I'm impossibly sure that I'm dead.
It was either the burning throat, the crushing giant, or the shattering glass.
Doesn't matter. I'm dead.
"He thinks he's dead."
"Jean?"
Are Annie and Armin dead too?
Did the entire house blow up or something?
Are we in Ghostland?
"Stop being overdramatic, you're alive, idiot."
I crack open an eye and see two blonde heads hovering over me.
Ugh. I am alive.
"He's fine Armin, don't worry about him so much." With that, a blonde head recedes and I can finally see Armin's concerned face.
"Hey, you okay?" He says sitting back a bit and leaning on the edge of the bed I'm lying on.
I look around, I'm in a moderate sized room, there's barely any light, but I assume it's one of Armin's guest rooms. It looks familiar to the one I usually stay in whenever I stay over at Armin's house. I grunt as I try to sit up, but a shooting pain in my chest forces me back down.
"Whoa whoa, easy there, that thing did quite a number on you," Armin says holding me down at my shoulder.
I swallow and try to remember what that thing was, it's probably not a good sign if Armin doesn't even know. My soul gives that same throbbing ache that it does whenever a spirit and I are separated. At least the burning is gone, I'm assuming I'm left with a bunch of broken ribs for almost being crushed to death.
"Do you...remember anything?" Armin asks in a hushed voice. I close my eyes to try and ease the pounding in my head, not really wanting to look back on what just happened. The images of the memories flash through my head without consent.
"Too much," I mutter. There's an odd silence between the two of us. I wonder how much Armin actually saw, I assume he saw the darkness and the window shatter, but did he see Her?
"We can talk about it later," he sighs looking down at his hands. Armin clears his throat and stands. "Well, uh, Mikasa said she could fix you up, I hope that's okay."
Great. Just to make my day even better.
The Ex.
I let out a strangled sigh and nod to give Armin the go ahead. He's knows I'm not happy about seeing her, and she probably won't be happy to see me either, but she's a good healer. A really good one. And I kind of want to get out of this bed and figure what the hell happened with Mary-Elle.
Armin nods once and limps out of the room. Fuck, he must've gotten hurt too. I wouldn't be surprised if he got thrown across the room or something. With how powerful that spirit was, he could've even been possessed. Highly unlikely though.
I let myself fall into a light sleep while I'm waiting for Mikasa. Pictures from earlier fly through my brain. Mary-Elle crying, Armin's verse, the burning, the giant, the smoke, the window. The memories are like a punch to my gut. I feel a weird sense of guilt and anxiety for everything that happened. Guilt for bringing whatever that was into Armin's house, and anxiety for whatever comes next.
A trembling whisper echoes through my head.
Forgive me.
Mary-Elle, she was saying something before the smoke swallowed her up. She spoke to me through tears and fear.
What did she say?
I think back through everything that happened after the giant faded away. She was telling me to be safe or something? She said my name. She said someone else's name.
The thinking is making the pounding in my head worse, so I give up on it for the moment. The anxiety of what Mary-Elle might've said making my heart thrum unnaturally.
Then, there's a soft knock at the door, and Mikasa steps through the threshold. I forget about ghosts and monsters and anxiety for a moment to just remember her. What we had, who we were.
My heart wells with the same feeling of contradicting love and loss that happens whenever I see Mikasa. It was three years ago and I still feel the same emptiness she left me when we broke up everytime she walks in the room.
She steps quietly to the bedside and sets down her bag. She then goes to open the curtains of the floor to ceiling windows. The light she lets in is miniscule but it still sets my retinas on fire. Even though I know groaning in pain won't change Mikasa's mind, I do it anyway.
She comes back to me on the bed and goes to work without acknowledging that it's me whom she's dealing with. She checks my eyes, throat, shoulders, chest and ribs, before either of us say a word. Her hands on me like a ghost of a memory to when her touch felt loving.
She turns to dig through her bag and pulls out a little aluminum jar.
"Mikasa," I croak. Her silence is killing me. I want to hear her voice, I want her to say my name. She continues to work without acknowledging me, unscrewing the metal cap and setting it aside. She dips two fingers into the jar and starts rubbing the translucent cream onto my exposed chest.
