One of these days, he would have to end their lives.
No, that wasn't right. He wasn't going to end their lives.
He was going to kill them. Murder them. Slaughter them, immolate them as unwilling sacrifices for his own continued survival, scorch them alive while they could barely shield their eyes before the blast reached them, given not even the time to process they would soon be gone.
He was going to indiscriminately wipe out every single one of them and turn their families into widows and orphans, all in an act of cold-blooded auto-genocide.
His actions needed no euphemisms when they were so merciless to his victims.
His hands were freezing. His pockets did nothing to keep the late summer's evening cold from creeping under his muscles. He leaned deeper against the building he'd stopped at, arms pressed against his torso in a failed attempt to compress his ribs and keep himself from hyperventilating.
Looking up at the dusk with glassy eyes, he focused on his breathing.
Out…
In again…
Out again…
In again…
Long breaths that steadied the tremors in his chest.
Something entered his peripheral vision and he jolted up, reaching for his blade handles. When he saw it was just Zeke walking towards him, he let his arms slump and returned the handles to their sheaths, pressing his back against the building and looking away from his Warchief. Bertholdt looked like a mess; exactly why he'd left in the first place. Not quite the brave warrior Zeke would've wanted by his side, but that didn't mean he had to see him so dishevelled. Just his luck that tonight, Zeke came searching for him.
Zeke stopped a few paces away from him, leaning back against the building to mirror Bertholdt, one leg propped against it. He took a long drag from his cigarette, then spoke up as he blew out the smoke.
"Say something next time you go for a stroll, I'm gonna have to mark you down as a deserter if you keep disappearing on me."
Bertholdt stiffly nodded, his soft affirmation barely rolling out of his throat. He strained not to make his emotional state audible to Zeke, but the stutter in his breathing made it sound like he'd been crying before he arrived. It wasn't exactly true; most of his tears these days had a physical cause rather than an emotional one, but he didn't want to speak up to defend his dignity, so his voiceless gasps and Zeke's occasional blows of smoke remained the only sounds that filled the cool evening air.
In the corner of his eyes, he saw Zeke move closer. Then, his hand reached in front of Bertholdt, an already lit cigarette between his index and middle finger. Bertholdt looked at Zeke, who put no effort into returning the eye contact as he settled back into his new position closer to Bertholdt. When Bertholdt didn't move, Zeke hummed, suggestively wagging the cigarette in front of him, and Bertholdt shook his head.
Zeke let out a mildly annoyed sigh. "Just take it. It's a good distraction."
Fine. Bertholdt didn't need to disappoint him any further by being difficult. If Zeke wanted this from him, he might as well comply. How bad could it be, anyway? If Zeke thought he couldn't handle smoking, he wouldn't have offered it.
Bertholdt took the cigarette out of Zeke's hand and placed the unlit end into his mouth, not giving the sharp inhalation that followed much consideration. A dry prickle assaulted his throat and burned all the way into his lungs, and before he knew it, he was on his knees coughing and hacking the foul tar out of his system, already swearing off the idea of smoking for good.
He lost sight of how long it was he choked like this, feeling light-headed by the time his lungs finally stopped convulsing and he could breathe in a lungful of air without relapsing. When the worst was over, he made an attempt to regain his composure, well-aware of just how pathetic he looked down on the ground. Zeke wouldn't test him with something this trivial, and yet Bertholdt still felt like he'd failed him somehow.
Through teary eyes, he glanced back up at Zeke, who stared straight ahead as he took another drag from his own cig, neither judgement nor mockery legible in his expression. He blew the smoke out of his nose, then looked down at Bertholdt.
"Distracted yet?"
Every breath felt rough on his throat, coming out more like a rasp. He had to admit that between getting too much air and getting too little, he preferred the latter, as it was the most bothersome in the immediate moment. He nodded, to which Zeke looked up at the darkening sky to take another drag.
"You'll get used to it," Zeke assured him, tapping a foot against Bertholdt's ankle in what may have been a comforting gesture. "It's difficult now, but it gets easier every time."
When it sunk in what Zeke meant by that, Bertholdt let out one long sigh. He looked down at the ground, where his cigarette still lay smouldering, and picked it up, rolling it between his fingertips before placing it between his lips again. With his eyes on the future, he decided to hold those words close to his heart and inhaled.
