I'll Make You Bleed

by thesketchytepe

Attack on Titan AU Inspired by Until Dawn Written by thesketchytepe and blueTshirts. After Zeke is arrested for murdering seven doctors at Trost Hospital, Eren invites the gang to his family's cabin to get their minds off the case. But soon enough blood is spilled and panic ensues. Who is the killer and what do they want? How far are you willing to go to protect the ones you love?

15. The Best Thing (Jean POV)

**TRIGGER WARNING: references to suicide and depression are mentioned in this chapter. Please read with caution if you are sensitive to these topics.

Written by: blueTshirts**

1:02 AM

"This isn't right, Jean," Marco whispers as we climb the stairs leading to the second floor of the cabin. We should be feeling some sort of security now that we can hide away for a bit but I can't help but think that shit is continuing to get worse.

"Eren helped Zeke kill those people at the hospital and now he's trying to kill us."

Armin's words are buzzing in my head along with the faces of Ymir and Historia. I see Sasha's bloody hands and dull eyes. I hear Connie's wailing cries and Marco's heaving breaths. Marco's terrified face as he was buried alive.

All because of Eren. And Armin has known the whole time.

"Jean," Marco says again, his footsteps slowing as we reach the hall at the top of the stairs. "We should stay with him."

I press a hand into the small of Marco's back to try and get him to keep going. We just need to wait this out. Armin said that he was able to get in touch with someone and that help is coming. It shouldn't be long before we don't have to be here anymore.

"Marco please," I say with a tremble in my voice as my hands shake at Marco's back. I look past him down the dark hallway that leads to more unknowns, more risks, more danger. What if Armin is part of this too? What if we were being set up?

My chin trembles as I stare down the hallway with tears in my eyes. I can't take this anymore. I can't feel like this anymore.

Marco's head turns to me as I step beside him. I shift my hand from his back to his arm, holding his elbow in a hidden way to tell him that I'm losing my mental strength. I continue to look down the hallway as my mind creates menacing shadows that threaten to swallow us up in this madness.

"Jean," Marco says again. I love the way Marco says my name. I always have. Whenever he says my name it's like I'm being seen. It's like he's presenting me to the world, like he wants everyone to know that I'm here and I'm worth it. That the world needs me and that he needs me. But now all I can hear is the wavering of Marco's voice. The uncertainty, the fear, the exhaustion. He needs me but I don't know if I can be there for him right now. I don't think I can even handle myself.

I can't bring my eyes to Marco's but I see them in my head. I see his chocolate eyes speckled with gold just like his skin. I see him in the light of the summer where he smiles as wind tousles his hair. I see him when he laughs in ugly snorts and scrunches his button nose. I remember what he looked like when we went on vacation and we spent the whole day on the beach. Marco tanned up like a Greek god and I burnt like a marshmallow. But it was one of the happiest days of my life. One of the happiest days of our lives. I try to keep the pleasant image of Marco's eyes in my head rather than seeing the painful fear that's in them now.

"Please Marco," I say into the dark. "Let's just do what Armin said."

Marco pauses. I know what he's thinking. I know that he hates leaving Armin and Annie at the mercy of Eren and Mikasa. I know he hates that we split up with Reiner, Berthold, and Connie. I know his mind is eating away at itself with the unhinged guilt he feels for what happened to Sasha.

But we can't do this, Marco. You can't do this. And I can't do this without you.

"We need-"

Marco and I freeze as a subtle voice slithers up the stairs and pierces our ears. I hold my breath as my heart pounds harder and harder in my throat. It's so quiet, barely heard among that terror in my head, any other time I wouldn't have even acknowledged it.

Eren.

We turn to look down in the murky darkness to see Armin, our friend who sent us to safety possibly at the cost of his own life, standing a foot away from a murderer looking him dead in the eyes.

I want to scream. I want to scream for Armin to run, despite that he may be involved in this I want to yell at Eren for what happened to Sasha. I want to make him pay for what he's done to Ymir and Historia and Connie. I want him to feel the same fear Marco felt as he was being suffocated by the earth. I want him to feel the same fear I felt when I thought that I'd lost the person I love more than anything.

But I can't. What if he has a gun? What if he kills Armin after he finds out that Marco and I are here? What if I ruin everything before help can arrive? What if Marco gets hurt?

