A/N: yes, it is another rewrite, but i like this one
"Well, dreams, they feel real while we're in them right? Its only when we wake up then we realize that something was actually strange." - Dominic Cobb , Inception (2010)
Lucid
She loathed midnight, the deafening silence that accompanied the blackness swallowing the perimeter of their bedroom. All she could do was stare, stare into the void. Eyes as cold as crystal, shaping out every piece of furniture in the room. The dresser. The desk. The chair. The drapes. The glow of the moonlight filtering through the window on her bedside; the elongated shadows, stretching into sinister humanoid silhouettes on her walls.
She outlined everything. It helped to distract her. It was better than falling into a slumber, better than what she knew was awaiting in her sub conscious. At the very least, she was not alone. He was with her.
He was a light sleeper. So, she made no movement to disturb him. Instead lying on her side, back to him. It was worse that she was aware he had something to do with those… dreams she'd been having; those nightmarish scenes that replayed like a broken record in her head.
He was in them. Most of them. But he didn't appear as the man she knew now, no. In her dreams, he was a boisterous young boy with a burning passion in his lively teal eyes. Such a contrast to the tired crinkled forest green she woke up to everyday. It shocked her to know that she'd been acquainted with him in the past. That past. The past that her dreams shown her. One she was beginning to feel horribly familiar with.
To know what she'd done him. The friends that once surrounded him. The bloodshed. The bodies. The betrayal. It left her gut churning, twisting, like a knife making a muck of her insides.
It was agonizing, almost serial to see a younger, vulnerable. and yet far stronger her commit these acts of treason and... The killing. There was so much murder.
Each death rewound itself in her mind so she was forced to watch the end of the lives that she...the past her had claimed.
Over and over.
Oh. that poor freckled boy. Who was he? And Those people, their screams of anguish, a girl with sunflower hair, body bent at an awkward angle slumped against a tree. A man with his neck torn apart, muscle and tendon barely holding the severed head.
Bones being pulverized to dust in a very, very large skinless hand. The squishing of soft flesh, that splatter of warm blood that seemed to rain upon her. She could almost smell the iron, feel the shroud of blistering steam on her face. Secondhand guilt poured over like a bucket of ice water. She trembled.
No no no! She was not that person now, not in this time. She was not a murderer. Not a liar. Not a monster.
She was a human. A happily married woman, whom was expecting.
But these visions shook her to the very core. She often put her hands protectively over her slightly swelled belly as if she could shield it. A horror like that should have no place in a child's mind. It shouldn't have any place in hers either. Yet it was there. Raw, simmering in the depths of her thoughts and current memories. Demanding to be seen, felt.
But why now? Why her? Why must she have to suffer these night terrors, the gory details of a past her from an age that almost seemed like a cryptic fairy tale.
She did not deserve any of this. That girl was not her. Not here.
But then, there was the boy. Him who slept beside her. He appeared just as passionate as the man she knew now. His anger though, it was uncontrolled, vengeful, feral. In her dreams, the boy with the daredevil grin morphed into a beast that stood on two legs. When he roared, she felt the vibration in her bones. Blood lust seeped off him like miasma.
He wanted to kill her. He wanted to eat her. He wanted to rip her limb from limb.
Stop. Please. Don't do this! Don't show me this!
A whimper escaped her lips, pale thin fingers grasped the sheets. Trickles of sweat dotted her brow.
"Ann—"
In her mind the beast growled. It sat on her chest. Arm less, driven by hate, screeching in her face. It's gaping maw wide open, spittle flecked onto her face, her ears rang with the sound.
Don't kill me. Please.
"Annie?"
The horrendous scene bled into yet another. It was him. The beast who was once a boy. But they were no longer in the forest of giant trees. They stood in a village square. Fifteen meters off the ground. She felt afloat, her body boiling, nestled within her own monster. He charged at her with an animalistic yowl that pierced through the air.
She had no time to run. When they fought, it felt as if every bit of her was slowly being crumbled into tiny pieces. She was losing.
He ravaged her, teared her off her arms and legs, bellowed an angry roar onto the steaming mangled corpse. The next to go was her head, blonde tendrils soared in the red skies. The comforting heat that nestled against her was torn apart by the beast's teeth. The sense of her impending doom ran through her mind, her blood turned cold.
