In the bell house, a human figure was perched. In her hand was a small candle, which she used to read the map in her other hand. She squinted in the bright light, trying to read the water-damaged paper. Having been chased over a kilometer off course by an aberrant; she and her companion were stuck in this village, with no hope of the scouts returning for them. Eventually, she groaned in frustration and lowered the map, turning to face her companion. In the corner was a boy around their age, Aleo Fletcher. He was wrapped in a bloodied Scout Regiment cloak. A bandage stained red was wrapped around his forehead, his short black hair crusted with blood from the bandaged wound. His blue eyes were half-open, and he looked dazed, starring at the wall. He had been their partner for the mission, and while he managed to take down the aberrant, which threw them so off course, he took a pretty bad fall. Most likely he had sustained a concussion, although it wasn't clear how serious. His gear clunked as he shifted his legs, eyes opening slightly wider like he was coming back to reality. They fixed on Linden, a look of confusion on his face. Where his voice was hoarse, weak. Where are we? "I have no idea." Linden replied, still straining her eyes to read the map.
Aleo struggled to sit upright against the mossy stone wall. Raising a hand to his forehead, he hissed in pain when his palm made contact with the wound. "Ahh... christ, that hurts." Aleo looked around the bell tower. "Are we still outside the walls?"
She folded the map and put it in her jacket's pocket, and looked at her partner with a look of fear and longing. "I'm afraid so."
His face drained of color upon hearing those words. The realization of being stranded in Titan country, coupled with his head injury that was keeping him from thinking clearly, caused panic to boil up inside of him. "God...what the hell happened? What happened to the formation? Did they leave us behind?!"
Linden's eyes glistened in the candlelight as she replied, "I hope not. Maybe they'll look for us, but we can only hope..."
She sat down and covered herself in her cloak, and shivered with fear and because of the cold unforgiving breeze that seemed to penetrate all layers of clothing.
Aleo forced himself to take a shaky breath and calm his nerves. If anyone had seen them thrown off course, he reasoned, there was a chance a search party may be sent out to find them. Although, that was a pretty small chance. Most likely they would be put down as MIA and they'd leave it at that. "Well..." Aleo started after gathering his nerves and clearing his head best he could..."on the off chance they don't, we need to figure out a way to get back to Wall Rose. But...I'm not sure how..."
Hiding deeper in her cloak, Linden whispered, "I barley have any gas and our horses ran off. The only way we can hope to get back is to run to the Wall, and hope a titan doesn't get us in the process... The only question is, which way is the wall?"
Aleo looked over to the corner of the bell tower where Linden had set his 3D gear before bandaging him up while he was unconscious. The main device and hand-grips looked okay, albeit scratched up, as did the gas tanks. However, the left blade sheath was crumpled on the bottom from the fall he took, the blades in it shattered to pieces. It could still hold the gas tank, but it would cause a serious imbalance if used. "Looks like my gear got pretty banged up as well...God, without our gear, we're dead..."
Suddenly, his blue eyes lit up with a spark of ingenuity. "Hey, let me see the map real quick."
Linden looked at him curiously, hoping for good news. "Okay," she handed Aleo the map, "it's a little hard to read."
His eyes scanned over it, and he grinned. "Oh, thank goodness! I think I have an idea of how we can get back!" He looked up to her, beaming and showing her the map. "Remember how the Scouts were setting up a supply line to retake Wall Maria? You know, before Trost was sealed off?"
"Yeah...?" she replied, trying to see into what he was getting at.
"Well, all the supplies are still lying at their checkpoints, untapped. Not only that, but the nearest one is only a little under two kilometers away! If we get there, we can fill up on fuel and I can fix my gear. Maybe we can get some other supplies too! Then, all we need to do is follow the checkpoints back to Trost and climb over the wall," Aleo explained, grinning wider as he went on.
She looked at him, astonished. "That's...Aleo, you're a genius!" she exclaimed. "But...should we go now, or should we rest for a while longer?"
"Oh, we need to rest, definitely." He flinched as he pulled his leg up under the cloak. It ached from when he took his fall, but thankfully it didn't feel broken. He leaned his head against the wall, folding up the map and tucking it into his vest pocket. "We don't need to take watch since the Titans aren't active this late at night. Let's try and get out of here before dawn though, we'll need the head start."
"Alright." Linden replied, Pulling the hood of her cloak over her ginger hair. "You know, we might just make it thanks to this plan of yours," she said as she smiled for the first time since the mission started.
"That we might," Aleo nodded, closing his eyes.
The two scouts fell silent, and were soon asleep.
Later in the night, Linden shook in her sleep, and cried out several times. Her cries were enough to wake Aleo, who blinked groggily before rubbing his eyes. Seeing Linden having a nightmare, he scooted over to her and shook her shoulder lightly. "Hey," he said softly. "Hey, wake up." Her eyes shot open, and she screamed.
"Whoa, hey, easy," he said quietly, trying to put her at ease. "You were only dreaming."
"What...?" She looked at Aleo. "It was just so terrible...it felt so real..."
