Albert Arlute woke up from what seemed to be a long nightmare. He expects blood and teeth to greet him when he leaves his slumber, but instead is almost lulled back to sleep by the soft song of birds. He's surprised to hear them, as he is every morning. He brings a shaky palm to his damp forehead and tries once again to push back those memories. Though he's not sure if they are, in fact, memories. He hears the sweet voice of his mother calling him down for breakfast, and though he's heard it before, he feels as though he hasn't heard the voice in years. And when he looks at his reflection as he washes his face, he hates what he sees. It seems so fake.

The hair is lighter than it should be. His eyes are too small. He's so much taller than before, and yet, thinner. His nose has gotten just a bit longer, it still gives him trouble from time to time. The only thing on Albert's face that satisfies him is his irises, which are still the same piercing blue of a man who could see through you, and then use you in his ploy.
Albert frowns when he catches him doing this again; comparing his face to another that doesn't exist. This is the face that Albert has lived with all his life. Why would it be wrong?

"Maybe I'm going crazy after all" he muses, but his heart strongly affirms him that no, he is not.

Breakfast is as pleasant as always. Albert and his parents eat, converse, and pay tribute to Grandfather afterwards, before he goes to school. Yes he missed his parents back then, and now he misses his grandfather. He would've liked to have both, but it seems the world will only give him one.

"The world is cruel." He mutters darkly.

But he smiles on the walk to school. The sky is so clear today, and the people are merry. The children laugh as they chase each other on the clean paved roads. This area used to be called Shinganshina but that name became was forgotten centuries ago. They call it New Stockholm now. Albert sees the parallels clearly. He sees it in the quaint little houses that line the streets, in the long expanse of meadows, in the same streets that he ran along in another life. He knows this is Shinganshina.

The standard living size is notably smaller now though. Now that a population can thrive, more room is needed, building materials needed to be used more efficiently, And most notably, the fact that tall hookable buildings were no longer needed. That means they won.

"And also beautiful." He finishes with a smile.

The first thing he does when he enters the class room is meet Miki's eyes. She nods in acknowledgement of him, and he goes to sit next to her. Miki "Mikasa" Eichmond is probably the only reason he considers himself sane. Every day, they meet up and talk about the past. It's no secret to anyone that these two are the closest in their trio.

As for the third man-
Eric was a nice enough guy. He displayed similar traits to the boy in their memories, but it wasn't him, as much as they wished it so. The short black hair, the hot headed attitude, a similar build,
But there were too many differences. He didn't have the same eyes. He didn't have the same passion. And the most heartbreaking thing of all, was that he didn't share the same memories.

He seemed similar enough that the two still stuck around him, but in their hearts, they knew it just wasn't the same, and even deeper down, they may have resented him for it. Miki especially glared at the boy when she wasn't doting on him and pretending. Eric was a constant reminder of who he could've been.

Albert wondered how Mikasa would've fared if he never met her in this life. Perhaps if they never met, she could've dropped all of her memories as nonsense, but instead she found someone else who knows she isn't making all this up. Sometimes he wishes he were making all of it up. Maybe then he could live his life without feeling as if he wasn't real. Maybe then he could finally feel like he belonged to himself, and not some other person from years and years from a time long forgotten. Sometimes he dreams of the Titans, shattering the peaceful times he lives in now. It made it hard for him to truly relax, not when he first hand saw those monsters and what they could do.

Today, he thinks about how he murdered someone. He hadn't meant to, but now that he's started, he can't stop. That afternoon, the class's discussion shifted to the topic of morality, and for the rest of the day, his knuckles are pale as they grip his sides. He has his tongue, as well as the inside of his cheek have been bitten raw, ravaged by anxiety. He had taken a life to save Jean's, an ally, a comrade, and a friend, but did that make it right? No, it did not, though it was much easier to cope with back then. He knows there is more to this world than right and wrong, and that the issue isn't black and white, and with that knowledge he could move on from his sins, because he had to focus on more important things. He had to fight for freedom. He had to save humanity, both from Titans and from themselves, and with those goals in mind, he could continue moving on.

But now, he has none of these goals to hide behind. In peace time, the full impact of his murder sinks in, and bile rises to his throat. It burns, and as gag-tears well to the back of his eyes, and he clamps his free hand over his mouth, while the other, holding a book, clutches his stomach. He's too much of a soldier to truly feel at peace any more.

