Leaves from the vine, falling so slow.
Like fragile, tiny shells,
Drifting in the foam.
Little soldier boy, come marching home.
Brave soldier boy, comes marching home.

I can't move.

I can't breathe.

It bears down on me as I stand, stock still on the rooftop.
Its gigantic face is plastered with a dopey, innocent grin. The innocence of this smile is stolen by the fresh human blood that trickles from the
giant's teeth and down its chin.

I can't move.

I can't breathe.

I can't scream.

I feel my one remaining kenn blade drop form my quivering grasp, clattering against the edge of my rooftop perch and taking a small drop before shattering as it reaches the street below. The street, which is littered with the dismembered remains of my fellow soldiers, some of them maybe from my squad. Some of them, I even watched as they were devoured brutally and mercilessly by the Titans.
The streets literally run red with their blood.
I can't cry out for help even as the Titan wraps its giant fingers around my body. Its peach-coloured skin is hot, like a fever victim, to the touch. I feel power behind that sultry skin. Enough power to break my spine with one thought, one intention.
I'm still limp and unable to move. All I can do is stare into the features of my death as I am lifted closer to the titan's face. Its distant eyes are a baby blue color. It has tousled-looking blond hair and a slightly tubby physique.
The titan opens its mouth wide, revealing wet pink gums and sharp, glistening teeth. I stare numbly down its gullet, not denying my death nor accepting it.
The cool, light breeze blows lazily, carrying the sounds of distant shouts.
Who is shouting?
Then I see them. Three figures, darting though the air with the whirr and hiss of the Three-Dimensional Mobility gear. They are approaching from my right, leaping form rooftop to rooftop with their blades flashing brilliantly. Their shouting has momentarily distracted the tiny attention span of the titan.
They stop on rooftop of the building just a few meters to my right. Two girls and one boy. I don't recognize the girls, but the sight of the boy, with his tall sturdy frame, short black hair and freckled face, presents my mind with a name.
Marco. Marco Bodt.
He was the one who helped me at the worst of my times, when I considered even taking my own life before the titans got to me. But he helped. He coaxed me back to sanity, willing me to fight for my friends and family. To keep them alive.
And here I was, staring at him after giving up on everything. His face is a mixture of all the bad emotions.
The titan turns back to me, evidently not wanting to give up its guaranteed meal at the moment. As the titan's cavernous maw draws nearer, I recall a lullaby my own mother used to sing me to sleep with on the windy nights when the gale would rattle our house.

"Leaves from the vine,"

I'm so close now. I can feel the titan's internal body heat, pulsing from the giant's very throat.

"Falling so slow."

I think my indifferent numbness is fading. Is that ice block in my chest the fear setting in?

"Like fragile, tiny shells,"

I stare, beginning to become horrified as I watch the muscles in the titan's jaw begin to tense and the titan's grasp loosens around my body in preparation to drop me within biting range. I think I scream then.

"Drifting in the foam."

I suddenly hear a metallic grating sound, a whirr, and a hiss. Someone yells. It's Marco. A millisecond later, two arms slam into my side, shoving me straight from the titan's grasp. I hear a sudden crunch-squelch sound, and as I slam painfully onto the flat roof tiles something warm and wet splatters the back of my jacket. I turn in time to see marco- No, a piece of Marco, half of Marco, a bloody, dead half, falls from the Titan's clenched, bloody teeth and falls to the ground. I hear it hit the wall and slide down with a thud.
I think one of the girls is screaming. Screaming Marco's name. Maybe it's me.

"Little soldier boy, come marching home."

Marco will not march home. Marco will never march home. How can you march if one of your legs is boiling in in a Titan's stomach?

"Brave soldier boy, comes marching home,"

I know, now, that someone out there is singing this song for Marco, willing him to return home. Willing him to survive, to find his way back to their embrace. But he won't.
Because he died to save a coward who even, as another giant face looms over him and the girl screams again, can't find the will to fight.

The End