She wonders if she should tell her father about the nightmares. The nightmares, about Titans and soldiers and death and dolls, plaguing her slumber for months now, and getting increasingly worse every day. While her father isn't that kind of doctor, she's ready to do anything to be rid of her ailment.
Blood is a constant in these dreams. Splashed on trees, on grass, streaked across Titans and corpses alike, the stuff is everywhere. The dolls are even worse though, an assortment of seemingly innocent children's toys that scare her the most. Lying atop smooth silk, sinister shadows mark unnatural poses, surrounded by the stench of death and pain and –
Bodies replace them, distinctly human, distinctly mangled. It at first took her a moment to realize the bodies are mirroring the dolls, but she's seen the poses so often that she no longer considers the thought. The jackets and straps of the military are all too familiar, and articles of clothing – a scarf, a cravat – likening the cadavers further to the toys are caked with blood.
Corpses have never been strangers to her, but the horror and desolation from the sight weighs heavy on her tiny heart and constricts her lungs like none would ever believe, like she's drowning in nothing but the hurt and loss and overwhelming grief, and it consumes her.
There's so much pain.
The only solace she finds is a young girl that hovers above her and whispers "See you later, Eren."
Yes, she should tell her father.
"Eren," her sister calls, and her eyes fly open. The exasperated tone she uses indicates that she's been calling for her for quite some time now. "Let's get home before it gets dark."
Eren nods, sitting up. Her neck aches from sleeping on the hard ground, her slump against the tree terrorizing her back throughout her nap. The firewood strapped to her back creaks in protest as she rises, and she moves swiftly to match her sister's gait.
"Mikasa," says Eren absently, "your hair's gotten a lot longer, hasn't it?" She cracks her neck, scowling at the sting the action produces.
Her sister scoffs, moving a few paces forward. "What kind of question is that? What were you even thinking about when you woke up?"
"Well, see," Eren begins, shuffling forward, "I had this mighty long dream." Her mind tries to recall it, to describe it to Mikasa, because if there's anyone who should know about it before her father, it's her sister, but the memories have vanished. "I… I don't really remember it all that well."
Mikasa hums, and then turns to face her. Eren's brows furrow at the surprise that etches across the other's face, but before she can ask what for, Mikasa asks, "Eren? Are you all right? Why are you crying?"
The thing is – she's not. At least, she believes that she's not, until she lifts a hand to her face and touches a tear as it drips down her cheek. Eren flinches in shock, eyes flickering from Mikasa's concerned face to her finger. "I… I don't…"
Her cheeks flame, and she turns away to wipe the rest of her tears away. More don't come, and so it's safe to say she's finished with her wailing, as concealed (even to her) that it might've been.
Mikasa still looks like she wants to say something, but doesn't, and so they begin the journey home.
It's the year 845, and the Walls have not fallen.
Sister and sister filter in with the trickle of people, and Eren finds herself wiping stray moisture from her eyes. Her nose is red, and while she dries her hands on her skirt, evidence of her crying is still there. Eren willfully ignores all of Mikasa's attempts to identify what made her cry, not quite knowing even herself, but it's obvious that pride is what is causes her to clamp down and quiet for the duration of their trek.
She only opens her mouth once they pass the gates, where the people have sufficiently dispersed and Eren has enough space to whisper to Mikasa without being overheard. "You will speak a word of this to no one," snarls Eren, whose fists grip the straps of her harness tightly. Her face is pinched in anger, though Mikasa doesn't seem at all bothered by her expression.
"Of course," Mikasa responds. She casts a sidelong glance at her, dark locks swishing with the movement. "But you should probably have your dad check that out, right?"
"Are you kidding me? Of course not!" Eren protests. She shoots her sister a scathing look, mumbling, "Like hell I'd ever tell him about that." She believes the conversation settled there, but the stench of alcohol comes closer all too abruptly, followed by the gruff voice of a familiar soldier.
Hannes the Garrison soldier stoops down to reach the ten year-old's level, a wry grin stretched across his face. "What have you been crying about, Eren? Did Mikasa get mad at you for some reason?" He laughs uproariously, and Eren claps a hand over her nose, the overwhelming smell of beer coming off the man in waves. He's not the only one drinking on the job, she realizes, as she peers around the corner.
