Find the cover art for this story on my twitter - /AruBerus/status/1286558677294514176

The mug in Bertholdt's hands didn't really interest him that much, but it was all he had to hold onto on the otherwise empty table. He never knew what to do with his hands at these events, so having anything to rest his fingers on was better than nervously tapping them on the table. There were too many people in the spacious Trost mess hall, most of which he had only seen a couple of times, but there were some familiar faces here and there, mainly those of the portion of the 104th's soon-to-be graduates which he and Reiner spent their time with during their three years of training. There was enough distance between him and them that he didn't feel pressured to join their conversations. He preferred to sit alone anyway, distance made things so much easier.

Looking around the room, he couldn't tell for sure if the occasional dirty look he received was really there or if he was just tired. He probably looked like a wreck and caused people concern. It had been a long night and if he were honest, he'd rather retreat to his bunk and get some rest. Why he was still there was beyond him. Maybe his legs were too tired to carry him back to bed, maybe he didn't want to be questioned later on why he'd skirted yet another social gathering. He had been lucky enough to evade social contact most of the evening, but grand festivities like these were always prone to wearing him down both mentally and physically no matter how little he participated.

He brought his mug to his mouth but was displeased to find it empty. Cruel. A drink would've relieved the itch in his throat. Setting it down on the table again, he reasoned he didn't want to get up to get a refill and come back to see he'd lost his spot at his empty table, so he just sat there in silence, ignoring all the commotion that was happening around him in favour of fidgeting with the mug.

A heavy pat on his shoulder broke his thoughts and he looked up at the person who entered his personal bubble, but he could've guessed who it was without having to see.

"Aha, heeeeey Bertholdt," Reiner chanted at him, the smell of alcohol and meat overwhelmingly present in his breath. Where did Reiner even get his hands on meat? It was definitely above the event's budget. He'd probably gotten a share from Sasha's hidden stash of stolen food and the thought to share it with Bertholdt hadn't crossed his mind, as had been the standard more and more often lately.

Reiner had two full mugs pinned between his free arm and his chest and Bertholdt hoped that at least one of those was for him. The blond had a warm blush on his face and the grin he shot at Bertholdt as he sat down across him and put the mugs down showed that his friend was having a much better time than he was.

"Hey, Reiner," Bertholdt replied with a weak smile, letting go of his own mug and pulling his hands closer to his body to tap his fingers over the back of his hand instead. He was always grateful when Reiner remembered his existence and approached him alone instead of with his usual ensemble of groupies. Reiner slid one mug over to his other hand but didn't let go of it, and Bertholdt had to force himself to look up from them so as not to stare rudely and thirstily.

"You're not joining us? It's better than just staying here, y'know." Reiner's tone didn't carry any judgement, his invitation warm and genuine. His attempts to force Bertholdt out of his shell never failed to endear him, enough to make him ignore the voice in the back of his head nagging at him that it was a sign Reiner once again refused to keep in mind his boundaries.

"I'm done for the night." Talking with Reiner he could handle. Anyone else and he might turn bitter. It was better for everyone if he stayed on the sidelines for the rest of the evening. Though maybe, if he ruined some of his relationships with the 104th with his weary, drunken irritation tonight, what lay ahead of them would be easier…

"Ha, the lightweight you are! And here I thought you were the best of us," Reiner laughed.

Bertholdt rubbed the back of his neck in response, a bashful smile spreading across his features as he averted his eyes.

Reiner sighed and let his shoulders hang, a sad smile on his face. "It really is a shame, ain't it?"

Bertholdt wasn't sure if Reiner was talking about his absence or something else, so he just nodded in response. A silence fell between the two. Not one of those laden silences like the ones that fell when they had a secret nocturnal meeting with Annie and they again didn't get a step closer to figuring out that Eren was the founder. This silence was comfortable.

Despite his fatigue, he was happy that Reiner chose to spend some time with him instead of with them this evening, so he savoured the moment. Somewhere along the silence, his hands found their way to his empty mug again, attention drifting off into the distance.

"Buddy, I need you to stay with me," Reiner abruptly broke the silence after several minutes.

"Huh?" Confused, Bertholdt looked at him and let out a chuckle when Reiner kept his eyes on him without an answer. "I'm not planning on going anywhere, Reiner," he chuckled.

A few people looked their way, but they just as quickly returned their attention to their own conversation. He got an amused look from Reiner in return, who planted a hand on Bertholdt's shoulder across the table. The touch hurt, straining his neck as if he'd slept weirdly that night and was now pushing his muscles too much. "I guess you aren't."