"What happened?" Aleo asked, tilting his head a little. "What did you see in your dream?"
Not wanting to talk about it, but at the same time she wanted to get out, she replied hesitantly, "It took place in my town, Hermia, it started out normal. My dad was working somewhere else, and my mom was at home. Me and my little brother were playing on the street outside our home. Then suddenly, titans started appearing, eating up everyone in sight...Soon I was the only one left, and I went running for my life." She put her hand on her eyes. "Not like it actually happened though. Hermia is safe and sound."
"Well, at least your family safe inside the walls," Aleo said. He paused, and looked out the window. There was still a few hours till sunup. "We should get as much sleep as we can, we're going to need it."
"I know, but I can't go back to sleep. You can go ahead," Linden sighed.
His eyes scanned over her, concern evident in them. "Alright. If you need anything, wake me." With that, he laid back against the wall and shut his eyes. Linden sat and watched his steady breathing, mulling over the dream. Aleo dosed off slowly, and slipped into his own dream.
"G-get back!" Aleo shouted, raising his lone sword up at the 3 meter class titan stumbling towards them. It's teeth were razor sharp, and protruded from it's mouth and lips like a shark. He held and unconscious Linden up by her shoulder, encumbering him and making it all the more difficult to fight. The titan leaped, and he flinched and tried to pull her away with him. He wasn't fast enough. The beast's teeth tore off her leg, blood soaking the ground and it's maw..
It turned and grabbed her from his grasp before biting into her like slab of ribs, sending a stream of blood and entrails spewing from her corpse, coating the forest floor and poor Aleo, who could only helplessly watch as his partner was devoured.
"NO!" Aleo screamed, suddenly sitting upright, now back in the real world, his skin cold and clammy.
Linden looked at him startled at his sudden wakefulness. "You have a nightmare too?"
He rest his face in his palms, trying to slow his breathing. "Yeah..." he said quietly. "Yeah, I did."
"Care to talk about it?" she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.
He looked up at her, and sighed. "Might as well...We we're stuck out in some open field, with a 3 meter aberrant coming at us. You were knocked out, and I only had one sword. I tried to move you out of it's path, but...I was too slow." He rubbed his forehead with his hand. "And yeah..."
"Oh..." she said. There was a pause, and Linden said, "We should probably head on out now. I don't think you're willing to return to sleep either."
He climbed to his feet, noting the ache in his leg had subsided a decent amount. "Sounds good." He wrapped the cloak around him, and grabbed his 3D gear. As he anticipated, it felt lopsided with the broken blade sheath. Checking his tanks, he noted they were still half-full. "Hey, you said you needed gas, right?"
She looked at him curiously. "I did, why?"
Aleo undid the valves, which hissed as they came off, and removed the canisters. "Mine are half-full, you should take them, since if we find a titan you're the only one with fully functional gear."
Well if that does happen, I'll stand and fight. I'd never leave you behind." she stood up as well, and took the canisters. "Or I could grab you and run"
"We can work it out if it comes to that," he said with a shrug. They traded canisters, and he installed her near empty ones onto his gear. Walking over to the window to check the ground below. No titans were in the village, at least none he could see. "Alright, let's get out of here and find that checkpoint."
"Which way is it?" Linden asked, fidgeting.
"Due east, no more than two kilometers. Even at a snails pace, we should make it there by sundown." They started down the stairway that led to the exit of the tower and headed outside. As he anticipated, the village was devoid of Titans. He pulled the map from his vest pocket and checked it, then pointed down the dirt road cutting through the city. "That's the way we go," he said.
"Okay, lead the way," she replied. They started down the dirt road, which was covered in weeds and grasses from years of disuse. Progress was slow, Aleo being injured forced them to travel slower than they normally would. Every so often Aleo would check the map to make sure they were on course. It wasn't until midday that the injured teen asked for a break by a small creek they had found cutting through the grasslands.
"Hey, mind if we stop here?" He asked, panting. "I need to take a breather."
"Sure, I need a break as well." Linden replied. A few rocks were by the creek and she sat on one of them to stretch her legs out. Aleo caught his breath and stretched his back.
"We're making better time than I expected," he said when he eventually checked the map once more. "At this rate we could reach the checkpoint by sundown, if we keep up the pace."
"That's great! Aleo, I owe you one. We're going to live I know it!" she exclaimed excitedly.
He grinned sheepishly. "Well, thanks for the praise, but don't get too happy yet. To be honest I'm a little unnerved with how well this is going."
She looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, think about it. We've traveled over a kilometer, and in this whole time we haven't spotted a single titan? Not even one in the distance? I don't know, it just feels...off to me," he explained with a shrug. "This is titan country, so why haven't we seen any?"
She pondered what he had said for a moment, and then replied "I have no Idea, but I say we stop thinking about that and stay positive. We're getting closer to the checkpoint, you know!"
He couldn't help but frown. "Yeah, you're right," he said, standing. "Let's keep going."
Linden stopped smiling when he frowned, but gave a small nod. They kept walking on in silence.