Hi lovely people!

so this weekend I binge-watched the entire first season of Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) and DAYUM IS THAT SHOW AMAZE BALLS. I'm on an Attack on Titan high now and I wanted to write this because Mikasa and Eren's relationship is unbelievably special and I really ship it very hard yes.

She's like my favorite person ever by the way like zomg can i be her Mikasa Ackerman's number one fan here

anywho it's just a few blurbs, really short. the only reason I'm splitting it up into three parts rather than just one is so that it doesn't get confusing :)

Reviews greatly appreciated!

enjoyyyyy!

xoxo

1

Give him.

Give him back.

Give him back to me.

I'm running. Through the streets of my town. My feet are bare, the soles crushed on the rough cobblestone. I feel the pain, but I ignore it. I keep running. There are so many people all around me. I try to push past them, try to keep running, try to keep the blood oozing from the cuts on my feet. My chest hurts and I can't breathe. People keep shoving me, spitting on me as I try to run, yelling names at my back. I look down and can see my hair blowing around me. My dress billowing around my ankles. My breath falling into the folds of my scarf. I'm little and I'm strong, but not for all these people. There are so many of them. I start saying Excuse me over and over again so that I can get through. I just keep running.

There is a sound in the back of my head that's making me run.

Keep running.

It's a loud pounding sound. Rhythmic, monotonous pounding. Boom boom boom. Just like that. Again and again and again, and I make sure that when I run, my steps don't fall into that same rhythm. The pounding is a sound I recognize. The sound of flesh against flesh, a harsh slapping. It's a sound anybody could recognize. But nobody else can hear it. Only me. That's why I'm the only one running.

I fall to the ground when somebody pushes me and I scrape my lip. My tiny body trembles with the blow, my hands burn, my eyes sting. But I struggle to my feet and keep running. I'm going up a hill now. Up stairs that I could walk with my eyes closed. Up, up, up. I trip, stumble, feel the earth rushing to meet me as I defy the obstacles it places before me and continue to run. I can hardly breathe now. I've never felt this kind of pain in my chest. As if my lungs have become too large and need to burst from my ribcage—and my heart too fast. My legs ache with each step, my arms dangle, my body starts to crumble. But I need to keep running.

Run.

The pounding sound is getting louder.

Run!

I turn the corner and now the pounding sound is right there.

RUN!

A fist, flying, again and again and again. Between those green (or blue?) eyes, up into that stomach, across those bruised cheeks. I scream, but I've been running for so long that I have no voice. I try to stop that fist because I know I'm strong enough—stronger than he is—but I can't because I'm too exhausted. I fall to my knees and keep screaming silently while the blows keep going and then I say, Give him back to me.

Give him.

Give him back.

Give him back to me.

I open my eyes. I stare at the ceiling for a few moments and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I look around. Everybody is asleep, and here I am. Awakening from a dream that I have had so many times. Always in the same place, doing the same thing, feeling the same pain. A ten year-old me, running to save him. Just like I always used to. But for some reason, in my dream, I can't. And every night I have to relive the torture of watching him get hurt and falling to my knees to beg.

But only in my dreams, I tell myself. I get out of bed and put on a jacket over my nightdress. I also grab the knife that I keep under my pillow. It's past curfew, but I don't want to go back to sleep. I can't relive that anymore. I need reality to cool me, to remind me that that will never happen. I will never fall to my knees and beg. I will take what I must and do what I must and I will succeed.

I step out into the cold night air and wrap my jacket more tightly around myself. Everything is so quiet. Only a few hours ago, the camp was alive with the jeers and sneers and laughter of the cadets. Celebrating their newfound niche here. But it's awfully dark now, in an empty way. There are no stars and the moon is hidden by a cloak of thin gray clouds. I shiver and realize that I'm barefoot. I check the soles of my feet—there's no blood. Only dirt from the path I walk. I look to my right and see the cabin. The one where he sleeps. I just walk past it. I know he wouldn't mind if I woke him up. The worst he'll do is berate me for treating him like a child, and I'm used to that. But I don't want to see him having nightmares anymore. I can always tell when he has them because he mumbles in his sleep. Mother, mother, mother. And sometimes he moves in desperate, trembling movements. I don't want to see it tonight.

In my bare feet and thin nightdress and hidden knife, I walk to the edge of a small pond on the outskirts of the camp. Nobody has seen me yet. I blend into the darkness well, move silently and swiftly, with nothing but the shadows to prove that I was ever there. I sit down on the edge of the pond and stare down at my reflection. I feel so much older than I look. There should be wrinkles around my eyes, a sag in my skin, age spots and bags. But everything looks so smooth, so deceiving. My reflection isn't the only one that I see. His is right next to mine. Of course he's not smiling. He's frowning, his brow furrowed, the skin on his nose scrunched up the way it always does. Sometimes his eyes look more blue and sometimes more green, but since it's just a reflection, I can't tell right now.

I throw a pebble into the water and watch our faces distort in the ripples, and then watch his fade completely. I'm alone again. I reach up and run my fingers through my hair. Dark, black, straight and thick. Mother always said I had the hair of my ancestors, could give it to my own children. It's tangled, so I start to undo the tangles. One at a time, letting my reflection straighten out again, knowing that nobody will find me. I can't even hear my own breathing.

When all of the tangles are gone, I bring the knife out into the open. It glistens, flashes, sparkles with the remnants of the blood I've washed from it so many times. I dip it into the pond, all the way up to my wrist. The water is cold, cold, cold. Then I take the knife back out and grab my hair and cut it.

You have pretty black hair, that boy said to me earlier.

And then, You should cut it.

I let the clumps of my pretty black hair fall into the pond.

A cruel world, Mother.