Bertholdt shot Reiner an uneasy look. Reiner in turn retracted his hand. He still didn't trust it entirely when his friend got drunk, not when he was losing himself more often lately. He would never betray their cause, but Bertholdt knew that Reiner felt just as guilty as he did despite rarely showing it. Reiner was stronger than him, but it would take only one emotional, careless moment ruled by alcohol to doom all of them. But he wasn't in a mood to scold Reiner for his drinking, least of all when he'd had a few drinks himself that evening.

It probably hadn't been a good idea for Bertholdt to get drunk either. Kicking back for one night couldn't hurt so he'd allow himself a drink, was his reasoning back when he'd accepted his first mug. That was several mugs ago. His head felt surprisingly clear despite the amount he'd drunk, so he was fine. Better than Reiner. Not quite as much of a lightweight as he thought, or maybe he was too drunk to assess his status. But he was not a risk. He wouldn't talk to anyone besides Reiner anyway. No one would even hear him if he revealed sensitive information by accident.

"Hey," Reiner said, finally sliding forth one of the mugs he held onto. "For you. You look tense. Drink something to calm your nerves."

Bertholdt let go of his own mug to accept the filled one and placed it down in front of him, smiling gently at Reiner as his friend lifted his own cup to take a sip, far more delicately than he'd expected he'd be capable of in his drunken state. "Thank you, Reiner. But I'm not nervous."

"Hm..." Reiner placed down his mug again. "Are you sure about that? You'll have to kill them all, you know."

Bertholdt's eyes widened, fingers stiffly grasping onto the mug. His shoulders tensed and a spike of anxiety shot through his heart as time froze. More eyes fell on them this time and he felt cold sweat roll down his back. No one was within hearing range but this was flat-out careless. Seconds later, everyone returned to their own conversion again and his state of alarm released its grip on him.

"Reiner!" Bertholdt forcefully whispered when he finally snapped out of his daze, grabbing his friend's wrist and leaning in closer to him. "Be more careful, you don't know who's listening when you say things like that!" He'd been careless in letting Reiner stay this long and get this drunk, it was time to drag Reiner away from the party and let him sober up somewhere he couldn't blurt out sensitive information like that.

Reiner's expression had grown solemn, eyes stern, almost avoiding Bertholdt's. "They're your comrades, Bertholdt. I need to know if you're able to do it."

Bertholdt looked across the crowd, searching for faces he recognised but failing to find any. He didn't want to answer. Of course he was able to do it, even if he didn't want to. It didn't matter what he wanted. He'd never let his judgement be impaired by what he wanted again. It had cost them the founder once, he could never let it cost them their victory again. He'd make sure of it this time.

Reiner freed his wrist, then stood up and walked over to Bertholdt's side of the table to sit down on the same bench, right next to him. With a blank expression, he swung his arm over Bertholdt's shoulder, patting him on the arm. "I knew I could rely on you."

The words did nothing to comfort Bertholdt. He looked down inside his mug, his face reflected in boiling hot black liquid contained within a metal cup.

When he looked up again, the whole room was now looking at them, silently waiting for their conversation to continue. Bertholdt didn't find the confidence to speak with so many eyes on him.

"I think you can do it. All I need is for you to be there and do your job, don't worry about the rest."

Bertholdt's shoulders were now shivering and his eyes wandered to the table as the piercing gaze of hundreds of hostile eyes unsettled him. He brought his cup to his lips and found it to be empty. His eyes lingered on the black residue inside before he weakly nodded and placed it down again.

"Can you do it? Can you kill them?"

Despite his nerves, Bertholdt felt determination well up inside him. He looked right at the crowd in front of him, his spectators just as anxious for his response as Reiner was. He knew what he wanted. He'd made up his mind and was ready to travel this road until the bitter end.

"I will."

The mood in the crowd shifted — from questioning if they'd heard it right to bewilderment to murmurs of disdain and outrage. Reiner proudly clapped his hand on his shoulder a few times and Bertholdt thought he picked up on the out-of-place foul smell of smouldering death.

"You're going to do it. I trust you, buddy. Now come back. I told you to be there, and you're not. Can't you see what's happening around you, anyway?" The hand draped over Bertholdt's shoulder gestured at the crowd in front of the two of them.

At Connie and Sasha, who looked more afraid of him than he'd ever seen them.

At Jean, a solemn look of disgust painted across his face, disappointment mixed with anguish.

At Mikasa, blades already drawn, a phantom slash in his neck draining all the colour from his face.

