I hear her voice in my head when the clinking of swords echoes throughout the area. Her face flashes in my mind during practice, as my eyes land on the practice Titan's nape. I feel her touch on my cheek as the wind blows furiously against my body.

"It's a beautiful day," she mused as she gazed out the freshly cleaned window. I watched her enjoy the fresh air as it blew in softly. We joked and laughed, played and teased. We were happy. But that happiness blinded us. We didn't see it coming when we should have. The slight shaking of the ground every moment, increasing every so slightly. The shadows spreading across the ground as it was deliberately starved from the sunlight. The large pinkish hand that made its way towards the window. Closer and closer.

It wasn't until the gasp that escaped her lips that the reality sank in. The Titan was too close. Way too close. There was no escaping it, no hiding. Not for her. The look in her eyes said it all; This would be her last day.

Her face turned to me as our neighbors tried futilely to scatter, with a look that I will never forget. Tearfully; painfully; with words that tortured her soul.

"Run, Eren. Run!"

Strong, muscled hands crashed through the walls and encased her body. Our eyes locked one last time as it pulled her into the air, legs hanging limply in the beast's grasp.

The last I saw of my mother was between two long sets of Titan teeth that ground deep into her bones.

This was all for her. Each day, every practice, every cut and bruise and scrape was for her. Every kill would be for hers. But no amount of lives would be enough to make up for the one I had lost. Not until there were none left to take.