Thank you for holding out with me, after a notification about updating this I decided that I just had to update it and couldn't leave you all hanging!
Maybe if I get some more reviews I'll write the next chapter faster?
Enjoy!
If only he had been stronger… If only he had been there… If only he had disobeyed Erwin's orders, they wouldn't be dead. And yet the situation he found himself in was a world in which the gods were either fictional or cruel beyond comparison.
Levi was not a godless man. He had come to find himself believing in the gods for one reason alone. He found a form of comfort the in ideology that there was a greater being overhead to whom he could direct the bitter feelings of guilt and anger which coursed through his veins. If there were gods and goddesses alike, then his misfortune could be attributed to their cruelty. However in the back of his mind, the thoughts remained, eating away at every fibre of his being was the harsh understanding that his failures could be accredited to his lack of readiness—His weakness.
He had never expected rays of light to fall upon him as he knelt at the altar of the grand cathedral. He hadn't anticipated a chorus of angels descending to flock around him. Nor had he imagined a great epiphany as his prayers were answered—He'd imagined, no hoped for something to happen, for a sense relief or understanding for the situation in which he had found himself. He had just wanted the fractured chronology of his thoughts to somehow make sense, to tell him what he had to do, to stop this from every happening again.
But as he knelt on the cold stone floor for which men and women alike had fallen in woes of despair, entrapped with fear and uncertainty, he found himself none to different. He knelt from dawn until dusk, hearing the sounds of birds overheard, calling to their loved ones. Even to the sound of gasps of amazement and horror from onlookers who had never thought to see such a man as the corporal here, he did not so much as open his eyes. Remaining under the silhouette cast by the rose, cerulean and lime greens created by the grand stained window, he persists. His hands are tightly clasped together, his eyes scrunched shut. His knees throb as he feels every beat of his heart as the blood rushes through him, like waves crashing on the shore. But he doesn't falter, he lingers in this holy spot as he awaits the harem of angels to swoop from the folds of heaven, or the celestial voice of a Maria or Sina or Rose to part with otherworldly wisdom—But nothing comes.
As sure as the sun sets, he picks up his body, collecting the cloak from a nearby pew. He wraps it around himself as he ventures into the stark cold of the evening, moving into the shadows of the candlelit holy place. His footfalls are loud on the aged cobbles that the floors are made of. He never so much as looks backs, the bitterness and disgust swelling. The gods are traitors. To have so much glory and honour, so much sacrificed in their name—and yet they refuse to listen to his pleas. But what does he know of glory and honour? A child of the streets, a thief and murderer—what causes have the gods to listen to his prayers of mercy and futile hope?
His hand reaches out to the icy metal of the door handle, calloused fingers looping through, pulling it gently as he heaves the heavy oak door open. Stepping through it, for a moment he feels that he should look back, to pray for salvation and forgiveness, yet he ignores the cries of his heart, walking through it and onto the gravel that creates the pathway leading to the majestic, gothic building. He shuts the door behind him, the sound of its closing echoes throughout the grand building.
He steps onto the grassed surface that the pathway leads to, which in turn leads to the canopy of trees that shields the distance of return to the Corps' barracks. His feet scrunch over fallen leaves, muted by the grass beneath it as he journeys alone through the darkness of the night. The moon and stars are the only source of light as ventures onwards.
Why didn't they let him die? Why…?
He hears shouting, calling. He sees lights and can hear the movements of many men. For a moment he finds himself caught up in the belief that perhaps the gods have come to take him in a moment of mercy, they will not prolong the suffering of living this life, but soon enough, his theory is disproven as Hange steps out of the shadows. "He's over here," she calls out, but to whom, Levi cannot ascertain.
His exhausted frame struggles to hold his body as he feels his body leaning forwards as his feet move from beneath him, within a moment, the ground is one again beneath him and he is knelt on it, one hand outstretched to steady himself, as Hange frees the other hand from the mudded earth, wrapping it around her shoulder as she strains to lift the muscular man. He doesn't want to move. He wants to stay there. He doesn't want to return to where his friends once lived. A vague sound of protestation escapes him, but before too soon, Erwin too has appeared and he is being lifted up from the ground by his arm, as it is wrapped around the neck of the taller man. Erwin is without words as Levi strains to hold himself upright. Soon Hange has disappeared from his side, to call off the party which has searched for the duration of the day for the missing corporal, as Erwin remains with Levi in the shadows.
Once the last of the search party has returned to the warm reprieve of the barracks, Erwin moves forwards as Hange greets them, her face mottled with concern. But both she and Erwin know better than to question Levi's whereabouts or motives, instead helping to move him from the darkness to the heated safety of indoors. A covert operation is carried out in which the objective is to ensure that Levi's dignity remains as no recruit sees him.
Dignity means nothing to a godless man. Hope, sanity, grief and fear mean nothing to a man without gods.
But Levi is not a godless man.