At Armin, aggressive determination so uncharacteristically written across his visage that it shocked him.

At Eren, burning eyes glaring straight into his soul with the same bloodlust as when he'd told them he would kill them in the worst way possible.

At Zeke and Pieck, barely interested, only looking his way because the rest did so as well, though if he paid close attention, he could read a hint of disappointment and pity on both their faces.

At Reiner, who had his back turned on him and whose expression was therefore not legible.

Where had everyone else gone? Were these nine the only ones left?

The burnt stench's pungency now permeated every part of his being and threatened to make him gag and throw up if he didn't get some fresh air and clean water to wash its rotting odour out of his mouth. Staying here wasn't good for him, he had to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"I– I have to go," he muttered to himself. In a swift motion, he pushed himself off of the bench and got to his feet, but a dulling pressure ached through his shoulders and thighs, so crushing that he didn't have any feeling in his hands or his feet and he could hardly stand. Everything around him was foggy and he could not make sense of what he was seeing, let alone feel anything besides that overwhelming pain and pressure in his extremities.

A wave of unnatural blistering heat washed over him. From behind him, he heard Reiner's firm voice command him. "Get out of here. Now."

Bertholdt tried to look back at Reiner, but just like that, his conversation partner was gone. They all were, replaced by a uniform shadow that could overwhelm him any moment, breath stifled by how small and oppressive the room felt on him. His body was scalding cold all over, feverishly hot as all warmth drained out of him, and threatened by his inescapability, he had just enough time left to realise that he was waking up from what would've without a doubt turned into a horrific nightmare.

His eyes opened carefully, taking in the orange morning sky above him, sight still blurred from his fitful sleep. The oppressive atmosphere of the room he'd dreamt up was replaced by pleasant frigid air and its darkness by a sunny day, but the dull ache in his upper limbs only became sharper and was accentuated by a damp numbness as he regained more of his consciousness. His face felt raw, his body sore, and his mouth dry, filled with a taste so vile it was no mystery where the migraine that was raging through his skull had originated from.

It took him a moment to understand that he was awake again. He didn't know he'd been holding his breath until he let his shoulders slump in relaxation to exhale. His breath evaporated above him, cool on his lungs as he took a deep breath. It was almost a peaceful sight, but even now, he couldn't shake off the worry that'd made his blood run cold. He brought a hand up to his forehead to wipe away the cold sweat that stuck his hair to his skin but found his shoulder was too stiff to even move his hand that far. It escaped him that he didn't have hands to wipe his forehead clean with in the first place.

He squeezed his eyes closed again to comfort himself after that uneasy dream before he heard a grunt and a crack coming from his left — the very last thing he'd hear before he was ripped out of the blissful unawareness that within a few moments, he would be dead.

His eyes opened briskly, taking in the black night sky above him, sight still blurred from his fitful sleep. He gasped, and the scream that tore through his throat before he'd woken up resumed as he rolled over to his front, hands and knees that moments ago weren't even part of his body anymore clawing at neither rooftiles nor flesh, but at sand, struggling to get up and get as far away as possible from where he was. Anywhere was better than here.

His directionless sprint didn't take him that long a distance before the loose sand under his shoes gave away too far with one of his running kicks and he toppled over onto the ground, gagging as his stomach sent back what little it had been graced with that morning. With the spirit of neither fight nor flight left inside of him after crashing down, all he could do was freeze and cower up into a ball, braced for impact with his arms over his head and his knees beneath his stomach, forehead pressed so deep into the sand that the granules stung in his closed eyes — but no amount of pain stood a chance against the terror that poisoned his mind, paralysing all rationale. He couldn't act beyond calling out against his assailant, waiting shivering until something came to kill him as he strained to hold onto himself as close as he could.

When nothing came, it only deepened his disoriented dread. Driven by a blend of feelings he couldn't trace back to a source, hysteria seeped through his entire body, muscles so strained that they could rupture at any moment, and none of the thoughts that entered his mind had a conclusion.

Seconds turned into minutes. Where his body held on, his mind slowly ran out of energy to sustain his state of panic for so long with no resolution. There were no coherent thoughts, just feelings. Goals. Survive, run, stay still and maybe it won't find you. And as nothing found him, the more time went by, the less his mind brimmed with survivalist goals and the more he was able to make sense of his incoherent thoughts. He gained enough clarity to understand that he was running on pure instinct, too affected by it to think straight, to remember what had happened that put him into this state of uncondensed panic. It didn't matter. It wouldn't help him survive. But the more he recognised that he wasn't just surviving, the more he remembered that he was a person. That he was still breathing, still there, still alive and awake and in control of what he did and what he thought. That nothing had happened to him.

