Episode 13: Memories Not Made

恐ろしい実現

Mikasa walked out of the cottage, trying not to make any noise so that the others' don't wake up. Surprisingly, she saw Armin sitting on the grass, deeply thinking about god-knows-what.

"Hey, Armin?" she called out, and he immediately looked up at her. There was a similar confusion evident in his eyes.

"Mikasa…" he mumbled, standing up and dusting off his clothes.

She walked up to him and spoke, "I… I had a strange dream…"

"Did it have Eren in it?" he questioned, and Mikasa's eyes widened.

"Did you… did you have the same dream as mine?" she contemplated, "My dream had you in it too."

"Likewise! And- and we were kids. There was something about the sea…" Armin stopped talking when pain surged through his head, making him clutch his head and crouch in agony, and he closed his eyes.

"Are you okay?" Mikasa asked, crouching down to his level too.

Armin's head hurt like it had been hit by a truck; and flashes of unknown memories made way into his mind: a young 'Eren' smiling at him, casually chatting about something Armin couldn't decipher.

And all of a sudden, a loud sound of lightning striking hit his ears. The chaotic noises of people around him buzzed in his ears as well. Some huge entity was peering over some huge walls, and it didn't have any kind of skin on it. The scaring gaze of it was enough to make him shiver in terror.

"Mikasa," Armin opened his eyes to look at a concerned Mikasa, "These aren't our memories. As long as I can tell, these aren't memories of at least this life of ours."

"What are you suggesting?" she raised a brow, and a sliver of pain blinded her too, making her clench her eyes shut and see something she didn't remember seeing.

A skinless monster staring down at her and Armin and Eren, and how the young boy she recognized as Eren (after all those flashbacks) ran mindlessly towards a society of houses, and her running after him.

She watched as Eren found a lady buried under the debris… and a tall monster heading towards them… and a man picking them up and running with them… and the lady being eaten by that monster. Or was it a titan?

Mikasa looked at Armin who was struggling as much as her, and then she heard footsteps behind them. Except for Kristina, the entire group was there with them, all of them complaining or holding their heads in annoyance.

"Did you guys too…?" Armin questioned, almost on the verge of crying.

"I hear him," Sasha spoke, too scared and confused to make sense of the situation.

"Eren Jaeger. It's him, but I don't know how I'm able to recognise him," Levi groaned.

"What is happening?" Jean furrowed his eyebrows, his lips curved in dissatisfaction.

"It's like… we knew him," Hange said after a lot of thought.

"Exactly! And it doesn't make sense!" Connie exclaimed, but Jean shushed him.

"It must mean something, since we're all getting visions of Eren," Erwin tried to understand it, "What do you think it is, Armin?"

"This might sound funny but…" Armin took a deep breath, "I think we knew him."

"How?" Connie asked.

"I mean, look at the odds," Hange agreed, "We all get dreams of Eren Jaeger at the same time, with different visions of him being with us… from the memories that we don't remember making. Is it…?"

"Reincarnation?" Mikasa completed it, and Sasha snickered.

"What's so funny about it?" she asked Sasha.

The girl stopped laughing but spoke, "That sounds like a fictional plot for a story that never existed. How can reincarnation be possible?"

"It might be," Erwin gave it a benefit of thought, "And if we have lived with him before, then… where did we go wrong?"