CHAPTER 10: RUSTED
Historia Riess
The night did not belong to Queen Historia Riess.
Her new kingdom claimed the land, and to an extent, everything sun fell on. Underground was something different, like another world in which she visited. She retained some measure of dignity, but lacked any real authority.
While traveling with the Survey Corps, Historia had flown at the very forefront of humanity, like a leaf in the wind. That freedom, and the might of the soldiers, seemed to carry such force with it, as though they could change the world.
She sat now, with an unconscious Captain and only her thoughts to keep her company. A faint breath of light shone in through cracks in a boarded up window, and the eternal night extended in all directions around it. Unending darkness, lit by a few puffs of light. Consuming everything with a vengeance, including the two stowaways.
Captain Levi was laying on the ground a meter or so from her. His cloak was a thin sheet against the chills racking his body so Historia had covered him in her own cloak, opting to feel the cold press of the wall against her instead. She didn't dare touch the rags strewn about the place to try and warm herself.
How could anyone live here? She wondered. Barely two weeks underground and she was ready to never see it again. Between the last few hours running for her life and the days before sludging past without a single smiling face, she could feel the weight of her pains and aches pinning her to the ground. But, another glance at Levi reminded her that some people weren't lucky enough to leave.
Imagining a lifetime spent in the never ending darkness and filth made her shiver and wrap her arms tighter around herself.
We're going to leave. We're going to leave. We have to leave. We have to.
Silent tears slipped down her face.
No, she did not control this night. She would never control it.
The night pulsed through the aged building they hid in and then back out, spreading like a rat infestation through the streets. It swirled around her, beating against her thoughts, reminding her that hundreds of hearts were beating outside. Thousands of stomaches also ached with hunger in the city.
How could she have been so foolish? To think she could change something so big?
"The sun...it's so...beautiful…" A soft voice mumbled.
Historia shook herself out of her grief and pushed her icy limbs across the floor to the delirious Captain.
"Hey," She breathed, "Are you awake this time?"
"Don't you see it?" He pointed, arm rising limply before dropping back to his side. "It's so warm...and the colors…"
Through the dimness, Historia saw his eyelashes flutter. She pinched her lips together, resting her wrist on his forehead.
His skin felt like the outside of a pot left on the coals overnight. A furious but constant flow of heat ebbed through him, and he flinched away from her.
"...cold…"
She watched him pull away from her, clutching the cloaks against him, feeling totally helpless. What had she ever done to deserve this?
"Try to go back to sleep Captain." She sighed. "You need to rest."
The boards creaked under him as he curled in on himself. Eventually, his heavy breaths slowed into soft whispers.
And she was left once again with nothing but her thoughts.
A selfish part of her was tempted to wake Levi up. He wasn't normally good for conversation, even less so now, but then at least she wouldn't be alone.
She shivered against the cold, drawing her legs close around her.
Hours passed as the night pressed on around them. They were the only ones in this building, Levi's earlier stunt ensuring that. Historia had lugged him up a set of stairs and scouted out a room with a window. Being able to see any incoming threats should have put her mind at rest, but the odd noises in the walls and on the street outside triggered her senses-too many voices to relax, too treacherous to let her guard down for even a moment. The sounds were sometimes rodents in the walls, sometimes thumping from the floor below. Historia stifled gasps when the voices came to close.
If she had to guess, and she didn't want to, she suspected there was a clump of thugs waiting somewhere outside. Waiting for the right moment to attack.
The air was stale and stank of alcohol and feces. Though her eyes had adjusted to the intense darkness, she still had a hard time seeing more than the faint glints of light across the surfaces around them, the bits of trash strewn on the floor, the broken bed frame, and Levi's too pale face.
He would occasionally mutter some other gibberish in his sleep. Things like 'don't go' and 'I'm sorry' was all she could make out. Every moan of pain he let out made her heart clench like a fist was squeezing it.
THIS IS YOUR FAULT.
The words screamed in her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that came after.
An imaginary form slumped down against the wall next to her. Ymir. Again.
This is wrong. You're a good girl Krista...Just because you want other people to think of you as someone who'd literally die for another...dragging someone else to his death just for that? Only a bad girl would do that, right?
Historia wanted to throttle her friend's voice as it echoed like a taunt in her head. Fine, she'd made mistakes! But now? Now she was actually trying to be genuinely good, to be the girl Ymir wanted her to be, and look at where it was getting her?
"I'm trying to be good." She muttered to herself.
The imaginary Ymir shrugged.
You should probably try harder or he's going to die.
The image of her friend vanished, and Historia sighed again.
She thought of her dream, one she'd had all her life. For people to see her as kind, good, and purposeful. Of sitting down with comrades and mattering. Of not being clumsy little Historia. Stupid, in the way, and a waste of space.
When offered the chance to erase that girl, to say goodbye to 'we wish you'd never been born' Historia Riess and say hello to Krista Lenz, it had been a dream come true. Only later did she see how living a lie was the furthest thing from being the person she wanted to be.