Today, he needs feel nature all around him. To read his big book of poems and pictures of this big wide world, and get lost in the beauty of words and landscapes. He needs to show himself the world he fought for, to convince himself that he did the right thing. He knows he did, he knows of sacrifices needing to be made, but sometimes he needs to convince himself. So he regrettably informs Eric and Miki that he won't be walking home with them today. Neither press him for it, and he recalls that in the early years of his adulthood, he became more and more independent from his childhood trio. Something he is both sad and proud of.

After putting all his books in his bag, save for the one with the poems and pictures, he heads off to a park nearby. Though to call it a "park" is more of an understatement. To put it simply, it was a set of benches built near an expanse of tall trees. It is mostly frequented by the elderly, since its size and the jungle of trunks did not give much room for sports or wild running around. It's not a long walk, though, so when he finally arrives, he makes towards benches as usual, but surprises himself when he walks right past them.

His legs carry him into the forest, which get thicker and thicker as he continues onward. The trees grow wider, the sunlight above dims more and more, and the scent of nature becomes more and more prominent. He does not march straight either, but take random turns here and there. Though he's never ventured this far, his spontaneous changes in direction do not alarm him. He feels confident enough to find his way out.

For the most part, his journey is a silent one, with only the sounds of his own footsteps filling his ears. Occasionally a bird chirps, or something above rustles, but he pays them no mind. The only sound to snap him out of his aimless wandering is voice. It sounds shocked and soft, and undoubtedly female. The word it says comes out in a breath, a disbelieving whisper.

"Armin?"

Albert snaps his eyes to the direction of the voice. They fall upon a figure in a grey hoodie, leaning against the trunk of an ancient tree, who he had missed entirely and had noticed him first. From the bits that poke hair that poke out, he can see that she is blonde, and when his eyes adjust, he can make out the piercing blue of her eyes, like a blade carved from ice, staring back at him slightly widened. Her lips too, are parted slightly in surprise, a cigarette hangs loosely between them. He takes in all of this, and then answers in his own hopeful tone

"Annie?!"

She recognizes the word as something familiar, and almost responds in the way he hopes. But instead she blinks and everything about her resets to a trademark scowl. Her eyes become disinterested and bored, and her lips close around the circumference of the fag, which bobs as she speaks in her dull tone.

"Sorry. You must have confused me with someone else."

The boy is having none of it though. He flies into hysterics. His face contorts, and he becomes an emotional tempest he was known for in his childhood. It's an ugly face, completely void of the composure he becomes known for later in his life, when he comes to be regarded as a general. Now where had all that gone?

"No" he whispers first, possibly to himself, and then louder "No! Annie, you-
You called me Armin! You shouldn't know about that unless-"

"Fine." She cuts off after a click of her tongue and an angry furrow of her brows. "Alright, it's me." He's quite annoying when he can't even speak right.

Unbelievable. Anna Lionheart had been born in this world with two sets of memories, the ones she's always had, and the ones she'll make. She'd learned very early on that this wasn't a normal occurrence, and it was one of the reasons she was an outsider. The other, main, reason was that she was a loner by nature to begin with, and as icing on the cake, she's always felt like a monster since birth. Still, with the lack of evidence around her that her memories had any validation, she was ready, after 16 long years to finally write them off as nothing. Following a year after that, is living proof that perhaps she had been sane the whole time. Absolutely unbelievable. Should she just accept this new development to make things easier for herself? The boy here seemed irritating enough to make her think so.

The boy beams at her reply.

"Annie-"

"Anna." She corrects.

He simply grins. "It's really you." And he proceeds to move closer to her without permission, taking a spot beside her, but leaving space between them.

"How have you been?" He asks, pleasantly.

"Fine." She replies, with just a bit of bite.

"How is this life?" He asks her, curious.

She stops to think for a while, and gives a non-committal shrug.

"Fine." She finishes.

And after that Albert shuts up, knowing he can't get anything out of Annie that she doesn't want to. But he does not leave, and the two stand in uncomfortable silence, staring at the nothings of the forest. It is surprisingly her that breaks the silence minutes later.

"Did you know that I loved you, Armin?"

And he goes back to a manner of pleasantries
"Yes, I did."

"Oh?" And that single sound, that non-word marks her sprung trap. Annie moves, a mere blur in Albert's peripheral, and brings brutal leg to sweep his. The boy falls, his the side of his face slamming into the forest floor. It is somehow both in pain and numb.

She stands over him, tall and menacing, like a tower full of fury.

"So you knew?" She asks, even though she knows, and it was confirmed. She continues on, in an icy, quiet tone.

"You knew the whole time and used it against me, back in Stohess."
She delivers a quick kick to his side, to turn him over so that he may face her.

"You used me in your little ploy, didn't you, Armin?"

And he smiles despite his wheezes.