Disclaimer: All characters used belong to their owners and creators, namely Hajime Isayama and his respective publishers.
Spoiler Warning: This is an adaptation of Chapter 125-126 of the Manga. Read at your own risk if you haven't caught up to this point.
Synopsis: The Rumbling has begun, and with it, the beginning of the end for the world beyond Paradis. Annie Leonhart, freed from her self-made prison, now embarks on her journey to her father, but will have to face the reality which she had helped set in motion in the island of the devils, and with the aid of a familiar face, one who's not entirely happy to see her again.
A/N: As I've mentioned above, this is more or less an adaptation of a single chapter in the manga (Chapter 125). While I enjoyed reading this chapter, I felt that it needed a bit more depth than was allowed by the medium. I don't mean to be presumptuous in this regard, but I felt I needed more from this particular chapter. I wanted to explore Annie's motivations a bit more, and how people like Hitch would probably react to seeing her free once more.
Finally, I gave Hitch the rank of corporal, which was not specified in the manga, or if it was, I might have missed it.
She fell with a dull thud, amid the sound of breaking crystals. The protective fluid that had preserved her life for some four years now spilled across the cold stone floor of what had been her prison chamber. Gasping for air, her lungs felt as if they were being crushed, her throat burning from the sensation of cold air rushing through her. Annie Leonhart was free.
Coughing as she struggled to move, her muscles numb from four years of inertia, Annie had only one thing on her mind; to run.
But to do so was unimaginable at this point. To move her fingers seemed to take a herculean effort. She paused for a moment as she tried to get her bearings, her sight blurring and sharpening in the dimness of the torchlight which stung her eyes. After several minutes, her breathing steadied, and a tickling sensation shot through her body as her muscles began to awaken slowly. She looked at her legs, feeling them tremble at the simple act of moving her toe, an act she could not see through her boots, and equally, uncertain if she was even managing to do, before letting herself fall once more on her back.
Memories came crashing down on her as she took a sharp breath; memories of her battle with the Founder in the middle of the city. She could remember the trees that surrounded her as she ran to catch him, surrounded by the Scout Regiment, whom with ease she disposed of violently, save for two. She remembered Captain Levi and Mikasa swooping down on her, and the fear she felt when they cut her down so fast, she couldn't even forcefully heal herself and hit back. She remembered the moment in which she realized her failure and the desperation that gripped her when she tried to climb the wall to escape capture.
For a moment she had thought to simply give up. Upon the cold floor, the holder of the Female Titan could barely lift a finger to help herself. What possible use could this crippled hump of flesh even have? What possible good could even be waiting for her outside? If by some miracle she managed to crawl out of the chamber, she would have to reckon with people now clearly aware of what she is and what she had once been, or still is, capable of. Four years was by no means a long enough stretch of time for the memory of her deeds to go forgotten, and certainly not forgiven. And beyond these four walls are legions of men and women who would give anything in the world to take a pound of her flesh.
But in the deeper recesses of her mind came the image of a man. The only man whom she had felt any affection for. The man who had taken responsibility for her when no one else wanted or needed to. The man who had shaped her into a weapon of such lethality, that any ounce of doubt as to her survival seemed to vanish into thin air. The man who made her what she was: Her father.
The man had caused her pain. Pain which, even in her own cynical mind, she could not fathom any parent could inflict on their child. And yet, she understood fully why it happened to her. And in the last moment when the hour of glory had come, when she was to receive the honor of becoming a Warrior for Marley and was to be dispatched on a dangerous mission into Paradis, he had suddenly prostrated himself to her, begging her to forgive him, and reminding her that despite whatever else had come between them, despite the agony of his abuse, and despite the distance that will now come between them, he had always loved her. Never in her life had she needed to earn that love. And not a thing in the world could tear that away from her.
And now she wanted him back.
The clacking of several boots running against the stone floor from somewhere suddenly startled her. She struggled to look around before she spotted the staircase that led to a heavy wooden door. Shouts echoed through the halls and corridors outside, as if in a panic. With great effort, she heaved herself across the floor, every inch taking every ounce of her strength to move. Whatever the hell is happening outside doesn't really matter. She needed to get out. She needed to find her father.