Well now she was stupid-grown-up Historia Riess, Queen of the walls and probably about to die. What she wouldn't give to be Krista right now.
If only she'd planned this operation better. If only they'd prevented Patrik's bar from burning. If only she had done a million other things better.
Face it. You're hopeless and now you're going to die in the dark.
Levi groaned and muttered something she couldn't make out.
She choked out a silent sob, resting her face in her dirty hands.
The night consumed her.
Historia jerked awake at the racket thundering from below.
How long had she been asleep? Were they being attacked?
She held her breath, listening to the sounds outside the door so carefully she could hear her heart slamming against her chest.
One…
Two…
Three…
Four…
What if they were right outside?
Five…
Six…
She only had a small knife to defend them. Her mind flashed to where she kept it, tucked into her belt.
Seven…
Eight…
The knife made no sound as she drew it from the sheath.
Nine…
Ten…
Eleven…
The floorboards outside creaked. God, they were standing right there!
Her hands shook as she rose to her feet, still not daring to breathe.
And then…
The creak sounded again, along with the sound of retreating footsteps.
Whoever was outside the door walked away.
Historia didn't let her breath out until she heard the distant clomping of heavy footfalls down the steps.
Across the room, Levi suddenly stirred and tried to sit up. "Wha—where—ughhh."
She rushed to his side, incredibly grateful he was awake. "Hey hey hey, relax! It's okay!"
He looked up at her through eyes glazed with pain. "Where are we?"
"I'm not sure…"
Levi pushed himself up on one hand, the other clutching his stomach. His head swiveled around the dark space. If possible, it grew even whiter than it had been before.
He began to struggle to his feet.
"We need to get out of here!" He gasped.
"What do you mean?" She hissed, helping him up. "You brought us here. You said it was safe!"
*CRASH*
Sounds exploded from the floor below them. Whether accidental or purposeful, Historia didn't know. Regardless, her stomach plummeted.
Levi's eyes turned to her, almost child-like fear painted through them.
Her heart stopped beating.
"GO!" He hissed.
Somehow, Historia found the strength to move her feet and pull Levi after her. They left their shadowy refuge behind and exited back into the hallway.
To her horror, the same footsteps from before pounded up the stairs like the drumbeats of war.
"We shouldn't have come here…" Levi whispered like a chant. "...shouldn't have come back…"
But Historia was too far gone to listen. She gasped breath after breath as she pulled Levi further down the hallway and away from the stairs.
They could find another window and escape through there. She thought she had seen another from outside.
She kicked a door in at the end of the hall, wild tears falling from her eyes at the dozens of rats that scampered away from her. She leaned Levi against the wall, quietly closing the door behind them.
That would buy them precious seconds.
Now…
She didn't allow herself a breath of relief at the window to this room not being boarded up. Quickly examining it, she found that it was all together broken with only scraps of shattered glass around the frame.
"Captain," She hurried back to him. "Listen to me."
His head lolled, eyes unfocused as he muttered incoherently.
"Levi!" She grabbed his hand.
He flinched at the contact, eyes snapping up.
"Listen, you have to listen. Those men are here to kill us—"
*SLAM*
The distant slam of a door in the hallway pounded in her ears. Men laughed, a harsh raking sound that left her trembling.
"We have to jump out the window."
A small spark of...something flared through Levi's dead eyes, but he seemed to understand the danger. He nodded slowly.
"Come on! We'll go together."
The mud on the street glistened in what little light shone from doorways. A few hovels lay low to the ground, people hiding out of sight within.
Where will you go? A small voice asked, but she shut it out.
The men barked in the hallway. Getting close.
Historia threw a leg up over the window sill, then the other. She helped Levi do the same.
"Ready?" She breathed to him.
He nodded blearily.
Don'tlookdowndon'tlookdowndon'tlookdown…
The door to their room flung open with a crash.
"THERE THEY ARE!"
"GO!" She cried and pushed herself off the ledge, pulling Levi with.
For a literal second, the air rushed past her face as they plummeted, but then—
*THUD*
Her knees buckled under her as she crumpled into the air was ripped from her lungs by an unseen force, and she gasped, blackness crowding in against the already dark street.
"What the hell?" An outraged voice cried from above.
Adrenaline shot through her, and she groaned, rolling to her feet.
"Come on!" She gasped, grabbing at Levi who was also breathing heavily on the ground.
The two took off running further and further away from the horrible place they had spent the night.
Those men might not have had the Military Police emblem on their backs, but that didn't mean she wanted to be anywhere near them.
And so they ran, past low hovels made from mud and clay. Past beady eyes peering out of every shadow. Past flickering candles and packs of stray cats. Past the stink from the river which looked like a writhing mass of black bile.
And at steep incline upwards towards the dim twinkle of the underground, they left the Island behind.
AN:
Hey all! Not much to say this week, but chapters are coming along well! We're about wrapping up with what I call "Part 1" of this story and launching in head first into "Part 2!" It's going to keep being exciting so stay tuned!
~Gamma