I was piping little flowers onto small cakes for the upcoming festival the next town over. We always were hit with a bunch of tourists who had heard from the locals that this was the place to go. I, as always, had gotten stuck making everything look pretty. Neither of my parents had very steady hands any longer, and my brother had been far too busy getting into fights to deign to help his parents. Much less his obnoxious goody-goody of a little sister.

So I was stuck making all the cakes, pastries, and cookies look pretty. All alone. Again. I squeezed the bag full of icing a little bit harder than strictly necessary.

The jangling of the little silver bell above the bakery door alerted me to the presence of customers. I had waved with a smile, setting down the bag of icing and swiping a hand across my cheek. I had felt a bit of icing smear on my face, but I hadn't quite been able to bring myself to care since it hadn't gotten onto the overlarge round glasses perched on top of my nose.

"Hello! What can I get you this lovely morning? We're running a special on cookies. Buy half a dozen and one of the festival cakes goes home with it too!" My voice had been entirely too honeyed to my ears, but the men that had stood in front of the display case didn't seem to mind in the slightest and had looked in interest at the cakes I had pointed out.

I remembered the thicker man smiling up at me good-naturedly and lamenting with a smile, "If only my own children were so willing to help out as you are."

I recalled laughing my polite little customer laugh (as if I didn't hear that every time a parent came in and I was alone at the counter). "I'll pass that along to my parents. They'll appreciate the praise, I'm sure Mr. Zackly."

He had laughed and gone on to place his order. He had been an older gentleman, a little on the heavier side, and not at all a bad man. He had frequented our little bakery whenever he was in town, was plenty nice enough, and very generous with tips even if he didn't quite like you. He had been a military official of some sort, I knew. Both from casual conversation and my Father telling me so after he'd warned me to be sure to make his orders to his exact specifications (like I'd ever done anything different). He'd mentioned that we were right on his way back from Shingashina, so by my best guess, he was part of the Scouts and was on leave once upon a time.

I hadn't recognized the other man.

I remembered pulling out a white paper box as I listened to his order. Half a dozen lemon poppy seed muffins (without frosting), two loaves of bread (just regular), and one small chocolate cake (not of the festival variety), for his wife, he had explained laughing that her pregnancy had been making her crave strange foods. I remembered simply nodding along to his inane chatter and bagging his order, sneaking in a small box of candies along with a belated birthday card for his children (the twins) whom I'd met on one occasion. I'd wrapped the white paper boxes in boring brown paper and tied it shut with a pretty lacey white ribbon. "

And for you Mr..?" I'd called out with a smile at the other man, trailing off toward the end.

"Dok. Nile Dok. And I believe I'll take some of those little truffles." He'd pointed at the glass, watching as I deftly packed them into a small white box, scrawling something on the lid and tying them neatly with a pale blue ribbon.

I'd handed over the larger box in exchange for a sum of coins that more than covered everything in both boxes, candies included, Mr. Zackly had left, calling out that he'd get the horses, the bell had jangled once more behind him. I'd handed over the smaller box to Mr. Dok, waving him away when he tried to pay.

"It's on the house." I had smiled at the man, thinking he could use a bit of happiness.

He'd walked out quickly catching up to Mr. Zackly. I'd watched through the window as the two men made off.

That was the last normal interaction that I could remember. They had been long gone before the birds stopped singing.

There was screaming. And wailing, right alongside countless tears. People begging and praying to a God that did not heed them, to save them from being devoured by the monstrosities that would have soon permeated our village. The scent of blood had come up from the river that ran red with it. The terrible, horrible desperate cries of someone who knows they're about to die had filled the air along with a taste of death. The singed debris had been carried in on the wind. Our first sign had been that the birds went silent. The livestock had been uneasy. And then I'd seen it.

A horrible, heinous, ungodly, unholy, abomination. They'd come from nowhere. Our small not-quite-village had been easily overrun. I had watched my family be crushed when the bakery collapsed. I remembered sitting down next to the still warm corpses. I couldn't cry. I hadn't been able to find it in me to cry for them. I had known on some level that this would happen eventually. So I'd done the only thing I could think to do. I had sung.

We called it singing the souls home. Others called it baying to the moon. Every living family member would sing to them one at a time and keep vigil over the bodies of the deceased. My mother had believed it cleansed the soul so the Goddesses of the walls would let you into heaven. My father had merely said he thought it was a lovely goodbye for those of us on Earth. My brother had never cared. But he hadn't cared about much of anything. He hadn't for a long time. Not since my parents had gotten sick.

