The World I Know
Chapter 4
Your Hands
Sawyer hadn't done this much running since her training days at the academy. Even so, she spent half the time desperately avoiding the commander in charge so she could avoid the cardio workout in the first place.
Lazy piece of crap, she scolded herself, aware that her reluctance to run back then had seriously bit her in the ass.
While every single person was pushing towards deep within the city, Sawyer was running against their selected course of passage. It was a painful sight—like watching a small, insignificant insect challenge the force of the wind during a storm. Something cliché like that, she thought wryly to herself. It was a bit stupid, she realized at some point; evolutionarily speaking, Sawyer wouldn't survive if she continued to have this mindset of ignoring the critical consensus.
Being brash and irrational was her forte, in the end.
She tripped over her own two feel, falling to her knees; she skid to a sudden halt. People continued running past her—a few ran right over her back while she grunt aloud in pain.
It was pure chaos and anarchy at this point. She never knew humankind could be such an unstoppable force. Even Sawyer had to admit that she hadn't ever seen anything quite like this before—not even in her time grueling away in the hospital with all the open wounds and infestations. Not even during her research days. Not even during her first day as an intern on the job with Suedaïyah at the helm.
Sawyer was painfully out of place—and with no maneuvering device—
From where she was lying, she spotted the sheen of a 3DMG from the corner of her eye. Yet, it was still attached to a crushed body—probably caught in the crossfire—and she tried to avoid the open deadeye gaze of the lifeless boy lying on the side—the boy with the device still attached to his hip.
He might've actually been one of the lucky ones compared to the rest. Sawyer had actually run this scenario numerous times over in her mind. If she could choose between being crushed or being eaten alive, she'd surely choose the prior. At least the death would be instantaneous—or as instantaneous as it could get depending on the force of impact. Being chewed alive wasn't something that her stomach could handle, even in these series of hypothetical situations running through her mind.
Too morbid. Stop that, she scolded again herself inwardly.
After adjusting the 3DMG to her hip properly, she shot out the first line, being pulled forward like a rocket—she could feel some heavy whiplash in her neck. It'd been a while since she'd used this thing. She hadn't been on the 3DMG in a long time and it was nothing like picking up a bicycle after years of stagnation.
It only took a moment in the air—the second line couldn't clasp quickly enough to the next building—before Sawyer found herself with her cheek pressed roughly against the gravel on the ground.
She groaned, rubbing gently the area that had taken the greatest impact—her knees. If she hadn't been more careful, she might've ended up with two bum legs. Surely then, she would've been truly useless.
"Oi."
A carriage picked up beside her and a very familiar dark-haired commander stared at her from the open window with a look of disapproval written all over his face, "Oi, idiot. You're going the wrong way."
"No. I'm not," was Sawyer's response; she'd gotten over the fact that he wasn't a greeter, "I saw something."
Levi's eyebrow shot up, "What kind of idiot runs towards the area of danger?"
Sawyer stared at him curiously and motioned towards the area where she'd seen the explosion earlier occur, "The same idiot who saw a female titan—that was a female titan, right? I didn't know they even existed in nature."
"Where did you get that 3DMG from?" He asked nonchalantly.
They were obviously having two different conversations and Sawyer knew she wouldn't get anywhere if she decided to be stubborn and continue her own line of questioning, "There was a boy—he…uh—died. So I took it."
Levi paused in order to register this fact, "If you know what's good for you, go home," he snapped, "before you get killed."
"Hm, no hint of denial. So that was a female titan then," Sawyer insisted on continuing, completely ignoring Levi's warning, "I saw it emerge from the dust…and—wait. There was another one. A male. Fit. Muscular. Wait. They were fighting, right? Was that Eren? What the hell is going on?"
"Nothing that concerns you," Levi stated sternly while the carriage continued forth at a faster pace—Sawyer jogged alongside enough to keep up; Levi decided to continue, "you're rusty. I saw you fall. If you don't get out of this area, there'll be no guarantee that you'll be alive when this is all over."
"What is with you men and your need to be super secretive about everything?" Sawyer groaned in irritation, unable to hide the cross look of distaste on her face, "Even if it is a female titan, why would it be something that doesn't concern me? Why is it something you need to hide? I could help you! I could—"
"—go home, idiot," Levi snapped, "we don't need another useless casualty to get in the way."
"Wait," the pieces began to fit inside Sawyer's head, "why does this titan matter so much to you? I thought only Eren—"
Then, Sawyer's eyes widened, "Are there others like Eren?"
Levi sneered, "I said absolutely nothing of the sort—"
Before he could finish, Sawyer shot out a line from her 3DMG and sped off. This time, she didn't falter.
Levi watched from the distance as Sawyer turned into a speck. He silently wondered how something like this could happen to someone like him. Despite his best intentions, this idiot girl had run off towards the area of danger—against all odds, against the current of people who were running away from the female titan.
Annie. She'd figured it out. He groaned, and it became pretty certain that his need to keep everything under wraps had truly bit him in the ass. Never did he think for once that trying to keep something a secret would actually be the death of him.