"Eren probably already knows you're here."

Panic washes through my body and it finally does something helpful for me. With my trembling grip on Marco's arm, I yank his stiff body down the dooming hallway and that should gift us solace. But of course I should've known that Marco's reaction would be the opposite of mine.

Marco tries to turn back down the stairs. His body beaten, his brain broken, and his logic lost. He doesn't care that he's hurt and scared, he still wants to help his friends. But he's so out of his wits that even if he tried to help he'd probably only make it worse.

He could get someone hurt by accident. He could get himself hurt, or worse. We need to trust Armin and hope to God that this isn't some act. We need to let Armin take care of himself. Armin can do this. If he can't get through to Eren then we're fucked.

Marco yanks his arm in my grasp but I'm quick to wrap another hand around his elbow and pull. I can feel myself crying. It's silent. I'm aware of every breath that struggles out of my nose and each slip of my boots on the hardwood floor. He can't know that we're up here. We'll die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die.

Marco stumbles a couple steps down the hallway thanks to my desperate pulling. I can feel my breath tempting on hyperventilating as Marco continues to barrell towards the stairs.

He turns back to me, his face scrunched into fear and fight. But the fighting urge in him collapses when he sees me. I can feel my eyes flash mirrors of panic amongst the dark. Every part of me is fighting to run. Every part of me wants Marco to hide with me until the night is over. Every part of me is pulling on Marco, begging, to protect ourselves.

I look at him as tears collect under my jaw. My fingertips curl into his shirt and I don't dare sniff my oozing sinuses in fear that I'll make too much noise. I'm shaking my head at him and looking at him like he's a deadman walking into the gallows.

"Please, please, please," I whisper over and over, so quiet that I can't even hear myself.

Marco's lips tighten into a thin line as hopelessness wrinkles his eyebrows. I don't care what he thinks of me right now. I may be some pathetic whimpering child so codependent on Marco that I'd die without him, but it's this moment that could save both of our lives.

Marco gives in, his own eyes shimmering with another onslaught of tears, and he lets me drag him further into the dark hall.

My legs wobble with every step as we walk down the hall. My fingers drag along the wall feeling through the darkness for a door. I keep a death grip with my other hand on Marco's wrist still not trusting that he won't turn the first chance he gets.

Each step tempts my legs to give out and make me collapse to the floor. I feel like we're walking down a wooden plank that leads us to a plummeting death. Maybe we are.

My fingers stretch over the frame of a door. My chest skips. I lower my hand to find a doorknob. Thank god.

I twist the doorknob slowly so that it doesn't make any noise, then yank Marco inside as soon as the door is open wide enough. I can feel myself already starting to lose my poorly contained facade as I close the door quietly once again. My breaths come out of me in hiccuping sobs. I can't see my hands through the inky darkness that distorts everything into a dooming version of danger.

Once the door is closed, I let go. I gasp for sour air thick with wretched darkness, my hands reaching out to frantically grab at my boyfriend. Marco reaches back for me and pulls me into his hold.

My hands fist into the fabric of his shirt around his back. His hand goes to my hair to push my choking cries into his shoulder to muffle the sound. He backs us up further into the room. I'm almost too scared to venture farther into the room because we have no fucking idea what's in here. For all we know there could be another trap meant just for the two of us.

"Eren probably already knows you're here."

"Wait, wait, wait," I choke, digging my heels into the carpet before Marco can pull us deeper into the unknown. "What if there's a trap?"

Marco stops with me, his arm around my shoulder and his hand still in my hair. I feel his throat constrict with a swallow.

"Give me your phone," Marco says softly.

I freeze. "What if he sees the light?"

"He won't," Marco says.

"How do you-?"

"He won't, Jean."

My eyebrows knit in pained anxiety. I reluctantly release one on my hands from Marco's back to dig my phone out of my pocket and hand it to him.

He presses the power button lighting my lock screen photo of Marco sitting next to a short snowman and sweeps the dull light across the room behind him.

It looks like a normal bedroom. A bed sits in the center taking up most of the space. Curtains hang along the far wall and a small bathroom is in the corner. From what I can see there are no bear traps or arrow traps or land mines awaiting us.