I'd known I would sing his soul home anyway. So then I did. I'd sung with everything I had left. Knowing I would die soon, that a titan would find me and it would be over, I couldn't have brought myself to hold anything back. If there was any truth to what my mother had believed, I'd desperately wanted her to get that peace. I hadn't wanted to let them take that from her too. I hardly remembered squeezing my eyes shut.

I had wanted to say goodbye to my father, and my mother and my brother. None of whom were really my family. The woman I called mother my aunt. The man I called father my uncle. My brother only a cousin. But they had been my family. And I'd wanted them to have peace. So I had given it to them the only way I knew how.

The tears came now as I'd sung the funeral hymn that no one would sing to me. I'd waited as I sang to be ripped from my spot on the ground and swallowed (whole if I was lucky). I'd opened my eyes to see a hoard of titans.

But they hadn't killed me. Not a single one had advanced. No, I'd sung and they'd all listened. Their beady, hunger ridden eyes had stared on with rapt attention. And the terror-inducing maws of their mouths had been closed. So as long as I'd sung for them, they wouldn't eat me.

At the time, it seemed better than being Titan food. Seemed much better than dying with no one to sing my soul home. But that, that was then. This is now.

I couldn't remember my name. It was useless to the Titans, I hadn't heard it in so long and now I couldn't quite recall it. The Titans only learned how to demand that I sing.

Not a name for me, besides, 'stupid bird', 'little birdie' and a few more. The only other words they speak are, 'no', and 'sing'. If I don't sing when they want, they just shake the cage. Hard. Their hands all over, everywhere. At this point, I resemble a human blueberry. I'm covered in black and blue, purple, green, and sickly yellow colored bruises from hitting the bars so hard.

And so I spend most my time rocking back and forth on the wooden swing in the human-sized songbird cage or pulling fruit from the pile they leave near my cage. The incoherent babblings of the Titans I had long since learned to block out. And then I hear them move closer. A small one's hands shake the cage, gripping the blue crystalline bars, sending tremors all throughout the cage. The cage I've come to call home.

"Sing!" It demands in an almost unrecognizable, earsplitting scream. Although the vaguely human quality of it terrifies me.

I open my mouth as the words fall from my lips. I hear human footsteps in the surrounding trees. I don't want those people to die.

"Hey, hey you!" A man shook my shoulder.

A squeak of alarm escaped my mouth. I scrambled backward away from him. I was terrified for his life. I hadn't seen another person in days. Not a living person at least.

I couldn't believe I hadn't heard him pry the lock open.

I watched a Titan approach, lumbering toward us with that shambling gait and empty, hungry smile. I couldn't open my mouth to warn him, not even as I watched him pull a knife on me. I couldn't open my mouth to warn him.

I couldn't move. I was paralyzed with fear. I could hardly breathe. I didn't want him to die. I didn't want him to die.

I didn't want to damn him to an eternity of torment like my mother had believed in. I'd do the only thing I knew how to do to comfort him in death. I would sing his soul home.

So I did. I sang that haunting melody. The words fell from my lips as a desperate prayer for his life, I didn't want him to die not even if he'd kill me first. I didn't want him to die.

I couldn't let him be seen. The Titan paused in its approach, listening to my singing. It looked right through the man who had frozen at the sight of the monstrosity that neared us.

While I sang as a desperate prayer, a last-ditch plea, for his life, I watched as he ran from the Titan that had looked right through him as if he didn't exist. His knife clattered against the cage and the Titan didn't seem to hear it in the slightest. He ran right out the door that gaped open mocking me. I looked on with empty eyes as the Titan pulled the door closed and let out an earsplitting screech. I wanted to cry. And as the hands shook the cage, I finally cried.

For my family. For Mr. Zackly who I'd never see again. For Mr. Dok who I'd never know if he would smile more. For that bakery that I tried so hard to keep afloat while paying for my parents' medicine.

I looked on in silence as the man who had tried to free me from this fate left me for it. Abandoned me to a brutal, lonely death. And then I cried for him too.

They were as good as dead. I guess it's fitting that I'm singing a funeral song. I'm wearing what passed as funeral attire by now, it was blacked by dirt and age. I'm painfully thin, with too-wide mismatched eyes, entirely too pale skin with spots of dirt and I couldn't remember if they were freckles or not. My hair was far too dirtied to tell the color any longer, but it used to be dark brown once upon a time. At least, that was what I could see on the reflective surface of the cage.

