Chapter 4: one by one, they left
After watching his best friend walk out the door, Jean Kirschtein closes his eyes and wonders what the hell he's going to do.
Marco is loyal, but he's not dumb. Jean knows there's no way he'd wait, not for close to an hour when a dozen other armed students would be following. But Jean also knows that his best bet at not dying immediately would be to find an ally. But there isn't anyone around him he'd feel confident in approaching. He'd just seen Hannah throw a note onto her not-boyfriend's desk, and Franz had only just managed to grab it before Kenny noticed. Jean can't try something like that, though; Hannah had been able to because she had to walk in front of Franz's desk to get to the door, but Jean isn't walking past any of his friends, except maybe Eren Jaeger-who's leaving before him anyway.
Turning around to double check for anyone he could wait for, he locks eyes with Ymir Langnar, who sits right behind him. She raises her eyebrows expectantly and even smirks, like she knows exactly what he's thinking. He faces forward again, heart pounding. What the hell was that?
Despite Ymir having moved to their town from Europe almost five years ago, Jean doesn't know her well on a personal level, but what he does know is enough to make him wary. She'd arrived in Trost way back in fifth grade with her older cousin, Ilse, a reporter or an author or some shit like that. They hadn't intended on staying for more than a month, just long enough for Ilse to build a foundation on some project. But then those terrorist attacks had happened, the government went on lockdown, the customs process was screwed up, and no one but high-ranking officials had been let in or out of the country since.
Just her being from somewhere outside was enough to draw people to her (none of them, Jean included, had ever met anyone not born inside the Walls) despite her abrasive and frankly rude personality. But other than showing off her mastery of multiple languages, she refused to talk about her life back at wherever she was from, or what exactly she and Ilse had been doing here anyway. She was even dodgy about which of the languages she spoke was her native one, and her accent was vague enough (or they were all sheltered enough) that it didn't hint at anything either.
Being unusually loud mouthed about the restrictions that everyone else had grown up with and had long since even stopped registering was also a breath of fresh air. When Armin Arlert (Armin Arlert, for Pete's sake) had nearly been sent to a detention center back in seventh grade after downloading a couple foreign movies his parents (who had been out of the country at the time of the lockdown, and are currently somewhere in Australia) had recommended, Ymir had scoffed, stated that where she was from, downloading movies was easy as pie and she never knew anyone who was arrested, "especially not someone like Arlert." Armin wasn't sent away, thankfully, but Jean is pretty sure that was when Ymir, without even really trying, started to encourage awareness and skepticism regarding the bullshit they'd been fed from day one. Some kids were more upfront about it than others (Jean, for example, had taken and turned his interest in computers into a surprising knack for hacking), but all in all, Trost High School's tenth grade class took pride in their collective self-awareness and questioning ability. And it was all thanks to Ymir.
But, Jean thinks as he recalls that weird look she'd just given him, suppose that's why our class was chosen for this? The government does say that thinking like ours is dangerous. Maybe that's why they chose us, and killed Mr. Pixis. They knew we were thinking of breaking out of this, maybe even of revolting. Can't have that, can they. Maybe this is Ymir's fault. Weird how she encourages us to think all these silly laws and restrictions are bullshit, yet never wants to talk about why, or what we should do. She just plants the idea and lets us water it. Weird.
God, he really hopes this isn't Ymir's fault. Or any of their faults, for that matter. He'd actually rather chalk it up to Kenny Ackerman's bullshit explanation than for their study group to have been chosen because it was filled with a bunch of budding political dissenters. Or, in Jean's case, children honing their skills to do straight up illegal activities like hacking. Sure, the worst thing he'd ever done was break onto blocked sites like YouTube or whatever, and sometimes pirate foreign movies for Armin and occasionally even Ymir, but still. Even his tablet isn't entirely legal, since he'd had it shipped from outside the Walls under his college professor uncle's name (without his uncle's permission) under the guise of "educational purposes."
Fuck.
He glances around at the remaining seniors, all wearing identical hard emotionless masks, not exactly the faces of people to approach and trust. But then again, this must suck doubly so for them, since they'd all been promised safety upon graduating eleventh grade and had no doubt already begun the process of applying to and scouting colleges. But here they are, chosen for no reason other than wanting to study and tutor for a couple of hours after school.
Sitting right next to him, Nanaba Purser stares at Kenny, the hatred simmering in her blue eyes a stark contrast to the calmness of her expression. Jean can't blame her. He hadn't known Lynne or Henning well, since they were two years older and he only really saw them after school, but he'd liked them enough. Lynne had been optimistic bordering on perky, and very thoughtful and caring. He'd actually seen her leaning across the aisle to try to comfort Sasha, and he'd also seen what happened after. Henning had been kind of quiet, but he'd been good with computers, and had given Jean some pointers in study group a couple of times, once even bringing his laptop to school to explain and demonstrate a couple of things. Yeah, he'd definitely liked them.
He notices Lynne's mouth is slightly open, and he can see even from here the silver gleam of her braces reflecting off the fluorescent lights. He wonders when she was supposed to be getting them off. He guesses it doesn't matter anymore.
He can't imagine how shitty Sasha must feel. Kenny calls her name now, and Jean watches as she carefully steps over the corpses at her feet, picks up her duffel, and goes to the front to collect her daypack. There's blood splattered across the left side of her neck and face––Henning's blood––but somehow she manages to keep her composure, eyes sweeping over the room as she stands in the doorway, waiting for her cue to leave. Jean almost is tempted to wave or something, but he's afraid to, not even just for himself, because if Kenny throws a knife into him for it, that's another death Sasha will have on her conscience. Not to mention it'd be morbid as hell; you can't thumbs up people after being told you have to kill your classmates. So he gives her a kind of half-smile instead, lifting his finger slightly in a goodbye.
Sasha's expression, formerly tense and even scared, softens a tad, and that's the last he sees of her before she turns to leave. Like the others before her, her footsteps echo for a few moments before fading into silence.
Exactly two minutes later, Rico Brzenska's name is called and she stands immediately. As she goes to the front of the room, Jean sees that she'd pulled a Hannah, and has just dropped a note in Ian Dietrich's lap. Once again, Kenny does not notice, and sends her on her (not so) merry way.
While Jean has no problem believing that Hannah and Franz only want to meet up to spend their last days together, Rico and Ian is a slightly more unnerving combination, for reasons he can't quite pin down. Ian's face doesn't change at all upon reading the note. Really, really weird.
Over the next twenty minutes, no one else does any note passing, not even Mina Carolina, although she'd walked right past Annie Leonhart's desk. It's Jean's turn now.
The walk to the front of the room is just as unsettling as he'd figured it'd be. Kenny hands him a daypack-heavier than he would have thought, and for a fleeting moment Jean hopes it's because he'd gotten a good weapon, maybe a gun. He immediately feels bad for thinking that, but then rationalizes that yeah, he doesn't want to kill anyone but there's still self-defense to consider. Self-defense requires a good weapon. And the better the weapon the quicker the death, right? He doesn't want anyone to suffer, after all.
Going down the hallway is almost worse. It's almost completely dark except for a lit side room near the end, but when Jean peeks in, he sees it's filled with soldiers, even more heavily armed than those in the classroom.
Anyone lollygagging in the halls will be shot. Jean quickens his pace, only slowing when he finally reaches the door. He looks back down the long hallway one more time before he takes a deep breath and pushes it open.
The first thing he notes is how high and bright the moon is in the sky.
The second is Eren Jaeger.
34 students remaining.