The wind whipped through his hair as he soared through the streets of Shiganshina, lungs filling with icy air. He'd made it, somehow, and he hadn't broken down the way he once might've, in a not so distant past he'd rather forget about altogether. None of it mattered. There was no yesterday nor tomorrow, only today; and now that he finally could look beyond that veil with such clarity, he could hardly believe it was something he'd struggled with.
Was it truly so easy to find such inner peace after five years of endless turmoil?
It didn't matter, because in this exact moment, he flew, weightless after he'd left every burden, every worry, every doubt behind on that roof. He had this. He had to have this the same way he'd always had, but he didn't feel like a waste of air over it anymore. It was all his choice, he'd carry out his role until the bitter end and finish what he'd started, and all he felt was the freedom of total emptiness.
They would die. Mindless pawns. Pale pawns. Innocent pawns. Players unwittingly conscripted in a cruel game much larger than them, but players nonetheless. He would give them a worthy opponent, he owed them that much. They'd understand in the same way that he understood them. They'd want it from him instead of being underestimated in their final moments. It was him or them, and no matter who came out on top, he'd make it worthwhile.
His flight led him up towards the sky in the final move before his checkmate, the direction he'd always wanted to fly, but there was no euphoria in this. It was nothing more than a great weight finally lifting, leaving nothing in its wake but a feather-light ascent, divine after years of constant pressure crushing him to the ground. There was poison yet to be found in this heartless new realisation, and he wished to keep it from skittering to the forefront of his mind. Whatever it covered up didn't matter. Now was when he decided the fate of everyone present. Now was when he ended their suffering once and for all. Now was when he acted.
All he had to do was focus. So long as he stayed on target, he could do this.
Nothing makes sense. Not anymore.
He was there. Right there, where he needed to be, where everyone needed him to be.
Where has he landed?
What happened?
It's an endless cycle. Push down one question he's too languid to answer, watch another spawn right in front of his eyes. Patch up his mind, make sure nothing else can escape, rinse, repeat.
He can't push it down forever. He can't stay tense like this until something happens, it's not what he set out to do, yet he can't let go. He refuses to let go, how utterly pathetic and worthless. Was it all a lie, then?
He finally does one thing right in his life and he can't commit. Fitting. Coward.
Wasn't he lied to as well? He'd been unburdened and free for an instant, but now, that pressure is returning, slowly but surely, like the rows of teeth that took him out are still clamped over him. There's none of that enlightening freedom to be found here. He's probably already broken his moment and is too dense to realise this isn't just a headache, he's literally being broken apart. That sounds like something he'd do. Like something he'd be.
Something shatters, hitting him between the eyes like a bat and piercing his skull with white-hot pain that disperses into his neck and spine. All muscles stiffen and he contorts at the sudden onslaught, limbs stretched out in an instant and breath caught too deep within his chest to let anything beyond a gagging wheeze slip out of his throat.
He rolls over and arches his back against the sand, instinctively pressing the palms of his hands so deep into his eyes that he risks rupturing them and clamping his fingers over his forehead in a futile attempt to soothe the pressure. He fails to subdue the whiny shout that follows and if he didn't know better, if he couldn't feel the solid bony structures intact under his fingertips, he'd think his skull just collapsed.
In his pained gasps, something wells up from his oesophagus and spills into his trachea with a potent burn. He hastily rolls back to his knees and hunches over to cough and retch in an attempt to keep that nausea that courses through his torso under control. It hurts. It's so fucking painful that he wishes he could bury his head into the cool sand and ignore it's all happening.
The bitter sickness dwindles eventually and one hand slides from his eye over to his mouth. The salty burn of his stomach acid lingers on his tongue, but eventually, it starts to wash out as well, and he's left panting and breathing to alleviate that waning headache.
In his moment of clarity, he notes that in the reflex of emptying his windpipe, he now lays folded over on his knees, eyes squeezed shut and damp, for once not because of numbing fear but because of his sickened gut.
He broke his moment.
It ravages him, sends him straight back to where he started, except this time, he has no one but himself to blame. He can't keep panicking like this. He can't keep falling into the same patterns every single time there's even a hint that he might be back, yet he can't help it. He can't stand by and watch while it happens to him again, yet he can't fight back either. Accept it. Let it happen. It's the only way.
So he waits. Again. Fully aware of what he's doing, unable to let go — and as he should've seen coming by now, nothing happens. He doesn't wake up and he isn't ripped out of his tranquil moment as a consequence of breaking it. He almost impatiently waits for something to happen, wanting that feeling that paralyses him to go away, but it never comes and he feels dizzy from squeezing his eyes shut so hard and exerting his body.