The men supposed to be on duty with him are sitting on cardboard boxes, cheeks flushed drunkenly and each having their own bottle of alcohol all to themselves. Eren frowns and the leather straps of her harness crackle as her grip tightens in discontent. "Aren't you… supposed to be working…?" She keeps her voice level, trying not to provoke the ire of men over twice her size. Eren has never strayed from picking fights, but these are soldiers, and the adults milling about would not doubt view an ensuing scuffle as a result of delinquency, despite the Yeager girl's respectable parentage.
"Today we're manning the gates," Hannes replies, waving a hand. He's not teetering over like some of his companions are, but there's something off-kilter about his balance. He's ready to tip over, and that's what makes Eren's temper flare the most. "We're out here all day, hot sun, stuff like that. We get hungry, and, well, we get thirsty too. Alcohol's an available liquid, kid, so we drank it."
"And how exactly do you expect to fight when we need you to? When the situation arises?" cries Eren, leaning forward earnestly.
The soldiers have the gall to stare at her blankly. "What situation?" asks Hannes after a brief pause.
"I can't believe I'm hearing this!" Eren yells, and it's only now that Mikasa is more or less miffed by the exchange, although it's hard to tell if her annoyance is directed at her sister or the soldiers she's speaking to. "When 'they' get through the walls! That's when we'd need you the most! But now you're sitting around all drunk off your asses, and if the situation ever actually rises, we're all screwed!"
"Eren, don't shout. You're making my head ring," Hannes mumbles, hands rubbing his temples. Eren's words draw a laugh from the soldiers, spiking her rage even further. Nothing makes a child angrier than the notion of adults not taking them seriously.
Another guard waves off her concerns, nudging her with the toe of his boot playfully. "They haven't made so much as a dent in the walls in a hundred years, kid. But if they break through, you know, we'll deal with it."
She hardly thinks it to be so easy.
"We can't let our guards down that easily, right?" she says. "My father says that's dangerous." Grisha Yeager is the smartest man she knows. His word is above all others, father or not. She gives them all a look, a plea to sober up and be decent at their jobs for at least once in their life.
Hannes's eyes soften at the mention of her father. "I guess you're right," he acquiesces, "and I ain't about to argue with a Yeager or her old man, but… Sweetie, when you get to become a soldier, you get to see all this stuff about the walls. How to maintain 'em, all that stuff. This thing's fifty meters tall. There's no way that I can think of for the Titans to get around it."
Eren blanches, and Hannes winces. Not the reaction he was hoping to elicit from her, obviously. "So you're saying you're not even prepped to fight them? That you wouldn't know the first thing about how to take them down if they get through the Wall?" Hannes reaches out, seeking to pacify the girl before her shouting makes things any worse for his pounding head, but she steps back angrily. Her sister flashes a concerned look but doesn't do anything to stop the following tirade. "What the hell are you calling yourselves the 'Garrison Regiment' for then, huh? You've got no right to bear the name, as if you're all soldiers worthy of a fight against the Titans! You'd be better off named the 'Wall-Building Squad!'"
The girl's cheeks are ruddy from her outburst, her nose even redder than it was before from her crying. Her tiny frame trembles in rage, head shaking with disbelief. She's placing her lives in the Garrison's hands. The Military Police aren't there to help her people when the Titans get through. The Scouting Regiment would only provide clean-up and backup to the Garrison Regiment. The soldiers before her were those entrusted to guard the people, but instead they guard their liquor more closely.
"Yeah, that sounds great!" Hannes says, a hand coming to rest on the top of her head. She would customarily shake him off, grumbling something about not being a little kid, but his cheerful tone makes her freeze. "Sweetheart, if there's a standing army…" His hand moves to her shoulder as he squats to be eye level. "…that means that things have all gone to hell. If there isn't, if we're all useless – and we are, thank God above – that means that humanity's safe."
That's the most reasonable argument she's heard all day, and while she's tempted to strike back at one of Hannes's friends trash-talking the Scouting Regiment, she knows she's spent too much time talking, and Mikasa begins to tug her away by her sleeve.
It doesn't stop the girl from having the last word.