Yet, he couldn't comprehend her stupidity despite her ability to put the pieces together. How could someone who chose to be a doctor be so dense about her own well being?
Nothing ever adds up according to logic, he surmised with a grimace written all over his face.
Slowly, he glanced back at the body of the boy she mentioned earlier.
Then, he came to the slow realization that she'd forgotten to take the blades that were still lying in the boy's hands.
"Goddamn. Idiot."
Sawyer trudged slowly along, running out of gas in her 3DMG before she could even get near the wall.
She'd taken a hard fall because she hadn't calculated correctly how much was left.
She hadn't been to cut Levi off mid-sentence but it was just too infuriating to know that he wouldn't tell her anything despite her obeying his every wish and command. She made a mental note to question his course of action more often in the future. The power must've gotten to his head at some point. Even if his commands were in her best interests, Sawyer was unable to hide her own curiosity, having dabbled in a bit of titan anatomy in her research mandate earlier in her career. She'd never seen a female specimen before—not even in her textbooks on titan anatomy.
In fact, she was always under the impression that there only existed male titans. The universe could've really fooled her otherwise. With this little thought in mind, she wondered what else was outside these walls that were seemingly keeping them in.
"Must…keep…going," she mustered aloud to herself. Somewhere deep inside, Sawyer was afraid she might go crazy if she didn't keep herself going. So with a small groan, she continued forth, feeling a layer of sweat stick to her shorts.
She thought about her younger brother and wondered how he was doing—if he was still doing well in school—if he was still taking care of their horses. At this rate, with all the titan invasions, it would probably be a good idea to take him to the city. Although the north was almost an untouched safe haven, Sawyer knew that he would be safer if he were closer.
At least, she would feel a sense of security having him nearby. Then they could probably beg on the streets together, she thought bitterly to herself—remembering her current unemployment status. She mused this silently, knowing that her younger brother would probably put a positive spin on the whole thing.
That was just the kind of boy he was. Ridiculous she thought silently to herself with a wry smile.
"H-Hey!"
Instinctively, Sawyer whipped her head around, reaching for a blade at her side, but coming to the slow realization that she'd forgotten to pick it up from the boy earlier on. A sweat drop rolled down the back of her head and she smiled sheepishly at the thought.
"Y-you! You!"
There was a boy lying at the end of a dark alleyway. He couldn't have been more than thirteen.
Sawyer ran over.
He was missing a leg completely, bleeding out at an alarmingly fast pace. And he had all sorts of ugly, dark bruises littered over his body. Massive internal injuries was Sawyer's first thought as she reached out her hands, unsure of where exactly she should begin.
"We have to stop your bleeding," she said this more to herself than for him, eyeing the wound; it wasn't a clean cut, which meant that the bleeding would be sporadic.
He groaned, "Alton Hawke."
She pressed her bare hands against the bloody stump where his leg should've been, wondering if she could create a makeshift tourniquet from his green cape lying on the ground. Unable to process what he said while thinking about how to freaking save his life, she asked, "Sorry, what?"
"My name," he mustered out barely; he wheezed, trying desperately to say something that Sawyer couldn't quite make out properly, "That's my name."
"Alright," she said, reaching for the green cape with her free hand— "don't speak right now. You're only going to strain yourself."
He grabbed her hand in midair, looking her in the eyes, "I need you to do me a favor."
By the time Levi arrived on sight, things had already been subdued. He'd gone out of his way to cut Annie out of her titan form but due to a minor incident, she managed to freeze herself up in crystal form completely.
Although he silently pined for better news (perhaps, some miracle to cut through the crystal with some invention that Hange was probably in the process of making), the better part of him understood that she had frozen herself for good—at least, for the time being. Essentially, she was a useless asset for them now. Hange threw a blanket over the crystal encasement with an uncharacteristic grimace on her face and a group of soldiers prepared to load it into a nearby cart.
As everyone packed up, preparing to leave the site, Levi spared a look around the area with half-lidded eyes.
Sawyer was nowhere in sight.
He rubbed the pressure point on the back of his neck, his blade still in hand. Idiot. Did she get herself killed already?
It wasn't something completely out of question. More often than not, those who didn't show up were dead. He considered this fact with half-lidded eyes and tried to shrug the thought off.
She was the one who decided to run into danger without a single blade on her.
Dead. Really. It was ironic considering the fact that she was a doctor. It might've been the last place she expected to end up. He tried to brush off the slow realization that if he'd kept his mouth shut about Suedaïyah—that if he didn't force her to quit her job—she might still be alive. Breathing, living. Levi clenched his fists and resisted the urge to sigh. He wasn't good at this whole regret thing.
Sawyer might've been annoying but at least she was a girl with good intentions. A stupid girl with good intentions. Levi supposed that in the grand scheme of things she would've died—with that kind of attitude, at least. She wouldn't survive in the real world. It was a good thing she decided to drop the blades and the 3DMG when she entered the workforce in the hospital; her knack for disobeying would've gotten her killed otherwise.