I bite the inside of my cheek anxiously as Marco leads us to the bed. He shifts me around with his hands on my shoulders to make me sit while he walks to the far end of the room to open the curtains.

The soft glow from the moon allows enough light in the room so we can at least see each other. The panic in my chest eases now that we're not completely in the dark. Marco stashes my phone in his back pocket and comes to sit with me on the bed.

A second wave of crying washes through me when he wraps his arms around me. I try to stay as quiet as I can as I let some of the pressure of the fear fizzle out of me. My chest hurts. Like an acid reflux so bad that I want to double over and groan. A fluttering fear that maybe I was poisoned circles around my head and then exits my mind when I remember that I have anxiety attacks regularly. Although in this case I'm pretty sure anyone would have an anxiety attack.

I let the panic wash through me now that we're in an almost safe place for a few moments, I might fall apart if I have to fake it out much longer, I need to just let this happen so I can get it out of my system.

I cry into Marco's shoulder, "Why did you fucking do that? Why-why would you do that? Armin said to h-hide, he told us to fucking hide."

Marco doesn't answer me, he merely rubs his fingers over the column of my spine as my back jerks with my violent breathing. I get stuck on a breath and I continue to inhale sharp, quick gasps until I can't anymore, my lungs are filled to their capacity and yet my body won't release the carbon dioxide. My chest burns and my hands tighten on Marco and my head thunders with pumping blood.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck, I feel like I'm dying. I'm dying.

"Breathe Jean, breathe, I'm here, it's okay," Marco says as he continues to try and soothe my frantic movements. This isn't the first time Marco's had to help me through an anxiety attack. He's learned not to panic anymore. I have no idea how he's stuck with me through all of this. It's insane that the universe gave me someone as great as Marco. I don't even care that I have anxiety attacks anymore now that he's here. I used to have to go through them alone.

With my inhale still locked in my body from my closing throat, Marco clasps his hands around the side of my face and tries to level me with eye contact. This could get so much fucking worse if I passed out.

"Come on Jean, don't do this," Marco says with worry, making his eyes look desperate. His fingertips press into the sides of my head and I start to see everything in tilted blurs.

My gritted teeth wrench open as stuttered breaths escape me in chopped gasps. My body still feels the need to inhale with my thrumming chest but I try to control my iron lungs like I'm yanking a dull hand saw over cement covered plywood.

My breathing finally returns to a mild hyperventilation, but once a sufficient amount of oxygen has startled my brain, everything goes so blurry that my eyes roll into the back of my head.

"Nonono, Jean," Marco stammers as he redirects my loose body so that I'm sat on the edge of the bed with my head between my legs. The pressure of my chest forces me to breathe slower breaths and lets blood travel to my brain. I groan as the blurred grayness of my vision starts to clear up. "Keep breathing, baby," Marco says as he presses kisses into my spine.

"This," I say through the fuzziness in my head, "is what, you get."

I feel Marco shake his head against my back. "Don't, Jean."

"I don't," I start to say as I begin to sit up too early. My vision starts to swirl again but I don't really care. "I don't want you to die, Marco," I say through slurred tongue.

I blink at him as he looks at me like a wounded animal. He brings his hand that was rubbing my back up to the base of my neck to swipe this thumb through the short hairs. I wait for him to tell me that he isn't going to die and that everything is going to be okay. I wait for him to kiss me and tell me that we'll stay here until we see red and blue lights through the trees. I wait for him to tell me that he'll stay with me even if things get worse.

Tears lift in my eyes again as Marco says nothing. My exhausted brain that coughs on the aftereffects of an anxiety attack and whines with the emotional turmoil can barely process the pain that grows in me as Marco looks at me like he has disappointed me.

"I love you, Jean," Marco says with a pained smile. "But I have to do what's right, I can't live with myself if we let something bad happen."

"I won't be able to live with myself if you die." The empty tears slip down my cheeks, Marco brushes them away with his fingers.

Marco blinks slowly and looks out the windows. He presses his lips together and looks back at me. My gut curls the longer I look at him. "I'll protect you," he says with such sincerity I almost believe him.

I shake my head and a soft smile curls my lips. I'm losing him. "I know you will," I say, trying to keep the crumbling cracks from breaking my voice. "You always do."

