A leap. Shattered glass shards lodged skin deep along the rim of my arm. Something was surging through me, estranging my nerves in a split-second of a throb.

I brought the numb-wracked arm to me. Glints of a dozen finger-sized pieces appearing clear, translucent, stained.

Red dripped down slipping through my grip holding the lacerated limb down to the thin cracks of the street. A rabid crackling rang like a fork scratching on a plate, and the slamming thuds of debris charring. Elements just flying back to me in some slow wave.

"Christ..."I hitched out, my eyes glued to the draining limb, and then unto the ooze of that crimson that's pouring a fountain to my feet.

I'm...I'm not sure if jumping was good thinking from my part. No...it was. Maybe.

Feeling my breathing hitching on repeat, I veered to where I had thrown myself.

Two stories of height shadowed, and that shattered window , and through its frame poking through was a large head, mouth hung gaping with its arm extended down my way.

Its frame was squeezing and wriggling out that crevice, and second by second there were more of it just jutting out.

I...I better go.

Facing away, I scuttled forwards feeling jittery, making an advance down a narrow street where I saw that the far end and in between stood still the carcasses of structures.

Taking a few moments, I took the first turn that appeared and stopped along the way, now leaning against a wall. I gave a glance back to the street where I'd came, and also to that titan, who was still stuck struggling on the windows flailing its free arm.

I turned to my arm. Shit, I don't know if I'm feeling lucky that I'm not feeling this yet, or unlucky that it happened in the first place at all. At least there wasn't anything stickin out.

Bringing the arm closer, I began dislodging the pieces. My fingers felt slippery pinching them out of the chunk, but after the deed done water was poured on it and was wrapped tight and tied in a gauze filched from my sack.

I felt a few pounds heavier, and my arms grew more paler by the minute.

Alright...

Standing straight, I stood skittish for my bearings. There in the scape now laid a deep-red orange screening the sky and some encompassing dark having made a claim to the light-scant side of the buildings.

I need to find a place to hunker down tonight.

The titans were dormant at night, I know. But I'm not the type that could navigate well there either. Can't see shit in the night even if it goes both ways for them too.

And now I-

Right arm. A throbbing settling. Burning.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH...!"

Tears welling up clouded my vision. And the sting then faded, as quick as it came to be.

Fuck...

A wheezing came from me, my throat felt boiling and a slew of coughs spat out of me in succession. I looked to the sky, flocks of pigeons and carrion crows were scattering in haste like a few dozen arrows let loose off those ceramic roofings.

Then a stifled groan rushed by my earshot. It was loud, inhuman to the tone.I cocked my ears to the sound. It came from just behind me.

I...I think I've disturbed more than the birds.

Turning back,my world spun quick, and came face to face with large and despondent starry-eyed pupils behind some misty wall of glass, no expression on that large drooling visage to be found cept' the mouth hanging open with teeth like blocks of marble with something dark stuck between.

My breathing stopped. Red gushed out the dark of its cavity and was strewn across with a mass of plumes of soaked black and grey feathers.

Taking slow breaths, I stuck out a leg to my left and jerked to the side, stepping away. The Titan was staring away into somewhere, but not directly to me.

I stepped paced and slow, and after a few moments I found myself smack dab in the middle of the narrow street again.

There began a messy configuration of myself as a headache came rearing me as if I was in prep to euthanasia.

I shook my head hard. Ugh, I needed to get the hell out of here!

A crashing resounded then ,and I quickly turned to view the source.

Oh. Oh, no.

A ways forward was the fallen figure of a titan laid on the street, and the splintery rubble marred hole on the building behind it.

Just before I could gather my thoughts once again, the breaking of glass split through my eardrums and I faced to see a large humanoid lurking out on all fours from the building I just stepped away from.

Its lank physique blocked the whole of the turn, the whole way through. And it began rearing its head to my direction.

Shit.

My eyes flickered around, looking for avenues of escape.

Behind me only laid a tall stone wall. And some other directions a dead end but that turn. My gaze turned to that fallen titan again. It wriggled on the ground with bricks stuck to it and was struggling to get up.