"Mikasa," I say a bit louder. Her movements are harsh and uncaring to the pain I may be feeling. It's not out of spite though, that's just how she is. Even when we were together and had to heal me she was just as rough.
"Mika-FUCK!" A blazing heat of pain seeps into my chest where she put the cream. Mikasa is whispering in a weird dead language that only healers know, activating the cream. She grips me at my elbows as she continues to whisper, holding me down against the unforgiving pain. It seeps through my skin and muscle to the bone, making sickly popping and cracking noises as my bones are being magically moved to their original places. This isn't the first time I've had to get this done, but the pain is still so surprising to me. I've tried to tell Mikasa that she should give people some sort of numbing before she does things like this, she said that it was a stupid idea.
It doesn't take long for the bones to be mended by the cream and Mikasa's words, but by the end I feel like I've just ran a marathon through flames. The pain recedes after the mending is done, the cream evaporated from my skin. Mikasa screws the lid back onto the little jar and tosses it into her bag.
I lay here, covered in sweat and trying to catch my breath from holding it in against the pain, as Mikasa digs back through her bags like what she just did was nothing.
"Mi-kasa," I huff out, still desperate for her attention. She ignores me, digging through her bag until she plucks out a vial with an odd thick purple liquid in it. She turns back to me and grabs my jaw, prying my mouth open with her freakishly strong hands. She's about to dump the mysterious gooey mixture that kind of smells like ass into my mouth when I knock her hand away. "Mikasa!"
She recovers the vial quickly, only losing her balance for a moment and turns back to me, her face an emotionless scowl. I don't know how you can be emotionless and scowling at the same time, but Mikasa manages to use it on a daily basis.
"It's for your throat," she says, restraint evident in the way she's holding her shoulders. For the first time since she's walked into the room, she's actually looking at me. I have the weird fluttering in my stomach as she does so.
I look at her, long silky black hair draped over her shoulder, her eyes like a light through the fog, her porcelain skin that never seems to age. That last one could be taken quite literally. Healers are essentially immortal. They don't really age once they've hit their prime adult years and their biology's immune system is impenetrable. So the only way healers can die, is if they're killed. My stomach sinks at the thought of Mikasa getting hurt by someone.
She gets tired of my oogling and moves to yank my jaw open to stuff the liquid down my throat. I cut her off again, my chest is still omitting a throbbing pain every time I move so I can only use my arms to try and get to her.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry," I mutter grabbing her empty forearm, "I just...hi?"
She raises an eyebrow at my effort to say something remotely human. Ignoring me again, she pulls away from my grasp and slaps a palm to my forehead, rendering me pretty much useless.
"Mikasa-Mikasa, wawait wait," I sputter pulling against her. She huffs a short breath of air and stands back, jutting her hip out in annoyance.
"Just let me do my job, Jean," she sighs probably itching to give me a good punch in the face.
"I know I'm sorry, I just...can't you say hello?" I ask pathetically. I hate when I get like this: a whiney little prepubescent form of my past self, useless when it comes to words and hot girls.
"We don't have time for this, they need you to talk to Annie, they said you saw something," she says trying to motivate me to shut up. I sigh and continue to look at her, noticing the way her subtle brown eyes glint in the minimal light.
"Okay," I whisper giving into her demands. I lean back and let her crack open my jaw and pour the ass smelling purple goop down my throat. I expect it to taste like butt too, but it's weirdly savory and chills my aching throat all the way to my stomach. With that, she pulls out another aluminum jar with a green lid, taking a dab of the white cream with her middle finger, and wipes it in little stripes over each cut I have from the shattered glass. The scrapes start to heal immediately after she puts on the cream, amazingly without any incantation of sorts.
After she's finished with the cream, she puts it back into her bag and tosses me a little white package with a tiny sphere in it.
"What's this?" I ask, fidgeting to get it open.
"Mint," she says as she cleans up the rest of her tools, "That stuff I gave you for your throat stinks."
"Oh." I plop the mint into my mouth without hesitation.
