So familiar, this island unseen. A land before only previously imagined. Is this what it is, or what I envisioned it to be?
Fingers digging deep into the sand, displacing the earth around my fingers until progress is no longer an option. Clutching the ground desperately like a child would a broken toy. Futile hope to restore things to their previous nature.
I am weak.
The picture isn't complete. I make do with what I can.
Finding strength, I lift my head, my eyes lazily gravitating to the water in front of me, almost rolling back in my head but stopping just before. The word broken comes to mind.
In the dark abyss at the end of the world, I make a distorted view of the sky. The moon, stretched and rippling in the darkness among the small, morphing dots of light that are the stars. I wonder to myself how many times the night has consumed me in its luminous shadow. Frightened by the enormity of it all, I retreat my face to the sand, eyelids like a soothing blanket, protecting me from reality.
As if in response to my panicked retreat, the moon begins singing to me, her voice so familiar sending the prickle of chills from the back of my neck throughout my spine. An unwilling whimper as the tension leaves my body through a sigh of relief.
A voice, a song angelic in nature carrying the weight of an entire orchestra in a single breath. So powerful and moving, one couldn't help but get lost in the very melody, to become a part of it. There are no words I can discern, just feelings, waves of emotion that subdue and intoxicate.
Her sweet voice beckons me, beseeching my presence, my very existence and my heart breaks when I have to tell her I can't. When I have to admit defeat and collapse like a discarded marionette. Was it my head pulling the strings, or my heart.
She continues singing in response.
Her words, the sharpest of knives in a dexterous hand. They cut efficiently, quickly.
She knew, I surmise, of the glorified version of her I had in mind. She also knew my weaknesses. And yet, she reached out to me anyway. Her attempts lost on me – her sentences puzzles I kick myself for not having solved in time.
A fragile stone. Just as fragile as I, perhaps. Only now do I see the foolishness of my actions, my behavior, my response to it all.
There is nothing to say, is there? Because you already said it and I didn't understand.
Who's pulling the strings. My head or my heart?
Reaching out to an intangible past, trying to comfort it, trying to reason with it, explain myself and fix the present.
Sacrificing what's left of my humanity for futility.
Arms over my head, clutching the hilt tightly, I force the blade with all my momentum into the back of its neck. Close my eyes for the spray of blood that splashes across my face as I twist and drag the weapon through its weakness.
Kick myself back. Gravity takes hold and I'm falling.
Brush my right forearm across my face to clear my vision. Instinctively readjust for balance as the impact of the taut strings tries to throw me off.
Gas it. Release cords. Redirect.
Sharp left brings me around the clock tower and face first towards the titan. Miscalculation. Rage intensifying, I draw my weapon and quickly redirect myself.
Shot for the tower behind him, its roar sending vibrations through the very construct of this city, I release and hit the gas, right cord sending me in a tight circle and swinging me towards the back of it. Heart cracking through my sternum, I draw my weapon and my body lets out an involuntary scream.
Without hesitation, the beast ducks, sending me straight over its head, sword pointed directly in front of me.
Panic. Scramble for the mechanisms. Aiming to catch myself when a monstrous arm cuts my line short and sends me tumbling into a roof.
Pain and shock of impact mixed with the shattering tiles cutting into my body. Friction finally stopping me on my back, I cough into my arm and violently roll over.
Elbows supporting me, a sob breaks from my gut when I notice the splash of fresh blood on my inner right forearm.
My body refuses to move, my head refuses to lift. It drops as I sob and I can't help but think of Annie.
The anger inside me builds, a ravenous lust for blood surfacing the forefront of my mental state.
An eclipse, of sorts.
The moon is red and the sky bleeds. I try to catch my breath but it seems I've caught my heart in my throat. I choke on it and my very form grinds against and destroys my very footing.
I lose myself for a moment.
I see the moon cut up and bleeding.
I see the world drowning in blood.