I watch the vaguely humanoid creatures as I sing. They look less terrifying while I sing. The gleaming teeth not so lethal, their foaming mouths not so ready to devour. An almost human peace in their hunger ridden as I watch them, there was nothing but pity in my eyes.

"My whole world is the pain inside me It's all I can do to get through the day My life before is only a memory I wonder why God let me walk through this place?" My voice reaches a crescendo.

The footsteps pound overhead. The clanking of metal grows louder. I glance up as I sing.

The green canopy filtering sunlight, giving the illusion of beauty and safety in what has become my own personal hell. And it was just that, an illusion. A fleeting one at that. I had learned the hard way many times over that there is no safety outside your own strength. It's a lesson I'm never going to forget. One that was learned much too late for it to be of use to my family. The past was the past, and if I was going to stay alive I needed to keep it there. Even as all these thoughts race through my head, I sing on not daring to stop before the song was over.

"After all this has passed I still will remain after I've cried my last There'll be beauty from pain No, it won't be today Someday I'll hope again And there'll be beauty from pain," my lips drift close as the song ends.

The Titans seem oblivious to the incoming soldiers, I intend to keep it that way. What better way then make them focus on me? Or better yet, if I can put them to sleep, it seems dark enough now... my lips reopen to sing, as the Titans begin shrieking. I sing slowly. Most of Titans were laying down on the forest floor as if to sleep.

"If you gave me only one wish I wouldn't wanna feel this way They told me I'd have your memory But all I want is you to stay And I can't stop my mind from haunting me, " I watch, singing quietly as the metal clanking approaches. I wouldn't be caught off guard this time. Not again. Never again. "-f I sailed the world on stormy seas Chasing sunlight that I can't see I was a dreamer here before Before I woke up and fell to the floor And I'd climb to heaven if I could find you Even with a scar-" I stop abruptly.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I have an overwhelming urge to scream. I barely suppress it.

The footsteps halt, a man comes around to the front of the cage. I back up further into the cage seeing the deadly look in his eyes.

I know that man.

Stormy, steely eyes, pale skin. His hair an inky, raven black, his demeanor so detail oriented it came across to most as bored and uninterested. He wasn't who I thought he was. It wasn't him.

It wasn't him.

The short man with black hair opens the cage slowly. Painstakingly so. He walks in, hands drawn even with his shoulders, palms up in surrender. As he gets closer I move back. I keep the exact same distance from him while watching all the others outside. I stare him down with entirely too-wide eyes, filled with entirely too much fear.

He suddenly closes the distance between us, and before I can think better of it, I swing my boney elbow at his jaw and run before he recovers. I move too fast for the people standing outside to catch me as I scale one of the trees and make to disappear. I hear the rushing wind and dive out of the way as a red-headed woman makes a grab at me. I hear the others closing in. I drop my eyes to the tree bark. I hear the same light footsteps as the same man with black hair walks up to me.

"We're not gonna hurt you. We want to get you out of here," That red-headed woman soothes as if I was a small frightened child.

And maybe I was to her.

But that man had said much of the same. And he would've tried to cut my heart right out. My eyes flicker to movement on the ground beneath us.

A Titan was looking at us. We were all just living corpses. I glance fleetingly back at them as I make to sprint across treetops praying to get out of there before the Titan had time to get its friends. The other follow behind just keeping pace. I leap and jump, moving in a stumbling run in my haste to get out of there. I near the edge of the woods seeing a group of horses waiting at the forest's edge. I leap from branch to branch, hearing the human footsteps pounding behind me alongside that noise of clanking metal, as I silently guide the group away to safety.

I land lightly on the pine needle covered ground and watch the others come down after me. The adrenaline thuds in my veins. I could almost feel it pounding against my skin as if trying to force its way out. I watch as the group slowly surrounds me. I already knew I wasn't going anywhere.

My breathing was coming in harsh ragged pants as I look out into the forest listening carefully for sounds of pursuit. As I listen I hear a shrieking noise, unlike anything I'd heard before from either a human or a titan. I look around trying to pinpoint its origin. My eyes itch. The birds fall deathly silent. And with a crash, the world as I know it goes dark.

Authors notes:

Hey kids. I know I've been gone a minute, but I have plans to revamp this story and then finish it. Disclaimer, these songs aren't mine. Big surprise right? Anyways hope you enjoy. Please read and review. Later

(3020 words)

-If Something Changed