Weighing no ounce of a plan of any given chance at all, I gave one last glance to the titan by the turn and broke into a sprint down the street. And There was the thrum of footsteps booming behind me.

I'd quickly come by the downed titan, and a large stretched hand suddenly moved by my peripheries. I held back on my speed and swerved to a side, catching air as I hopped over a long bony arm.

Looking past, I kept advancing to a large door down that headquarters building, blocks of brick still falling off down the hole where the window once was. Bracing myself, I shoved the door open and kept my sprint up, still not looking back.

The interior passed by me in a blur of colors, stepping over chairs and tables. I sped for the entrance doors, and making it there I braced a shoulder and rushed it open. Then feeling my pace slowing, I finally went to a halt.

Now I was back to the far front where the cannon pieces were.

My lungs were on fire. My skin sweated fountains and I felt like some passable hunchback. And there was nothing in me but a want to lie down.

But I couldn't. And it was just really muscle memory.

My head was cocked to the front door of the headquarters, a rumbling making a mean shudder to the streets down my way. And there came to me after a quick scan of my surroundings a plan that lied sleeping.

A large cannon piece that had its bore turned to the headquarters, weirdly enough. Something hatched up. This...could work.

I moved bounded, bee-lining over to that thing, leaning on the thick barrel having to stand tip-toe barely reaching the primer. And on the breech attached from there nudged into the touch-hole was the long lanyard tied to it. And I grasped its wooden twin-headed end.

The shattering of glass and the breaking of wood sounded through and through, and I looked to see two darkened silhouettes lurking and lurching forward out the headquarters' entrance, the large doors completely overturned and windows on the side shattered.

I wasted no time. Gripping hard on the lanyard, I covered an ear, closed my eyes and pulled as hard as it could be yanked.

There was an odd click and crackling that resounded, but not a boom. Opening my eyes, I turned to see the primer had moved, and plumes of black smoke came pouring out of that slit.

Goddamn it!

I looked to the entrance, and saw a black blur flung and speeding towards me.

Ducking down immediately, I heard a loud crash. My hair was blown back as something huge just whizzed by me.

Dead ahead were the two titans rushing forwards on all fours, their free limbs flailing and drool dripping out their large mouths as they moved across the stretch.

Oh fuck this. I'm gettin out of here!

As I took two steps back, I saw one of the titans throw his body forward, catching air and stretching its arm to me. And the space around me came darkening in a large shadow.

And I-

A loud boom, and column of smoke swimming through the air after. It came from the cannon. And it was only for second that I saw that leaping titan's face crumple and scrunch up with a hole punched in its forehead before that visage was all blinded and obscured by white smoke.

Some putrid smell of blackpowder and smog ran quick through my nostrils. A goddamn ringing rang in my left ear. I didn't want to linger long, so I immediately turned back and broke into a sprint across the streets leaving that wall of smoke behind in the distance.

I looked about through the stained glass of the window, outside lay just black with the casted shadows and even the fires already gone and extinguished . And no moonlight coming through either, and faint silhouettes the only things visible. And there was the occasional low groans in the distance.

My eyes were still burning and my breathing heavy. White noise in my eardrums. And that had been the case for a few hours. And now I was here crouched down in someone's two-story residence. Don't wanna give myself much credit, but I think I've ran past half the city now.

I faced away from the window, lying myself on my back down on a blanket spread on the hard floorboards.

I waited to black out any moment, but what came was the teeth grindingly slow heaviness of my eyelids locking shut. Coughs slewing out of me in succession, my breaths heaving like an asthmatic, and some hard coldness. It felt like my body's melting onto the fucking floor, and me being chipped down to just instincts. Nauseating.

And just like that, I've drifted off.

White light shone in large streaks in front from the windows, and I seated by, my back against the wall letting my legs lax stretched out on on the hardwood of the floorboards.

It's the third time like this now. And It's a great day out today probably too, why leave?

Why not? Probably death.

Anything else? No, That's all the one risk and reason needed to not be taken, ain't it? Didn't think it, didn't worry.