My hands, my arms, and without permission, they smash all that held me safely as it cuts and buries itself deeply into my flesh.
Another incarnation of myself, tall above the buildings I smashed to be here on my knees and looking backwards on myself and it burns me, it burns me that it brought me to where I am. So I get up and I turn around looking it in its grinning face and I grab it by its throat with my left hand and hook my right arm around to snag its top jaw.
My arm thankfully covers its face. My rage pulls the top part of its head off from its body.
It's still alive and I know it's still alive.
I break myself to try and say this is important, this is relevant, it means a lot to the both of us and I can only emit a scream filled with rage.
It's alive. I know it's still alive.
And this is when I feel the prick on the back of my neck.
"You would die for your beliefs. I wouldn't."
Shaking and cold, I awaken.
My skin clammy and pale.
The moon above in all of its wondrous beauty.
I remember a night that truly set me free. I remember a night that awakened me that I ultimately discarded. I remember her voice, her face, her beckoning.
I remember the moon.
The sunlight peeks through the branches above.
Speaking to me, unveiling proudly what the night had to offer.
I smile, thinking, hoping this was forever.
I pretend, but I have my own ideas.
The day, it asks me to explain myself. Asks me to expose myself. I explain. Why wouldn't I? It's all dismissed by panic and rage as my fist smashes into another building and I feel that prickling sensation on my neck.
These streets are vaguely reminiscent, despite the constant changes. A thick layer of fog sweeps the floor of this unknown city, the cobblestone streets barely if at all visible to the naked eye.
A place that feels like a dream, but you know you're awake. The memories of a life in ages past flood you uncontrollably with every step you take.
Heart tearing through your sternum with each step, you carry on despite how tired you are.
A woman sobs echo through the streets from a distance. You know the name but you can't place it.
A destructive, yet motivational part of you.
A message of hope from the gods above.
Despite your efforts, you ended up exactly where you wanted to be, deep down.
You quietly and slowly make your way into the cemetery. Your every footstep marking progress in your life like height notches on a doorway. With every step you feel older, wiser. With every movement, you feel stronger and still weaker at the same time.
Life wears on you. As it does.
Your own footsteps echo throughout the world around you until you find yourself face to face with exactly what you didn't want to see.
You look away, noticing purity, or your idea of purity perched atop the end of an elaborate fountain. Her presence seems to glow, to draw you towards it. You want to reach out but you stop dead in your tracks.
You speak, though your throat dry.
"I would die for my beliefs," you say. "I would die for my ideals."
Her pale, porcelain face in contrast to her bright blond hair, like a doll she shines in the moonlight. Her hands retracting from prayer and balling up under her chin as she looks at you. You see her in a white gown.
"I wouldn't," she says. And with this, she picks herself up to her feet, and she walks onward into the shadowed world of memories.
Your breath seems caught in your throat, as you cautiously step forward to sit beside her former resting place. A deep red stain to your side, leaving a scarlet trail of lost purity in its wake.
You feel a part of yourself lost, you notice something missing and you start to bleed as well.
The world around you has changed, you're now sitting on a stump in the forest. The solitude of your kind strikes you as the creatures of this world sing their song of the night.
A path seems to emerge from the thick wood before you, and you stand to approach.
Your eyes close as you walk, as if you know the geography well.
Though, the world before you crumbles as you walk.
And you remember the first time you tasted death, defied it. You looked Armin directly in the eyes and you said to him "You told me it... So I'm going... to the outside world..."
And you saw the tears flow from his eyes and you saw the jaws of the creature destroying you, creating you close and you understood nothing but rage.
You open your eyes too the distorted view you have of the moon, and through the tears in your eyes and through your clenched teeth, you manage to tell yourself, you manage to tell yourself from within - "through all of my cynical hatred, I've forgotten how to love."
And you clutch the earth like a desperate child until the singing of the moon soothes you into submission. And you let go of all your restraints, and you cry as the night consumes you.