Chapter One: Lifesaver

God.

My head feels like it's splitting apart. What a strange dream. . .

I'm surprised I can even come up with something so creative. Flying through trees, wielding swords, taking down large frightening creatures. I wonder if I saw it somewhere before?

Unfortunately I have no time to lie and ponder where the fuck that dream came from. By the looks of the morning sun coming up into my room through the window I'd say I only have thirty minutes to get to a class that is twenty minutes away by foot.

Pros and cons of not going to class today?

Pros: Get to go back to sleep.

Cons: Miss another chemistry class and get points taken off my grade, a single worried text from Armin, a bombardment of texts from Mikasa.

Damnit.

I pull myself up into a sitting position and rest my face in my hands. The shitty feel of how today is probably going to go makes me just want to curl up and never face the world again.

It never used to be like this. I never used to be like this. I don't know, something just changed after graduating high school. I'm changing, I guess, and I don't really like it. Not sure how to stop it.

This is hard, things are just so hard now. But it shouldn't be, I feel like shit for feeling like shit cause I don't really have a reason to. So why do I have to tell myself to keep fighting just to live when all I'm 'fighting' is to get through a school day?

Pathetic.

The motions I make through my dorm room require no thought at all - t-shirt, jeans, socks, shoes, jacket. And as I walk into the bathroom across the hallway and flip on the light I follow it through. Brushing my teeth, splashing cold water on my face, managing to pull my hair back into something someone may call a bun.

Everything I do every Tuesday and Thursday morning when I have this seven a.m. class. I knew it was a bad idea when I added it to my schedule but I need this class for my degree.

My reflection stares back at me as I study the bruises under my eyes. I guess I've been restless for a while now.

The cold morning air bites at my skin as I walk from my dorm to my first class. The walk is only twenty minutes but it feels like eternity - dragging one foot in front of the other to take myself to something I'm not entirely sure I want to do.

It wasn't like I was forced to do this. . . but sometimes it honestly feels that way. My father is a doctor, why shouldn't I be? It makes him proud, makes me less of a disappointment, a win win right?

Right?

I sigh once I sit down at one of the empty tables in the back. My eyelids are heavy, everything is too bright.

"Geez, rough night?" Armin asks while sitting down in the seat next to me, fishing his notebook from his bag.

"You could say that."

"Maybe I should show up to this class with coffee, there is no way chemistry is getting through to you when you are that tired."

I groan in response, putting my forehead down on the table. I'm sure he's giving me an awfully pitiful look at the moment. He's been my best friend since grade school and can read me too well sometimes. He knows something's up with me.

But how can I tell him what it is when even I don't quite know what's wrong?

I jolt up from the table when someone slams their bookbag down on it. My face contorts into a scowl as I look over Jean's laughing form.

"Oh sorry, didn't mean to disturb your sleep, Princess."

"Fuck off, Jean. I'm too tired to deal with you today."

Jean sits down next to Armin, regarding me with a suspicious look.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"He's been having trouble sleeping." Armin offers.

"I'm telling you man," Jean begins, "melatonin gummies. They are a lifesaver."

I open my mouth to spit something back at him before taking a pause. That actually might be useful.

"Yeah, okay, that might actually be helpful."

Before he can respond to me the professor stands up from her desk to begin the lecture. Today is going to be a long journey.

00000

"Eren. . . Eren?"

I open my eyes and see Mikasa looking down at me, worried expression on her face.

"Mikasa?"

"I think you should see a doctor. You practically passed out on me. We are supposed to be studying, remember?"

I sit up from her lap and look at the homework sprawled across the little dining table she bought for my dorm. Armin and Jean sit across from us, both giving me a look.

"Well, it is almost nine, we could probably call it a night here." Armin breaks the silence. Jean nods while Mikasa yawns.

Yeah. We should probably stop.

"Do you want me to come over tomorrow morning so we can finish this?" Mikasa asks.

"Sure. It needs to get done eventually I guess."

She nods, reaching for her homework on the table and packing it away in her binder. The others do the same but I don't bother - no need to put it away if I'm just going to bring it back out tomorrow morning.

Before leaving, Jean hands me a small bottle of gummies without a word. I guess it's random acts of kindness like that that convinces me we are friends. Either way I'm incredibly grateful. Perhaps I will get some actual sleep tonight.

Alone in my dorm again, I strip down to my boxers and plop on my bed. Before turning the light out I glance over the instructions on the bottle then open it and take a gummy. Tastes like a fruit snack, honestly. I'm not sure how that little thing is going to put me to sleep, but I'm running out of options.

For a while I stare up at the ceiling, hands behind my head and ankles crossed.

But surely enough, somewhere around midnight, my eyelids begin to feel heavy and I close them for the last time that night.

The adrenaline rushing through my veins makes my heart feel like it's going to explode. I'm only half aware of what I'm dreaming about, half aware that I'm asleep in my dorm room.

God, I'm nervous, more nervous than I've ever been in my life. Like I'm kneeling in front of a judge and jury that look at me like I'm the most horrendous creature they have ever seen. They're yelling back and forth, back and forth, like my life is nothing. Like everything I've ever experienced and done culminated into nothing more than their superficial opinions of me.

Hope comes in the form of Mikasa and Armin. I think they're there. They would be the only ones in the entire room that would look at me with any sort of favor or kindness. But they acoust her, and he stays silent.

When I was younger I had a habit of just going with whatever I was thinking at that moment, regardless of the consequences. I feel that same fire I used to feel, so much passion that used to lead me around life. It feels misplaced in that moment, in front of all those people, but it causes their yelling to fall silent.

Maybe they consider whatever I yelled, maybe they don't. But the pain to my face almost immediately afterward is incredibly sobering. All of a sudden the fact that I'm laying in my dorm room falls away from me completely and it's just me fully aware of this courtroom and my kneeling position and the blood running down my face.

But it doesn't stop there.

I don't think I've ever been beaten so badly in my life - and I can't even do anything about it. The pain feels real, so real, and the blood filling my mouth makes it impossible for me to even protest what's happening.

I think about my mom, I think about Mikasa; I suppose they are the ones that come to my mind when I feel a lot of pain like this. They usually protect me from feeling this - God, when will this end?

I'm going to die?

It stops for a moment and I can open my eyes, see the courtroom through my tears from the position I'm forced to take against the floor. Someone is speaking in a deep, soothing voice and I close my eyes again.

I'm immensely relieved, melting against the leg that was the cause of all this. But it goes my way in the end I suppose.

Everything still feels a bit fuzzy around the edges, like I'm observing this through my eyes rather than actually experiencing it and choosing my actions and words. People are around me, a woman kneels before me with a cloth. She's helping me clean up I think, speaking excitedly.

I'm excited, even. The pain is fading rapidly.

The nerves return though when someone sits on my side and leans back nonchalantly. I actually get to look at his face this time as he asks me,

"Do you resent me, now?"

And as the dorm room comes back to the forefront of my mind I think - of course not, how could I ever hate a face like that?

I startle awake, sitting up and bumping into the wall my bed is pushed against. My eyes dart back and forth as I determine that I am indeed back in my dorm room.

What the fuck did Jean give me?