**TRIGGER WARNING: A SUICIDE occurs in this chapter. If you are sensitive to this topic, please read with extreme caution. We DO NOT encourage the act of suicide in any way, shape, or form. Please read carefully.

Written by: blueTshirts**

1:10 AM

"Reiner, what's wrong?"

Reiner has stopped just as the cabin is within a few steps reach. Connie's fragile body is held in Reiner thick arms, Reiner mumbles to himself around muffled cries. A gust of wind cools the sweat along my throat, but a chilling sensation rolls down my spine when I look over Reiner's shoulder.

"He-he…" Reiner hiccups. Connie's head lays tilted in the crook of Reiner's elbow, blood coats his mouth and chin and soaks into his shirt. The glow from the moon casts dim light over his pale features. His eyes stare unblinking at the starry sky.

"Connie," I mumble feeling hopelessness seep into my bones and hollow them out. What hope we had scrounged up with the false light of our imagination dissipates along with Connie's life. What hope can we expect to have when each life we try to preserve is taken from our hands?

"I was..." Reiner says through fat tears. The weak shells of my bones crack like toffee as Reiner sobs burn my core. Through all of this, this whole night, Reiner has fought to find a part of himself that will bring meaning to his life again. Reiner put the burden of this friend's life into his hands and told himself that he could be the one to save them. "I was going to save him."

"Reiner, you couldn't-"

A howling cry echoes through the woods, my voice catches in my throat as the temperature around us drops.

"Was that-?"

"We have to go," Reiner says, his voice cracks but he pushes through it leaving his weakness behind and running straight to the cabin where the earth shattering wail came from. My body refuses for a moment. My feet are planted on the cold, tainted ground and my legs are unwilling to sprint headfirst into another life threatening situation.

But of course I can't let Reiner go alone.

I follow after my boyfriend as he lugs Connie's body with him. It slows him down, that and the eternal exhaustion from his horrific night. I am able to pass him to pull open the back door of the cabin and let Reiner and Connie inside before me.

I pray for nothing to be waiting for us on the other side of the door. We have no control on anything at this point. We just have to keep pressing random buttons until something lights up.

I step into the cabin after Reiner and I want to run back out the other way.

My eyes first land on Eren. He looks up at us through his dark eyebrows with his eyes full of wild energy and sparking violence. Beneath him is Armin who's being pinned to the floor by a blood spattered Eren looking like captured prey in a wolf's clutches. Armin's blonde hair is a tangled mess over his pained face glistening with sweat and tears. His blue eyes don't bother to look at Reiner and I, he keeps his focus on the crumbled figure in the living room.

My lungs deflate like they've been stabbed with a quick blade. The punctured holes in my side ooze the oxygen from inside of my chest because I don't think I'll need it anymore.

The huddled figure on the floor is unmoving and bloody. Gray sweatshirt soaked in crimson. Bleach blonde hair flared across the dark hardwood floor. Annie.

My jaw hangs open as I look up at the monster standing over my crippled friend. Mikasa holds her fists at her sides, blood coats her arms from her elbows down and covers the lower half of her face. She looks like a feral cannibal that's just ravaged the insides of a human and eaten their guts raw. The look on her face does nothing to counter the villainous aura she owns. She looks over at Reiner and I with a dead expression. A shrill ache of fear closes my throat as I stare at her eyes that seem to be nothing but black.

Armin and Annie are about to die. What if we showed up a fraction of a moment later?

Reiner raises the shotgun before I can call out into the chaos to stop this madness. He lifts it with a cool, calm, and contained display of fearlessness. But it's anything other than fearlessness that causes Reiner to raise the gun. He's terrified out of his wits. No one was made to be able to handle a blood bath like this.

I should stop him. The whole point of fighting through this terrifying night was to survive, all of us. If we wanted to accept death then we would have laid here like ignorant chickens. But we chose to fight, and ending it this way will only mean that we lost.

But look at them. Jean was right. Eren is trying to hurt us and of course Mikasa is by his side. Eren hovers over his best friend like the protective wolf he is over their golden find of a dying deer. He wants to keep Armin for himself, to kill him or, worse, to do something else entirely.

If Reiner and I intervene now, without the gun, then Mikasa will shred the skin from our bones before we lay a finger on Eren. Annie is as good as dead, if she isn't already, if we tried to come at Mikasa first.

