Your name is Emery Holmes, and you are in quite a pickle. The wall was breached, letting titans into Trost, but you are a proud trainee (soon to be Garrison member) and you were not afraid to leap into battle. With blood dripping down your arm, dark on dark skin, you are not too proud to admit you are afraid.

Your body shakes, you can't move and it's unfair, I don't want to die! Your best friend from training was slapped out of the sky in front of you, a titan arm coming out of nowhere. The shrapnel from her crash landing on the roof you're standing on now caught you, and you bleed as you stare as slowly moving flesh.

It's not fair…

Morgan shakes too, a roof and an eternity away, but he's your squadron leader and if nothing else he's a veteran. He leaps, and a second titan becomes interested in the flying, leaping, acrobatic dinner. Your squad is separated from each other as Arnaud loses a leg and leaves a trail of dust and shattered shingles from his terrible landings, as Beatrice is raised to quivering lips, as Morgan takes his distracting leap in a desperate gambit.

I can't die here!

Fumbling with the mechanisms you jump, gear whirring and you're free and flying, Morgan a couple buildings in front of you. The way is clear, there are silhouettes of other soldiers flitting away in the distance.

I'm going to live!

You're going to live. A breath of exhilaration, a heartbeat of guilt as you listen to the stomping of following titans and not a single 3D gear, a dark shadow and-

You cry, because there's this shiny white protruding from your shin in a couple places, you can't move, your body shakes, you're terrified and in pain and the screaming won't stop. Why won't the screaming stop? Please someone stop it.

The titan that threw you off course makes a noise, and you stare at its shaking shoulders and wide unfeeling grin. It lurches forward and its unblinking eyes seem so focused.

Mom, I'm scared.

You scramble for your weapons, but touching them sends aches throughout your body. Somewhere in the back of your mind you giggle hysterically about adrenalin, but you focus and arm yourself.

There's not much you can do from the floor, and you're still crying, but you have to try. With a scream half tears and half hysteria you stab at the hand trying to encircle you, and it retreats. Enraged, the titan smashes you, and your blood paints the cobblestones.

Your name was Emery Holmes, and you were a proud trainee and future member of the Garrison forces. Your squad died fighting the titans, the search forces catalogued your bodies, and your names recorded as MIA presumed dead and your surviving family notified. The civilians were evacuated, and the breach eventually plugged.

You did not die in vain.