Corporal Hitch Dreyse hurried along the corridors of the Gendarmerie's Headquarters, looking for every hand on deck she could find. Outside the building, angry crowds have formed, and a general air of desperation seemed to grip the whole city. Countless dead littered the streets when the walls collapsed to reveal within them an army of Colossal Titans in a blind forward march to cross the sea. "Jaegerists" were now calling for a revolution and a general mobilization of the armed forces to support Eren Jaeger's aim to destroy their enemies outside the walls, while many question whether Eren himself is the enemy. A riot was bound to ensue. With a sizeable majority of the Gendarmerie sent all across Paradis to stem the crisis, security within the city was hanging by a thread
"Get everyone geared up!" she ordered her men. "Riot gears' downstairs, get everyone geared up, and prepare for the worst."
"You," she shouted at a private. "Take ten men with you and flank them around the right. And you! Get another ten men and separate everyone in the middle!"
"Jawhol!" the soldiers cried in unison.
As she stormed along the corridor, annoyance splayed across her face, she had suddenly thought about that one time she had teased Marlo about coming up the ladder. It was a memory that seemed to come out of nowhere, inopportune considering the situation. Yet the memory lingered, which she found little strength of will to resist its intrusion. She wondered how high up the ladder he would be now, while she, a corporal teased him for all he was worth.
He had always been such a stuck-up bastard, going on and on about "duty" and "honor" and "defending humanity." He was always getting himself into trouble for all the wrong reasons; reasons that would otherwise have recommended him to the top brass in no time, and set him up for a life full of great promises in an ideal world. But this was never an ideal world. It had been nothing but cruel and unrelenting. Every man, whatever higher calling they claim to be fulfilling, always looked out for himself in the end. The world beyond the walls had, for as long as she had lived, promised only death. The weak die, and the strong struggle to live. But Marlo was one of those fools that thought they could still change the world if only they could show their strength and devotion to duty, and their willingness to sacrifice on behalf of the weak. It annoyed her to hell. And it was the very reason why she had always liked him, perhaps even grew to love him. She would never really know. Fate had never been one to be so charitable. His goofy hair; his tall, lanky body; his hawk-like nose and eyes that seemed to penetrate through to distances she could hardly fathom; his long-winded speeches about "duty" and "right and wrong" and the strength with which he lived by those beliefs, all seemed to make him larger than life could ever show. She had always tried to knock him down a peg, perhaps with a bit of malice, but never without a touch of affection, and he would always rise above her. She had realized early on that he was the real deal, and that excited her. She would drop him cues about her feelings, but he would brush them off as silly, which annoyed her. She could hardly blame him, given how much she made it seem like she was just taking the piss. But over time she had taken pains to be as obvious as she could be without looking like it. That didn't pay off. She had thought that maybe he didn't like her back, but after a while, it was clear that he was simply clueless and that beneath his stolidity hid a vulnerable and caring creature, which annoyed and excited her at the same time. When he declared that he was joining the Scouts, she was livid. She called him an idiot and told him that he was going to die for nothing. But she wasn't angry that he chose that path. She had a feeling that he would eventually find his way to the Scouts, with or without her. Rather, she was afraid that time was running out for the both of them, and neither he nor she had made clear how they truly felt about each other. He was an idealist who had struck through to a cynic and made her care for once. "I'm sure," Floch had said to her after Marlo's death, "that he regretted being there, and would have instead preferred to have been with you." That was four years ago now.
Hitch quickly wiped a tear threatening to fall as she stormed further down the corridors. Outside the windows she watched the troops form up and push their way through to disperse the crowd. But as she began to walk away, she noticed a wet patch on her coat. Confused, she looked around where she could have gotten herself soaked, and on the windowsill was a trail of clear liquid running down to the floor. Looking around, she saw the trail leading down from the basement and followed it on to the library.
"What the–?" she muttered to herself as she followed the trail. A pang of anxiety and panic struck her, and her chest tightened immediately. There was only one thing in that tightly locked basement, and if that door was open…
Looking around, she tried to walk calmly towards the library. As she opened the door, nothing seemed amiss. The room was dark and freshly abandoned, paper strewn across the desks and floor, and hastily left cups of coffee and tea were starting to stale in the hot air. As she was closing the door behind her, a wet hand gripped her mouth, and something sharp was sticking to her neck.
"Scream," said a low voice, "and I'll slice your neck wide open."
Initially alarmed, Hitch's breathing quickly recovered. "Do everything as I say," said the voice behind her as they pushed the door closed. "Start by taking off that jacket."
