"Why are you soaking wet?" Armin asked me with a puzzled look on his face. And where did you wander off to anyway?"
We were waiting at the bus stop under the large umbrella that Mikasa had put in her bag before we left the apartment. Apparently she had seen the forecast on her phone and grabbed one right as we were leaving that morning. Many hours had passed, though, and the rain was more of a light drizzle at this point.
"Oh, umm, I kinda got lost looking for the way back here and ended up walking outside and around the building. There are so many hallways that it's impossible to maneuver around them, you know, like you almost need special gear too." Armin laughed at my remark. "Maybe there actually is some that they haven't gotten around to giving us yet," he said, getting into the bus that had just arrived.
It was a lie. I knew the way back perfectly. The reason why I was soaking wet was because after that strange man had left me alone in the courtyard, I couldn't move. It was if I was paralyzed. My mind kept screaming at me to get the hell out of the pouring rain but my body wouldn't react. It was only Mikasa's phone call asking where I was that snapped me out of this paralyzation. I don't even remember what I was thinking of as I stood there. As if my memories were all of a sudden erased forever, unable to be retrieved no matter how hard I tried. The last thing I remember was that man, and how he had looked at me with those cold eyes of his.
I shivered at the thought of those cold eyes. Mikasa, who was sitting beside me on the bus, took off the red scarf she always wore and wrapped it around me, presuming that I was cold from the rain. The scarf was one of her most prized possessions. I had given it to her the first Christmas we spent together as a family and she had worn it ever since. Even in the middle of summer, she found some resourceful way to wear it without getting too terribly hot. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she wore it on her wedding day, whenever that might be. Thinking about this eased my mind, and I was able concentrate on other things, like how damned cold I was.
"Hurry up horse face, are you coming or not?"
Jean. That guy could be such a complete and total pain in the ass. I threw on my shirt and slammed open my bedroom door in his face, causing him to take a quick step back. "Excuse me, but you are the one with the horse face." I smiled as I said it though. He smiled back at me and pulled me into the living room where everyone was lounging around eating the buffalo dip that Marco had made and brought over. No matter how much we acted like we hated each other, we never actually could.
"How do you live with this guy? I mean seriously! He takes forever to get ready!" Jean directed the question at Armin and Mikasa but didn't really expect and answer. "Well sorry I wasn't fast enough for you, I had to take a shower," I said, nudging Jean playfully. "I should ask Marco the same about you." Sitting down beside Marco, he yawned loudly and stretched, strategically wrapping an arm around his boyfriend. "Yeah, whatever, let's just get on with the movie!"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," I said, taking a seat next to Armin on one of the leather couches and grabbing the remote from the coffee table. I pressed play and instantly the paused movie began, grabbing everyone's attention.
We had all decided that a good way to celebrate our first day of work, without showing up with major hangovers the next day, would be to just chill out and watch a movie. Having the largest apartment, it was decided it'd be at our place and everyone else would bring food since we'd end up cleaning everything when they left. Not everyone could make it though because of previous engagements. In the end it was Mikasa, Armin, and I with Marco, Jean, Connie, and Sasha. Apart from the dip that Marco made we had soda and beer Jean brought, pizza that Connie picked up on his way here, and loaded potato skins Sasha had brought the ingredients over for and made with Mikasa before everyone else arrived.
We had all seen this movie before, and somehow all agreed that it was one of the best, which was rare if not almost impossible for us. Usually at least one or two of us disagreed with everyone else's opinion. It was a post-apocalyptic film set in the 800s where everyone lived behind these walls that protected them from the outside beasts. Thinking about the events from earlier that day, I realized just how much the walls in the movie reminded me of the ones surrounding WOFCORP, though only in the sense that they separated one world from the other. Unlike the characters in the movie, I did not feel trapped within the walls of WOFCORP.
After the film was over it was late and everyone was pretty much ready to go home. Marco had actually fallen asleep in Jean's lap and had to be woken up. Just as everyone was about to head out the door, however, the house phone rang and Armin went to pick it up. We all looked at each other, curious as to who would call at such a late hour. When he got off the phone, Armin looked terrible, like he'd just heard the worst news.
Taking a deep breath and trying to gather his thoughts he looked at each of us. "T-t-that was Annie," he stumbled with his words. "Petra was hit by a car this morning. S-she... She's dead."