"Even if we don't leave the walls," she says, and Mikasa grows more impatient by the second, "we've got food, and shelter, and safety. But that doesn't make us any better than mere cattle." Her quiet tone contrasts with the brief shouts she expelled earlier, and while that certainly won't be the end of the conversation should she ever catch them slacking off again, she steers herself back home, shrugging her sister's hand off of her arm.
Mikasa does not say much when around other people. It's something Eren has come to expect from her almost-blood sister, whom she has called her sister for only about a year, and known her just as long. She'll never forget the circumstances in which they met, and she understands how such a situation would affect someone's talkativeness. That's all right, though. Eren does all the speaking for the both of them. But now, Eren can tell there's something Mikasa wants to say, the Asian girl's face folded in worry. Far be it from her to stop Mikasa from speaking her mind. "What?" Eren demands, not unkindly.
Her sister shakes her head, gaze trained on the ground yet still expertly maneuvering around the people in front of her. "It's just that… Eren, you should give up on joining the Scouting Regiment." She lifts her dark eyes to meet Eren's gray gaze then, her own stare hard and stubborn.
"You too?" snarls Eren. "Even you're going to make fun of them?"
"It's not making fun of them, Eren. It's just that, if you get hurt because of joining – "
A bell cuts the girl off, and Eren's head snaps up at the noise. "That must be the Scouting Regiment! Let's go see them!" All arguments are rebuttals are forgotten as she drags Mikasa behind her, moving back towards the gates and already finding clusters of people pressed to the sides of the street, almost as if watching a parade. Unable to get a better view, Eren climbs up on some wooden crates, leaving her sister at ground level before remembering her presence and offering a hand up to an adjacent stack. She hears the clop of the horses' footsteps and gets on her tiptoes to greet her heroes with smiles and joy.
What passes through the gates isn't worthy of the title of 'heroes.'
The Regiment is broken, bloody, and battered. There are more bandaged appendages than people, the wounded and dead innumerable. It's not something that Eren wants to think about when thinking of the Scouting Regiment, but the reality is clear in front of her eyes. For all her preaching about how the reality of the Titans invading is all too close, she has denied herself the reality of the Titans' mortality. It's clearer than ever, the guilt, the hurt, and the loss that encompasses the soldiers. A blond man catches her eye, sees her strained smile and casts his gaze downward to the mane of his horse. She frowns then. No one can face her – not the commander, not his second. Maybe she's wrong to consider the Scouting Regiment the most powerful around. They hold little weight and are ridiculed as wastes of tax dollars, but they continue to fight for humanity and for the world outside the walls. Beside this, though, the adults do have a point.
Some try their best to look supportive – mostly the youth and children, Eren notices – but the older, working-class folk regard the soldiers with disgust and not the slightest bit of pity. As Eren scans the crowd gathered around, standing in their places simply because they don't want to get trampled by the oncoming legion, she notes a few concerned adults as well, peering amongst the Scouting Regiment's ranks. They're searching, she realizes, for their sons, daughters, spouses, siblings. A few small children she notes peering up at the towering scouts are looking for parents as well.
Only one woman dares to approach them. Her small, bony frame is hunched, eyes darting around. She walks straight up the Commander – Eren doesn't quite recall who it is (Shadis, perhaps?), the last change of hands too brief with the growing death rate of the Scouting Regiment – and asks for her son. "Excuse me," whispers the old crone, hands folded in front of her chest in worry. She takes another long sweep over the remaining soldiers, as if she's somehow missed whoever she was looking for. Eren finds herself tipping forward too, helping to look even though she's not sure herself who the woman is looking for. "I don't see my son – Moses," the woman continues, sinking to her knees after another failed search. "Do you know what happened to him?"
The Commander blanches, then turns to his right. "This is Moses's mother," he murmurs to his second, who nods. "Bring it here."
"It?" murmurs Eren to herself. It's not the most suitable way to refer to a cadaver, definitely not at all respectful. The man's not exactly living anymore, but she thinks he deserves the pronouns he was referred to with when he was still alive. But when her gaze follows the second, to a wagon near the blond man who acknowledged her, the small bundle retrieved is definitely not big enough to hold a corpse. A limb perhaps, but –
She gasps, as does the rest of the crowd.
