Chapter 1

Like I previously stated, my birth was nothing glorious or wonderful. From what I'm told, I was born in my parents' bed with but one midwife helping out as it poured rain and stormed on outside the thin window. They named me Levi Blaise Chevalier and that was that.

From what I was told, I was a normal child throughout my infancy. Like every other baby, I'd stick seemingly random objects in my mouth and cry when a parent took it out. The only thing exceptional about me as a baby was the fact that I started toddling earlier than all the other kids by about a month. Which really isn't all that big of a deal.

Thankfully, my childhood was more interesting than that, otherwise you would be bored to tears, reader. When I was about four years old, my father received word that if he joined the recon corps, the government would supply our family with the food and money we so desperately needed. So, he did what any other responsible father and husband would do and joined. I remember being so proud that I was able to say my father was a soldier.

I went to school until I was about thirteen years old and dropped out to join the military, but I'll get to that later. The school I went to wasn't anything special. It was just a small, dingy, stuffy, little hellhole of a building where they taught you the basics. I was taught to read, write, and basic arithmetic.

I've never been all that sociable of a person, so I didn't really have too many friends in school. I had some, though, so I wasn't lonely as a child. After school, we would go home and do our homework before helping our mothers with dinner. After dinner, we'd play out in the streets until the sunset, signaling for us to go back to our homes for bed. Life was simple and easy. There were the poor, normal people, and then there were the merchants with their kids. The merchant children played with each other while we poor kids played with other poor kids. We had a nice, easy status quo set up and everyone seemed perfectly happy with that.

When I was about nine years old, though, my mother and I hit a few rough spots where it got difficult to get food as the farms were having trouble, and so was the government. Being the only man in the house, I felt it was my duty to help support my mother. So, being a dumb kid who was still in school and couldn't get a job, I did the one thing I could do-I started stealing food to put on our table, lying to my mother that a kind merchant gave me the money or I found a bill on the ground. For a nine year old, though, I was good at cleaning up after myself when I stole something.

It didn't take me too long to get caught, though it was by another kid who was stealing as well. We soon became friends and would steal things other than food. We taught ourselves to pickpocket and steal things like silverware from merchant houses at night. We told ourselves it was justified, as they were rich pigs and we were warriors who fought for our next meal.

It didn't take long for me to get noticed in the underworld of our little town. Sometimes, it would be in bad ways and I'd have to steal at night so my mother wouldn't see me come back home with a split lip or black eye. After a while, I realized I ought to protect myself from my attackers. So, I found with a lead pipe and would take it with me when I went out at night. It eventually got to the point that people who didn't know the truth about me would know me as Levi Chevalier, the boy who never stepped out of line. Though, everyone who did know me from the underworld knew I had become a thug. I let my hair grow out so that it fell to my shoulders.

When I was twelve years old, a little girl found me beating an older boy half to death with my pipe. I remember that day clearly. She tugged at my shirt, pulling me away from the other boy, catching me by surprise and making me drop the pipe while the other boy scrambled to run away.

"What'd you do that for, little bitch? He got away! I was about to finish him!" I yelled at her, my mind clouded with anger to register that I was yelling at an innocent little girl at all.

Of course, she started to cry, but never ran away from me. To this day, I still don't understand why she didn't run away.

"You were hurting him. Don't you know hurting people is bad?" She just answered, looking up at me with a small smile before taking my hand and leading me out of the alleyway. "You're silly, mister. "

I said nothing to her, still in awe of the little girl, who'd just started to talk to me as if we were siblings and had known each other for years. "What are you even doing awake at this hour, little kid?" I finally asked.

"I couldn't sleep, so I started to wander around in the area close to my house. I'm Skye, by the way, so don't call me 'little kid'." She replied to me with a smile, holding my hand still as she looked up at me. "You're a pretty angry little boy, aren't you? What's your name?"

"It's Levi. And I'm not a little boy!" I replied to her with a huff, though starting to cool down and soften slightly towards her. "I'm twelve years old!"

She looked up at me, confused. "Well, then you're kinda short, Levi. But, that's okay. Mama says short people are automatically adorable."

I remember bristling at being called adorable. The little girl took me back to my house, never once telling my mother where she'd found me when she asked. She merely said she found me wandering around alone.

Skye would often show up at our door after that and ask to see me and play with me. Because of her, I slowly and surely began to spend less time out at night. I went a bit easier on the people I was beating.

One day about a year later, we were playing happily when she showed me a secret little door in the wall that lead to the Outside World. I'd never once thought about leaving the safety of the wall, having only heard stories of the Titans. I wasn't too sure if I even believed them. So, we figured if we didn't wander too far, we'd be fine. With that, we left the wall and began to play in the fields outside the wall, giggling and laughing all the while.

It was getting to be noon when we started to hear loud thumps coming towards us.

"I bet it's a Titan!" she joked with a giggle, waving her fingers as if casting a dark spell or something. "You're not scared, are you?"

"N-No! Hell no!" I replied, shaking my head defensively. "Everyone knows that's just a story parents make up to make sure you don't leave the wall."

We giggled a bit at that as I tried to cover up how much I was trembling out of fear. We played for a bit more until the thumping came even closer and a horrible roar tore through the air, making my ears ring. I looked up to see a large humanoid figure looking down at us. The thing looked like a giant nude man, save for the fact that it didn't have anything between its legs. We shrieked and began to scramble for the secret door to get to the safety of our wall. I looked up when I felt her hand being pulled from mine. I shrieked loudly with fear when I saw the Titan lift her into the air in its massive hand and to its mouth, biting her in half in front of my eyes. I scrambled for the door after feeling a splash of her warm blood hit my face.

I got inside safely, tears of fear and sadness falling down my face as I ran through the town, practically running into the leg of a horse, looking up to find myself face to bloody face with a member of the Survey Corps.

"What's wrong, kid? You look like you've seen a ghost. Or, better yet, my mother in law." He said with a laugh, hopping down from his horse to get a better look at me.

"Titan….A Titan just ate my friend…." I replied to him breathlessly. He frowned a bit and nodded, pulling out a handkerchief.

"Here, wipe the blood off you're face. You're filthy." He said softly to me, and I obeyed. "You know, if you want, we're recruiting trainees. You're kinda small, but I can see it in your eyes. You've got the heart of a soldier."

I looked up at him and nodded, taking his words to mind. Though I had wiped the blood off my face, I still felt filthy, making a mental note to bathe when I got home. "I'll talk to my mother, but I think I'll take you up on that." I replied before handing the handkerchief and walking away.

When I got back to my home, I promptly took a bath. I was amazed that I had never noticed how filthy the home was, and began to clean it diligently. My mother watched in awe, a small smile on her face.

"Mother, I think I'm going to sign up for the military." I said to her at dinner as I drank my soup from the bowl.

She looked up at me in awe before smiling a bit and sighing. "I knew you would say that to me one day. You have your father's spirit. All right, darling. You can join the military. Just be sure to write home to me." She said after a bit of thinking.

I nodded and smiled to her before moving to go to bed. It was the first time in years that I hadn't left my room or the house for the entire night. I just slept soundly there until morning, when I dressed myself, ate, got clean, and left to sign up for the military.

There was already a line when I got there, so I joined it, standing behind a taller dirty blonde boy. He turned around to me and smiled kindly. "Hi! I'm Erwin Smith." He said to me, holding out his hand. I looked down at it and shook it politely.

"Levi Chevalier." I replied plainly to him.

"Nice to meet you, Levi." He said to me, his smile never fading as we waited together in the growing line of young boys and girls.