That it was all a dream.

It was fine. It was a dream. He was fine. Everything was fine, he repeated in his mind, and after repeating it hundreds, thousands of times, he finally made progress in calming his turbulent thoughts to the point of rationalising his situation. He wasn't ready to let go yet, not when there was so much lingering fear that told him that maybe he wouldn't be found if he didn't move. But he could think. It wasn't where he wanted to be, but it was progress. They'd find him in the morning, it was no issue.

This was the first time that a night terror affected him to the point of fleeing his sleeping quarters and bracing for death.

It always had to be him. Always had to be his dreams that were so unbearably cruel to him that he woke up in pure terror, but why was it so real again, why did he have to feel so hunted and exposed and visceral and mutilated, why the hell did his mind do this to him every night and why did it have to feel so real tonight? So real that he couldn't tell if he were still stuck in a nightmare or if he really just–

Unbearable pressure. An oppressive atmosphere. A sickening split-second crack resonating through his flesh and bones.

He pushed his face into the sand harder, his scream muffled. The thoughts flooded his mind unprompted. Disjointed, contextless fragments of minor details outlined so sharply they felt as real as the granules stinging against his eyelids.

He didn't want to remember his night terror, not these horrendous details that he wanted to forget already as soon as they entered his mind.

As the shock finally waned, frustration welled up from inside him instead, a breath of fresh air in his terror. He was so tired of these mind games his brain liked to play with him. He wanted nothing more than rest, but after such an eventful evening he just had to be punished for enjoying himself for once instead of wallowing in his guilt over the oncoming Trost mission. It's what he deserved.

How did that evening end? How did he get here?

Actually, where was 'here'?

The thought was interrupted as he got more flashes of details. Rooftops. Above him, a wall. The texture of hard, ridged surfaces pressed down on his head. His skull caved in, pain shot through his entire body, everything tasted and smelled raw and bloody and he was assaulted by an indistinguishable cacophony of sounds and flashes of colours before things got quiet and dark.

Everything went cold. He hadn't just dreamt that he died, he'd dreamt that he got eaten again. He could strangle Zeke for planting the fear into his subconscious with his incessant threats. As night terror did, it carried way more detail than it did as his usual nightmares. His gut knotted up at the thought. What was wrong with him?

Usually, he'd try to understand his dreams, even nightmares, in the hopes he'd find their source. Most of the time he couldn't fix the source, but he felt better when he knew why he was having bad dreams. But this one was nothing but dizzying, hit too close to home. Because if he weren't successful now, this exact fate would befall him within the month. Zeke had been overtly clear this was their last chance. Come back home with the founder or don't come back home at all. There were plenty of new candidates who wouldn't make for a worthless Colossal Titan and he didn't want to panic this badly when he was discarded after failure in Shiganshina.

Shiganshina?

Not Trost?

His heart skipped a beat.

Trost was months ago, wasn't he just there? They'd been camping out on the wall waiting to ambush the Survey Corps and obtain the founder. How did he find himself lying face-down in sand again? Did he fall off the wall when running away after his night terror and survive?

Shiganshina. Not Trost.

That's right. They'd shared their last coffee. Said their goodbyes, set out to meet up again victorious, split up. The signal was given and something went wrong. There was a blast.

Shiganshina. Not Trost…

The battle was already over. Not just Trost, but also Shiganshina.

He couldn't remember how it ended.

Why couldn't he remember how it ended? How had he gone from a broken city to a cold desert? It made so little sense until he considered one detail that could make it all make sense, and it made everything worse. So much worse that he shut down the thought immediately and forbade himself from going there ever again.

He finally let himself fall onto his side in the sand when his muscles became too cramped from carrying the weight of his arcing body, arms coiled around himself, fingers long turned white from clinging too tight onto his skin through his sleeves for too long, reasoning that if he didn't move and didn't open his eyes, he didn't have to think about it.

More came back every time the events of his… dream. Sure, every time the events of his dream played out again. Scarily accurate details that he was repressing with all his might, but all he achieved by that was that they played in the back of his head on repeat instead. He'd rather forget. What he'd give to forget.

Forget those bony fingers curled around his torso in a grip weak enough to break out of if only he'd had his limbs to fight back.

Forget the pitiful display of disarranged screams pleading to a party that wasn't listening, only looking.

Forget the unbearable pressure on his head second only to the crushing realisation that he was all alone.

