Hello everyone, I'm sorry for such a long hiatus.
I wish I could promise that it won't happen again, but I do have chunks of free time now that I didn't before. I will try and fill them by updating this as much as I can because I have a lot of ideas on where to take it.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope that you continue to!
And thank you to everyone who has commented and read for me.
I would greatly appreciate any comments or suggestions you guys have for me. Please share! Thank you and enjoy.
"What the hell was that back there?" the boy heard Petra whisper harshly as they approached the gates. The boy was rather confused by Petra… in the clearing she had seemed so calm and reassured, but everything had changed since the overly large humans appeared.
To be honest, the boy was completely confused by the rather large humans. They seemed kind of like children to him – they were overly curious and they didn't seem that dangerous. However, it seemed that all of the normal sized humans were horrified by the larger ones. The second that one had appeared, he noticed Petra's body tense up. Every muscle in her body seemed to become stone all at once.
"It must not be comfortable to be made out of stone," the boy thought to himself, not realizing that he had said it out loud.
"Look, you saved my life and countless others, kid, so I really can't be mad," Petra sighed to herself, relaxing a bit. "But, I want you to know that your life is about to get a whole hell of a lot harder."
The boy didn't really understand what that meant. At this point he wasn't even entirely sure what a life was. Did normal people have different lives than him? Did normal people remember their names and their parents? Did normal people remember anything?
"You might not think that means anything," Petra continued. "But, it does. It means people are going to ask you questions. They're going to want to know everything you know, and saying nothing won't help your case at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're going to try to kill you."
"Wouldn't make it much of a life at all," the boy responded softly. She had told him they were going to kill him… but for some reason he couldn't find a reason to be scared. It wasn't that he really had any absolute desire to die… but he didn't really have a well-defined reason to live either.
Maybe normal people have that too, the boy thought to himself, looking at all of the normal people around them. They were a rather sorry sight. Some still had blood covering their bodies… some looked like they might never be the same ever again. There was one who stood out to him though… a black-haired commander towards the front of the formation. He seemed fiercely determined… nothing seemed to faze him. He was calm, cool, and collected. Maybe he's not normal either, the boy thought to himself.
"Don't you worry though," Petra said calmly, staring ahead, toward the black-haired commander. "That's Levi. He'll take care of you. He absolutely hates the Military Police – the lousy cowards. He'll never let them lay a hand on you."
The boy nodded and looked upwards. He noticed that ahead of them there was a menacingly large concrete wall. It seemed to be hundreds of feet high and when he looked to the left and to the right it seemed to stretch on for thousands of miles. He wondered if they had reached the end of the world, or maybe this was the barrier that separated his world from their world.
"Pull your hood up and keep your head down," Petra commanded him. "If the public finds out that you're from outside we'll have a riot on our hands."
The boy complied and pulled his hood up, keeping his head down. He also made sure that there was just a sliver of the fabric of his hood pulled back – just enough to see the smallest amount of his surroundings. Then he listened as closely as he could as they neared the wall. He heard someone towards the front shout something inaudible and then there came the crashing and churning of the gate. The boy imagined that giant beast of the wall openings its great mouth and bearing its thick, concrete teeth to welcome the weary travelers into the belly of the beast.
The regiment moved slowly through the gates at first, bad news strewn all across their faces. The boy had already figured out what had happened… whatever they were searching for beyond the mouth of the great beast was not found. They had no good news to report and nothing to give out to the grieving families except somber condolences. Once they had completely entered through the beast's mouth, it quickly clamped shut to prevent any other things from getting in… or maybe it was to prevent them from getting out. The boy couldn't figure out which one it was or which one he preferred.
Once the regiment entered and the gate had closed behind them, silence fell among the crowd. From the little visual information the boy could gather, he discovered that everyone was searching for the faces of their loved ones. Occasionally he would see relief spread across the face of someone, but others weren't so lucky. He saw them search and search desperately, until another member of the crowd touched them and shook their head regretfully. Sobs broke out, it seemed that most people understood the situation. The regiment was broken.
