Chapter 5: The World the Boy Saw
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A girl in silver handed him a blade, his mother gave him a sad smile, a single choice shall end his days, people looking up at the sky, a grove that was set on fire while screams came from the trees—a discarded figurine, to storm or fire the world—an army of monsters—laughter—a smiling titan—labyrinth—monster—
Eren Yeager woke up with a loud gasp, his heart was rapidly beating against his chest, as if he had been fighting for his life.
"Calm down," a familiar voice said.
The young demigod stopped his panicking and focused on his surroundings. He noticed was sitting in a nice bedroom, far nicer than he has ever been in before. Through the windows he could see distant hills and hear the faint sound of the ocean. A sweet breeze swept through the many open windows.
Next to his bed he saw his friend Grover sitting on a wooden lawn chair. He was looking at Eren and subtly pointed at his own eyes.
Eren touched his face and found it to be wet. Confused and mildly embarrassed he wiped away his tears.
"Did you have a nightmare?" Grover asked.
The young demigod frowned. The images inside his head had already started to fade, as if it was a distant dream from years ago. He felt they had been important, but when he tried to reach for the memories he found absolutely nothing.
He bit his lip. "No, I had this really long dream…I just can't remember it."
When his heart stopped racing, and his mind calmed down Eren found himself forced to face his current situation. Hazy memories from before flooded in, filling up his thoughts and emotions as he tried to keep himself from drowning in the sea of thoughts.
He looked at his friend, at his cloven hoofs. It left little room for doubt.
"My mom…" Eren whispered softly. "My mother she is-"
The satyr looked down in shame. "I am so sorry."
His words went unheard. Eren's thoughts had scattered too far to be anything but an incohesive mess of emotions.
Without blinking Eren Yeager slowly got off the bed. His eyes were not focused on the world around him, he didn't see the groves, or the strawberry fields, nor did he see the soothing rays of sunlight blessing the safe haven around him.
All he saw was a world where things like that monstrous bulls and winged demons existed and allowed his mother to be killed.
"Where is it?" Eren asked, his voice barely holding any emotion.
"Where's what?" Grover asked, confused by the sudden shift in attitude. In his almost trance like state the demigod had left his bed and was trying to find his footing, only stopped by his lack of balance and direction.
"The Minotaur," Eren said calmly. "Where is it?"
"You shouldn't call it by its name like that."
"I want to know where the Minotaur is," Eren demanded. "Tell me, now."
"It's dead," Grover shifted uncomfortable.
Eren stopped in his movement.
"You were out cold for 2 days, Chiron already killed the Minotaur." Grover explained. "They managed to save you and me but…"
With a blank stare Eren sat down on the edge of the bed. It had been killed already? But…he was supposed to kill that bastard. He had to be the one. Right? He had to avenge his mother. He had to kill it. He promised himself he would…
"I am so sorry," Grover sniffled. He couldn't even look Eren in the eyes, knowing the loss he suffered. "I'm an absolute failure. I knew I was a failure and yet I still accepted the mission. It is my fault. Again I screw up, I am so fucking sorry. It should have been-" The words he spoke had started to blend together into a long winded apology. The satyr buried his face between his hands. "I should have been me, I am so sorry Eren."
Eren looked at his friend. At his supposed protector. No matter how bad he felt about his loss, he couldn't find it within himself to blame Grover. The satyr had been nothing but kind to him.
And he had failed just as badly. He had been unable to protect his mother. Unable to kill the Minotaur.
Eren clenched his fist.
"It's not your fault," Eren said.
"It is, it was my duty to pr-"
"Shut it," Eren hardly interrupted. A flicker of annoyance was evident in his expression. "You did what you could, but you were too weak to fight that monster. I was too weak." He chuckled dryly, feeling a tear roll down his cheek. He tried to speak but another salvo of laughter escaped, this one sounding more desperate then the one before.
Grover gave Eren a worried look.
Eren took a deep breath, trying to remain composed in front of his friend, even so, he felt his anger threatening to take over. He had to bury his nails deep into his palm to speak calmly.
"It was that monster's fault." Eren spoke calmly, choosing his words extremely carefully. "And there are more monsters out there." he pointed out of the window, towards the meadows, the strawberry fields, the tree line and the sky. "It's all their fault."
A tear fell to the ground.
Grover stopped sniffling. "Well, I suppose you are right."
"So, Grover, tell me more about them. I want to know everything about these monsters."
"Why?" Grover asked, concern written on his face. "Eren, what you've gone through is horrible, you shouldn't have to worry about that. We are safe here." Grover tried to reach out to Eren.
"Come on, I should probably introduce you to Chiron and Mister D." He helped the demigod up. "They should be able to explain things better than I can."
"Yeah, you are right." Eren conceded. "Come, I am dying to know what the fuck is going on."
He shared a smile with Grover to show him that he truly didn't hold anything against him.
Grover lifted Eren from the bed and helped him position himself. Together the pair left the room and followed the path.
Eren Yeager struggled to walk upright on his own. As he leaned on Grover's shoulders he was painfully aware of how pathetic he was. He grimaced and continued.
The outside was just as beautiful as the view from the windows promised.
Underneath him lay a valley filled to the brim with wondrous things. White buildings that looked like the ones he saw in his history books, a sandpit where kids in orange t-shirts played around, and a canoe lake where girls were playing on the shore. Further down there was an archery range, a forest and a tall wall with dangerous looking spikes protruding from it.
So this is the safe haven mom was talking about. Eren looked at the magical valley. He looked at the forest, the little sliver of the ocean he could see underneath the horizon. He looked ahead, farther than anyone in his position would.
He looked at the horizon and he felt a bitter taste in his mouth.
Beyond this safe haven there were monsters. And he was going to kill every last one of them.
A/N Poor Eren, you do know that if you kill monsters they will reform eventually?
Thanks for 30 follow know, I have a discord server. It's on my profile page. In case you want to have any in depth discussion. Thanks again for reading.
-CaptainMoonShine-
German science:
Chiron: poseidon is your father
Eren: who?
Chiron: poseidon, God of the s-
Eren: no I mean who asked?
I feel like luke is gonna smell blood in the water with Eren. Also I feel he's gonna positively tear canon asunder. Most obvious idea I can think of is convincing biannca to not join the hunters by positively shredding artemis' arguments for joing and maybe unintentionally turning nico into armin 2.0
A: I like this a lot, but then again, let's hope Eren doesn't get himself killed prematurely.
Joseph Marin, me too!
Delta6697, I told you, all you need is to keep writing, until your entire story is told.
Austin, I feel that Zeus' plan of killing all big three kids will not sit really well with Eren Yeager. Let's just hope he won't be fried by Zeus because he runs his mouth.
Sensepi Rescopula, nop
