared again at his side and asked, "Who are you looking for?"

He swallowed, hesitating. His heart thudded in his throat and made it hard for him to breathe. That innocently naïve smile appeared at the front of his memory and didn't disappear, even when he tightly closed his eyes.

"Marco," he choked out.

"What?" She sounded surprised. "You didn't know? Marco died about an hour ago. I guess you really weren't paying attention."

Her words left him numb. White noise covered his every thought as he fought to process the information he'd been handed. "M-Marco..." He had to put a hand to his mouth to hide the undignified sob that forced its way from his throat as a shudder wracked his body. Now wasn't the time to show weakness, but there was nothing he could do to stop himself. His legs acted on their own. Annie could barely keep up with him as he ran straight ahead at a reckless pace. He swiveled his head left and right, frantically looking everywhere, scanning the faces of the deceased to try to prove to himself that it wasn't true, that Marco wasn't there, that he wasn't just another number to add to the total of victims.

At once, his knees grew weak and he collapsed the second his eyes fell on Marco's form. What remained of him was thrown carelessly atop a few other gored bodies. What he saw made his stomach feel unsteady, but he couldn't look away. His eyes continued to look, as if begging his mind to accept the reality before him.

"This is unbelievable. I didn't even get to tell him..."

Annie carelessly walked in circles around him as he remained kneeling before his fallen friend. "Why are you getting so emotional now? I told you. He died about an hour ago. If you really cared about him, you would've noticed."

"I had a lot to focus on!" he yelled. He really wished that she would stop moving around like that while he was still grieving. It was distracting.

She eventually stopped and moved closer to Marco's body. "Oh, look. He still had all this gear on him. I guess this is mine now."

"Hey!" Jean snapped. He got up as quickly as he could manage, but wasn't fast enough to stop her from looting Marco's unresisting body. "What's wrong with you? He's our friend, you know. Or did you already forget that?"

She shrugged and quickly inspected her new inventory. "Whatever. If I left it there, somebody else would have just come along and done the exact same thing. At least it went to one of his friends. That's good enough, wouldn't you agree?"

He growled. "If anyone should've gotten his items, it should've been me."

"Oh yeah? You're sounding pretty jealous. If you're that desperate to have Marco's items, then here. You can have them." Just as quickly as she'd taken them, she transferred them to Jean. "Do whatever you want with that shit. He had nothing but a half-empty tank of gas and a potato. Hope that helps you while you try to fight the titans alone."

"Alone?" What the heck did she mean by alone? "Hey, wait for me!" But it was too late. By the time he called out to her, she was already zooming away with her 3D maneuver gear, hopping quickly from one building to another until she disappeared from his sight.

He opened his inventory. For a few minutes, he didn't feel motivated to do anything. He simply stared at Marco's potato and felt a massive sense of disappointment. From the beginning, he told Marco that they would do this thing together. He was supposed to be there for him, but he wasn't even around at the moment that he met his end.

There was nothing but him, the dusty, damaged street, and Marco's potato – until he heard a noise. He looked around a bit, wondering where the sound was coming from before he realized that he wouldn't find the source of the sound anywhere in front of him.

Jean lifted one of his headphones and glanced down. The face of his cellphone was illuminated as it vibrated. The thing would've buzzed itself off the edge of his desk if he didn't grab it in time. He felt a certain sense of relief to be back in the real world as he looked down at the screen of his phone and saw Marco's name.

He'd sent a text.

font face="courier"ugh back to training. all the way back to lv 1. suuuux. don't know anyone here this time./font

Odd. His fingers quivered as he held them over the keypad. He chalked it up to nerves, to playing Titan Saga for too long, to getting worked up over a game, but...

He texted back.

font face="courier"don't wanna see u die again. gonna restart and keep an eye on u this time./font