Cole - The Fall

Wall Maria was sometimes called our savior. It was called a burden by some. I'm somewhere in between in that matter, but leaned towards another side on that fateful day.

The titans had never bothered us before, only the Scout Regiment that went out beyond the walls had ever seen titans. Never the people inside, because the walls were 50 meters tall. The tallest titan humanity had ever seen was only 15 meters.

They weren't cannibalistic, because they weren't human, but they ate people whole. Killed them and then ate them up. We, as in humankind, that lived in the walls had never seen a titan in the flesh for a whole hundred years. Unless you joined the Scout Regiment you never saw a titan in your life. That all changed that day. Wall Maria was taken by the titans.

I lived inside of Wall Maria, not in one of the outlying districts like Shiganshina or Trost, but down on the southern side of the border right near Shiganshina. Down in the south was where the most titan activity was, due to it being warmer than in the northern districts, and titans emitted immense body heat which wouldn't fare well for them in the cold temperatures in the north. Even on the most hot days here when it was 90 plus degrees, it was only 30° there.

It all started normally that morning, the sun was shining, the local village was bustling and my mother sent me to go get bread and butter from the market with my friend, Grace. As usual the soldiers from the Garrison were sitting around. They were the people who mainly defended the city if an incident was ever to occur.

They were lazy, always thinking the titans wouldn't attack, but I knew that you needed to be ready for when they will, because one day they will attack and everyone will die because they weren't prepared. Grace had that same mentality, and said "Those idiots still don't care about our safety, drinking booze and eating so much food every day that they get fat. When the titans come they'll be so fat that the omni-directional mobility gear won't work for them."

"Grace, I told you that we shouldn't talk about them in the open, people will look at us weirdly and think we're just stupid little kids." I told her.

"But when the titans do come they'll be sorry. We know that it's just a matter of time before they do, Cole." She finished. Damn, for 13 year olds we were pretty tactically smart and kept an ear out for news going around.

"Let's just get this bread and go, Grace. We shouldn't be drawing attention to ourselves." I whispered to her now, and took her arm and weaved and bobbed into the crowd of people. Merchants were selling everything here, from jewelry to basic things such as bread and milk, which was what we were after today.

The merchant selling the things we needed was Marcus, an old family friend. We ran up to him and being the child that I was said, "Hey Marcus!" Out loud.

"Oi! Hey kids, mother send you out to get some milk and bread just the same as yesterday?" He said with a toothless grin. He had one false tooth that looked kind of gold, but we all knew it wasn't.

"Yeah." Grace said. Grace wasn't apart of our family, but considered my mother her mother, and it was all good. "We need umm…" She thought aloud. "Four bottles of milk aaaaaaand one whole loaf of bread please!"

"Four bottles and a loaf huh? How will you pay for that now Grae?" He laughed.

"I don't know, Cole has the money!"

"Does he now?" He looked over at me. "You got one silver to pay for it now, Cole?"

"Right here Marcus!" I handed over one silver coin exact, and in exchange he graciously gave us a crate of milk containing four bottle of milk and a loaf wrapped in a small towel. "Thanks Marcus!" I told him.

"No problem kiddos! Tell your mother thanks for me and give her my regards!" He shouted at us as we ran back towards home.

We dodged in and out of the way of people, knocking into someone by accident. "Sorry!" Grace yelled. She was always nice. Sometimes it gets a little unbearable, but I cope. She's amazing.

We left the village and about half a mile farther down the road a path of dirt led to our house on a small hill. We entered the yard which was gated and ran into the house. Wall Maria enclosed a ginormous area, and we couldn't even see the other side of the wall from where we were. The nearest house to ours was a good mile in any direction, and they were mostly farm houses. We didn't farm or have a dairy.

My mother was the head baker at a bakery in town, selling all sorts of treats and baked goods. Whenever she came home good things were always in tow. When we got inside two muffins were laid out on the table, one blueberry and one cinnamon. I liked blueberry, Grace liked Cinnamon.

"Got what I asked you for now kids?" My mom asked us, drying her hands on a towel next to her. She had been washing some dishes again. Life of a baker never ends after work.

"Oh yeah we did!" Grace said, taking the crate out of my hands and putting it on the table. She sat down with a plate and took her muffin, eating it immediately.

Grace made herself at home here, because she had no other home. Late one night many years ago before I was born, my parents found Grace on their doorstep with no one around to get her. They thought they would wait around to see if anyone lost a baby recently and when no one came forward, decided they should keep her. Only two months later they had me and we've been best friends ever since. Just because she was older didn't mean she was better though!

I sat down next to her, taking my own muffin and munching down into it. "Thank you mom!" I said with muffin in my mouth.

My mom laughed. "Don't talk when your mouth is open! Sometimes I wonder what age you two really are." She shook her head and continued washing the dishes.

After we finished our food and cleaned our plates and faces, we ran up to the loft where our beds were positioned to look right out our glass window. We would do this every day until dad came home. This was where we did everything, Grace and I did, drawings on parchment strung on the walls, (Even though Grace was better than me at drawing) a few grainy pictures taken by a photographer of our family, and some toys scattered on the floor from when we were little.

We both plopped down onto our respective beds and sighed. It wasn't a stressful day, but we both kept a deadly secret that no one knew about. Not even us at the time.

"I wish nothing would ever change Cole. Ever." Grace looked at me.

"Me too, and hopefully it won't." I said to her. Our imaginations ran wild all over the place and we couldn't contain it.

It was then that the whole ground shook in rhythm. Thump! Thump! Thump! And we knew something was wrong. The irony was unreal.

We sat up and peered out the window. Nothing was amiss, but people started pouring out of the village from the Shiganshina district in panic. Grace and I looked at each other with pale white faces and ran down stairs and out the front door. We stared towards the wall separating Shiganshina and Wall Maria's inner circle and heard a faster thumping this time. Thum! Thum! Thum! Thum! Thum! And we saw a titan run straight through that wall. It wasn't just any titan, but a special titan with armor-like skin around its body. Wall Maria had been broken into.