Monster

Where…am I? The girl looked wearily around the room. Dark walls was all she could see, visible through only the pale light from the torch attached to the mass. She was chained. Her legs and arms were difficult to move. If she had tried to move them. The girl was still somewhat unconscious, although her vision had become clear, and her limbs had ceased to shake. Who…am I? She had no idea. She had no memory except for waking up in this dark place, and meeting a dark-haired man with gray eyes and a sharp tongue. What…is my…name?

When she had asked herself that, her damaged mind had replied in silence. It remained blank. What…is this? The nameless girl looked closer at what she wore on her body. It was made out of some kind of cloth, and was vivid in dark greens and browns. She had nothing on her feet…expect for the chains enclosing her in her cage. The girl was aware of nothing but her thoughts. She thought back to the man who had asked her the same questions as she asked herself now, and she could not answer them. His name is Levi…

"Excuse me…" Her voice was raspy and hard as if she hadn't used it for a hundred years. "When is…Levi…coming back?" Her blue eyes sharply widened when she was met with a stare of pure hate. Her guard had been posted not long ago, and she hadn't heard him try to speak with her or acknowledge her existence.

"It's Levi-heichō, you monster." The hate in his snarl bewildered the girl. His green eyes looked at her as if she was something other than human. Something…that was evil. She closed her eyes to try to make the feeling disappear, but she could still feel his eyes on her, and the emotions flowing through him. She opened her eyes again without meeting the guard's gaze, and stared down at the chains imprisoning her hands. Why…does he hate me? I…don't even know who I am. Or how I'm here. I have…no memories except for what I have, right now. What did I do? Did I…do something wrong? Her breathing started to increase at these thoughts. Confusion continued to rip through her. What…happened to me? Her entire body continued to shake again as her thoughts become more unfocused. She could see the guard becoming more and more frightened as she continued to shake. She thought of the man who she had first seen. The only one who seemed to not fear or hate her.

"Levi…" she whimpered. Suddenly she felt a pair of strong hands squeeze her throat.

"Don't you dare defile Heichō's name with your disgusting mouth, you Titan bitch!" Her breath was gone. Tears started to flame her dry eyes as she struggled to take a breath. The grip on her throat continued to tighten, and as seconds passed, she felt her sight dimming. Spittle started to collect near her mouth, and the green eyes of the guard seemed to grow ever closer…

"What the fuck is going on here?" The hands around her throat were gone in a matter of seconds, and the girl collapsed on the bed, coughing and gasping as she tried to regain her lung's function. For a couple of minutes, she could only focus on breathing again. Her sight came back, and when she looked up, she was aware of the man – Levi – standing in front of her.

"Come," he stated. The nameless girl watched him as he pulled out a key and unlocked the small cage. He stepped over towards her, and roughly touched her hands and her legs as he unlocked every chain. The chains fell, echoing eerily onto the ground. She observed the man before her as he looked back at her with an unreadable expression on his face. He was wearing a blue suit with a white shirt underneath. He also seemed to be wearing a…cravat. How do I know that word? The nameless girl wondered. Taking her silence for fear perhaps, the man turned to her.

"Stop shitting yourself." His gray eyes met her own blue. "You're coming with me, and you'll be protected by shitbags like him by my squad." The nameless girl watched as he moved on without her, moving in quick and assured steps. Realizing that she was being left behind, she used her slumbering legs to catch up to him. The girl noticed that his height was vastly different from the guard that had almost choked her to death. He was small, but she recognized that she was even smaller. Without turning to her to speak, he stated, "My name is Levi, the second-in-command of the Survey Corps. I am also the leader of the Special Operations Squad, who you will be protected by." These strange words echoed through her head, and questions bubbled through her mind. Survey Corps…Special Operations Squad…Titan… She had no idea what kind of world she had entered in.