He entered his carriage.
"Levi-heichou!" His driver motioned to a nearby alleyway, "There's a survivor!"
Levi whipped his head around to see a very familiar looking redhead looking in his direction, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Hange was sitting next to her with a look of concern crossed over her face while in front of them was a mound on the ground, covered with a white sheet stained with blood.
A dead body was Levi's first guess and more often than not, he was usually right about these things. Call it intuition—or call it a simple principle of probability—Levi couldn't care less at this point.
Doctor Sawyer Havoc met his gaze, stared in his direction weakly; he averted his gaze to her face, smeared with dirt and gravel; her knees cracked open with very blatant open cuts, like she'd fallen several times, irritating the open wounds. How careless could she be with her own body?
He exited his carriage and headed in their direction, "Hange. Status report."
"I ran out of gas," Sawyer blurted out sheepishly, before Hange could speak up; she scratched the back of her hands, cracked with blood, "I…—ran out of…"
She trailed off slowly while Levi averted his gaze to the mound in the ground with the white sheet covering it.
For once, Hange didn't have that dumb smile on her face. She gave a curt nod and Levi lifted the blood stained sheet slowly.
"His name is Alton Hawke," Hange stated, putting an arm over Sawyer.
He couldn't even tell who it was from the way the face was crushed in. The entire left leg was missing—a cut off femoral artery. There were massive internal injuries everywhere and they were sizable from the look of the bruises stained all over the visible parts of the body. Even if Sawyer had the right tools, she wouldn't be able to save him from the sheer size of the wounds, internal and external.
Levi couldn't quite look away from the face, crushed in like an external force had slammed it roughly from the side—messy and unorganized. It wasn't something that looked like titan fodder. It wasn't something that was a telltale titan sign. Which meant the head wound must've been created by a human.
A human that had tried more than once to kill with force.
It was only here that he noticed the moderate sized piece of wood sitting next to Hange—stained in red. It looked like it came from one of the nearby buildings. Only Sawyer's 3DMG was in view; it seemed Alton's was nowhere in sight.
From what Levi could surmise, this one wasn't one of the lucky ones. Sawyer must've arrived just in time to see him get ripped apart—she must've arrived just in time to watch him suffer.
"You tried to mercy kill him?" Levi's voice was hollow—unnerved.
His question hung in the air for only a moment before Sawyer lowered her chin, trying desperately to grab onto some remaining dignity. Dignity—she wanted to laugh at the very notion but she couldn't—wouldn't. Instead, she just stared at her hands, stained dark red with blood.
"He told me he needed a favor," she mustered out, losing her breath; and there was a pause before she continued, "but he wouldn't die after die after the first hit…"
And for the first time in a long time, Levi winced.
Sawyer closed her eyes, "He just…he wouldn't…"
She sucked in a short breath, stumbling carelessly over her own words.
It was only here that he realized she was crying, "I'm so sorry."
Inside his carriage, Sawyer was silent. It was something completely uncharacteristic of her.
There were hundreds of casualties all the time; some of them were luckier than others. Usually, those still on the field suffered slow deaths. It was a fact of life in their line of work. Levi knew this; Hange knew this; Erwin knew this. It wasn't something they could change. As long as these titans lived, there would be suffering. Even if they could prevent this kind of suffering, no one actually went out of their way to kill another comrade as a form of mercy.
"Sorry," she muttered, rubbing at dry blood stained on her hands, "there's just…so much blood."
Euthanasia.
Levi clenched his fists.
"Sorry," she said again, her skin fading an irritated pink behind the very apparent crimson on her hands, "…I'm sorry."
Not just euthanasia. A botched attempt at euthanasia.
"What the hell were you thinking?" He snapped.
Sawyer's eyes were still glued to her hands. Her palms were still covered in gravel and blood. It seemed like she didn't have the courage to stare him in the eye. Even after she got into his carriage, she just kept staring at her hands and rubbing at the blood stains. What she was trying to feel for, Levi wouldn't understand; he didn't care to understand at this point.
From the sad, pathetic, feel-sorry-for-me thing she had going on, he almost had the nerve to pity her.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm so sorry."
He grabbed her by the wrists roughly. Slowly, she looked up to meet his gaze.
"Your hands?" He said, narrowing his gaze, "It's not hard to figure out. They were made to save people. To help people."
She seemed to register this fact, the deadeye blankness fading from her eyes.
"You don't need that kind of blood on your hands," he stated coolly, releasing her.
There was a moment of silence where Sawyer just kind of looked at him—surveying him. Levi felt a bit unnerved by her blatant gaze but instead of saying anything, he just crossed one leg over the other and stared out the open window of his carriage.
"Do you have blood on your hands?" She asked.
Nothing changed from the look on his face—he still wore a conscious mask of indifference. Levi just continued to stare out the open window of his carriage while he closed his eyes, "Yes."
note: reviews = love = faster updates. Won't update until reviews are up to 25.
also borrowed a bit from full metal alchemist just 'cause. ed/win ftw