The sunken eyes, the stripped flesh and massive scowl; I could feel myself rooted in place as I stared at them in horror. This isn't real, this isn't real… I could hear the screams erupting around me in a deafening wave that rose in volume. The face disappeared, but a loud thundering crack echoed through the air as pieces of the wall began to fall. I couldn't see just what was happening from my vantage point, but I knew with a sinking horror that the wall stood no chance against the humongous monster. A titan had broken the wall- a titan bigger than the wall itself.

I sank back against the house as I struggled to breathe and my legs shook unsteadily. The world felt like it was spinning around me and I realized it was because I was panicking. The wall had broken, which meant the titan was coming inside. No, not just one titan; if the wall had been broken, who knew how many were going to come. The creature of her childhood nightmares that had only been recalled in scary stories were now only too real and there was no place to hide. Where was I going to go? Where did they escape?

Run. A voice whispered in her head, then steadily grew louder. Run! Run!

Before I even knew what I was doing, my shoes were pounding across the paved streets. I don't even remember when I started running or for how long, but all around me things seemed to be warped and unreal. A wailing mother pushed past me, her face contorted with anguish and her hands held up high. A boulder smashed into a house only a street away with a ear-shattering crunch. Debris went flying and I was forced to duck behind an alleyway as the streets were showered with brick, splintering wood, roof tiles and broken support beams. I quickly ambled over a pile of beams and continued to run, only faintly aware of the choking cloud of dust that was now settling over the entire neighborhood. It covered everything in one thick blanket.

I coughed as the stinging dust fell over me and caught in my eyes and throat. I could hardly see anything and my gasping was telling me that it was getting difficult to breathe. I continued to run blindly, knowing my only hope would be to escape it. I staggered around broken walls and fell onto my knees as I lost my footing over the rubble. My legs were now scraped and bleeding and my hands were covered in a sudden warm stickiness. I lifted them up in a daze as I realized it was blood and that I was standing in a pool. Choking, I flew to my feet and scrambled back. There was a body nearby- only half of a torso that had somehow been torn apart. The corpse's head was facing towards me and plastered in blood, it's mouth open in a silent scream that remained frozen even in death. My heart hammered as I stared in horror at the mangled remains. I couldn't grasp what I was looking at, but then my breathing stopped as the ground started to erupt in violent tremors. I ducked down to keep myself steady from the shaking. I couldn't tell where it was coming from and the dust was clouding my eyesight, but soon the tremors stopped. For a heartbeat all was silent, then a giant face slowly loomed down into view; a face with an eerie, frozen grin.

Run.

The streets blurred past me once more. Screams of pain, fear, anguish and death were through the air in one unholy storm, but all I could hear was my own heart beating quickly. I was hardly aware of the scenes I was passing now as my only thought was on running. Nearby, a child was crying by a motionless body. A man was shouting profanities and challenges at the sky while outstretching his arms and throwing a broken bottle. An old woman had fallen at the end of the street, but all ran past her. No one would risk to help her get up.

I was heartless; I couldn't stop. My fear overcame any other need. Through my mind I could only think of one racing thought. A destination:

The waterway, the waterway…!

I knew I had to make it to where my brother was. I had to get to Caden. As I focused on my goal, nothing else mattered.

The air was full of splintering shards once more as a titan smashed through a home. I realized with despair that I could hear them around with more frequency. A leg stomped its way into the middle of the street when a titan strolled out from an intersection. I ducked around the lumbering monster as it smashed his fist into a shop. The chorus of new screams trailed away as I fled. They wouldn't last long.

The roads- I had been running so blindly that I had lost my direction. Dodging debris and rerouting around blocked paths full of wreckage and titans slowed me down and had thrown me off course. I had to stop in a crumbling archway to regain my breath as the streets started blackening and spinning around me. My heart was beating louder than my own screaming mind and my lungs burned as if they were about to burst in my chest. My limbs were shaking; I wanted to slump down there and now and merely hide, but hiding hadn't helped the family in the shop. My body begged me to stop anyway and to just give up, but I could imagine my brother's voice telling me to find him. He would be looking for me; I had to find him first.

It was then that I realized that through the ruin, I recognized this path. It was a street I had taken when my brother and I had taken a walk from his work to the market one summer. I was almost there; the waterway would only be up the road and to the right. With newfound direction, I staggered to my feet once more and forced myself forward with all the will I could muster. The street was covered in red and it blurred around me. At first I thought it was my faltering vision from overexertion, but after skirting around several motionless bundles I soon realized what it really was.