Something flashes through his head. Something he recognises, as out of place in this situation as it was in its original context. There was something in the battle prior to his defeat that allowed him to function with terrifying accuracy. A feeling of calm so soothing it almost numbed.
Wasn't it his resolution to take things into his own hands and actually do something?
What's the point of growth if he gives up so easily and goes back to letting things come to him when it gets difficult instead of dealing with them himself?
He can handle things. He knows he has the skills to do so, so why doubt himself again?
Maybe this is his call to finally wake up and confront his situation. Whether that means to immediately fight back as he opens his eyes to an opponent he can hardly beat, or to accept he's already done for, the least he can do is to move forward instead of waiting. If not successfully on the first try, then on the second, or the third, or however many times he has to fall and get up again until he sticks the landing. But eventually, he'll have to go.
He starts with his eyelids, relaxing them until they gently lay closed and the lightning dancing against black fully dies down. Then, he moves his focus to his hands, one clamped over his mouth and one wrapped around his body, relieving the tension in his wrists and fingers until they are no longer crushing him. With a deep breath and a sigh, he drops his shoulders, and finally, he lets his neck and back soften, body sinking further into the soft sand around him.
See. He's fine, isn't he?
A little tension returns to his neck, just enough to lift his forehead out of the sand and let his eyes slide open. Slime coats his pupils, but through the distorting layer, he can still observe not dilapidated roof tiles, but the dark outlines of his thighs and knees blurred into the sharp black outline of his shadow and grey sand tinged by a blue hue. Not the type of sight he could encounter anywhere in the city he lost in.
A first good sign.
The hand over his mouth briefly touches off, then makes contact again as it slides over his nose towards his forehead, fingertips carefully brushing over his face. He is met with smooth, damp skin. None of the characteristic marks after a transformation are etched into his body.
A second small victory.
Letting out a long-winded sigh, his pent-up nerves settle. The hand loosely wrapped around his shoulder joins the other over his eye. Experimentally, he moves them down either side of his face, fingertips prickling over his sensitive skin as they travel over his brows and down to his eyes until his fingers rest upon his cheekbones and his thumbs brush over his jaw, connecting over his chin. It doesn't hurt. His face is intact and solid, no indents or fractures to be found anywhere.
A third point in his favour.
That should be enough. He's ready, he decides.
Tilting his wrists so that his thumbs lift his jaw, he inclines his head upward until the scenery around him comes into sight. That irrational part of his mind gets doused in relief when there are no nightmarish sights to behold, no titan hand to grab him and drag him to his doom, no comrades staring at him in the face of his defeat. Above him stretches a peaceful night sky, white stars dotted against a black horizon, with beneath it endless plains of sand. It's the first time that he notices the gentle breeze that brushes over his back.
It's time to face the facts: what he experienced wasn't the future, it's the past. There's only one option left. He's actually dead.
The dread that gripped him so relentlessly not long ago has now diluted into nothing more than background noise that takes little effort to suppress, and each breath calms him more. Acceptance apparently isn't that gradual of a process, because he seems fine. He managed to ground himself.
That's right. He can do this. He's more than prepared enough to do this.
With his sleeve, he wipes away the leftover saliva that coats his lips, swallowing to avoid a relapse from the taste. He turns his head on its side and pulls it back just far enough to peek over his shoulder. Clear on the back too, but what lies behind him is something else. The only light source in this place burns against the black sky, high and mighty. Touching down against the sand stands a blinding white tree with a woven trunk that reaches high into the black sky before diverging into thousands of branches leading into every direction. Steam rolls off it in thick clouds that descend upon the cool desert before they disperse not far from the roots. He suspects it to be the source of that light breeze.
When he'd just woken up, it was hard to not catch glimpses amidst his panic, but it was too peculiar to register as real. Ethereal and otherworldly in any other situation. In his current one, however, it only makes him want to shield his eyes to avoid triggering another killer headache.
(He's probably never allowed to use that term again.)
The pain from the light is starting to annoy him, so he turns his head back to the shadows, taking in the desert around him. Where exactly is he? He knows this place. It's vague at first, but the longer he spends thinking about it, the more familiar it becomes, like he's a regular here. He knows for a fact he's been here before, but he can't construct a clear picture of what that means, how he could've possibly been in a place this otherworldly, this much like the planes his dreams construct for him yet so much more simultaneously abstract and crystal clear.