Hearing this, Hitch slammed her elbow right into her assailant's stomach, which made them groan. The already weakened grip loosened on her, and quickly, she pulled her assailant over her head and slammed them onto the floor, locking their arms behind them.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" said Hitch incredulously. "Your weak-ass grip felt like my grandmother was trying to tickle me."
Annie tried to struggle instinctively, but it was no use. Hitch sat on top of her with such ease that it seemed ridiculous she even thought she could pull off this stunt.
"Can't believe it's actually you," said Hitch as she continued to restrain Annie. "Never imagined I'd throw your ass down like a limp noodle."
"Can't believe," said Annie in between breaths, "I'd run across you… of all people."
"Yeah, I'm not so excited to see you again either, dipshit."
With one hand holding down Annie, Hitch began to take off her belt to use as a rope to restrain her. "I'm taking you back down to the basement. I need to—SOMEONE!" she suddenly yelled.
"SOMEONE! I NEED—," she stopped as she felt something warm and sticky on her hand. Looking at it, she saw that it was blood.
"Too late," said Annie. "I already cut myself." It was then that Hitch noticed Annie's ring which had a sharp spike protruding from it.
Hitch hesitated.
"I'm sure you know by now what that means," said Annie quietly. "You're going to do exactly as I say now."
Angry, Hitch pulled a lock of Annie's hair and slammed her head down the floor. Hard.
"Like hell, I would!" she said. "Your scrawny ass can barely walk. You don't have the energy."
"Do you really... want to... find out?" coughed Annie, blood protruding from her forehead.
The thudding of boots nearby indicated the approach of soldiers. A bang on the door came, and from behind a voice called, "Miss Dreyse! You called for help?"
No answer came. Annie could sense Hitch was hesitating again. Something was holding her back.
"Corporal Dreyse," asked the voice again, "Is everything alright?"
Annie turned to look at Hitch, whose eyes were wide and in a struggle for what to do. She couldn't understand why her former comrade's voice was failing her now.
"Corporal Dreyse? We're coming in!"
"No!" cried Hitch suddenly. "It's nothing. Carry on, soldier."
"Are you sure, ma'am? I—"
"That's an order!"
After a moment's silence, the reply came. "Jawhol!"
Steel-toed boots began to march away, echoing loudly through the halls before finally disappearing.
Hitch couldn't believe what she was doing.
Annie leaned against a wooden beam as Hitch struggled to strap on a saddle to one of the mares. Despite her weakened state, Hitch knew Annie was still a threat, and that leaving her unbound while she fumbled around securing everything she needed onto a horse in the Military stables could get her killed, or even worse.
"Can't believe... stupid... fucking dumb..." were all that Annie could hear from her former comrade's mumbling tirade. What little energy she had felt completely expended when she tried to restrain Hitch. She had thought that she could bluff her way out if she got caught, but that if she had to kill anyone stupid enough to try to stop her, she would. But in the moment of truth, Annie quaked. She could not, in the end, make good on that threat. When she stuck that spiked ring against Hitch's neck, she found herself unwilling to use it. She had immediately recognized that annoying voice echoing around the halls after all those countless hours that she had had to listen to it babble about nothing. Men... always about men. How they always seemed to fall short of the mark for her, and how it was useless to even "screw around" and maybe find "the right one." Hitch's diatribes, muffled by the crystalline cocoon Annie had sheltered herself in, still managed to ring through to her. It was annoying, for a time. But after a while, she had grown to expect it. It was better than the stagnant abyss which she had called "home" for four years. It was small but essential comfort amid the days and nights when only the screams of the dead would ring through her body and mind. It was the thing she looked forward to most days... until he started coming to visit her.
As Hitch tightened up the saddle and checked their supplies and equipment, Annie felt compelled to speak.
"If it's any consolation to you," she said, "I always thought you were smarter than you looked."
"Shut the fuck up," Hitch snapped back. "I don't need your condescension right now, smartass. And I'm not letting you off to help you."
"Then why are you doing this?" asked Annie.
Hitch fell silent for a moment. "I don't exactly know. Maybe I just want to get rid of you."
"Then why not kill me?" said Annie. "Like you said, I'm weak right now. I'm not even sure I can turn into a titan in this condition. This is the perfect chance to take me out."