I grasped the blanket wrapped round me tighter. It wasn't cold or warm out and in. A sprawl of worn and yellowed-out maps just a lean-over from me, and I bent down like in prayer to them and scanned over what they offered me. There it harbored sketched rings of walls and sparse scatterings of little houses either clumped and spaced aside laid crumpled by me one paper.

Trees drawn clumped in a mosh. And mountain ranges and hills with no indication of height. No contours. I looked to the other map besides it.

WALL MARIA

Districts marked by name in ink, and drawn in it. I stretched a hand and traced a finger along the canal, before going over a street nearby. Where was that breach again?

Feeling the ink of the drawn lines through the map, there i pinpointed the place where I remembered where the hole lay.

But the hell am I gonna do with it?

My eyes turned to the date marked on one of the upper edges of the map.

845, it said. Writ ornately with an artwork underneath those three numbers of some female deity or some apostle of god knows what. Ymir or her daughters, maybe?

Well, It's in all obviousness that I didn't want to stay here. No signs of life but titans all around that I feel every single hair on me's standing straight all the damn time, even when I sleep. And It's no sin to say that I hated that shit.I wanted to see civilization. And I swear the silence here's killing me for all I am.

...

When did the culling operation in rose happen? 846?

Maybe there's something for me there then. Any other time If I even went out there with all my wits to me there's still lies the case of the gate.

And there I don't reckon they'll open to anyone. Maybe some guy wanderer sure once upon a time but after those Eldians having their city fall? There'd be suspicion to be had no doubt, and a kid asking to waltz in is bound to wake up more than a few heads.

Maybe convincing that I'm a survivor of the fall of Maria would work? Yeah, I don't think that'll fly.

So the only option is to wait till the culling operation then. Alright, maybe I'll try blending in among the survivors when they return.

And that means having to wait a year then. Or is it a few months? Well, when snow falls I'll probably know the word.

Day's dull.

Masses and archipelagos of clouds marched snail-like in an overcast above touching just over the walls, and there was all grey there as I was crouched over, passing by the long charred ossatures of houses. And I felt a limp to my movement,to which I had a bandaged arm to blame for. And it still aches like shit.

I watched my steps, passing over bricks and pieces of wood scattered on the streets. There was only silence here. But I didn't feel any less tense of a man.

I looked to a section of the wall a few streets down. What I wanted to do today was get up the top of the walls.

How? Well, those cannons atop definitely had some way in getting up there, so there's probably some lifts I can make use of.

Pushing on, I heaved a short jog over, and made an arrival to a row of steel platforms held by some sort of pulley system with ropes and chains that stretched far above.

A simple lever lay in front of me.

Metal whirring swept through as I pulled it down and the altitude became higher and the roofs of buildings became visible before they slowly faded in the distance.

Titans roamed sparse in the streets over the distance slow as sloths, only a few abnormal ones moved faster than a trot and it would only be as fast as a jog.

And the winds started to change as the height further increased. There was a slow breeze on ground level, but now my clothes were flailing.

A sharp pain flared in my wounded arm as the winds disturbed it.

I mouthed out a curse through my gritted teeth. I clutched it hard but the throbbing sting was still there.

Fucking titans man. Wait a minute, they're mindless!

Or is it someone else?

Those three goddamn marleyans. Unwilling they might be, the action's still done so to me, even if by only proxy. And I wouldn't call that coincidental. That's reserved only for my arrival here.

Well maybe not specifically those three. Perhaps those that they're commanded by.

Marley. And all its people. But is it all of them? Jeez who'd have time to bother to sort em all out from the non-involved and the perpetrators? Not me that's for sure. Governor and governed taketh the whole sin I'd say.

But then again, the Eldians also did some shit first, didn't they? Damn, looks I need to refresh my memory.

The platform shook suddenly, and I was back in reality.

A surface of white, cracks and all there formed through like some vein or root. And past it was nothing else but the whole of the earth.

Huh.

I stepped off the platform, treading forth on the very top of the walls. The winds were at its worst and through grinding teeth I trotted towards the edge.