Maybe he truly dreamt about this place before and he accidentally guessed correctly what he would see after his final moments. Maybe this is that light at the end of the tunnel and he's not quite gone yet. Oddly enough, he's facing it with his back rather than his front; does that mean something's gone wrong?
(Don't think about what it means.)
This feeling of familiarity transcends just the known, like it is something that has always been a part of him and something he's in turn always been a part of.
Like that requited nostalgia that connecting with the Colossal Titan evokes deep within him.
For the first time since he died, he feels safe.
He drops his hands in the sand next to his legs and presses on his arms until his body is no longer folded double and instead seating himself on his knees. His elbows are wobbly from the pain that still grips his head, but it's lessened enough that he no longer feels the need to groan it away.
He lets his shoulders slouch, arms sinking deeper into the sand. So he really bit the dust, and thinking it out loud has a mean bite to it, but he can't hide from it forever, even if he wants to. He's done with passivity. Death isn't exactly where he hoped to start living life differently, but if it's all he's been given, then that's what it is.
Death… How weird to think of dying after he actually died.
He is dead.
This is death.
His life is over and he can't go back.
(Can he?)
He'd been okay with dying. He'd been long before the battle even started. Didn't he feel so confident that whichever outcome this battle had, he was ready to accept it? So why does he feel like his stomach knots up all over again just thinking about it when he just felt so ready to face any outcome?
Is it because he considered only two outcomes?
Is that the most important question he should be asking himself right now?
Are the different, much better outcomes really what he wants to think about now that he's gotten the worst version of it?
Or ever?
There's too much to think about, too much to consider, and yet all he can focus on is how damn empty he feels. For a moment he just sits, breathes, and lets that feeling settle. It's better than dread. It's better than being at the mercy of his instincts when he's had more than enough training to do and be better.
It's not like they've done anything to prepare him for what to do after he's already died. It's not like they taught him how to die a dignified death.
He tilts his head back, looking at the void straight above him. An entirely different unpleasant feeling floods his veins, vigorously clamping over his chest and draining all his blood into his neck and face. Thinking back on the way he died screaming and how it took him hours to finally find his peace, he can only shrink until he's a tiny ball in the sand.
How far he's fallen. Hours ago, he finally shed the doubts that chained him, conquering his fears once and for all and becoming the terrifying war machine Marley needed him to be after years of being practically useless. How fast he turned right back into the wreck he used to be, begging for his enemies' mercy when it was his turn to die the death he condemned thousands to suffer. Now he can't even think about what went down without feeling a deep shame underlined by terror.
He should be thinking about it. About what happened to his comrades in the 104th and to Armin, about Eren, about Zeke and Pieck, about Annie, about Reiner.
Reiner…
…
…
Where is Reiner?
He smells as raw as he looks.
Steam rises from an open skull in front of him, brain matter mixed with blood coating a myriad of teeth and a loose tongue as it slowly knits together into something that could vaguely be approximated to be a human head.
He didn't get the opportunity to see how well he recovered, but he was alive and walking around protected by his titan's body when Bertholdt last saw him.
The same was true about Bertholdt. Look where that leaves him.
He's dead. He's definitely dead. There's no other option, they would never spare him after seeing what he could survive.
This dread is worse. His own was dry ash and iron. The sudden worry over Reiner is violent and tastes of gasoline, roiling through his chest in demand to combust. Is there even the slightest chance that he's still alive? Or has the only choice Bertholdt ever made through his own willpower all been for nothing?
Are all his loved ones doomed to die because of him?
He doesn't know what to do.
That will not do. He needs to do something. Now, or the tension will kill him again.
When did he decide that death absolves him and wipes his slate clean? He's still Marleyan property, still holds one of the world's greatest weapons, still is bound to them even if there is nothing that they can do to help him here. As counterintuitive as it feels to swallow back his sorrows, he can worry about Reiner and the rest after he's done everything he can to turn the tide in this war.
If everyone else has been defeated too… If his body is still in their vicinity and by some miracle, there is a remnant of latent power hidden within it, he has to do everything he can to come back from this defeat. If there is anything he can do to take the Coordinate out of Eren's hands, he has to try it. Even if the battle has left no survivors on either side, the world will win if the Founder gets ripped out of Paradis' hands.