Marco's eyes weigh heavy with overwhelming sadness. His gaze lowers until he's staring at nothing in the black and white room. If only I could kiss away this terror. If only we could escape this by holding each other tight and whispering lovely praises to one another. If only we didn't have to reach the limits of our courage and fight for earth shattering morals.

"Jean-"

"I'll try to find something to clean you up," I say knowing Marco wants to tell me he's sorry, that he only wants to make me happy, that he wishes he didn't have to make these choices. I won't let him. Why would I let Marco, the man I love with every part of me, apologize for doing what he thinks is right? I fell in love with a golden light that grows hope from his hands and heals wounds with words. I fell in love with the embodiment of strength and love who lifts spirits with optimistic positivity. Marco taught me what it's like to be vulnerable, to trust, and to accept life for all its edges. I was shown the freedom of self love and the light of experience. I learned what it felt like to live with Marco, he's given so much and there's no way for me to pay him back except loving him with everything I can. I want Marco to lead a life he's proud of, I want him to be proud of me, and I want his happiness above anything else.

I stand from the bed, feeling like the floor is on wobbly plates. When I figure out my balance, I turn back to Marco who looks up at me like the time I told him about my battle with depression. His eyes weary and his frown subtle, but over all else, understanding.

I bend to kiss him on the head to avoid his nose, then turn to squint through the darkness. How probable is a first aid kit stashed in here somewhere?

Marco stands his balance also fumbling, "I'll help."

I smile and shake my head. "You're impossible."

"Love you too," he hums as he pulls out my phone and breaks open the flashlight.

I stumble toward the bathroom as Marco rifles through drawers. By habit, I flip on the lightswitch.

I nearly scream my head off when the lightswitch obeys my command. Bright lighting fills the bathroom and sends my eyes wailing in pain. I flip the switch off the moment I get my head screwed on straight and fumble away from the bathroom like it's haunted.

I make eye contact with Marco who's squatting in front of the side table. His face mirrors the same bewilderment.

"Did you just-?"

I nod.

"And they worked?"

"Yup." At this point I'm not going to start questioning weird shit that happens. We're far beyond comprehending the extent of Eren's influence tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if Eren staged the power outage just to start playing his game.

If only one of us had tried to turn on a light earlier.

Marco's eyes flick between me and the bathroom. He then looks up at the lamp on the bedside table and pulls on the small chain beneath the shade. The light blinks on and Marco tilts his head like an amused puppy. "Huh."

I skitter to the lamp and turn it off hissing at Marco, "Are you seriously that stupid?"

Marco looks up at me with a smile. "Babe, I highly doubt Eren's going to see a little lamp from all the way downstairs."

"Yeah? Well no one thought he'd be a serial killer either, and look where we are."

Marco sighs. "I think he's a little occupied right now, plus if he did see it then maybe it'd give Armin and Annie some leverage."

"Or he'll waltz up here and murk our asses."

Marco stares up at me with a flat expression. How did we get here? Talking like Eren being a serial murderer is such a normal thing. "Can we at least turn on the bathroom light?"

I pause, pouting. Honestly, Marco's right, Eren's probably not going to see the small light from downstairs. It's just the possibility that he might see it is what scares me.

"Fine," I mutter. "But I'm cracking the door."

"Yeah yeah," Marco mumbles as he continues to dig through the drawers.

I escape into the bathroom, close the door to just a crack, and flip on the light. I blink through the invasive brightness until my eyes have adjusted properly.

Then I see myself for the first time tonight.

Fuck.

I grimace at my ghoulish reflection. I'm covered in dirt, mud, and grime. Sweat leaves every part of my skin sticky and shiny. Blood flakes in cracked patterns off my hands and forearms. Sasha's blood. What I'm assuming is vomit stains my shirt around miscellaneous tears in the fabric. My eyes look like they've sunken an inch into my face and my hair is fucked up every which kind of way.

I let the faucet run some water over my hands and pat it over my face before quickly shutting the valve off. I don't know how silent the plumbing is in this fucked up cabin. I run my wet hands through my hair to fix some of it. It doesn't work.

I sigh at my face again and begin looking for shit to clean Marco up with.

"Jean?" Marco's voice calls in a whisper from the bedroom.