It is a limb.
An arm, to be exact, revealed as the lady unwraps the green cloth. The smell of rotting flesh hits everyone's noses, and while scenes like this aren't commonplace or rare, it never fails to make Eren flinch. She turns to Mikasa, only to find the other girl staring intently back at her. They both turn their attention back to the woman when she shrieks, staring down at her son's arm with eyes wide.
It's hard to hear Moses's mother when she pipes up, her high voice cracking. Her gaze has lifted from Moses's severed arm to Commander Shadis before her, his own eyes shadowed by his downturned head. "He contributed, didn't he?" she asks. Shadis is startled out of his reverie, and he watches the woman, puzzled and shaking. "My son did something for humanity, didn't he? Even if he didn't do much, Moses helped humanity fight back, right?" Her pleas are marked with squeaks, and with each word Shadis flinches ever so slightly.
Eren leans forward, her toes resting precariously on the edge of the top crate as Mikasa reaches out to grab the hem of her cardigan to keep her from tipping over as she tries to listen closer.
"Of course!" Shadis barks, and the woman nods, clutching the limb close to her chest. Eren wonders rather morbidly what she's going to do with it – if she's going to give her son a proper burial, and where she would hold it, considering it's only just an arm.
Eren's thoughts are halted suddenly, however, but Shadis, who speaks once more. "No, he didn't!" The man, shoulders hunched and heaving, continues screaming. The other soldiers behind him – his officers – don't even flinch as his voice rises and bounces off the walls and alleys of the area around. The people around them begin to break into hushed whispers, quieted as he continues. "Moses died without doing a single thing! Everyone here died in vain! We made absolutely no progress whatsoever! The expedition was a complete and total failure!"
Silence follows, painfully awkward, and it's painfully evident that the Scouting Regiment hasn't been so much as a thorn in the Titans' sides. The quiet chatter only breaks out once again to fill the void the Commander's words left. Eren casts a quick glance at Mikasa, scowling it at the 'I-told-you-so' stare she levels back. When she looks back up, the Scouting Regiment has already marched straight on, leaving Moses's mother sitting in the dirt road alone, with only her son's arm to comfort her.
"It's a fucking shame," the man in front of Eren says to his friend, not at all bothering to keep quiet. His voice doesn't lift above the others, but he's certainly the loudest one around the two girls. "Everyone that died on that expedition would still be alive if they just kept in the walls. Safe and sound."
"No kidding," responds the other man. "At this point, what are we even doing with the Scouts? Wasting tax dollars, that's what. And to keep all of 'em Titans happy and fed. We should just – "
Whatever else he might've had to add was cut off abruptly by firewood smacking him in the back of the head. The man lets out an indignant yelp, whirling around to face the two girls behind him. Eren doesn't at all regret her actions. That's what he deserves for speaking ill of the men and women who go out to fight for humanity's second chance. She'd hit him again in a heartbeat, and she's about to until Mikasa forcibly grabs the back of her collar and yanks her straight off the boxes and into an alleyway. The two men jeer after them while Eren lets out a string of expletives, heels dragging on the floor.
"Hey, goddamnit, lemme go!" she shouts one last time, efforts to free herself futile. She leaves Mikasa's grasp flying, and Eren gasps as she slams into the wall behind her, head cracking onto the stone. The firewood piled on her back goes flying, twigs and such scattered all across the dirt floor. Mikasa's glare burns holes into her skull, and makes warmth flare in her cheeks. She lands on all fours, brown hair dangling in her face as she scowls. Her head snaps up to glare back at her sister, eyes blazing. "What the hell was that, Mikasa? Now the firewood's everywhere! Help me clean this up."
"You were thinking about joining the Scouting Regiment before this. You… didn't change your mind, did you?"
Upon receiving no answer, Mikasa stoops down to help her sister.
Eren is the one who greets her family as she enters the modest home, announcing the sisters' presence while Mikasa trails behind like a shadow.
"Welcome back," Grisha Yeager says from his seat at the dining table. He's organizing his medical equipment – he has an appointment in Wall Rose, if Eren isn't mistaken. It's about time for him to leave, and the sun is beginning to lower when Eren dumps her and Mikasa's firewood into the container while the latter goes to wash her hands and aid their mother in preparing the food.