He retracts his right hand from his leg, eyeing his spread-out palm — the sand doesn't stick to his skin despite how much he's been sweating. He jams it between his jaws, one single goal clear in his mind: blow it all away, it doesn't matter anymore if he kills the Coordinate because the farther away it is from Eren, the better. Saving the world be damned, it is too dangerous in his possession.
His teeth sink into his skin, flesh crunching beneath them as he pierces through various layers of tissue. Briefly, he feels a rush through his spine and ecstasy blankets his mind. But as soon as it comes, it goes again, and he only then recognises it as an adrenaline rush too mild to mark a transformation.
For the first time in his life, he has failed to transform on command, and he doesn't know what to do.
His uneasy sigh feels damp against his hand. Again, he bites down, harder this time, and he doesn't stop loosening and locking his jaws and pulling and tearing skin over and over with increasing desperation until dark purple bruises dot the wounds that adorn the base of his thumb and his lips are stained with blood. Broken skin is already sizzling as it knits together again when he finally stops and stares at the wounds with unfocused eyes, out of breath.
The power of the Colossal Titan doesn't belong to him anymore.
What an outlandish concept. How could it not? Something that has become such a large part of him that he almost became a part of it is now no longer his? (Didn't they have something?)
Someone else is now burdened with this curse. Someone innocent who certainly doesn't deserve such a heinous beast perched upon their shoulders against their will.
Damn them for luring a titan to the city and apparently coming prepared. Damn them for acquiring the knowledge that they can pass on a titan through consumption, they were far too calculated in letting him get eaten instead of slitting his throat not to be aware that's how titans get passed on. It'll only take convincing of the person they fed him to to have the Colossal Titan in their arsenal…
And just like his entire life, his death, too, is ruled by the inability to change anything about the fate he was given. What a cruel world to live in where he doesn't even get a drop of control after he died.
Then again, why would he be so special to get to control his body one more time after he has died?
Slowly, he drops his steaming hand into the sand, not bothering to wipe the blood off his lips. The pressure aches against his bruises and the sand burns in the strips of skin he tore loose, but he can't get himself to care.
What else can he do? What else is he to Marley, if not the Colossal Titan? Is there anything he can do from here if he has no access to the other side?
Regroup and plan? Are his allies here with him, or are they elsewhere? He's done everything he can, but what he needs now is leadership. Four minds are better than one.
"Hey," he calls out, much softer than he expected yet startling to hear nonetheless. He doesn't get a response, so he straightens his back and tilts his head back for larger reach.
"Hey! Can anyone hear me?" he tries again, louder this time. The echo bounces far off into the dunes before fading out of existence.
"… Reiner?"
No answer. He wipes the blood off his lips with his thumb.
"Zeke? Pieck…?"
If he wants to sound like a lost child at the market calling out for his mother instead of a soldier trying to find his comrades, he's succeeding.
He opens his mouth to try again, but something stops him. It feels so… futile. His efforts don't matter here. The terror masked it, but now that that is on its way out, he can feel it with more clarity. This place may be massive, but there is this intrinsic awareness that he is all alone, not a living soul he could realistically call out to and reach in this barren sandbox.
And yet the open skies above him do nothing to make him feel unshackled; the longer he's here, the more he feels boxed into a tight space he can't get out of despite his ability to move his limbs around him freely and unrestricted. It feels oppressive. Like home.
There's only been one other time he's felt this sense of abandonment before. The three days between when he inherited the Colossal Titan and his first transformation, where he felt desolate beyond belief but didn't remember the unity he'd had with its presence to recognise what it was he'd been separated from.
Well, now he knows. Now he knows that he has yet again been ripped away from that source of comfort, and likely for much longer than until the next transformation. It makes him want to scream out worse than all the pain and horror of the past few hours combined. He doesn't want to be alone again. He doesn't want to be abandoned for so long when three days had been enough to unravel him the first time around. He doesn't want to repeat those five years where he couldn't reconnect with his titan powers, to feel so inanimate despite carrying the strongest weapon of them all. He doesn't want it.
But what choice does he have?
What else is there to try? He knows so little about where he is and what his abilities are, how is he supposed to figure out his options? Nothing he does, nothing he says or thinks can bring him back, and his connection to the living seems severed for good.
He doesn't know what to do.
He can't stop himself from folding over again, chest pressed flat against his knees, his hands leaving the sand and snaking over his sides until they cup his face again.