Wait. Marco and Jean were supposed to come to the cabin. Did they make it? We didn't see or hear them in the woods. They must be here. I stare at the blood that clothes Mikasa like a crown of gold and gems. Maybe she already killed them. Maybe Jean and Marco are already dead.

I stare down the length of the double barrel shotgun. Reiner's aim points at the killer queen herself. My eyes flick from Annie's body on the floor to Mikasa's black bloodlusted eyes. Somehow I don't feel like telling Reiner to stop.

I remember Historia's beaten body like she was used for target practice. I think of Ymir's stiff corpse and the loneliness and fear of what it would be like to die alone in a dark barn. I think of Sasha. Her and Connie's terrified faces when their car roared loud in the empty woods surrounded by watching eyes. When Sasha stared down at her blood covered hands and realized what was happening to her. When Connie screamed in pain seeing someone he loved die so horribly. And then to watch Connie meet the same doomed fate and laugh amongst the horror.

Maybe Eren and Mikasa don't deserve to be killed, but it's definitely fair.

That's when a desperate cry echoes from the second floor of the cabin. My eyes flick up to the shadows at the top of the stairs. I squint through the darkness and a rush of relief brings light to my mind.

Marco comes stumbling down the stairs yelling. My eyebrows scrunch.

I look back at Reiner. He hasn't moved. He hasn't taken a moment to consider the yelling from above. He hasn't made any indication that he won't shoot.

"Don't shoot!" Marco cries with his hands stretched in front of him. Jean follows after Marco, quite a distance behind him, lunging down the stairs and having only eyes for his boyfriend.

A grunt of pain comes from the kitchen as Armin and Eren start struggling again. Mikasa continues to stare at Reiner like she's daring him to pull the trigger.

Jean chases after Marco with this horrible pained expression on his face. Does he-?

Marco bolts it towards Annie, no, he's going towards Mikasa. Marco is barreling headfirst right into the line of fire to save Mikasa from a bullet that's well deserved.

I freeze. My limbs are glued to my sides with thick slabs of heavy cement. My knees threaten to give in under the weight of impending doom.

Reiner.

The gunshot casts grenades into my head. I cry out in pain and my body smacks back against the door behind me. I grab the sides of my head and feel like wet cotton is stuffed inside my skull where my brain should be.

The world tilts at horrible angles. Either I'm falling or my eyes have popped out of my eye sockets. Sharp claws rake gashes along my brain, I feel like my ears are bleeding.

Slouched against the door, I look up at Reiner. His broad back is taunt with tight muscles. The gun hangs toward the ground. I blink a few times trying to regain my senses. Something's wrong. My chest rattles with the sprinting of my heart and the shaking of my body. My eyes flick back and forth as I try to figure out what the fuck is wrong.

I feel my shoulders rising and falling with heaving breaths but I don't hear them. I can't hear my breathing. I can't hear Armin and Eren fighting. I can't hear Marco running or Jean shouting. I can't hear anything.

I reach up to Reiner's shoulder and stand on wobbly legs that threaten to topple me over. I feel tears prick into my eyes as the confusion makes me more scared than anything. Oh god. If I can't hear anything then they're going to kill me for sure. I'm going to die because Eren is going to easily waltz up behind me and stab me in the back.

The moment my eyes land on Jean is when I forget all of my pathetic fear.

It feels like Jean is the only person in the room. My sore eyes watch him like a burning house. The unadulterated agony that floods from his body burns irreversible scars into my memory. I feel like I should look away, that a moment like this is miles beneath any worth to his needs.

And Jean wasn't even the one who was shot.

The moment my eyes drift to Marco's body, bile boils into my throat and I have to level myself to not throw up over Connie's corpse. My eyes drift back to Jean but it doesn't make me feel any better.

Jean crawls slowly towards his boyfriend. His face wrenched in pure pain. He stops just before he reaches Marco, his hands dripping in fresh blood and his eyes wither with the same crimson color. His mouth hangs open for a moment before he leans forward as veins pop from the side of his neck.

He's screaming. But I can't hear him. I can't hear what must be the same noise Connie made. But I see the truest form of horror being belted from his being. Tears fall from my eyes and I feel them carve warm lines down my cheeks.

Jean's body jerks as he vomits at Marco's feet. He wraps his arms around himself to grab his biceps and slowly rock back and forth. After what seems like a lifetime of Jean's mind visibly unravelling from itself, Jean looks up at Armin and Eren across the room, and then at Reiner over his shoulder.