Blood, the streets were paved with blood, and the heaps I was passing were the countless bodies of the titans' victims.

I felt myself reeling with sickness. My shoes were slipping under the wet, red stones. I was so disoriented that I hardly realized I was running right into an unexpected crowd. Everywhere people were shouting, screaming, crying, but all were running in one direction, and that was the entrance to the docks. The entrance where I knew my brother would be.

"Out of the way!" A man shoved me roughly aside as I entered the teeming crowd. I fell back against a woman, whose ghostly face showed no reaction as she watched me with dead eyes. I staggered back and more fleeing people pushed me forward. I was getting bruised and hit left and right as people crowded in a panic. I soon felt like I was suffocating and I feared the crowd would trample me. Already there were some victims being stepped on at their feet, and I had fallen to my knees.

"Alora!"

Two strong hands grabbed me from behind and I was suddenly hoisted up onto my feet and into the air. I flailed and whipped my head around to meet the face of my brother; Caden, though I hardly recognized him at first. His handsome face was cut and bleeding along his jaw and forehead and a dark circle of a bruise ringed around his left eye. His gaze that was usually so light and friendly was now dark and grim unlike that I had ever seen before.

"I found you, thank god-" He gripped me so firmly that I thought I might bruise. I could hear the relief in his voice as he spoke, though his eyes shifted constantly on the alert. "Alora, hang on. We don't have time." I opened my mouth to protest, but soon he was barreling through the crowd with me in his arms. I had never seen him be so rough with others before as he now pushed them carelessly aside. I knew that if he didn't we would never get past the crowd safely. I watched in fear as the faces of the crowd parted around us and various voices and pleas passed by. I wasn't sure where we were going or what we were doing, but I trusted my brother and I felt safe being carried in his arms. Soon, however, the crowd had come to a halt. I realized it was the edge of the waterway, and before us was a large ship. Already it was packed with people who had boarded and held little remaining room for passengers. Men and women were shouting for eachother on each side; some for families on the boat, and others for loved ones who were left on the deck.

"A ship! Will it save us?" I blurted out quickly. If a ship could take them both away to safety from the titans, then they should board it right away. Still, the crowd made it difficult to do so, and I wondered just how many, if any, could possibly fit if we waited. "Caden, we have to go now!"

"Alright," My brother shoved through the remaining crowd, which was not an easy feat. One wrong move and people would fall into the waterway below. Some were already careening towards the edge in a dangerous way. Caden grasped me tightly as he rushed to the boardwalk. Two men were pulling the bridge back, removing it from the access of the docks.

"You must stay back everyone! We cannot fit all of you on board, I'm sorry. Stay back!" One of them men shouted in a loud voice over the roar of voices.

"No!" I shouted in anguish as I realized what they were doing. They had removed the boardwalk, and now her and her brother could not get on. "We have to go! Caden! What are we going to do? We have to jump!" I turned my head in desperation to face him. We could jump, we could make it if we just tried, I was sure of it! My brother's face, however, was suddenly stone. His eyes seemed to have darkened as he stared at the ship. For one long moment, he looked back at me in pain. I had never seen him look that way before and it tore in my chest. "Caden…?" I asked him with a teary blink, hoping he would answer. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't trying to get us on or to jump after all his motivation. We had gotten so far after all, and the ship was right there. It took me a moment to realize that even if he did jump, the board wasn't going to support us both when it wasn't fully across. We would have fallen into the deep trench below.

The two men finished pulling the plank to the boardwalk away and I was still staring face to face with my brother. He looked past me to the ship, and his masked expression flickered to that of a slight smile, though a sad one with his eyes. "No, you have to go," He said as he ruffled my dark curls. I stared at him in confusion and speechless, but before I could even comprehend what he was doing he had taken me to the edge. I was being held up above the water, and with all of his strength; he suddenly tossed me into the air. My heart panicked wildly as I began falling, but soon, multiple pair of hands grabbed my arms and pulled me over the edge of the boat. I staggered to my feet in a daze and peered over the railing. There my brother was standing on the dock, motionless.

"Caden!" I screamed his name as the crew began shouting orders. The boat began to shake and then move. No, no no, my brother was over there. My brother was going to be left behind. "Caden!" I screamed once more, but he nearly held up his hand as if to wave. Tears were streaming down my face. The passengers jostled roughly beside me, but no one was stopping the boat or heeding me any attention. Through the crowd I could barely hear his yell;

"Make it worth something, ok?"

I caught one last glimpse of his light hair and half-hearted smile before the boat rushed down the waterway and into the tunnel that would be their escape.