Vast plains and clusters of gigantic trees, and a red sun eastwards. There was no way to spot Wall Rose here as the far distant earth bended as it went on.

I bent down and sat a few steps away from the edge crosslegged on the floor. I slipped a hand into the satchel by my waist, unsheathing a telescope with two fingers, quickly stationing it to my right eye.

Sweeping the surroundings the only few noticeable features the plains past the walls harbored were just stony ruins and a few roving hordes of titans. But there I spotted a large enough wall, and it looked more like a mirage.

I reckon I have to do this everyday, having to make sure not to miss anything and all. I heaved a sigh, later collapsing the scope back smaller with a metallic clank to my palm.

A mass of bodies marched in columns along the plains of the open country.

And they appeared before the noon sun in long casted shades before its presence. And they would in some moments fade away from the light, through the monolithic visage of the titanic trees before they would bask in the heat again as they knew they couldn't drive it out.

Slumped backs arched and sloth-like limbs came ubiquitous in the mass. And even slower legs yet even with horses to them, mounted by an irregular assortment of either scouts or garrison bearing sullen faces, slinging by their shoulders worn muskets and attached to their waists broken down slags of steels and gears once their equipment for maneuvering.

And on the carts in tail, groaning men and women writhing ragged and pale, either oozing of red or bearing gangrene with bones protruded and pierced out their limbs . Their mangled torsos shook hard as the cart rocked and moved on, and there would be men falling off with thuds on the grass, but no recovery done so as the column kept the march on.

The crude mockery of the ranks of the column had armed with them long pitchforks,hoes or any other agricultural tool far apart in its use from its trade now in their callused grasps,and they appeared as if self-flagellants to any seeing eye.

The day passed on, and a encroaching dark came with many more of the participants of the operation falling limp along and left there with barely a whimper in the folded grass. And the ones on the carts had gone silent and wooden.

And they had now began to encamp as cool winds blew between the trees in those titanic woods the column huddled by, passing through the ruinous stones and slabs into some now nameless dwellings and manors of a writ-less age.

At some point when they had sat huddled, someone had sparked a great fire in some chosen center .And a few idle men about after stoked it and made a few more fires crop up, and they all sat in their desired fireplace, each in their round of dark in those chipped rocks with streaks of moonlight pouring through the thick of the trees.

Lips jerked and twitched, and eyes wandered through from the mass in their seatings, but none spoke. A few of them had been tossing leaves and barks into their fires. The fires rarely rose in intensity,and the breeze wouldn't allow more.

Someone in the crowd began to weep, barely one group there had began to stretch their arms to the sky dropping their crude weapons aside, and had began to call out in cries for the titular walls to shepherd to them divinity or some vindication for each of themselves only, or to seek for them the complete avoidance of more misfortunes. And lest a few howls answered them. But it wasn't silence.

After a few more cries rang , they went silent. And someone had stood, walking as if driven to crude and slow cyclical locomotion towards the largest fire, feeling the warmth of it through his rough palms.

A raggedly wardrobed,pale, lanky and bald being. He looked through the fire, scanning the mass with narrowed brows and pursing lips. He was red eyed and breathed so heavily that the wolves in the distance could track him without a scent. But they've already claimed their fill from the column sufficient.

The man then spoke, "I've made this fire first. Who can usurp it away?" He then chuckled." Not the MPs, that's for sure!"

He cackled, sweeping an arm across the masses, "But look what they've done here,a fine piece of work!Just two nights, and we've been reduced halfway on the road to oblivion. And it probably only took a few jots of ink for them."

He then continued,"But all of you get this, don't you? Before apathy comes knocking, silent rage and grief is appreciation enough."

The pale man then saw someone in the crowd give a glare to him, fists balled and tensed. A black haired man, marred with dirt and with one less eye wrapped in grimy red-soaked cloth.

"Anything you mean to do to me, you better do so." He remarked, smiling yellow teethed at him, "We're still conjoined in union to the same fate either way."

Then he saw the man loosen up, and buried his head to his hands. The pale man only watched him.