Mikasa stands and takes her bag, turning to me for the last time, "Come out when you're ready, they're waiting for you in the Study." And she's gone. I watch her walk away, all business, no attachments. She doesn't sway when she walks like most other girls, she's firm and determined, no room for looseness. Most people think she's just got a stick up her butt, but I think it makes her mysterious. Whatever. I'm a romantic.
I lay back and suck on my mint, it tastes pretty weird mixed with the purple savory stuff she gave me but it doesn't matter. I think of Mikasa. I haven't seen her in what-half a year? I'm pretty sure the last time I saw her she was trying to piece me back together from having to claw my way back from a rift in the dimensions. Yeah, that was a long day.
I met Mikasa mostly through association. Armin and Levi knew each other and both Mikasa and I were kind of just their latch-on's. Levi had saved Mikasa from her home when a bunch of witch hunters were going around and slaughtering all healers and witches. Although, Mikasa's parents didn't make it, so Levi kind of put it on himself to raise her, not really trusting that a normal human could help her grow right. Even though Levi isn't a healer himself (he's a witch/warlock, whatever) he still had the tools for her to teach herself and to keep her safe as she did so.
They're kind of the power team around here. They're some of the only people who are actually trying to hone and use their gifts, when everyone else is trying to forget them. I wish I could use my 'gift' but, fuck, all I do is see dead people. Speaking of which, Glenn had found his rightful place swimming above my head. I'm kind of glad he's here, he's like that piece of jewelry you wear everyday, you feel complete when it's there, and when it's not, you feel oddly naked. Yeah, I guess that makes Glenn invisible jewelry.
I groan as I sit up, the bones in my chest cracking, popping, and groaning with me. I let a wave of nausea pass as I stand up, my jeans are torn to shit and I've lost my shirt. I stumble over to the oversized wardrobe and hope to god there's something that will fit me. And nope, empty as my bank account.
I huff out a sigh and make an exit from the room to find Armin and try to snag a jacket or something off of him. Just as I open the door, a glare-eyed Eren is standing there.
"Oh, hey man," I say trying to act like I forgot to invite him to Armin and I's ghost party. He raises an eyebrow and continues to glare, a tiny pout at his lips.
"You left," he whines in a short chopped way, much like a child. I roll my eyes, of course that's the only thing he's worried about. Not the fact that I almost died by being crushed to death from a twenty foot demon.
"Oh I'm fine, thank you," I muse trying to pass him and get to Armin.
"Whatever asshole," he spits shoving a lime green sweatshirt to my chest.
"The fuck is this?" I say my chest giving a little throb of pain to Eren's harshness.
"Armin said you might need it," he grumps again.
I look down at the thing, I have a hard time convincing myself that it's even meant for dudes. "Does he, uh, have anything else?" I ask trying to salvage some form of masculinity by not wearing a fucking lime green sweatshirt.
"Would you rather go shirtless?" He sasses shoving the sweatshirt at me again.
I groan and take the thing from his hand, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" I hum with a quirk of an eyebrow.
He rolls his eyes, "You wish." I groan and shrug the sin over my head, looking down at the graphic on the front that says "I went to Charleston, South Carolina!" with an obnoxious neon yellow sun shining down on the rainbow words. Fuck Armin, seriously?
"Come on, they're downstairs," Eren mumbles and leads me to the Study. My body still pops and groans with every step, it'll be better in a few hours though, it's just getting used to being broken and pieced back together in a matter of hours.
We get to the Study and walk in without knocking. Armin is sitting at his mahogany desk, squinting at his computer as Annie looms over his shoulder, looking bored but she's probably just reading Armin's mind. Mikasa is sitting in one of the leather chairs in front of Armin's desk looking out the giant paneled window on the far wall. This room is much like the Library, except smaller. Armin keeps his favorite books in here and has a bunch of pieces of art hanging from the walls, my favorite: a sculpture of Hecate in a corner, and few different chairs a couches scattered about the room.
Armin looks up at us as we enter, trying to put up an encouraging smile. The rest of the room is tense, I mean, Annie and Mikasa are always tense but Armin has joined them.
"Hey, how're you feeling?" Armin asks, his eyes shifting back and forth from his computer screen and me.