I whip the door open and frantically look around the room for my boyfriend to make sure no one has snuck into the room after us.

Thankfully we're still alone as my eyes fall on Marco who's standing next to an open door that I thought was supposed to be a closet. The look on his face tells me it's anything but a closet.

I tread carefully to Marco and squint into the small room. It could be a closet but it's far from it. My gut sags as the glow from four computer monitors flash tiled black, white, and green recordings back at me. This is fucking insane.

"Think this is what Armin was talking about?" Marco mutters just as horrified as I am.

I step into the small room. It's warm with the heat radiating off the copious amount of technical equipment. My eyes scan over the monitors. Each of them are split into nine sectioned pictures. Like a tic-tac-toe board. Each of the pictures are of a room in the cabin or a space of the woods. The film is grainier when it's outside. My brain short circuits when I recognize something.

"Is that the barn?" I whisper pointing to the picture of the face of an old barn in green hues in the far corner. My eyes flick to the picture below it. "Oh my god."

"Jesus," Marco curses behind me.

A birds eye view of the inside of the barn. In the middle of the frame lies Ymir's deserted body, and in the corner, Sasha's legs poke into view.

My chest clutches in an ache of pain. "This is sick."

"He's been watching us the whole time," Marco says. "Look there's the cars, and that's the guest bedroom. That even looks like the highway." Marco points at the frames as he explains them. I draw my attention to the recording of the highway hoping Bert, Reiner, and Connie will come into view.

My finger trembles as I point at another green colored tile with a black hole in the center. "That's the grave isn't it?"

"Think so," Marco mumbles.

All these cameras. From what we can see, Eren has set up at least thirty six of these fucking things. How did he do this? Why? If he wanted to kill us so badly, then why take all the time to play these games?

I think about the bodies that were discarded here from the Zeke killings. What if that's the reason all these fucked up traps are everywhere? What if Zeke and Eren played with their victims before killing them?

Nausea bubbles in my gut and I have to look away for a moment.

"Mikasa and Annie are in the kitchen now too," Marco says. "Fuck, I don't think there's audio on this thing." I squeeze my eyes shut turning and running my hands through my hair. God, my head hurts.

Marco keeps his attention on the camera as I look around the rest of the closet. I freeze at the giant cork board behind us.

Pictures. Newspaper clippings. Neighborhood maps. I look at all the faces in the pictures. I don't recognize them but I think I know who they are by the surrounding articles. Missing. Missing. Missing. Found, Jaeger Estate. Zeke Jaeger Convicted of 1st Degree Murder. Memorial at Trost Hospital.

The police would've found this, right? That means Eren would've put all of this back up.

"Oh god," I whine looking down at some short shelves beneath the boards. Something catches my eyes and I reach out for it. A gun. A little handgun in a leather belt holster. I'm surprised Eren doesn't have it on him. "Dude, look."

Marco peeks over my shoulder and his hand reaches up to his mouth. "Jesus Christ."

"This kid needs to die," I say looking back at the bulletin of blood.

"Jean-"

"Don't tell me he doesn't deserve to die."

I hear Marco sigh from his nose. "No one deserves to die."

I look at him over my shoulder. "Well he certainly doesn't deserve to live."

Marco slowly nods. A flicker echos over one of the frames on the monitors. I squint at the picture stepping back towards the monitors to get a better look.

One of the outdoor cameras, a shift of movement jerks around the corner. The next camera gets a better view of two people running through the woods.

"Is that Reiner and Berthold? Why are they running the opposite direction of the highway? Are they fucking dumb? They're coming back to the cabin," I ask, feeling my hands clench into fists. Something slithers fingers of all encompassing anxiety into my mind. "Where's Connie? "

Marco looks at the screen next to me. "Reiner's-Reiner's holding him."

"What-" I squint at the figures on the screen. It's not hard to tell which one's Reiner and which one is Berthold. I focus on the bigger one looking at the figure in his arms. His body is discolored to black but I can see the roundness of his head. "W-Why?" I ask, feeling dread build in my chest. "Why is he holding him? What happened?"

A small gasp comes from Marco's lips. I look up at him. His eyes fill with tears just like in the hallway. "Didn't Connie, you know..." he pauses looking back at the screen with dismay. "He ate the same popcorn Sasha did."