Forget the unending few moments between the first bite and the bite that ended it all where he could feel everything and nothing all at once.

Forget the silent darkness before he was assaulted by intense light.

A tremor arose from within him as he recollected more and more nauseating memories. Not thoughts, memories.

Because in the whole time he lay there, an unnatural light unlike any he'd seen before softly permeated through his closed eyelids, and nothing about this ethereal state he found himself in felt like it was real. By any realistic standards, he still had to be dreaming, but it had been too long to be a dream. None of the nightmares where he survived his own death ever forced him to recall the process of being gutted in such harrowing detail as he did now, nor had he ever felt this awake, this alive when he was lying there mangled, hoping he'd wake up soon and could just escape the raw pain of feeling his internals bared to the world. He didn't even know if he was still mangled. He'd been too afraid to check.

No, it wasn't like that at all.

This was no dream or nightmare or any other fabrication of his weary mind.

This was real.

He'd lost the battle for Shiganshina.

He was dead.

Did that make sense at all?

If he really were dead, why was he alive?

Why could he feel a ragged breath tear through his throat at every sob? The ice-cold sand he'd collapsed onto was discernible even through his clothes, its refined texture stuck to his skin, and his heartbeat pounded in his skull as tears rolled over his nose and down his cheeks. The fine sand beneath him had such an unmistakable salty smell, to the point where he could almost taste it. A low faraway chime rang in his ears and bolts of lightning danced in the void from squeezing his eyes shut too hard. Why was he surrounded by such vibrant sensations, nothing he'd expect a dead man to be capable of picking up on?

And why did he have arms to wrap around himself? Why did he have legs to cower his head against as he hid from whatever it was that was going on around him? Why did he have intact sleeves devoid of any blood or gore — he'd clung onto them long enough to feel they were dry and whole — neatly covering his wrists when he still felt blades freshly severing his arms beneath the shoulder?

Why did he even have a head to cower against his knees in the first place? Not even his macabre mind had ever come up with such a realistic death, could have imagined how it would feel for teeth to close down on both sides of his face until–

He couldn't stifle the urge to scream again.

How long it took him to finally calm down again, he didn't know. The taste of blood from his raw throat was a good indicator — his healing would customarily repair the damage long before he could taste much of it. He must've been screaming for minutes on end, maybe hours, maybe days. Steam was already gently rising up from between his trembling lips now that he finally quieted down again and he resorted to lying there, listening to the steadying heartbeat that ripped through his neck, to his jagged breathing. In and out again, the same two easy steps he'd been repeating since the day he was born. Find something to anchor himself to.

His conclusion was wrong. Whatever had happened, the dead didn't breathe, that much made sense. If they did, he had an entirely different crisis on his hands.

What the alternative was, he didn't know, didn't want to know. Didn't have to know either, if he decided so.

If it felt real — if his dream about Trost felt so convincing to confuse him — then maybe these memories were real. But if he wasn't dead, they had to be from a moment he had yet to live through. It wouldn't be the first time he'd dreamt of something that would later happen with scary accuracy.

He could still be asleep, warned by some sort of titan power that seemed to manifest sometimes when he had nightmares. Judging by how lucid he was, he might be waking up right now. If he were to trust his gut, it would come true soon. Very soon.

Maybe he was suspended in one moment for as long as he stayed still and time would start again the second he opened his eyes.

So he'd just have to prevent that from being set in motion. That was something he could do.

He shifted in position to curl up into a ball more easily. In some twisted way, it was almost comforting the way his hands clung to his head, wrists now covering his damp eyes and forearms protectively crossed in front of his face, fingers buried deep within his hair, as if a titan's bite would somehow fail to break him if his arms had been there to shield himself in his final moments.

But he couldn't let go. He couldn't expose himself to the world like that again, not when with each and every second that passed, he grew more certain that the moment he let go and he opened his eyes, the jaws of death would close in on him all over again. He didn't want to find out if he was still in mortal danger and this was just his mind's way of dealing with the prospect of dying, he just wanted to hold on and stay in a position where everything was bearable and safe, where he didn't have to wake up to his own execution and relive it from start to finish all over again. He didn't have to acknowledge the details of his death that only became more unavoidable as the minutes went by. He should've been planning how to deal with it once he woke up, come up with some plan of action, but the thought of waking up alone short-circuited his brain.

Let him lay there — the only movement breaking up his refusal to budge that of his body yielding to the pace of his soft arhythmic respiration — until the sand consumed him.

This was fine.

This was comfortable.