"Never been better," I mutter shuffling to the chair next to Mikasa who doesn't acknowledge me, again. Figures.
"Right, well," Armin starts tucking a strand of blonde hair behind his ear and turning to face me fully, "We, uh, need to figure out what happened, don't you think?"
"Yeah," I shrug, not really knowing why everyone is so tense still. Wasn't I the only one who saw anything?
"Can you tell me what you saw?" Armin asks with genuine curiosity and a hint of a grimace. He sounds the same as he did back in high school, he's always been a therapist for us haunted freaks. I look from him, to Annie and back to him.
"What did you see?" I ask as a weird pit of anxiety makes it's home in my gut. Armin looks down at his hands and back up to me, his expression dark and haunted.
"Everything after she turned," he whispers in a shaky sigh, his bright blue eyes growing dull and distant. He's talking about Mary-Elle, how she turned into that giant demon thing. He saw me being crushed, her black eyes and slimey teeth, he heard me yell to her as she faded to her normal self and wept at my side, whispering the hauntings of a Him and to find someone who's name I still can't remember.
"How?" I ask, still uncomfortable with looking back on what happened.
"I don't know," he sighs running a hand down his face, "But she said something to you, didn't she? I saw her talking but I couldn't hear her," he asks, his curiosity motivating him to be stronger.
"I…" I've been having trouble remembering what she had said ever since I woke up, my head giving the familiar throb, "...I can't remember."
Armin sighs and looks up at Annie. They have one of their mind conversations and Armin nods, turning back to me with a wary look in his eyes, "Do you mind if Annie does some digging?"
I feel the ball of anxiety in my gut rise to my throat. I instinctively look at her, she looks unfazed again, but I can sense the same anxiety from her. The last time she did it, things did not go well. Neither of us had ever done it before and we got misdirected and spun into a horrible flash show of hidden memories and dark corners I never wanted to go back to.
I look at her and think, How do you feel about this?
She pins me with her burning eyes, He thinks it's important.
I look down at my hands and try to calm my nerves. I honestly don't think she needs my permission to dig through my memories, Armin's probably just being polite. So there really is no option, is there?
I look up at them, anxiety probably oozing from every move I make. "Okay," I sigh, "Just don't let what happened last time happen again."
Armin has me lay on a couch with my head propped up with a pillow. Annie is sitting behind me, waiting for Armin's next instruction. I always find it so fascinating how willing Annie is to do something for him. When I first met her, she wouldn't take shit from anyone, good or bad. Somehow Armin was able to make it past her carefully placed walls and a help her become a little less cold. Well, that is, only for him. She still thinks everyone else is out to get her.
"Stop thinking about me, and focus on what happened," Annie whispers in a demanding tone above my head.
I fidget with my fingers and keep crossing and uncrossing my legs. "I'm nervous," I shrug.
"No shit," she mumbles. Armin is reading from an ancient book about this sort of thing, preparing us as well as himself, reading some parts out loud that he thinks we should hear. Although, neither of us are paying much attention. "Just focus on the information that you forgot and stop worrying."
"Right, like I can think about something that I don't remember, great plan," I mutter crossing my arms. Mikasa and Eren are in the corner talking to each other. Mikasa, barely saying anything and staring out the window looking at the side gardens. Eren, jittering like he needs to pee and blabbing on about something as he keeps looking from me to her. I hate how they're still friends. I have an overwhelming need to separate them. They met through me. When Mikasa and I were going out, I brought her to the apartment and her and Eren got along well. Then, I thought it was a good sign that my girlfriend liked my friends, but after we broke up, they continued to hang out. Without me. The familiar anger and jealously find its way to replace my anxiety. I don't know if it's better or worse.
"Alright guys, I think we have everything," Armin says as he shuffles back to Annie and I.
Just focus, and let me do my job. Annie's voice rings through my head. It doesn't make me feel better.
As Armin goes through what everything Annie is going to do and our whole goal of this plan, I'm distracted by Eren and Mikasa. They keep talking over there, like an actual conversation ignoring that we're even here. Mikasa can't even say hi to me but she seems perfectly content with Eren around. Mikasa turns to Eren, her hair shining from the sun through the window, her eyes lit up with genuine emotion, she even smiles.