"Why?" she asked. "Why…are you…protecting me?" Monster… The girl could see Levi looking at her through narrowed eyes, watching her face closely. She looked back at him, observing the dark circles around his eyes.

He didn't answer her. "Since you have no memory of who you are or where you came from…I've assigned you a name." He paused. "You will answer to Luz. That is your name." The now newly-named girl muttered the sound of the name under her breath. Her footsteps echoed along the wall as she and Levi climbed the stairs to a doorway. The girl was unprepared for what she was about to see. She blinked from the brightness shining in her eyes, and saw the blue of the sky exceeding beyond her sight. Her blue eyes stared in awe at the trees, at the birds chirping and flying in the wind, and at the grass beneath her feet.

"Stop staring." She was still captivated by the sights and did not hear him. "Luz." Her wonder was broken when she heard Levi utter her name. My name... She could see him eyeing her in annoyance, and heard the irritation coming from him. "No one must know you exist, so staring and gaping like the brat you are won't help you or me." He didn't wait for her to answer as he started to run. "We're meeting my team now. Come on!"

So fast… she thought. He was barely visible now as his running form disappeared. Suddenly, a splitting pain entered her mind. It spread through her skull and ravaged through her face. Her knees fell to the ground, and she gasped as the pain intensified. Through her one eye that was still open, a shadowy form surfaced. She couldn't see it clearly, but it seemed to be running…running away. Droplets of water, rain, were falling. A scream burst in her ears, a blood-curling scream that almost rendered her deaf. Then it was gone.

She gasped and her chest heaved as the sun and the sky came to her again. Sweat was pooling down her face, and her heart was felt as if it could come out of her chest. Luz – she hadn't even known she had a name before – clenched her hand to her chest. Her breathing slowed. Her heart gave the same comforting rhythm that had soothed her during that brief time in the cage. She ran. As she run, Luz was aware of how it felt the same. She had no recollection of why running felt so similar to her. Eventually she found herself at a cottage with Levi leaning against the doorway.

"Tch. You took you're shitty time." He opened the door without glancing her way. She was aware of a number of voices shouting at him at his arrival, and heard his quiet and slightly rasped tone as he snapped at them. She entered the room, looking at the table before her before meeting sets of eyes. They looked away. Luz was aware of Levi glancing her direction as he sat in the center of the table. Something's…wrong. She thought about the hateful face of the guard. Something… As she was sitting down beside one of the team, the dark-haired girl saw the group immediately begin to pull away.

"Levi-heichō, what the hell are you thinking?!"

"She'll kill us…"

Before she had any time to react, a hand pulled her from the chair and onto the floor. Green eyes smoldering with rage, and a face hard with hate flashed through her eyes before she saw a fist above her head. As it was about to go down, a single thought went through her mind.

Oh…This again…

"In other words, these Titans were humans." Those words had made Levi's blood turn ice-cold. His neutral expression was in contrast to the horror he felt inside. His mind went through every kill he had made since joining the Survey Corps. So… It made him shatter inside. As he watched as his newly-formed squad squirmed from the mere presence of Luz, he wondered absently how they would react if they knew what he knew.

"It means that the flesh I was frantically cutting was a part of humans… Then it means I've been killing people right and left…until now?" I'm no better than him, he had thought then. I've murdered…countless innocents…as I could have murdered her. He watched through lidded eyes as he watched Eren above the said girl. These fucking foolish brats don't know that the true monsters are actually us. Just as Eren was about to jam his fist into the girl's cheek and shatter the bone, Levi grasped his wrist, hard, and twisted. The gasps coming from him echoed in the room as Levi spoke in a toneless voice.

"You fucking idiots, you're supposed to protect her, not kill her." He put more pressure on Eren's wrist as the brat continued to gasp in pain. "She is your comrade. Understood?"

Levi's eyes grew dark in anger as one of the brats again stated the same shit as before.

"Monsters are ones who pick on the weak," he drawled. "Am I correct? I don't see any monsters here…except for all of you."