Looking at Jean feels like staring at a mirror and seeing Reiner's reflection. The moment of eye contact they share carries a world of grief that I can't begin to comprehend. It's the same moment that I realize what just happened.

Reiner shot Marco.

Reiner, who has been struggling to bring himself validation through the act of saving his friends, has failed once again by killing one of the only people who was willing to get hurt if it meant saving someone.

Reiner is going to blame himself for letting Ymir and Historia go to the Love Barn. He is going to blame himself for letting Connie and Sasha eat that popcorn. And now he's the only one to blame for the chunk of Marco's brain on the floor.

If only we had paid more attention to Eren's intentions. If only we'd believed Jean. If only we'd ran a little faster or moved a little earlier. If only things didn't come to this.

I notice Jean turn back to Marco, taking an empty look at his shoes, and then looking up at Mikasa who's still standing there like a demon among mortals. The pain on Jean's face cripples into destruction. Mikasa shifts her weight onto her back foot and awaits Jean's move. She doesn't seem to give Marco's sacrifice a second glance.

It's suicide to go up against Mikasa, especially as Annie's body lays at her feet, but Jean surges towards her without fear. He's lost the need to be safe. At this point, I don't think he cares about what happens to him.

He grabs Mikasa's throat in his upward lunge, manages to clasp his hand around her neck and send the two of them stumbling back a couple of steps before Mikasa maneuvers Jean's arm into a lock that has him back on his knees.

Just as I try to shift towards the impossible fight, Reiner turns to me.

Oh god, no.

It's that look. That look of hollow soullessness that Jean had looked at him with. Reiner's eyes barely see me. I'm not sure that he does. His gaze falls short of my eyes as he looks blankly past my face.

His gaze then drops to Connie.

I lift my trembling hand to his face and try to pull his attention towards me.

Please look at me. Please look at me. Please look at me.

"Look at me," I giggled through my hand. I tried to pinch my lips together to keep the growing smile on my face from embarrassing Reiner. But he was just so damn cute. I held my phone up at the edge of my knee to try and hide the impending picture that was to be taken. I wanted this moment to be my new screensaver. "Pleeeease."

Reiner, who had his back to me, was laying on his stomach on the floor with his bare legs crossed at his ankles and his upper half propped up by his elbows. He turned his head slightly to reveal the small smirk on his face.

In the late Saturday morning, clean light filtered through the open curtains and painted the backs of Reiner's thighs in white sunshine. I stared at round cakes of Reiner's ass that stretched his navy blue boxer briefs. The curve of his ass sloped into the bend of his back where his all too small t-shirt rode up on his hips. His spectacular figure then broadened up to his shoulders and arms. His shirt warped around the melons that are his biceps.

Although I could've savored the view for the rest of my hangover cure coffee, I also needed this picture before Reiner ditched my gift into the box that he kept with a bunch of our knick-knacks and memories we've kept over the years.

I pouted and sunk into the couch to extend my foot and poke him in the calf. "Hey Chunky Butt, pay attention to me."

Reiner snorted, shaking his head to himself. I squinted at his phone that was being held in front of his face. I smiled at the forehead selfies he sent to his Snap Streaks with the caption "I lived bitch."

I thought back to the events of last night's party at Eren's weird friend's frat house. I enjoyed going to frat parties every once and awhile. It's fun to see their faces when they realize that a bunch of gays have just entered the building. Reiner also liked to make a bunch of bets with the Chad's and then destroy their asses in a multitude of strength challenges. This, of course, always led to the frat guys chasing us out of the place like a mob of Tommy Hilfiger clad drunkards.

"So needy," Reiner hummed to himself as he tossed his phone aside and rolled onto his side to strike a ridiculous pose. "This what you wanted?" he asks with an incredulous quirk of his eyebrow and a proud smirk at his lips. He planted a hand on his lip and stuck one of his legs straight into the air with his toes pointed. He puffed his chest out so that the stamped, "My Boyfriend Is Taller Than Your Boyfriend" letters stretched across his pecs.

I shook my head. Of course Reiner wouldn't be embarrassed. I should've known. I lifted my phone and snapped a picture of my boyfriend. His hair is growing out and sticks up in fluffy tufts on his head, his glasses hang low off his nose, and a fading hickey pokes out from the wide collar of the shirt.

Reiner let me take the picture and then lowered his leg to look up at me proudly. "You're mom would love that."