He doesn't know what to do.
He doesn't know what to do.
He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know what to do.
The mantra repeats itself through his mind, threatening to whip him into a new frenzy altogether. It's funny, really, in that same morbid way that finding out they've for three years been eating dinner next to the weapon they've wasted so many years trying to smoke out was hilarious. All this time he sat back and did nothing, and now that he's finally ready to take a hold of his fate and steer it towards change, he's thrown into a wasteland where nothing he thinks or does seems to matter in the slightest.
In a way, he's finally been given what he wanted all along, hasn't he? He doesn't need to think about any wars anymore. He doesn't need to infiltrate, he doesn't need to betray, he doesn't need to kill. He can exist without impact. Is this not the freedom he desired? Isn't that exactly the fate he wanted?
What a freak fate is. What a monster.
Alive, he accepted he'd be subjugated for the rest of his existence and he'd given up hope to ever end up in a situation where he's finally free. He operated best being told what to do. It was better for Marley, it was better for the world, it was better for himself that he was controlled.
This arrangement worked. It didn't need to be changed, yet here he is in a situation he's fantasised about that he's wholly unprepared to deal with.
Why does freedom have to feel so constricting?
He's just been lying to himself. Nothing has changed, he hasn't learned a thing or gotten past his biggest flaw for longer than a couple of minutes during which he felt too confident, yet he was so arrogant to think he had the strength to rise above his indecisiveness and become a reliable weapon to his home country. Useless warrior, useless Colossal, useless comrade.
Now it has cost him his life, his allies, his victory, and his country.
What do they want from him? Why is he here?
Is he going to be suspended here forever?
…
…
…
No.
No, that isn't fair in the slightest.
He's finally been given this freedom, and he's going to waste it feeling sorry for himself? He's going to wait it out and live his death the exact same way he's lived his life? What has changed if those are his choices? And he's just going to let some cruel fate decide for him the way it always has?
He pushes himself upright again. If at first he doesn't succeed, he just needs to give it another try until all his options are exhausted. He didn't decide the first time around, but he's deciding now, that's his decision. He has far from exhausted every single one of his options. There's more. There's so much more. There's got to be more.
His hands blindly shoot to his hips, but to his dismay, neither of his blade boxes are still attached to the belts wrapped around his thighs. The rest of his maneuver gear's straps are still there, tightly hugging his body. Where has his equipment gone? His sleeves and pant legs are intact and he's got shoes on, so his body's clearly been restored to a point before he got dismembered, and he's sure that he didn't lose his blade boxes when he transformed. Why would they be missing?
As if he'll find them that way, he lifts one of the straps over his thigh before eyeing the black textile of his pants underneath it in bewilderment, then lets it snap back into place. His eyes wander around the hill he sits on in case he kicked them off in his flight, but there isn't a sign of them anywhere closeby. Patting down the rest of his gear with both hands, only the straps are still in place, every other part of metal gone. No gas canisters, no handles, no burst device, none of the mechanisms that make the maneuver gear functional. The blunt pieces of metal attached to his straps are still several levels of desperation removed from the lengths he's willing to go to.
He lets out a shuddering breath and his hands return to his thigh straps, fingers nervously fidgeting with the leather. His pulse is racing through his arteries from the small moment of renewed hope.
So the thought of a way out still entices him, after all.
…
…
…
What else is there to do?
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
That's a really good question.
…
One he yet again decides he doesn't want to think about right now.
In one swift motion, he manages to push himself upright until he stands, wobbly and with his vision blacking out, his back resolutely turned on that vibrant tree. It so desperately begs for his attention but he doesn't want to see it, refuses to think about it. The constant chiming is starting to get on his nerves and its light only fans the remnants of the migraine still floating against the back of his skull.
He doesn't want to be here.
He balls his fist. He really doesn't want to be here.
His foot precedes his thoughts, taking the first step away from the light for him. The other joins in as he makes a second step, then a third, then a fourth, until he's walking, then jogging, and finally sprinting towards the shadows.
Why stay? Anywhere is better than here. Anywhere gives him more clarity. Maybe he will feel better once he's reached new scenery. Maybe once the day breaks, dawn will shine a new light on his situation and reveal to him what he needs to do. All he needs is to see things from a different angle.
There's no point ruminating on it anyway. Something tells him he'll have a lot of time for the answers to find him when their time comes around.
Not now, though. Now, he seeks refuge in the shadows.