My mind reflects back to when me, Marco, Sasha, and Connie were playing cards earlier. Sasha had a fat bowl of aromatic popcorn in her lap that she and Connie finished together. I was so wrapped up with what was happening to Sasha that I didn't even think of Connie.

"Shit shit shit, no, Connie can't-he won't-he'll, fuck," I stutter as dawning realization burns holes into my heart. I can't lose him too. Connie can't die. Connie doesn't deserve to die. Sasha didn't deserve to die. None of them do.

For the first time I feel that same need Marco does. The need to do something reckless to save someone's life. I look up at Marco. "What do we-"

A bealting cry echoes into the bedroom. Marco and I both look towards the cameras. The kitchen. A light haired figure is wrapped around a dark figure's back with a knife in their shoulder.

Armin is holding Mikasa a safe distance away from the struggling pair. Annie is attacking Eren.

"Holy fucking shit," I breathe. "How-"

In what seems like fragments of moments. Mikasa rips out of Armin's grasp, rams herself into Annie backpacking Eren, and then proceeds to start nailing Annie with the heel of her foot. Eren goes to join his sister but is knocked to the ground when Armin lunges at him.

The couples struggle and I'm holding my breath watching in horror.

"We have to go-" Marco starts but I've already clamped my hand around his arm.

"Wait," I cry, "Reiner and Berthold should be there any moment."

"They're hurt, Jean-"

"Marco, help is coming, just wait-"

"They're going to die!"

"So will we!"

Marco looks at me searching for something. I don't know if it's defiance, desperation, or denial, but he's so torn I can practically see his teeth grinding together.

Marco opens his mouth to say something but a howling scream rings through the cabin instead. The sound is filled with such pain that it makes me want to curl into a ball and glue my hands to my ears.

We look back at the cameras. Annie is lying on the ground with Mikasa standing over her. My gut drops to the floor.

"Jean-"

"They're they are," I sputter seeing Berthold open the back door for Reiner. Mikasa, Armin, and Eren pause to look up at the couple. A shuttering gasp escapes me when I watch Reiner step inside and lay a limp Connie on the floor next to them.

The pause in the fight has the hair on my arm rising. I just hope this pause holds out until help is here.

That's when Reiner raises the shotgun at Mikasa.

"No nononono," Marco says as he rips himself from my weak hold and busts it out of the bedroom.

I know what I said about letting Marco do what he thinks is right. I've known since Eren dragged Historia's bloody body into the cabin that Marco was going to jump in the first moment he could help. I know he wants to help, I know what his heart is telling him, and I know I can't take away a part of Marco that makes him the man I love. But it feels like he's dry sand slipping through my fingers. I can't let him throw himself to the wind. I can't let him drift away from me. I need him.

I chase after him screaming his name. This can't be it. I can't let him do this. Not now. If we just wait a little longer then help will arrive. We can get Annie and Connie help. We don't have to do this. We don't have to do this. We don't have to do this.

"Please don't do this," I scream, lunging at Marco and managing to grab his shirt before he can make it to the stairs. I fall to my knees with his shirt in my hand and Marco nearly tumbles forward. But he's still standing. He's still standing while I have the disadvantage. I can't stop him. "Marco!"

He turns to me with a soft smile of his plush lips. He looks down at me like it's a morning after a night spent fucking and he thinks he never seen something so beautiful in his life. My heart breaks.

He bends as he curls his fingers around mine that are fisted in his shirt and presses a kiss into my sweaty forehead. With his face close to mine he smiles. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Jean Kirstien."

Then he's gone.

I'm frozen for a moment that feels like a million. He's gone. The love of my life. The reason I want to live to see what old age would be like. The best thing that's ever happened to me.

I'm screaming but I don't hear myself. I don't hear anything as I stand and sprint after Marco who's waving his hands at our friend who's brought a gun to a knife fight. He's going to kill someone. Everyone knows it. And Marco isn't going to let anyone die even if they deserve it.

Eren and Armin are beating each other bloody. Mikasa somehow has a knife raised in her hand and aimed at Annie. Reiner points the gun at Mikasa with a calm look on his face. Bert is looking at Marco running down the stairs.