I scoffed, "Definitely not showing my mom this one." I smiled down at the picture as it lit up behind the apps on my phone. "She still thinks you're closted with homophobic parents and is saving yourself for marriage."

Reiner tilted his head and pushed up his glasses with the back of his finger. "Well, used to be true." His eyes faded into deep thought before he blinked and smilesmiledd up at me. "She still loves me."

I hummed thinking of every phone call I have with my mother and how it always seemed to waltz onto the topic of how me and Reiner's relationship was, how perhaps he could be the one? Hm, Berthold?

I looked back up at Reiner on the floor who was back on his phone probably scrolling through Instagram looking for any regrettable pictures that may have made it to the public from last night. I noticed the Captain America Shield on the crotch patch of his underwear and pursed my lips. Yeah, I loved Reiner, and one day I was going to marry him, but not in the near future Mom, sorry.

"You don't have to wear that shirt, you know. I just got it for you because I thought it was funny," I said while thumbing out a text to Ymir to check to see if her and Historia got home safely.

"Nah, I'mma make it a crop top 'n where it to work," Reiner said like it wasn't the stupidest idea ever. I winced to myself. I remembered looking at some girl from campus wearing the shirt next to her basketball boyfriend and I thought it was cute. But when I looked it up, there were only women's cuts. So I went for the biggest size and hoped for the best. And here we are still with an all too small shirt for an all too large boy.

I looked at him over my phone with the pained wince on my face. "Seriously, babe? You don't have to." I sighed thinking of all of Reiner's work friends, all big and buff and attractive, seeing Reiner wearing a crop top that was given to him by his boyfriend who doesn't even know his size. "And why do you insist on making the gym a place I can never show my face?" I whined hoping I could talk him into not embarrassing himself.

Reiner looked up at me and smiled. Not a nice smile, a "I think it's funny when you try to tell me what to do," smile. "What? I want them to know I have a bomb boifey."

I sighed with a subtle quirk of my lips. "Don't call me boifey, it's weird."

"It's boyfriend and wifey mixed-"

"I know what it means, dear," I said, giving him a look. "Just don't tell them I gave it to you, alright?"

Reiner squinted at me with a grin. "It literally says, 'my boyfriend' on it."

I frowned. "Shut up."

He laughed to himself. "How 'bout you come and visit me at work one of these days, meet some of the guys, let me fuck you in the locker rooms, and then I'll stash the shirt away in the 2015 box?"

I shook my head. "How romantic."

Reiner laughed to himself and rolled onto his back holding this phone in the air above his face to continue scrolling through it. "The shirt shall stay, then, laddy."

I ran my bottom lip through my teeth. "Or," I started, slinking off the couch to straddle Reiner's lap covering the unfortunate Captain America Shield. "I could take the shirt and I'll let you fuck me now?"

Reiner hummed setting his phone down as his hands naturally came to rest on my thighs. "Tempting," he said. "But I keep the shirt on or no deal."

"Lord," I said, rolling my eyes. "Fine, but you're paying for lunch."

Reiner's eyes lit up behind the circular frames of his glasses. Although dark circles hang below his eyes, the clear blue color still radiated with affection. I smiled down at him, tracing my thumb over the ruff hairs that poke out along his jaw. He turned his face to kiss my palm.

My chest permeated with golden flakes of love. I could stare at him like this all day long. He looked at me like I was his world. He made me feel like I belonged in his arms and that I was strong enough to carry him too. He made me want to be my best self, like I could make the world a better place just by having him by my side.

Reiner laced his fingers into mine and let his eyes shift from absolute adoration into a glint of amusement. "Sounds like a deal."

I remember Reiner looking at me like I was his world. I remember what it felt like when we were unstoppable, that nothing could get between us. We were in love, we are in love, but life gets harder the longer it carries on. And now with the burden of loss and failure trapping our hearts and straining the connection between our souls, I can feel Reiner drifting away from me.

"Reiner?" I think I say. But the deafness in my ears disconnects me even farther from my love. I feel like I could reach out with the farest stretch my body could handle and I still wouldn't be able to hold him.

He looks up at me, his eyes dragging from Connie's body to my eyes like he's pulling a piano into a window. The hollow pits of his eyes show no light, no reflection, no life. My gut coils in freezing tubes threatening to shatter into millions of pieces.

My vision blurs around the distorting tears that leave my eyes. Reiner washes out of my sight as pain replaces him. I feel the peticularly and precisely placed threads that bond us being severed one by one. Each snap of a string sends a sharp pain to my chest like darts being thrown into the dark.