"You're late," Carla Yeager admonishes, throwing a lightly chastising look over her shoulder. She moves from her spot near the sink and bends over, seemingly peering at the collection of firewood the children have gathered. Eren can feel warmth pitching in her stomach. Her mother's realized something, and she's probably to get scolded for it. "Say… That's a lot of firewood that you've got there, Eren? You gather that all by yourself?"
Eren swallows, nodding. Her gaze trains on the grainy wood beneath her feet, fingers slamming the cover of the trunk swiftly down. Before she can think to speak and follow up with her statement, fingers clamp quickly around her ear. She yelps, and her mother chuckles. "Your ears turn red when you lie," says her mother. "Mikasa helped you, didn't she? Really, Eren, Mikasa can't carry all your weight forever. It's your job as the older sister to be the one doing all the heavy lifting."
"Mikasa's older than me by a month," Eren protests, and earns a joking flick to the ear for her trouble.
The girls join Grisha at the table then, and while they would customarily be enjoying lunch, they would much rather see him off before waving their delicacies in his face while he has to haul himself over to the next wall. Eren engages in small talk with her father before he goes, as she always does, simply to speak to him before he leaves for another week. She's grown used to the absence of her father, but that doesn't mean she's completely fine with him vanishing all the time. Carla squeezes in on the conversation as well, a jovial family moment before Mikasa interjects, speaking for the first time since she stepped over the threshold of the Yeager house.
"Eren wants to join the Scouts," says Mikasa, and everyone freezes for a moment.
The quietness goes as quickly as it came, as Eren is quick to protest Mikasa's revelation and Carla rushes over to her daughter and shakes her. "What are you even thinking, Eren? You know how dangerous it is outside there, and how many people have died part of the Scouts! Why in the world would you possibly want to go outside?" she demands, jerking her child, who struggles to free herself from the death grip.
"I want to see the world outside and not live like cattle! It's all we are here, in the Walls. There's got to be a world outside, a world from before the Titans, where humanity flourished before, and it's a place that humanity deserves to live in again!"
Eren pauses, looking down as she straightens her ruffled attire. "And besides, someone's got to pick up the slack and help out, or else everyone who fell would have died in vain."
No one says anything, although it's clear that Carla is merely gathering herself. The silence is broken by the sound of Grisha's chair sliding back as the man rises, gathering his back and announcing his departure.
"Wait," Carla protests, moving to grab her husband's bicep. "Honey, please, talk some sense into Eren!"
Grisha shrugs off his wife's concerns, turning in the doorway to give his family a sly grin. "If the girl's got the mind to do it, there's no stopping her. Besides," he pauses, reaching into his collar to pull a golden key out, "when I get back, I'll show you what's in the basement."
The basement is an enigma that's plagued the girl since her early childhood, and she grins widely as she asks for confirmation. Up until then, she doubted that she'd ever find out what was in her father's super-secret basement, to be kept hidden until the end of time.
The women move out to the porch to see the doctor off, and as soon as he's out of sight, Carla's smile drops from her face as she turns to Eren. "Sweetheart," she says, a normally gentle hand pressing firmly down on her shoulder, "just give up on joining the Scouts. It's never happening. Only an idiot would join the Regiment for some idealistic – "
"An idiot?" Eren parrots back, incredulous and angry once more. "Well, as far as I'm concerned, those who would rather buy their safety and live like cattle are ten times worse!" She darts off into the alleyway, ignoring her mother's call.
She weaves through the backstreets of Shiganshina, stopping only when she notices her sister joining her.
"Your mother told me to look out for – "
"I know."
The two sit in silence, resting on the crates in the open street where the Scouting Regiment passed through, postures mirroring each other as their backs hunch. The crowd has long since dispersed, so neither of them faces the possibility of encountering the men that Eren had assaulted. Eren opens her mouth to apologize – she never means to be mean to Mikasa, but the protectiveness of the other girl smothers her more than she'd like. But just as the noise is about to leap out of her throat, the sound of assault and battery reaches the both of them, followed by a couple of familiar voices.