Hitch turned around to face her. With a tremendous force of will, she held her composure, resisting the urge to punch Annie and stove her head in completely, before saying, "I'm not a murderer."
They both fell silent. As a member of the Gendarmerie, Hitch had never had to bloody her hands the way the Scouts have always had. While it could hardly be described as a "cushy job", given the number of corpses she had had to carry up and bury, it had never had cause to order her to pick up a blade and cut through flesh, human or titan.
Annie tried not to betray any emotion. But she would be lying to herself if she said that didn't sting. "I'm not a murderer," Hitch had said. Implied in them was the obvious. Nothing, not even four years trapped in suspended darkness, could silence the howling of the dead. Not for Annie.
Hitch turned her back again before continuing, "I figured if I had to get rid of you, I might as well take you out of the city now while everyone's busy cleaning up the streets. It at least saves me from having to babysit your crystal ass every other week."
"Saves me from having to listen to your shit too," replied Annie.
"Oh, yeah? Well, you—," Hitch suddenly stopped midway through her rummaging as if stupefied. Turning to Annie, she stammered, "You... You could hear?.."
"Every word," Annie replied. "All the men you ever had a bad date with. All the shit you had to put up with to get to where you are now. It was like a dream to hear you talk. Or a nightmare."
Hitch felt a wave of panic sweep through her spine. She tried to recall any instance in which she might have said something incredibly stupid... or worse, classified. After all, here before her wasn't just a titan-shifting terrorist, but an enemy spy. Hours spent babbling about one's life to someone stripped of any power to resist had been therapeutic, and she milked it for what it was worth if only to find some semblance of normalcy in an increasingly aberrant life. She hadn't exactly expected the other girl to hear every word of it.
"What else did you hear?" inquired Hitch, trying to sound calm.
"Nothing important, if that's what you want to hear," Annie replied. "You and Armin..." Annie turned her head to the stable door, a beam of sunlight slipping inside the dark stable. "You and Armin were the best part of my day. All else was the abyss."
Another awkward silence ensued. Thinking back, this was probably the longest time she had ever spent with Annie speaking. The blonde girl had always been terse and taciturn; cold and brisk in every way imaginable. Hitch had tried many times to break through to her, perhaps more so than the Scouts ever did in her crystal prison. But the results were about the same. Whenever Hitch felt a small connection was made with Annie, it seemed far too brief and yielded far too little. But she appreciated it all the same and had promised herself to win the young blonde over. Then Stohess happened. And for a while, in her sublime ignorance, she had mourned the loss of Annie, even going so far as to yell at Captain Levi and blame the Scouts for her death, only to be brutally exposed to the truth. Annie was a titan. More to the point, Annie was the very titan responsible for the destruction at Stohess. The same titan which she had thought responsible for killing Annie herself. It was a rude awakening in an already nightmarish world that seemed to never end.
"What happened?" asked Hitch, breaking the silence. "How did you get out?"
"It was Eren," answered Annie. "I heard his voice calling to me and everyone else."
Hitch's eyes fell to the floor. "So, you too, huh?"
Annie gave a small nod. "After he said his piece, he undid all the hardenings in the world. And that's how I got out."
Hitch strode to the stable door to see if there was anyone outside close by. Pulling a horse right next to them, she said, "And now he's going to destroy the world."
"So it's happened," said Annie, numbly looking up at the sky, holding tight around Hitch's waist as they rode across the city. The walls have completely vanished; crumbled and fallen from above. Their looming shadow that had for so long overlooked much of the city had gone completely from view. She realized that here and elsewhere on the island was exactly the same. At a distance, plumes of smoke, steam, and dust rose to the sky, as countless colossal titans lumbered forth to cross the vast seas, each step shaking the ground.
"If you looked down instead of up," said Hitch, "you'll see what they leave in their wake."
Looking around her, Annie could see nothing but ruined landscape. Where once stood houses and beautiful buildings of a hallowed age in Eldian architecture, there now lay nothing more than rubble and debris. Pock-marked by each titanic footstep, as if bombed from the air, city blocks once teeming with life have been completely flattened and overturned. Panic gripped the surviving townspeople, many of them running away from the carnage and clogging the roadways, while others desperately tried to find missing loved ones beneath the rubbles. Amid the turmoil were gendarmerie and garrison troops rushing to and fro in every direction as they tried to bring order to the chaos.