Annie grabs my head at my temples and sends another message to my mind, Close your eyes. Forget about them, there are more important things, Jean.
I close my eyes and start to panic because I was totally not listening to Armin. I'm such a fucking idiot sometimes.
Just think about Mary-Elle, I'll do the rest.
Mary-Elle. Right. What she was saying to me as I was lying broken on the platform in the Holy Room. She was crying, scared. She spoke to me in whispers, as if what she was telling me was a secret.
Annie's fingers start burn at my scalp. I can feel her presence looming into my memories like another ghost. She's watching the memories that flick through my head, waiting to catch the ones I've forgotten. I let her in, I replay the memories for her as if I'm reading her a book or showing her a movie.
Right after Mary-Elle faded from her giant form, she bent by my side. Saying something…
"Beware him." I hear from miles away. It's Annie's voice but it's all echoed and warped, like she's underwater. "He is coming to reclaim his rightful place on Earth."
As I hear these words, I see them coming from Mary-Elle's mouth, just like I'm reliving the memory all over again. She looks so scared, so tired. Her long dark hair hangs in her face as she brushes away her tears. Her hair. Almost as dark as Mikasa's.
Mikasa.
Jean.
Mary-Elle's face warps and twists, breathing color to her skin and clothes, leaving her porcelain yet human. It's Mikasa, standing beside me in bed, wiping cream over my scrapes and cuts.
I blink, then I see her laying down, next to me, in my bed. She's asleep, her silky hair spilling over my white pillows. The morning sun softly caresses her skin, making her look so peaceful. I can feel her soft breaths rhythmically on my lips, I can smell her perfume that's like cherry blossoms and cinnamon.
I go to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, but something viscously yanks at my arm, nearly ripping me out of bed.
Forget her!
"I don't love you anymore." The words pull me to Point Gardens. We're sitting on a bench looking through giant twisting oak trees out to the open ocean. Sun shines through the leaves of the trees, casting a pattern-like shadow over Mikasa's face.
My heart weighs heavy with the guilt of letting our love fall apart. I knew Mikasa had been pulling away for weeks, and I didn't do anything about it. I can't force her to love me, but I can't let her go, I still love her.
I try to reach out to her, pleading for a second chance, hoping that she'll see what we had is worth trying again. But my protests are silent and I can't touch her. She's gone. There's nothing else let for me to do or say. Once Mikasa's made up her mind, it's over.
I sit alone at the park bench, spirits around me can feel my overwhelming emotion running through me, they're attracted to it. Unfortunately Point Gardens is actually an old field where they used to hang Pirates and bury them in the mud by the sea. My soul is so torn, it's so easy to take hold of. Within minutes, I'm surrounded by them. Old Pirates, Civil War soldiers, ordinary people, all spirits ready to take hold of my soul and never let go. I let them each take a piece of me. Maybe they can get rid of this Mikasa sized hole in my heart.
Let go, Jean!
I can't. She's gone and it's all my fault.
A familiar blazing burning sensation is casted down my throat, it reminds me of the Holy room, with Armin and Mary-Elle. Right, I'm supposed to be thinking about Mary-Elle, but I can't seem to make my way back to her memory, I'm still stuck here on this bench surrounded by spirits munching on parts of my soul. Through the crowds of ghosts, I see Annie fighting her way through the semi-transparent figures, punting them out of my memory. She makes her way to me, out of breath but determined. She grabs the front of my shirt in her fist and yanks me off the bench. Dragging me mercilessly through the park to the edge, looking down at the ocean. Annie steps up to cliff, pulling me with her. I try to resist her pull, knowing what she's about to do.
"Annie-" She cuts me off by taking the back of my neck and thrusting me off the edge, plummeting for the water. I don't even have time to scream when I open my eyes see Mary-Elle kneeling next to Annie lying on the ground, broken. Mary-Elle is speaking to Annie, trembling and afraid. It's like Annie has taken my spot in the memory. I can't hear her soft sobs. I can't hear anything.