It takes them both a second to realize the origins. "Armin," the both say, and take off in a sprint towards the origin of the noise.
They find the bullies behind the blacksmith's shop, where the sound of the man laboring away would customarily block any noise that would rouse the suspicion of any passers-by. With the blacksmith at lunch, however, they were in no such luck.
Eren's encountered the same bullies before – quick to attack those not conforming to the norm, especially 'heretics' like Armin. Eren had never fit in with the crowd, and prior to the acquisition of Mikasa, who lived in the rural areas of Wall Maria prior to adoption, as a friend, it had only been Eren and Armin who stuck together. It was her duty to protect him, and, judging by the way he was slumped against the wall, he needed her help. She shoots forward, Mikasa close behind. Brows pulled together in fury, she watches the bullies catch sight of her and turn their attention to the newcomer. She doesn't expect them to turn tail and run about a half a second later. But she's not going to complain.
"Hah," Eren snorts, hands on her hips as she skids to a stop and watches Armin's assailants flee. "Took one look at me and just up and ran. I can't say I'm surprised."
She hears Armin say, "I don't think that's quite right…" and promptly ignores the words, instead leaning down to offer her hand. "You okay?" she asks, smiling down at him.
Armin stares at her hand for a moment before swatting it away and choosing to rise on his own. She shoots him a puzzled glance, but doesn't verbalize her concerns. "What the hell was their problem?" Eren opts to say instead, turning to head towards the river. They used to skip pebbles on days like this, and it was a nice way to get Armin's mind off of his injuries, however minor. She nudges him with her shoulder gently.
"Well, I was reading one of my grandfather's books," Armin begins, and continues talking as they walk. "I was by myself when I was doing it, but then they saw me, asked me what I was reading, and so I told them." The subject matter of the books Armin often read weren't exactly conservative by any means, and so Eren nods, encouraging her friend to go on. She walks on his right while Mikasa strolls to his left, framing him as they both simultaneously reach to brush off dirt and straw from his person. "As you can tell, they didn't like it, and after we argued for a bit… I told them humanity needed to leave the Walls sometime, and that's when they hit me. Called me a heretic."
Having reached their destination, she plops down onto the yellowy grass, patting the spaces beside her and prompting her friends to follow her example. They do, and she leans back on her hands, nudging a shoe off and dipping a toe into the river. "Ugh," grumbles Eren, "how come you get sneered at and called names for just talking about leaving?" Small, freshwater fish nibble at her feet, and she ignores the tickle in favor of conversation.
"Well," Armin says, answering the rhetorical question, "it's because we've lived in the walls for over a hundred years of complete peace. People are scared of inviting 'them' in." His position differs from Eren, whose legs are splayed wide and her hands even farther as she relaxes. He's curled up on himself instead, chin resting on his knees as his arms lock around his legs to bring them closer to his chest. "Besides, the government's decreed any interest in the outside world as taboo."
"The king's a goddamn wuss, that's the only reason."
"Yeah," agrees Armin, "but is that the only reason?"
"It's our lives, our business – not theirs."
"Not happening," states Mikasa. "End of story. I'm not going to let you."
Eren turns to face her, the movement of her foot leaving the water creating a splash that lightly wets the hem of Armin's pants as well as Eren's skirt. Her former apology is forgotten, instead replaced by annoyance and irritation. "Speaking of, what the hell, Mikasa, was up with telling my parents? I told you not to tell them!"
"I never promised to cooperate," she responds, rolling her eyes.
Armin pipes up, brushing Eren's shoulder gently. "How'd it go?"
"Mom didn't like it. Duh. There wasn't exactly cheers and applause." Not that she was expecting any.
"Mm. I can imagine that…"
Eren's head whips around. "Not you, too! C'mon, it's our dream – to go outside and see the world."
Armin is quick to make amends, hands lifted in a pacifying gesture. "It's really dangerous, Eren. But I can see where you're coming from." He pauses, collecting his thoughts and carefully planning his words. It makes Eren scowl at the fact that he needs to watch what he says, but then it might be that he's not quite sure how to articulate what he felt clearly. "I just wanna know what goes on in the heads of the conservatives, of those who want us to stay inside. The Walls have held for about a hundred years. But who says they'll last forever?"