There was a long silence between Hitch and Annie as their gallop slowed to a trot. At this point, it didn't really matter if anyone had spotted them. Everyone else was clearly occupied. Despite having had to dig up and rebury corpses in the past, Hitch had never gotten used to the smell of decaying or burning flesh. For the moment, she was glad that she wasn't in the thick of it.
"You know it took me a while to accept the fact that you had something to do with this," she said. "'No', I said to myself. 'Not her. It can't be."
Another long silence. "I tried, you know," Hitch continued. "I tried to be your friend. I knew there was something about you worth finding out." She smirked to herself as she reminisced of their shared past. "I just didn't expect it to be this."
Annie looked down on the ground, a feeling of such enormous weight bearing down on her. "Do you..." she said hesitantly. "... Do you hate me?"
Passing by several emergency shelters, they made a turn to a street that had once been a small marketplace. The area was abandoned save for what looked like looters scrambling for anything they could get their hands on, and scurrying away at the sight of them. Further down one side, a row of shops was burning intensely.
"At this point, I don't even know," said Hitch. "I guess as a matter of duty, I have to hate you. But if I'm going to be honest..." she paused. "I'm just tired. I've done nothing but dig and rebury corpses since you and Eren laid waste to Stohess."
Another long silence came between them as Hitch watched the blaze consume everything in its path. Annie looked over the other girl's shoulder then sighed deeply, her eyes slowly casting down to the ground as if in deep thought. "I'm sorry about Marlo," she said.
Hitch ignored her and hastily changed the topic. "So," she began. "Any plans on trying to explain yourself?" Annie turned to look at Hitch, whose eyes were fixed on the road ahead as they trotted along a bend. "I think you owe me that, at least."
Annie pondered for a moment, looking around her as they went by. Rows upon rows of stretchers were laid along the side of the road, with bodies covered in shrouds matted with blood and soil. But these were the lucky few to be accorded some decency. Piles of dead bodies were mounting up in other parts of the city closest to the path of destruction, and an awful stench was beginning to emanate from all around them. People wailing in unrestrained anger and grief, some breaking into violent outbursts, some in catatonic shock, cries of pain echoed throughout. In her fitful sleep of four years, the screams were just as loud. In wakefulness, she realized that it was all inescapable. It made no difference wherever she was. Annie knew she had played a part in this unfolding tragedy. Her mission had unleashed the fury which was now embarking on a path of global destruction. And while her crimes seem now to be so minute in comparison to Eren's forward march, not even the distance of time nor the detachment with which she had endeavored to embody could erase hers and the truth that now faced her squarely.
"Like I said," Annie began. "I could hear you from within the crystal. I can barely count the number of times you've asked me to explain myself. And I guess now's the best time to do it."
There was a moment's pause between them, pregnant with anxiety.
"You live a certain life," Annie continued. "You wake up every day like it's a normal day. You believe certain things because you were told that's just how the world works. People go to their jobs because they want to live a certain life, free from fear. Every day, inch by inch, you do something to preserve that life because you don't want anyone to take it away from you. It's all you've ever known. Soon enough, you start doing even worse things that you would otherwise never even think to do. But you realize, it's necessary. It's your job. There's no going around it. You have no choice.
"How many times have I been told that I was born to original sin? Something I was bound to atone for, for the rest of my life. Something I wasn't even born to have seen or understood, but that somehow is something I have to live with. To top it off, how many times was I told that I would have to fight, kill or die if I wanted it to all just go away?"
Hitch remained silent, a cool breeze sweeping across her face as they carried along the same road.
"I was an orphan," Annie continued. "I was raised by a man who sought to turn me into a weapon, pounding me down like a piece of metal between a hammer and an anvil. And he took that job to heart. There were days when I could barely even raise my head to look up, and even if I could, I couldn't open my eyes because I'd been beaten so hard my face was a pulp."
"I don't know if I want to hear your sad-sack life story," said Hitch angrily, turning to face Annie.
"I've had to listen to you babble about nothing for four years, and now it's my turn to say something," retorted Annie.
"I tried to make him love me," she continued. "But after a while, you realize it's never going to happen. One kind word. Just one. It was never going to happen. So I stopped caring.