I watch carefully at Reiner's lip for any sign of movement, any word he might need me to hear, any thought he wants me to save him from. I'll do it Reiner, I'll save you. Always. I'm here for you. Just ask me and I'd give you the world.

But Reiner says nothing. He says nothing as I feel pain bloom in my throat from what must be my screaming. He says nothing as I try to reach out to him, to hold him, to reassure him and tell him that I won't leave him. He says nothing as he flips the shotgun in his grasp and pulls the trigger, sending his body ricotetting at horrifying angles onto the floor behind him.

It's an instant. A single moment from when Reiner pulls the suicidal trigger to when I'm standing alone looking down at his mutilated body. I don't hear the second shot, but I flinch when the hot spatter of his head sprays over my skin and through my clothes. I stumble against the back cabin door, feeling the slick of blood dripping down the glass.

Reiner's body thumps to the ground as the gun scatters across the floor. I blink away the stinging in my eyes as I stare down at Reiner. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to feel. I don't know what's happening.

My eyes blink slower and slower the image of Reiner's crimson covered body burning every corner of my mind. But I don't feel anything. Nothing at all. I don't feel the paralyzing fear of being hunted through the dark woods. I don't feel the looming terror of Eren and Mikasa's presence. I don't feel the all consuming dread from seeing Connie and Marco die. I don't feel the crippling loss of Reiner's death.

There's nothing. All those nights spent with the love of my life. All the trying times and healing words. All those road trips and early morning runs. All those soft touches and kind smiles. All those beautiful moments that I never expect I'd have the honor of witnessing. They dissipate in the blackhole of my mind.

My body limps against the door. I don't know how I'm still standing. My knees tremble under the weight of sagging shoulders. My limbs feel the same numbness as my head. I feel nothing but the drying blood on my face.

The first time I tear my eyes from Reiner is to catch the violent shift of movement in my peripheral vision. I squint up at a presence emerging from the darkness. My broken senses make everything seem like they're in a twisted dimension that makes everything ten times heavier. The air is thick with sweat and tears and pain. I feel like each of my movements are being restrained by invisible ropes and I can't see more than a few feet in front of me as my vision tunnels in murky fog.

I blink at the figure and recognize green eyes that shine like dripping saliva from a hungry wolf's fangs. Next, I notice the metallic glint of a blade slicing through the air.

A sharp pain bursts from my throat. I choke on a gurgled cry but the vibrations of my vocal cord only worsen the pain. I scramble to lift a shaking hand to my neck feeling the river of warm, viscous liquid spill over my fingers.

My knees give out as my vision blurs into swirling taffy. I slide down the slick door and rest my loose head on the glass.

I pull my hand away from my throat to see my warped fingers colored in grainy red. I almost laugh, of course this is happening.

The sight of my fingers is jerked upward and the pain my throat shocks me so bad that I nearly pass out. Although, that'll be happening soon enough, won't it?

My eyes land on a face. Green eyes, twisted smile, and black heart. Eren.

He tilts his head at me with his hand fisted in my hair. He forces me to look at him as I die by his hands. He wants to see the fear of the unknown leave my soul writhing and squirming in my body. He wants to hear me beg for my life clinging to his shirt and leaving my blood on his collar. He wants me to leave this world knowing that he killed me, that he was the one destined to be at the end of the road, that he's the God in control of my life.

But I won't give him the pleasure.

I use whatever strength I have left in me to stare back at Eren just as he looks at me. I show him that I'm not scared of him, I'm not scared of the unknown, I'm not scared of dying. He took my friends from me. He took Reiner from me. He took my life from me. But I won't let him take my dignity.

I think of my mom. What she'll think when she finds out what happened to me. What she'll feel, what she'll be forced to live with for the rest of her life. I'm sorry, Mom, I should've been stronger, but at least I won't disappoint you in this moment.

I glare at Eren and smile.

My lips stretch like ancient plastic, brittle and forced, crumbling the harder I try. Blood seeps through my teeth, down my chin, and into the gorey mess on my throat. But I continue to smile, despite the pain, despite the horror, despite Eren.

You lost Eren. You won't get what you want. You will fail. Our friends will end you for what you've done. Just you wait.

Eren's face fades into the enveloping darkness, but I continue to smile. With the remaining fragments of my vision left, I look towards my feet where Reiner's body lays untouched.

Don't worry, baby, I'm following you.