Almost as if on cue, the ground rumbles and shakes, throwing the children in the air before letting them drop painfully. Midair, Eren can see the flash of a golden lightning bolt striking the earth before Wall Maria against an orange sky. "What was that?" she gasps, and neither of her friends have an answer. "Was it an earthquake?"
It seems that the people around them have no idea either, but staring straight ahead, she sees a cluster of folks pointing at the Wall in fear, huddling together in their dread.
"Let's go check it out."
Armin speeds in front of them, only to stop abruptly and adopt the same expression as all of those nearby. Eren glances at their faces before moving to the Wall, and by that time, even Mikasa has frozen in horror.
They're a sizable distance away, but the Titan that peers above the fifty meter high stone is enough to make everyone stop and stare. Eren can't help but feel a chill crawl up her spine, tingling at the back of her neck. She's never seen a Titan in real life, and she certainly hopes they don't all look just like that – outrageously tall, lacking all flesh, and sporting a terrifying grin of dozens, maybe even hundreds, of teeth and staring down at humanity as if they were nothing more than a bunch of ants. It's a miracle that any of the Scouts survive, if all of them were to look like that, ominous smoke billowing from behind.
"That Wall," Armin murmurs, tone disbelieving, "is fi-fifty meters tall…"
"It's one of them," Eren whispers. "A Titan…"
All is quiet, and all is still.
The Titan begins to move, and then a foot comes crashing into the Wall.
Debris flies everywhere, and the mere sounds makes everyone slap a hand over their ears. The cacophony that was missing upon the beast's first appearance now rises, a variety of screams, cries, and pleas filling the air. Chunks of the pierced Wall, varying in shape and size, rain down on Shiganshina, crushing man, animal, and house alike.
Armin is the first of the three to react, grabbing his friends' forearms and tugging them away. "Get the hell out of here, guys, or the Titans'll come piling in one by one!" Mikasa casts a glance back at him, a certain panic replacing the original still-water calm. But Eren doesn't. Eren instead moves to gawk at the direction of the debris.
"M-my house is over there," says Eren. Her voice is soft, nothing like it's boisterous and customary loudness. She then takes off, moving past the swarm of people heading in the opposite direction. Mikasa follows suit, ignoring Armin's protests and matching her sister stride for stride.
It's fear that propels them forward now – not of the Titans, but for Carla. She had been alone when the Titan struck, probably hadn't even been outside to see the sight and have enough time to gather her wits and run to find her children. As her feet pound the ground, Eren can't help but regret her parting words to her mother, and hope that they won't be the last. She stumbles several times turning, but uses her fingers to propel her forward as she rounds corners, hunched over and off balance due to the nature of her movement. She curses the impracticality of her skirt, shortening her stride, and settles for bunching it up in her hands around mid-thigh as she continues to run. Several adults try to stop her and attempt to take her and Mikasa with their own children to safety, bless them, but none of them manage to be successful. They pass families crushed by stone, people crippled and left to die, but all they can focus on is Carla, because out of all the people here, Carla is the only one they would die for.
Everything's got to be okay. When I get there, she'll have gotten out, she'll be looking for us, and when I turn this corner our house will be standing just where it was when we left it, and mom will come with us to escape, and Armin will meet us with his grandpa, and – Eren feels her feet begin to ache and her head begin to ring with prayers when she finally gets within fifteen meters of her house, only to have every word she's directed toward God in the past five minutes chewed up and spat back into her face.
The Yeager house has been crushed, and Carla Yeager along with it.
"Mom!" Eren cries, dropping to her knees in front of her mother. While the woman is conscious, she clearly can't move, trapped beneath the rubble and remains of their old house.
"Eren, is that you?" croaks Carla, and her hands reach out searchingly for her. Eren grabs her hand, holding it chose to her chest, affirming her presence before turning to Mikasa.
"She's stuck! We have to get her out." She lets go of her mother's hand, beginning to search through the debris. She finds the base of the roof, wedging her hands beneath it and nods to Mikasa to do the same. "The pillar," she grits out, and Mikasa is sure to press a foot against it too. On the count of three, the girls heave, but the attempt only makes Carla blanch and cry out, and a roar stops them dead in their tracks. A Titan looms in the distance, and Eren shouts, "C'mon, Mikasa! We've gotta do this fast!"
