This was freedom.

Gravity was just a suggestion. Losing was an impossible feat. Fear was a mere memory of the past – and there was nobody to blame for my failures but myself. I was the hunter, the titans the prey, and this was my territory. Humanity's territory.

I felt the green cloak, with the symbol of the heroes, flutter out behind me. The wind blowing it was the only element that dared touch me – earth, fire, water all sunk to the ground in fear. But I flew with the wind.

I felt the textured grip of the blade handles in my palms. By now, my hands were the shape of them- my arms an extension of the blade. I was a weapon, from the armory the human race.

I felt the maneuvering gear shift as I caught sight of a titan. The straps around my leg tightened when I extended it. The gear wrapped around me, tense, like a blanket. And what a blanket may be to a scared kid, the gear was to me.

I let the grapples loose, and for a moment hovered there, the forest and the titan below me – but nothing, not even birds dared fly higher than I. With the absence of the wind, silence took over, seeping into every crevice of the forest, of the world, of the human mind. While I was fighting the only things that existed were me and the enemy. And soon it would just be me.

I felt the earth gain bravery, and the forces of gravity once again tried to wrap myself in their tendrils. I let the arms of the world pull me into the monsters neck. While I was falling, I had nothing to do but fall, no commitments, no worries. That was peace. And this is revenge. I tightened my grip on the blades, and pulled my arms forward, through the disagreeing wind. When the blades hit flesh, I felt them slow. I didn't try to change that – I wanted to let the titan suffer – a quick death was too humane for it. Soon, they lost resistance, and the body of the massive creature fell, followed by a chunk of its nape. I landed, then stood, engulfed by the steam of its corpse, and looked up to the sky.

Did this creature remember what it did to humanity, seventy years ago, or was it too stupid? Either way it was too dead to care now. The forest once again regained silence and soon the rest of the men in my group would catch up to me. All I had to do was avoid titans until then.

Suddenly, I felt something sharp brush against my ear, and I turned, trying to stop whatever had ambushed me. But when I saw everything, I soon forgot about whatever enemy had touched my ear.

I was no longer in a forest. The metallic scent of titan blood had been replaced by the smell of chickens. The silence of the forest replaced by the clucking of hens. And the beautiful sight of a newly dead titan replaced by the sight of a half-cleaned coop, trying to hide behind the eyelashes of my half-asleep eyes.

The shy sun of the morning cast long shadows, and the shadow of a rooster covered my face. It was standing with its foot next to my head, spur rubbing against my ear. Then I remembered – it was the enemy that attacked my ear there. But why was it in a forest? And why did it not run from the titan? In fact, it acted perfectly normal, albeit hungry, even though it just saw a fifteen meter tall monster fall to its death in front of it. I slowly leaned up from the lying position I had been in. My hair had dust and leaves stuck it – but not a trace of titan blood. I stood for a few moments, contemplating that fact, before my eyelids took control of my vision, and I lost track of time.

It was a dream.

My eyes opened wide when I realized where I was. I was in my chicken coop, next to my house. I wasn't a member of the survey core, not a heroic titan killer. I was a kid, and the daughter of a poor chicken farmer, at that. The rooster didn't give me any more time to lament in my status, all it wanted was the food that was just out of its reach on the other side of the door to the coop. I had just fed them – or was that last night? I was too tired to think straight, so I figured I hadn't fed them and tossed the scratch onto the floor, where a horde of large, white fowl swarmed the feed, making a moving, white feathery floor to the coop. While they were occupied, I looked up at the rosy sky.

Why was I asleep in the coop? Did I spend the whole night in there, again? Mom's going to be so angry, I missed dinner, too I guess.

These thoughts flooded my mind, the average everyday thoughts of a person taking up the same thinking space as the hero in my dream did.

I looked at the chickens, stepping on each other in their mad dash to get the most food. Was this how the titans thought about us humans?

"June, you need to get inside, and bring in the eggs." I heard a comforting, yet at the same time rushed voice, coming from the half open door of the small cabin. I grabbed some eggs – too lazy to count them – and stumbled inside, my eyes still partially clouded with sleep. My mom took the eggs from me, and cracked them into a bowl. I knew I should have offered to help, but I would have much rather sit down on that chair next to the table, so I did.

"I wanted to wake you, June, but you looked so peaceful." Two thoughts flashed into my mind – my mom wasn't angry at me, and apparently I get a peaceful look on my face when killing titans in my dreams. "You looked like you were dreaming. What was your dream?" My mom tried to make small talk, probably to keep me from falling back to sleep.

"I killed a titan." I would have said more, but it was early in the morning.

"So you dreamt of being in the survey corps?" I nodded. "We all dream of doing stupid things, don't we? Just last week, I dreamt of sneaking into Luke's bull's pen, and for some reason I had to wash off its horns while trying to not get it to hurt me."

That's all the survey corps was to my mom – a stupid dream? I held back quite a few remarks in my head as I nodded. "I guess we do." I lied to my mom. But honestly, if I could kill even one titan, it would avenge so many lives, maybe even save people in the future. Either way, better than this boring, poor life.

I was going to join the survey corps, and I was going to become that hero.