One woman couldn't comprehend the loss of someone close to her though. The boy watched as she broke from the crowd and ran to the man the boy had come to know as Commander Shadis. She collapsed into sobs in front of him and asked where her dearest son was. The boy couldn't see the face of their commander, but he understood what the slight shiver of the commander's shoulders meant. He was holding back an emotional outburst.
The commander called back to a solider. The solider ran forward, and in his arms was a small, white, bandaged parcel. He handed it to the woman and said, and in his most sincere voice he choked, "Your son served the regiment well."
The woman held the parcel close and shamelessly wept in the street. The boy could hear her sobs from where he sat in the formation and he felt Petra's muscles tighten to stone again. "Tell me my son's sacrifice meant something," he heard the woman scream, "tell me he didn't die in vain!"
The boy saw Shadis crumple to the ground and shake violently. He could tell Shadis was sobbing now too, unabashed. "Your son was brave," he choked. "But he died because of me." Shadis sobbed even harder. "We fight and fight and I send these boys out to their deaths… but we are no closer to saving humanity. In all of these trips we have done nothing! We are no closer!" Shadis screamed and the regiment stood in silence, unsure of exactly what to do. Everyone remained quiet and still.
Silence seemed to fall over the regiment forever, shrouding the regiment like an impenetrable barrier. Even when the group began to move again no one said a word or even breathed for a while. The group remained silent until they reached the inner walls when groups began to break off. He saw some sections of the regiment break off down separate streets, but Petra kept moving forward with the boy, bringing him further into the city. All the way into the center… to the absolute belly of the beast.
Soon, they reached a gate that was decorated much more beautifully than all of the other ones. Petra dismounted and helped the boy off, wrapping her arm around one of his shoulders. She squeezed him against her tightly and the boy felt safe and comfortable for the first time since he had met them. By now though, only Petra and a few others remained.
"We must screen him first," a female said. "To know just exactly who he is." There were mutters of agreement among them, and the boy remembered what Petra had said. Somehow, Petra holding him so comfortingly had made him fear death. He didn't want to let this feeling of safety go.
"Can Petra come with me?" he asked quietly. He noticed Levi turn and look at him, and then to Petra.
"Petra, you must not develop feelings towards this boy." He cautioned, "We do not know if he will be staying."
Petra's grip loosened and the boy was afraid that she would stop touching him all together. Instead she simply replied that she wouldn't, and she slowly ushered the boy to follow the woman who had suggested the screening. She didn't break eye-contact with Levi and kept moving forward, right alongside the boy.
When they had finally gotten out of earshot of Levi the boy whispered softly to Petra, "I don't have a name." He felt Petra tense again against his arm, where she was still gently touching him. He thought that maybe it would be too direct to ask Petra what his name should be. "What does your name mean?" He asked instead, hoping to calm her down.
"My name is Petra," she started, slowly easing her tense grip. "It's Greek. It means 'stone' or 'rock.'"
"Is that because when you get nervous you tense up like a rock?" This time Petra didn't tense up, and instead she let out a deep laugh. Her laugh was so contagious he felt like he should laugh too, and he did. He discovered that he liked laughing. Laughing felt good, maybe one day he would have a laugh that was as beautiful as Petra's.
"I was hoping you wouldn't notice," she said, continuing to giggle, "But I think my father named me because he hoped I would become a very strong warrior."
"Well I think you are strong too." The boy blushed, looking away from Petra. He looked back up a few moments later to see her smiling broadly. "Will you give me one?"
"A name?" Petra was unsure. He could tell that the idea made her uncomfortable, but the boy could see the gears turning inside her head as she became more okay with it. "I suppose I can't keep calling you just a child, now can I?"
"I don't think so," the boy said calmly. He felt that he would be honored to have a name… especially one given to him by someone as noble and brave as Petra.