"I thought if I did well in my training, he'd be proud of me. Or at least dial down the beatings. I knew he was beating all this training into me because he wanted to better his own life and not mine. But I still held on believing that wasn't the case. And as time passed, I grew strong. Strong enough to fight back. Strong enough to give him a taste of his own medicine. And when I broke his leg so bad that the doctors told him he'd never walk straight again, I thought it was over for me. I thought he'd kill me. Instead, he was happy. 'Your training is complete,' he told me laughing. 'Now you can kill your enemies.' He was happy."
Looking up at the sky, her still bleeding hand in the air, fingers feeling for the wind, she said, "It was the first time I ever saw him smile."
Minutes passed as they reached a crossroad. Neither said a word to the other for a while, Hitch trying to digest what she had just heard.
"It's surprisingly easy. To not care, I mean," said Annie finally. "People die every day. We all end up dying in the end. What makes a few more dead bodies any different? None of it mattered. Not even my own life.
"But then, the morning we were to head off to this place as Warriors to retake the Founding Titan, something happened." Annie paused for thought as she tried to recollect that moment in her memory. "He apologized to me."
That day was as clear to her now as it had been then. "He came to me, pleading on his knees. He told me that everything he'd ever taught me had been all wrong. My status as a Warrior, our titles as honorary Marleyans... none of it mattered.
"I was confused," she continued. "It was all I ever was. It was all I ever knew what to be; a weapon. And here he was, the very man that made me understand that was suddenly begging for me to understand the opposite; that all of it was wrong. He begged me to promise that I'd come back to him. And in that instant, I finally realized that he saw me as his daughter. After all those years of trying to make him love me, he had always loved me in his own way, and that nothing else in the world mattered."
"So are you telling me," interjected Hitch, "that all the crimes you've committed, all this slaughter, was for you to get to your father?"
"The moment I came to this place", said Annie, "I immediately wanted to leave. But I was forced to do what I was told to do, even when I felt that it was pointless. I just wanted to be with my father again, but I couldn't. I had to get on with my mission. I don't even know if the people back home had expected me to come back alive. But from that day on, it was different. I used to not care about anything. Not the war... not the Rumbling. But it's different now. I finally have something to live for.
"I know I can't be forgiven for all the things I've done. Not even that crystal could give me peace. Not a day goes by that I don't regret everything I've done. I never wanted to hurt anybody here, least of all my friends." She paused again thinking over that word. Friends.
Looking back at all the people she had met and spent time with within the walls, Annie realized that they had all become her friends. Despite what she had done, despite the effort with which she had endeavored to distance herself from all of them, and despite the years of unrelenting hatred that she was taught to feel for these people, nothing that happened between them was a pretense. She had grown to respect, perhaps even love them for who they were, not what they were. She had trained with them, broke bread with them, and undertook the same privations with them through thick and thin. Eren, who saw her as an inspiration and gladly took her lessons to heart, even at the cost of being physically hurt; Sasha, who despite herself, always took care to share her food, if not nearly as generously as one would like; Marco, who was always ready to help at moment's notice; Christa, who always tried to fight for those that couldn't, and whose kindness was beyond reproach. All of them. And Armin... Armin...
Armin whose gentle voice had always soothed her amidst the howling of the darkness. When as a Titan she could have easily crushed him like an insect, as she had so easily done with so many of the others, she found herself unwilling to do so. When imprisoned in her crystal shelter, when all she could hear were the intrusive inquiry of angry men and their tools trying to pry her open, his was a voice of calm, empathy, and reassurance. His questions were pleading, not demanding, and despite the silence that answered him back, he tried his hardest to understand. His was a voice which she had not only begun to expect to hear from time to time but often longed for. Whereas others damned her for what she was and what she had done, his words did not seethe with resentment over things that she could no longer take back. Rather, he gave her the room to breathe and silenced the howling of the dark. Even after he had caught on to who and what she was during that confrontation at Stohess, he was the only one to see her as a human being.
"I can't expect much more out of this world, and if it wants me dead, then so be it. But even the smallest chance I can get to see my father again, I'd gladly take. No matter the cost."
The two of them reached a section of the city that hadn't been destroyed. Against the skyline, the towering figures of the Colossus Titans loomed over them. But the threat of being crushed beneath their feet, at least for this sector, was no longer immediate. The monsters were lumbering in a beeline for the sea.
"Five years ago," said Hitch all of a sudden, "I didn't even know that there was a world beyond the walls. All I knew was that anything beyond was certain death. The titans kept us all in, fenced up like cattle. That's just how life was. That was our everyday. Until you came along and pretty much made it clear that we were fighting an undeclared war with people we've never even met, let alone knew of their existence…"
Annie said nothing.
