**Author's note: Hello and thank you so much for reading! I'm going to keep the notes to a minimum for this one but I'd like to establish that there is a trigger warning in place for this work; however, I can't list the specific triggers without giving away the story. If you feel like you could potentially have a bad reaction to blood, gore, or death, this is not the story for you. Thank you for your discretion and please enjoy, FinalBraus**
The mission was a complete failure.
Sasha clung to the reins of her horse, her heart racing so fast that her chest ached. She could taste iron in the back of her throat, raw from her labored breathing. Her pulse was so loud in her ears that it nearly drowned out the earth-shaking footfalls of the titans on her tail.
Twenty of them, maybe more. It hadn't been anyone's fault; they had just shown up. No one had seen it coming. Maybe if someone had, it would have been different. Maybe then half of the Survey Corps wouldn't have been splattered across the prairie grass. Maybe then the rest wouldn't have been out of gas and blades, running for their lives on the off-chance that they could make it back in one piece.
The wall stood like the gates of heaven before those that remained, its white side catching the thick orange light of the setting sun. Someone at the front of the formation fired a smoke round high up into the air above them, a signal to raise the gate. It was going to be a close shot. The beasts were right behind them and closing in.
Someone at the edge screamed. A horse whinnied. A titan roared.
Sasha's stomach flipped. She didn't look back.
Armin and Jean rode on her sides, their eyes wide and clouded with fear in their desperate push for survival. Their horses panted under them, foam dripping around their bits. They were being run to death.
The air was heavy with the rank stench of the titans, like rotten meat, piss, and vomit. It suffocated her, coming in waves, like the things were breathing down her neck. Her spine prickled.
Who is behind us?
Before she could think, a massive, deformed hand shot out beside her, blocking Jean from her view. Her mind went blank with absolute, animal terror. It curled around the leg of his horse, pulling it back toward the titan's grisly smile like it was nothing but a child's toy. The poor creature let out a blood-curdling scream and crashed to the ground. Its legs snapped like matchsticks.
"Jean!"
"Sasha!" Armin shouted as she jerked back her reins and forced her horse around. "Sasha, wait!" but she barely heard him. She bent low over the neck of her mount, horror rising in her throat. No one else, she thought, her eyes wide and hollow.
Not him.
His horse's ruined body was on top of him. The titan spread its jaws.
"Get away from him!" Sasha roared, jumping out of her saddle and straight into the monster's face. "Hey! Look at me, you big ugly bastard!" She could feel its breath rushing over her legs as she clung to its nose. It could have her between its teeth in a second.
It was like the world froze.
Its bloodshot eye rolled toward her.
With a primal shriek, she shoved her blades into both of its eyes. The thing cried out in agony and clawed at its face, just missing her as she yanked her handles free and dove away.
"Jean!" she yelled again, hitting the ground hard and sprinting to where his horse had fallen. "Jean, we have to go!"
But he was unconscious, blood gushing from the side of his head, staining the grass where she knelt as she threw her whole weight against the horse's broken body. Far away, someone in the squad shouted her name one more time, and then there was nothing but the sound of the titans, broken by chaotic screams. They could have been people she knew. It could have been Connie. She should have cared.
She couldn't see the survivors at all. She couldn't even see the titans. Her vision was blank, her mind focused on one thing. It was like there was nothing else; she just had to get the horse off of him.
It was so heavy. Her muscles were on fire, running on nothing but adrenaline. She grunted and dug her heels into the dirt, but it was useless. She could never have lifted it. The horse panted, its eyes rolling, wide with panic and pain.
She looked down at her last few blades.
It wasn't going to make it anyway. There was no hope for a horse with broken legs.
With a flash of steel and a sympathetic wince at its dying scream, Sasha cut the poor beast in half. It split over Jean's form in a mess of blood and flesh, tangling the boy in what remained of its intestines. "Jean!" she cried again, more to herself than him.
She bent down to pick him up, and only then did she see it. His leg was completely broken. The bone had punched through the skin.
No…
She grit her teeth and looked up. The titan's hollow eye sockets steamed. It reached up and pulled her blades out, letting them clang, bloody, to the ground. It was healing, and there were others behind it. They looked around the carnage of the Survey Corps with their glassy, empty eyes. There was no one else to distract them now. Bitter tears spilled down her cheeks. There was no one to help her.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. His gear was broken, and she cut him free of its weight. Grabbing him by the shoulders, Sasha heaved him onto her back. His head lolled against her shoulder, his blood running thick and dark down her chest as she ran. It was so stupid. They were sure to catch her. She was five and a half feet tall. They were twenty.
It didn't stop her from running.
The world moved around her like molasses. It was a beautiful place, it must have been, this plain outside Karanese's gate. It would have been one of the richest parts of Wall Maria, full of people who wanted to live better but had found themselves just short. Closer to the wall, she knew, there was a village, but as her feet pounded the ground and her back strained under Jean's weight, she saw nothing around her but ruined farms. Barns and homes with roofs smashed to kindling stood out like carcasses on the gently rolling hills.
There was a house in front of her. She could make it.
But the titans were lumbering toward her now, moving slowly as their giant limbs gained momentum, their great footsteps shaking the ground and tripping her up.
Even if I get inside, what am I supposed to do? She wondered hopelessly, the hard knot in her throat making it hard to breathe, hard to keep running. He was so heavy, and the house was so far.
I am going to die. And he's never going to have known.
His head pressed against her neck, Jean moaned.
She bit her lip. The titans were going faster, and she was slowing down. People weren't meant to run with that kind of weight on their backs. Her legs were shaking so much that she could hardly make them move at all and her maneuver gear banged against her thighs, threatening all the while to trip her.
I don't want to die like this!
Suddenly she heard the beat of a horse's hooves behind her. Her heart pounding, Sasha looked back over her shoulder, seeing one of the Survey Corps' horses galloping towards her, out of the pack of titans. Someone had come back for her! She threw up one arm and waved, shouting at the top of her lungs.
As the horse drew nearer, though, the titans on its tail, she saw that it had no rider. It was only hers, coming back to its owner as it had been trained. There was no one else. Her heart sank. That meant that their squad really had left them. The gate must already be closed.
They were locked outside the walls.
Sasha shook her head. She couldn't think about that. It would drive her mad. She should have been thankful that she even got a horse.
"Here, boy!" she shouted, grabbing her mount by the mane and hefting Jean onto the saddle before pulling herself up and digging her heels into its flanks. It reared up on its hind legs and hit the ground galloping at full tilt. Gradually, the groaning titans disappeared into the fields behind them.
It took a long moment for Sasha to realize that she was riding toward the wall, and a longer moment to realize that it was pointless. She pulled back on the reins and swung around in her saddle, her eyes scanning the darkening landscape. The sun had finally dipped below a range of mountains in the distance, casting pitch-thick shadows over everything. She was far outside of the town now, nothing around for miles but scattered corn and wheat fields.
With a heavy sigh, she clicked her tongue and turned her horse towards a ruined barn standing at the edge of a field, half of its roof caved in and its walls bowed out. It looked more like a ribcage than a building, but she wouldn't be able to find anything better, not with nighttime falling fast.
Looking down, she saw Jean's hair soaked with sweat and blood. With every bump of the horse his brow wrinkled in pain, his teeth clenched so tight she was sure he would shatter them. "You're going to be alright," she murmured, reaching down and touching his face. His skin was clammy against her fingertips. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and stroked his cheek, trying to make him feel anything other than pain.
"Don't worry, Jean," she whispered, tears slipping silently down her face to land on his torn and bloody uniform. "Don't you worry. You're going to be fine."