Author's Note:: This is being narrated by Levi Ackerman I got the idea for this story while listening to the song "Reluctant Heroes" from the original Attack on Titan soundtrack.
Reluctant Heroes
As lush, vibrant green trees surrounded the areas outside of the protection of the walls like a protective refuge for the rampant beasts that invaded our territory, how they would invade our area, eat our children, eat our family, take our friends, and rip away our lives in one single bite. The blood of our comrades dances through the air like petals off of the fragrant flowers that took refuge behind the walls, one of the only enjoyable qualities about the inner walls. Limbs discarded like simple trash in the ruins of Wall Maria, in the crumbling buildings left in Trost. Memories left behind like torn up books. Memories of the soldiers that perished had died with their fellow friends.
Nobody wanted to die too fast. There were several young cadets in the 104th class to graduate the training camps. One of the top ten soldiers, if I remember correctly, his name was Marco Bott… he had died amongst the rubble of Trost. When the cadets first got there, they had to break the news to Eren. He was a great example of a loved soldier. Respectful, well-mannered, happy, and had a lot of confidence. He was loved by his whole squad, yet nobody saw him die. This was proof that even the most powerful or loved of us can die with nobody knowing what happened to us, or were too much of cowards to save our own comrades.
Though we all knew the risks of venturing outside of our protection, our walls. We left those walls to fight for our impeachment of the life of cattle.
I could see their faces, I could hear their voices. I could see their faces, bloodied, bruised, missing eyes, missing noses, missing jaws. I could hear their cries of agony and their voices pleading for mercy as friends and family were grasped by the sizzling hands of titans. The sound of the maneuver gear snapping and crackling as the cords were grabbed or swung around like children's play-toys, soldiers swung so fast that there was nothing left of their corpses but the blood and few bone chippings. Horses were squashed to a pulp beneath the feet of the boiling hunks of flesh that ungracefully stumbled and stomped in the plethora of grass and flowers, leaving behind bloody, mangled messes, or hardly left to recognize the fact that a living, breathing horse once galloped through those fields. We all died like trampled flowers.
Eld, Gunther, Oulo, Petra… they were all gone.
And as I remember my squad, my friends, their demise haunted me like never-ending nightmares. I could remember the day we met, what each of their unique voices sound like, what they smelt like, what they wanted with their life, what their hopes and their dreams were… how they wanted to live long enough to see their freedom, long enough to see a day where there was no more titans, where there were no grim days where our lives were ripped from us in a matter of seconds. They were always there with me, as much as I tried to get rid of the thoughts. Limbs mangled, corpses crinkled and cracked, their wings of freedom ripped straight off of their shoulders. But I was their harness. They guided me to our freedom. I carried the torch for them, I was their legacy. They give me their strength to fight on for another day. For them, for humanity.
But yet it was so lonely, to be the only one who survived.
I wish I was brave like them.