"But then," continued Hitch, "we wouldn't have ever known about the outside world if you hadn't done what you've done. It doesn't really matter to me if everyone else in the world just wants us all to die. But I do wish that I could someday see a glimpse of the world beyond the walls and the seas."
Annie looked curiously at Hitch and wondered about their once shared naivety; Hitch about the world beyond and hers about the people within the walls, and how all their preconceived notions about reality had been smashed. It was a shared innocence lost through circumstance and the chains of history which bound them all to the past.
"I suppose," said Hitch more to herself than anyone else, "we're never really masters of our own destinies."
After a moment's silence, Hitch turned to Annie and said, "Thank you for telling me the truth."
In the middle of town, untouched by the destruction unleashed by the Rumbling, a macabre festival was taking place. So-called "Jaegerists", soldiers and civilians alike, celebrated the forthcoming holocaust against the world while elsewhere, death and destruction swept across the land. Pent-up rage and resentment against a world that had been, for so long and in their collective ignorance, waging an undeclared war against them, poured forth as freely as the beer they happily drunk. Songs were sung, toasts were made, and vast quantities of food were being consumed, all in the name of Eren Jaeger.
"We'll need to hurry," said Armin to Connie, Falco, and Gabi as they all carried their food to one of the large tables set in the middle of the square. "We can't be sure what might happen to Reiner. We need to get to where he is as soon as possible."
"Don't worry," said Gabi reassuringly. "He's beaten up. He'll be in a coma for a couple of days to heal."
"Should we really be here?" whispered Falco to Connie.
"We'll need to fill up for now," replied Connie. "We'll be traveling for quite a while."
They sat together and ate quietly. Gabi and Falco for their part had only just realized how hungry they really were and quickly wolfed down their food. Amid the noise of the crowd, Connie felt confident enough that they wouldn't be heard and began to talk with Armin.
"So," said Connie. "You think Eren loosening all the hardenings in the world caused Reiner's armor to fail?"
"It's a possibility," said Armin. "We can't rule that out completely."
"And you think that Annie might be running around free right now?" asked Connie in between bites of his pie.
"Yes, it's possible," said Armin. "If Eren really did undo all the hardening—". He was stopped mid-speech by Connie, whose eyes had widened like hen's eggs looking over his shoulder, as if in disbelief.
"What?" inquired Armin. "What is it, Connie?"
Connie raised his hand slowly and pointed nervously behind him, stuttering, "I-it's... it's..."
Armin turned to look, and right next to him sat the familiar face of Annie, mid-chew into a slice of pie. Her face was covered in crumbs, her hair matted in sweat underneath her hood, her eyes wide in just as much disbelief as theirs.
"Annie?" said Armin suddenly, before Annie took an audible gulp as she awkwardly swallowed her food.
Connie burst out laughing like a fool, his finger still pointing at Annie. "Oh my God," he cried out cackling. "You eat like a freaking pig, Annie!"
"Cut it out Connie," cried Armin, and without thinking said, "It's her first pie in four years!"
Hitch turned a corner to get to where Annie sat, carrying with her a rather large pie and a stein of beer.
"Hey, sorry!" she cried out to Annie as she approached their seat. "The line was so long and I—"
She stopped as she saw that Annie wasn't where she remembered she had left her. Confused, she looked around to see if she might have gotten the wrong table. But as she got closer, she saw a neatly folded piece of paper weighed down by an empty stein. She sat slowly, laying down the pie and beer on the table, took the note, unfolded it, and began to read:
"Dear Hitch,
I'm sorry I had to ditch you. I ran into Armin and Connie, and have decided to come along with them. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you. Thank you for keeping me company all these years. And thank you for listening to me these past few hours. It was more than I deserve in a lifetime.
Farewell.
Your gloomy roommate".
Folding the note and slipping it into her pocket, Hitch took a slice of the pie and began to eat in silence. As she finished the first piece, she wondered loudly to herself, "How the fuck am I going to eat all this alone?"
—End—
PS: This was more for my benefit than anything else. I'm not really sure if I want to expand on this or not. But for the moment, this is what it is. I hope you enjoyed this, and if you have, please feel free to let me know. Thank you for reading!