A crystalline substance prickled at her skin, gradually enveloping her entire form. The cold evaporated the hot tears that ran down her ashen face. She realized that this was it, this was the end. She had become the fragile little girl she'd once been.
She felt the failure of it all, the lives that had been forsaken for this mission, and the aching longing of a place called home. The crystal soon cocooned her whole, acting as her shield in this cruel world. Darkness surrounded her.
The Silence was deafening.
"Annie!"
Eye's snapped open, blue, bloodshot and watery. She could hardly stop the sob the erupted from her throat. He brought her closer till her back was flushed against him, cradling her gently against his chest. she was drenched in a cold sweat, every part of her quaking with the infliction of yet another nightmare.
"Shh, Annie, don't cry. You're okay. It's okay." He cooed hushed words repeatedly into her matted hair till she calmed.
Sleep had taken over again without her knowing. She'll never be able to live peacefully if cannot escape that past. It would keep haunting her forever.
"Eren." She sniffed, caressing the strong arm he draped over her middle, "I'm sorry I woke you up–I," She squeezed at his forearm, twisting her neck to look at him, his green eyes were lit with concern for her, his expression was soft, tender. Despite his roguish appearance.
He pressed his lips to her bare shoulder, chaste like. His stubble scratched lightly at her porcelain skin.
"Don't apologize, it's just a bad dream. We all have them." He whispered, grazed his lips against hers soothingly.
Her breath hitched, "It was a nightmare."
She turned her body to him, careful of her rounded belly. He ran his fingers lovingly through her disheveled hair.
"Want to talk about it?"
Brief flashes of the menacing beast rushed through her mind's eye. She screwed her lids shut, borrowed her face into his chest, listened to the steady thump of his heart against her cheek. "No... not yet."
What could she tell him, really. Those dreams, the night terrors, they're so vivid and strong. She didn't believe anything like that could have occurred at first, she didn't believe her hands were stained with so much blood, so, how would he? How could he understand a dark past he knew nothing of? She could barely grasp a hold of it herself.
She could piece together the gory scenes, the bloody fights all she wanted. But no matter how many times she relived them through a vision of her younger self, she would never know the full story of what had happened in a time where people flew on wired machines and cannibalistic monsters had roamed. She knew her story, and part of his. But the entirety of it all came up blank.
"...I noticed this has been happening a lot lately Ann'...you know if there is anything you want to tell me, anything, I'll listen," Eren tucked her head safely under his chin, "I'll always listen."
She smiled, lips feather light against his collarbone, Of course he would. He was that kind of person. She really did cherish him. Always brutally honest and respectful. She wouldn't want to lose him.
Perhaps she would tell him. Another time, maybe.
She could only hope he would understand. She could only pray that he would not suffer through the same nightmarish scenes.
The sound of his deep breathing, his beating heart soon lulled her into a dreamless slumber...
"Uh! Squad leader! I just saw movement...her eyes!"
A bespectacled woman quickly pushed past her alerted underling, practically shoving him to the side as she adjusted her glasses, scrutinizing at the girl in frozen stasis. "Hmm…" She hummed, put a hand under her chin, tilting her head as she paced back, and forth, hardened eyes never leaving the crystal cocoon.
"Time?"
"Approximately 0300."
The woman nodded, staring fixedly at the shimmering crystalline and the female that lay within. She placed a palm over the crystal, the chill cooled her clammy palms.
"Write it down." The woman ordered. Her underling obliged her, hastily whipping out a notepad and pencil.
"Looks like our guess may be living lucidly in this rock after all."
"What do you mean Squad leader?"
The brunette smirked, almost manically, "It means, Moblit, that the girl isn't dead, she just put herself into a coma. Or so I'm going to assume."
The man stopped scribbling, he asked cautiously, "Will…will she ever wake?"
"Depends. That can be anywhere from now to decades later."
The woman chuckled deeply, "But I hope she does wake while I'm still in my prime, I don't want to be old and gray elbow deep in the female titan's insides."
She meant it as a jest but her partner greened at the thought.
"Either way. The Survey Corp will be ready for her when she does. No matter how much time will pass…"
At that the two continue their inspection of the female titan, formally known as Annie Leonhardt.
Within the crystal. The corners of Annie's lips tilted upwards slightly. It did not go unnoticed.