"Don't shoot!" I hear Marco scream as the chaos rings back into my head. "Don't shoot!"

I watch for Marco's trajectory as I fly down the steps in twos. He's not going after Reiner. He's going after Mikasa. Instead of going to hit the gun out of Reiner's hands he's going to push Mikasa out of the way.

"Marco!" I scream feeling hot tears choking my cries. "NO!"

The gunshot rings a new pain in my head. The shot is so loud and so piercing that I stumble and collapse on the ground. I feel like my head was bar smashed on a rough drinking night.

My brain only thinks of Marco in the thick fog.

I roll onto my stomach and blink at the body on the floor.

No. No. Nonononono. I drag my body across the floor until I'm able to gather myself on my knees and stare blankly at the bloody mess sent flinging across the inside of the cabin.

It's his old Converse that are his most defining part of him at that moment.

I crawl towards his body. My palms and knees prick with sharp pains as glass fragments rind into my skin. But that's nothing. Those pierces of pain have nothing on the part of me that I've just lost.

I always wondered what it would feel like to drown in the ocean, or to burn up in a fire, or to starve alone on an island.

I'm sure it's better than this.

I've known what it's like to want to die. I've known what it's like to cut so deep into my skin that blood oozes out of me like rain out of a gutter. I've known what it's like to wake up in the hospital with the horrifying knowledge that you failed.

But now, here is my other half. Fuck that shit where people say you shouldn't need a second half. Those people don't know what it's like to lose yourself slowly over years of a deteriorating mind. Marco is a part of me. I am myself because Marco is in my life. I am nothing without him.

The hole left in my chest are particles of dust compared to the blasted bits off of Marco's head. As I crawl, my hand slips in warm blood and my jeans soak with it. When I'm in an arm's reach of him I stop. I stop to scream throat ripping cries at the corpse Marco has been made of.

The rest of his body is untouched and lays there like he would be just fine if I could just pick up the lost pieces of him and put him back together real quick. Maybe I could do that. I'll just put him back together. He'll be fine. He'll be fine. Everything will be fine.

My eyes drift across the room. Everyone is frozen, even Eren. And then my eyes meet Reiner's.

That's when my mind clicks again. I can't pick up the pieces of Marco's brain and put him back together. Marco's dead.

Hyperventilating sets my burning chest into firing explosions like my body is falling apart as my mind implodes on itself. I look back at Marco and start screaming again. I claw at my eyes and bend forward to rest my head on the ground. My livid forehead isn't met with cool hardwood but with the hot slick of blood. I choke and vomit between my knees.

The beach. Think of the beach. Think of that time that Marco lost his phone on that roller coaster and we tried to break into fenced off woods to find it. Think of that time he gave his flip flops to a drunk guy so he wouldn't have to walk home without shoes. Think of that time Marco spent all morning coloring my tattoos with crayola markers. Think of that time he found a kitten and held it in his cupped hands the whole drive home. Think of that time he spent four hours trying to perfect the Cup Song.

Think of the way his tongue pokes out when he's concentrating on cutting vegetables. Think of the way he'd always call out road signs when we went on road trips. Think of the way he liked to pose like a model whenever he was trying on clothes. Think of the way he always pretended he didn't eat the last ice cream sandwich and blamed it on Sasha.

Remember his groggy pre-coffee voice. Remember his tired, out-Netflixed eyes. Remember his blushed cheeks whenever he got tipsy. Remember his bouncing leg or tapping finger when we were sitting for too long. Remember his wrinkled nose whenever he didn't like the taste of something. Remember his smile when he played with Sasha and Connie's dog.

Don't let him leave you. Hold on to whatever part you can grasp before they're butchered with bloody, fear stained memories. He can't really be gone if you keep him in your head.

The beach. His tousled hair. His freckled cheeks. His sun lit smile. His gold flecked eyes. His eyes. His eyes. His-

I look up at the gorey mess of Marco's body.

His eyes are gone.

Something snaps inside of me. I think of Connie after Sasha died, the silent horror stiffing Connie's body as he led himself into a murderous rage. I understand that now. My leaking eyes drift up to Mikasa and I stare at her as the untamed rage sets my body on hellfire. She did this. They all did this.

She's going to die. They're all going to die.