"The Titans…," Carla whispers, her words breathy and quiet, "they're in, aren't they?" Her breaths are shallow, unable to take in too much air. Judging by the blood that begins to pool around her, Eren surmises that her lung is punctured as well as the damage caused to her lower body from being crushed. All the more reason to try harder, and so she counts from three again and lifts as best she can, with her small body straining hard and with her sister just as desperate.
"Eren, get Mikasa and run!" Carla cries.
Eren huffs, wiping the sweat from her brow, flashing her mother a look. "Yeah, I know, I wanna get out of here too, but you're coming with us. We're all gonna get out of here together!" Her final world is marked by yet another attempt to shift the roof, to no avail.
"My legs are crushed," protests her mother, "so even if you get me out, I won't be able to run, Eren. I'll only slow you down."
"That isn't a problem, Mikasa and I'll carry you!"
"Damn it, why can't you just listen to your mother for once in your life? The least you could do is obey my last wish!"
A fist slams against the wood, splintering it and reddening Eren's knuckles. "Don't talk like that! We're all leaving together!"
Thundering footsteps quiet the girl, and the movement of a large leg catches Eren's periphery. She looks up, finding a Titan – smaller than the one who peered over the Wall, but large nonetheless – its huge, grinning mouth and pinched face making the girl shrink back before forcing herself to move faster. She ignores her mother's implorations for her to escape with her sister and leave her behind. There was no way she would ever do that, and while it seems like all three of them are doomed, the hiss of gas reassures her as her head whips around to find its source.
"Hannes!" gasps Carla. "Wait… Don't – you're not seriously thinking of fighting that thing, are you? Just get the children and get out of here!"
"Gotta have more faith in me than that, Carla," Hannes mutters, flashing a quick grin before pulling his blades out. "I've got to pay your husband back somehow for saving my wife, and when I'm through with this thing, I'll get all three of you out of here."
This is why I wanted to join the military, Eren thinks, eyeing him and resuming to her task. For all that she ridiculed the man about his laziness, Hannes was still a soldier, and now he was going to prove everything that she had called him wrong. He was going to kill the Titan, buy them enough time to get out, and then when they escaped, they'd meet up with her fath –
"What are you doing?" Eren feels herself shout. Hannes has paused in his action, frozen still and staring the Titan dead in the face instead of killing it like he just promised he would. She can see him tremble, falter, and before she can protest, she's being lifted off the ground and thrown over his shoulder. Her mother lets out a relieved breath and a whisper of thanks, and then Carla becomes smaller as Hannes spins on his heel and sprints.
Hannes doesn't say a word as he runs, though Eren's ears are filled with her mother's pleas to live on. She's faintly aware of her own shouts and screams, and how she tries her best to beat Hannes in both back and chest with whatever mobility her limbs have in his grip. The Titan gets closer to the house, and everything slides into slow motion.
She can't bring herself to look away as the monster squats, lifting the beam she had failed to move with ease, hoisting her mother up by the woman's midsection, and squeezing the woman until she vomits blood and her own organs. Viscera fly down on the streets around them, blood flowing down steadily like rain. Eren dimly recalls her father instructing her in medicine, telling her that the average human body holds about five liters of blood.
Carla Yeager finds her doom in the Titan's hold, thoroughly expunged of all of her organs, and when Eren thinks that her mother's corpse couldn't be further desecrated, the Titan clamps its jaws down and bites her in half.
It has the gall to swallow afterward, as if its gaping cavity wasn't able to take the entirety of her body in one single motion. Eren doesn't know whether it'd be worse if it had just swallowed her whole. Her whole body feels like it's tingling – intense bursts of anger and energy continuing her struggle. She can't worm her way out of Hannes's hold, and a part of her brain whispers that it would do no good even if she had managed to wriggle free.
As she watches her mother's blood coat the area around, accompanied by entrails and innards, she goes rigid in Hannes's grasp.
It's the year 845, and Wall Maria has fallen. Eren Yeager has lost everything.