Just kidding, no. 3 of the day! You know what, Happy Holidays. Three-chapter bonus set!
Disclaimer: beep boop boop. I am not Isayama. In fact, if Sorachi can pull off an Attack on Titan parody, then...well, yeah.
Three Warriors
xxx. shroud .xxx
Sometimes he dreamed, and sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he had nightmares, and when those came, there was never anyone to tell him they weren't real. Once he dreamed that Eren stirred him in his sleep, reaching up to the top bunk with a cold hand. In a hazy blur, Eren stabbed him with a knife, and that was the end of the dream.
He had bolted upright with a strangled whimper, loud enough to rustle Jean from his sleep.
"You okay, big guy?"
"I'm fine."
"All right."
When he didn't dream, he worried. He fretted and frustrated himself with thoughts of everything and thoughts of nothing. He couldn't focus. He couldn't undo his trains of thought, he couldn't figure out where the terrors came from.
And they were vague, those terrors. Just ominous spots of black that chased him wherever he went.
He went outside; the chill sent shivers up his spine.
One time, he climbed up to the roof of the cabin; he felt eyes on him, invisible eyes. Wherever he went, something followed.
Whenever he turned, there it was.
Something grabbed his neck, wrapping cold, slimy fingers around his jaw and pressing the edge of a blade so lightly to his nape that a only a fine line of blood appeared.
Tell me again, said the voice, how long and how deep?
He screamed.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, get up!"
Very harshly, he was pulled to an upright position. Staring him in the face was nearly everybody in the boys' cabin. The first pair of eyes he saw were, ironically, Eren's, surprisingly warm and reassuring. But he was all but reassured. He swallowed deeply and someone pushed a glass of water and a towel into his hands.
"You okay?" It had been Jean, Jean the sensitive sleeper, who had bolted to him first. "You were having trouble sleeping. I know because you kept waking me."
Had it been the same night? It must've been.
"Let him calm down," Marco said, tapping the glass of water gently. "Take a drink. It must've been a bad dream."
When he could speak, he uttered hoarsely, "Where's Reiner?"
"Right here, bud. Behind Jaeger's thick head." His longtime companion shouldered Eren out of the way — Bertholdt was relieved — and folded his arms. "You scared the living daylights out of everyone."
"We thought that Shadis came for you in your sleep or something," snorted Connie. Someone elbowed him till he shut up.
Instinctively, Bertholdt reached around and rubbed the back of his neck. Feeling nothing but the bony obtrusion of his own spine, he let out a breath. Reiner understood. He patted Bertholdt's leg good-heartedly.
"Get up and eat. You'll feel better."
"Need some more water?" Marco offered.
"I'm fine. Thanks."
"Hey Bert, if you ever need to get stuff off your shoulders, you can just tell us your nightmares in the form of horror stories," Thomas called from the back. "And then we can all wake up screaming."
"You know, I thought his screaming meant that it was going to thunder today," Connie deadpanned. The group laughed, but Bertholdt's heart was weighed with lead. He had comrades. He was their comrade.
Yet here he was, doubting every single one of them, waiting for the day they would cut off his arms and sever him from his own identity.
"Hey, soldier. I heard they've got buttered toast today," Reiner said.
Bertholdt's heart sank. And here was someone already half separated from who they once were.
"I'll catch up."
He's falling so fast that he can't even comprehend where up is up and down is down. His fingers find his maneuver gear, and he shoots in the general direction of the wall. To his relief, the hook buries itself in something solid, and he is swinging through the steam and the mist and the sweltering heat that clings to him desperately.
In the distance, he can hear Eren screaming, people screaming, everyone panicking.
But all he cares about right now is running.
His hand flies to the nape of his neck, and comes away slick with sweat.
He travels until there is no wall to cling onto, the gas in his gear tanks sputtering to a stop. He is atop the wall, breathing heavily, staring over a sight that he feels is too familiar for comfort.
The Trost district lays itself bare before a mass of titans, and from his vantage point high, high, high in the air, he sees the people.
Bertholdt whips around; the eyes are on him again.
Someone is watching, always watching.
But he's alone, knees trembling, wall crumbling, and no one's there to tell him that the only one watching him is himself.
Bertholdt follows a close second on the fave character list after Annie.
:D