Mary-Elle stands back up and backs away from Annie on the floor. The spirit reaches out and lets out a wailing scream that I can hear perfectly ringing through the walls. The black fog forms it's arm and wipes Mary-Elle away, letting the howl shatter Armin's symbol of redemption.
I wake up wheezing and feeling like I'm on fire. I thrash to get up but Mikasa forces me back down. She's sitting above me, wiping something on my forehead, whispering in her ancient language. She takes a white stick about as long as my finger and snaps it under my nose.
"Breath in," she says. I do, inhaling the eucalyptus smelling fumes. My heart starts to calm and my panic eases. I try to take even deep breaths to get me back to normal. Mikasa watches my eyes as I continue to calm down, something tells her that I'll be fine, so she stands and leaves my side.
I watch her walk to Armin's desk where Annie is sitting in one of the leather chairs with Armin kneeling down in front of her and resting his hands on her knees as she speaks to him. Mikasa hands Annie a couple tiny blue balls, to which Annie refuses. Mikasa then turns and gives them to Armin, who nods her a thanks.
Did we do it? Did she find what I'd forgotten? I have no idea. But for now, I just need to forget everything I just re-saw. I close my eyes and try to focus on anything besides Annie, or Mary-Elle, or Mikasa.
I feel someone bounce on the couch beside my legs, I open an eye to see Eren looking at me with pity. Ugh, hate that. At least he's not mad at me anymore.
"Hey," he says when he notices that I'm not asleep. I shamefully feel better now that someone's here. Unfortunately it has to be Eren, but it's nice to have at least someone comforting me too.
"Hey," I croak, my voice feeling oddly sore for some reason.
"You okay?" He kind of winces as he says this, as in, I'm probably not okay. I contemplate on what to say. I don't want to be a whiney little bitch complaining that I'm not okay and that seeing those memories really did fuck me up, but I don't want to be alone and I kind of want some comforting.
Eren scoots further up the couch as I hesitate, now sitting up by my torso. I look at him as he waits, he still has that pitiful look on his face, I kind of want to smack it off him.
"Don't be weird about this," I grunt as I take one of his free hands resting in his lap into mine. He blushes a bit but doesn't pull away, just kind of letting me hold his hand. I sigh and let my eyes fall closed again, trying to focus on Eren's hand rather than any unwanted memories.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I kind of laugh at how Eren's voice is awkward and restrained, he's not much of the comforting type. I just shake my head and save us both the trouble.
I look up at him and he's staring shamefully down at our hands, I snort as his flustering innocence and give his hand a squeeze. "What did you see?"
I look up with his vibrant green eyes. "Oh, uh," he scratches the back of his neck, "You were, um, screaming a lot and Annie was yelling for you to 'let go,' then you started breathing weird and both of your guys eyes turned white. Annie said something about 'beware this dude he's coming to earth' and to 'find Marco Polo,' after that Annie, like, ripped away from you and Armin carried her over to his chair and she was trying not to cry, and you went into this seizure thing that Mikasa had to dump a bunch of crap on you for." Leave it to Eren to explain something that makes no fucking sense. I just nod at him and try to forget how much it must've hurt Annie as well.
But Eren said a name, that name that I was forgetting. Marco something. It's obviously not Marco Polo like Eren thinks, well at least I hope not. Marco did sound familiar though.
Eren and I sit in silence for a while, the only sound in the room is the hushed murmurings coming from Armin and Annie. I watch Glenn hover over my head to help center me.
I start to doze off with Eren next to me, still holding my hand, but Armin comes over and clears his throat. I blearily look up as him, he looks fucking terrible. He's as white as a sheet, his eyes staring off into some other dimension, his breathing shallow and shaky. He's ringing his hands together mindlessly, his eyebrows furrowed in some sort of way that makes him look both confused and scared.
"Armin?" I say sitting up and letting go of Eren's hand. He looks up, his eyes still distant but aimed at me. "You okay?"
"It's a prophecy," he mumbles, still not coming to. Eren and I look at each other and back at Armin.
"Armin?"
"It's a prophecy," Armin says again, swallowing. "It's a prophecy for the end of the world."