"Well, I think I like Alexander…" she said calmly, looking up towards the sky. "In Greek it means 'defender of men,' and you saved many valuable lives today."
"Alexander…" the boy said, rolling it around his tongue, feeling the sound of the name. "I like it a lot."
"I'm glad you do, Alex," Petra said, smiling.
The screening was hard for Alex. They tested his vision by making him read teeny tiny letters that made his eyes hurt. They tested his hearing by making him listen to nearly inaudible sounds that he strained his ears to hear until they hurt too. Then they tested his intelligence, and that made him the angriest. They gave him papers and papers full of questions that he had no idea what the answer was. They asked him questions about numbers and letters and sometimes numbers and letters together. He had never been taught any such sorcery in his lifetime.
Finally, they got to a section that Alex could succeed at. They sat him down and they began to ask him all sorts of general questions. They asked him tons of silly questions that he felt anybody would know the answer to. They asked him questions about history, food, and even how plants grow. But what he felt that he was the best at were the questions about Earth.
They asked him to tell him a little bit about the planet Earth, and he told them. He told them about the great plains in North America and how there was so much ice that it was unimaginable in Antarctica. He told them about the equator, the amazing rain forests in South America, and the great deserts of Africa. He vividly described the huge oceans that were all connected to one another that covered over 70 percent of Earth. He talked about how they were populated with all kinds of animals, and not just fish! They had dolphins and whales, which both breathed air despite living in the ocean. He also told them about the large lakes in North America and about the river along the eastern coast of Africa that actually flows northward instead of southward.
He felt so intelligent after talking about Earth, which he decided he must know a lot about because they all seemed so interested when he told them. In fact, he believed that he must be the expert on Earth if nobody else seemed to know as much as he did. Maybe, he thought to himself, sitting inside these walls isn't so great after all.
After he had finished telling them all about Earth there was a lot of talking done among the adults. They had decided that there must be no way he was lying about living outside the walls since he knew so much about their planet. What they didn't understand was how he managed to survive eleven years having never been harmed by one of those large humans.
"I'd never seen any of them hurt anything for a long while," he said quietly and all of the adults turned to him. "They don't hurt the animals and they don't really even hurt the trees. Only on accident sometimes, but then you guys came and they got much more violent."
As soon as he said those words though a large man in a military uniform broke through the door. Instead of wings, though, his uniform had a large rose on it. "Titans have breached the outer wall. Garrison and Scout have been tasked to defend at all costs. Civilian lives have already been lost. He will be placed under military arrest and tried by the Military Police in your absence."
Levi stood up suddenly. "You're expecting me to leave our most valuable resource in the last fifty years to those lazy, scum, cowardly assholes?"
The man stood up straighter and walked towards Levi. "You're expecting me to believe that snot-nosed brat didn't cause the titans to breach the wall now? It's been a hundred years, Levi. This is not just a coincidence."
"You honestly expect me to let you cowardly fools be so barbaric as to try and execute an eleven year old boy who doesn't even know his own name?" Levi bellowed at the commander, resting a hand on his gear. He took a step forward towards the solider, pushing him back. "I will not let you harm this boy. I repeat: I will not let you harm this innocent child."
The solider stepped back away from Levi and turned around. "Then it's you disobeying orders, Levi. That's a call that you have to make." He opened the door and a group of soldiers sporting a fancy uniform with a unicorn on it came in.
"Military Police," they announced, "Come to take the outsider to court." They quickly advanced in a group towards Alex, and he felt himself be torn away from Petra and from his safety.
"His trial will be held within the next hour," one of the soldiers at the head reported. "We will sentence him as we see fit."
Alex was confused and scared as the soldiers picked him up under his arms and carried him away forcefully. All he could think about were Levi's words echoing in his mind. Try and execute. Try and execute. Execute.
Maybe this is the end.
"Though we're down and out, we won't let you in. And we won't let you in, we don't want what isn't ours." I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light, Brand New