Chapter 3 – Extremes

Over a century ago mankind faced a new enemy, one that made us understand the cruelty of this world, one that made us feel weak and insignificant, because to them we were, there was little known about this enemy, this enemy that couldn't be rivaled, nothing had been discovered except for the means to rid ourselves of them. Yet these enemies seemed more like the human's retribution than its threat.

These enemies had forced humanity to stay behind walls for safety, walls that we had built so we could see tomorrow in vain hope that when we stepped out they would not be around to threaten us. These walls Maria, Rose, Sina, Each one gave the weak the hope of survival, and the strong a guarantee that what they fought for was good enough to return home to. Now Maria, the first and closest wall to the outside world was no more, for the enemies that we thought that our ancestors had shut away behind these walls had once again returned.

Eren sat at the top of a small hill and start blankly in the distance. He sat there with his head between his legs, and silently. The calm blowing in his face gave him reassurance that at least, here, everything was peaceful, calm and strangely serene. Sweat beaded his forehead as he shuddered and then let out a soft cackle out of what he knew was pure rage.

"One day, I swear I'll kill every last one of you." He said rasping through his teeth. "Then the world would be like this small place."

That place, that grassy field he'd sat in every day, he knew there were only a few of the places like these left in the world, he knew there were others outside the walls. Maria was gone but Rose and Sina still stood, and Eren knew that one day, he'd break free of the prisons his race had been forced to call home. One day he'd see vast fields of sand and great salt water bodies. One day he'd see them all and satisfy his curiosity. If these titans were all that stood in his way he'd just go right through them. He remembered reading somewhere in his dad's research books that the titans were mindless

…..

Ryan watched as the boy on the street pointed at him, he remembered seeing the look on the kid's face on Eren's face all too well. The kid was quaking in his shoes, and sweat trickled down his forehead. He was doubling back fearfully as if he'd seen a titan.

No.

He looked like he'd seen something scarier, although he didn't know what could possibly be worse than seeing a titan to an eight year old boy. Ryan guessed that was about his age. He shook as if he was freezing, he could feel the fear coming from him in small hot waves, and even though he was on the other side of a crowded street; he'd finally decided to acknowledge. Ryan took a step closer to the boy, and watched as he trembled fiercely. Ryan looked closer at the boy, he was dressed in dark slacks and a brown shirt, and he wore a black sash that bound his shirt to his slacks and brown sandals that were open toed. From his clothes, Ryan guessed he lived closer to the interior, just a few miles from Wall Sina, so what was he doing all the way out here? He looked up at his dark eyes full of fear. His olive skin complemented his clothes. His hair was parted in the middle much like he and Eren.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Ryan asked quizzically.

"N...No" he stammered.

The kid took a deep breath and tried to recollect his thoughts, long enough for him to run away. Ryan knew that because he'd seen that face he was making before many times on Armin.

"What are you doing here?"

He slowly backed further into the street, it was early afternoon, people were lined up in front of stalls and kiosks buying god knows what and doing whatever, in the corner of his eye Ryan could see people walking with baskets on their arms and some with heavy blocks of stone on their heads everywhere. He tried to close his ears to all the shouting but he couldn't, suddenly he wondered how long he'd been day dreaming for, and what this brat meant.

He took a deep breath and asked again, a little calmly this time, he figured the kid at least deserved that, considering he had just scared him shitless, even though he didn't know how.

"What are you doing here?" Ryan realizing that he stood directly over the kid stepped back and allowed him some room. He could see tears welling up in his eyes and scoffed.

He decided to skip the pleasantries and get to the point "What did you mean my eyes changed?"

The kid looked around for somebody, somebody to run to, as far as he knew the guy in front of him wasn't normal and he wanted to act on natural instinct, he wanted to run like hell, the guy in front of him looked normal now with dark brown hair and teal green eyes like he remembered he had, but then when they changed. They became dark narrow slits with small pure white pupils inside them. His eyes looked demonic, with the subtle cracks in them. He needed to run now. He knew the guy was asking questions, or cursing at him. He was not really sure. Frankly he couldn't hear anything over the sound on his little heart pounding in his chest.

Was he going to eat him?

He could feel his legs urging him to run, he'd wet his shirt with his own sweat now he needed to run.

"Hey kid!" Ryan snapped.

Right then the kid took off running away from him into the crowd of people; he sped straight down the road, bumping into people and tumbling over pots and pans and water containers.

Ryan shrugged. He was sure he didn't look that scary anyway.

…..

Mikasa had been staring at the temple for the past half hour studying everything about it. It was a relatively small temple, built of grey brick and set in a small valley, overlooking the eastern wall tower of Wall Rose, the grey bricks used to build this temple, Mikasa noticed had been carefully laid on top of each other, it stood roughly seventeen feet high.

She knew it was a Wallist temple, Kalura had once mentioned fanatics who had worshipped the walls as gods, and built numerous temples in the three walls, they had the belief that the walls were the gift of God sent to be the messengers and protectors of the human race, brought to serve as protection from the retribution that humans deserved. At the bottom of the temple, Zana they called it was a staircase that led inside. Mikasa counted the possibility that she could rue going in there but she needed to. The camp they were staying at, where Eren was was about a mile or two behind her and it would be dark soon. But she needed to do this.

She started going up the stairs and went on. She walked up the dark stairs and kept on silently, she walked gracefully and without a sound, until she reached a door. She pushed the door opened and walked into the candle lit room. Candles were lit everywhere in the room and a choir that stood in front of a wall sang a melancholy song that sounded like an archaic lullaby.

She took a deep breath as the singing stopped and everyone in the choir turned to glare at her. Red carpets were laid all around the floors of the room she looked up at the wall behind them and saw the banner of Wall Rose on the wall, a red flag with a lady wearing a laurel on her head, looking to the left. A priest kneeling down in front of an altar of leaves continued to pray ignoring the distraction and the fact the choir had stopped singing, despite the fact that despite the look that Mikasa saw he was bothered.

The priest was a middle age man with wisps of grey hair growing on the sides of his long hair which he kept in a mullet, around his hand there was a necklace made of beads he clutched tightly while murmuring his prayers; his face was thin and young

She proceeded to the altar despite the looks and knelt down and put her hands together.

"Little girl" The priest spoke hoarsely "Why do you interrupt a prayer to the Almighty Wall Rose?"

"I have a family." She replied nonchalantly, as if the answer was acceptable.

"Do not soil the sacred ground with your garments."

She looked up at him, and glared at him "My family is all I have" She spoke abrasively "So I am going to pray to every god ever made, ever known, to protect them, they are the last left. So I don't care if you treasure a pile of stones. I will pray to her."

The priest looked at her in complete astonishment. He took a deep breath and looked at the choir and nodded for them to carry on with the song. Then he put his hand on her shoulder and said.

"I'm Father Ross Seakes, and who are you?"

"I'm Mikasa Ackerman."

"Was your father Braise Ackerman?" He asked

Mikasa taken aback reluctantly answered. "Yes"

So that concludes chapter 3, I am sorry I have not been posting regularly as I promised I've been working my butt off since June and I barely get time to write. Anyway, tell me what you think. Again, Flamers are welcome. Liars are not.