Then as he stood around he muttered something under his breath, and stared off in an unknown direction in the silent crowd, brows furrowed and his mouth hung open, before he shut it and looked to the fire.

And it was extinguished save a few embers. He looked to the other fires of the late tumultuous night, then set out to put the others down too.

And the whole column moved to rest, in the ruins under the shade of the trees where less than a few critters prowled.

Don't know what I've even expected here. But I should be glad to see people again, I guess?

I tied strands of rope round a tree, tightening it down and poked it testing the integrity of the hammock I've set between a few trees by the ruins.

Just this morning, I had been sitting on top of the world for months with a telescope in hand. And the moment I saw a whole army of people kicking up clouds of dust doing my daily routine, I came down here quick as I could, leaving through the canal.

And I've had to walk on the plains between Rose and Maria for few hours on end, till I got linked up with a group of people marching back to Rose looking worse for wear. And the rest didn't really matter but the fact that I've blended in with them.

And no one gave me a second look either, and even when they camped I sat with them and no one spoke a word, or did they? And that crazy looking guy, rambling about something. Why was he looking my way?

...

By morning, I'm hoping the survivors here sally out and continue on. By this pace, they'll arrive by the walls at noon.

I hopped on the hammock, and laid there rocking, looking up at each leaf falling out from the trees above. When the shaking stopped, I dozed off.

...

...

...

Something's tugging at my shirt. Is it a branch?

I reached out, hoping to break it, and go back off to sleep.

The grab of a rough hand around mine. I tensed.

I pulled back, but it was like a vice. Opening my eyes, I turned to see a pale white hand. And I felt its pull, my world whirling along with it.

My body caught air for a second , before my back slammed on the hard dust caked ground.

Fuck. I groaned in pain, writhing around before I looked again to see the stare of bloodshot eyes, belonging to a pale, ghost-like face.

"You're not one with us, I reckon?"

He asked, eyes wide as it could go still holding onto my wrist tight.

Shit!

I tried to wriggle out and grab a knife I had stored in my satchel, but he had a knee on my chest pressing me against the ground.

"I saw ye sneak about between us here this noon, and I'd desired to gut you. But you're just a boy, aren't you?" He said to me, his grip loosening.

The man then got his knee off me, standing tall with his yellowed teeth showing to me.

I clamored to get my breaths, and stood up too. And I had to look up to him, my stance on edge and ready to run. And I glanced to my hands to see that I was shaking uncontrollably.

"Not quite a child." He remarked, eyeing me as I stood.

After a slew of breaths, I replied shakily." Oh yeah?"

I quickly scanned my eyes around. There were many avenues of escape, and the pale man in front of me seemed completely relaxed.

"Yeah, you don't have that spark in your eyes .It's vacant."He spoke," even in a place like this, that childlike wonder didn't get stripped away from them. And that's what accosted them, aside from moral terror."

I stayed silent for a second, then asked, "The hell do you want?"

"Ye don't look afflicted, like the rest here."He noted then continued on, "And I won't divulge you of your origin, boy."

He then raised an arm, his palm facing me, "But hear me."

The pale man was then moving something around in his tongue, his cheeks inflating and his eyes darting around rhythmic before he opened his mouth wide.

He rolled his tongue out like a carpet, and on and along its slimy surface I saw two patches, soaked and dripping in saliva.

It was two MP patches. He dug his rough hands into his mouth cavity and presented both of them to me.

He then claimed one of it to his other hand and pocketed it away," This is mine."

He out-stretched the remaining patch to me, making me step back in turn with a slight stagger.

The pale man then spoke," The man who owned this patch was also afflicted. He was a friend."

I raised a brow, still tense." What's this affliction you're going on about?"

"He told me that he had been afflicted, but I saw nothing past him but a now-ignorant man lying bloodied in the grass. And I don't reckon the titans ended him. Death's only a confirmation.", He answered, "It's not a requirement to bear the knowledge that's your life's gone and done. And now he's part of that soil. And he shall seep into there with barely a whimper."

He fashioned a scowl, a scoff and a grimace to his pale face. I couldn't tell exactly. Then he sighed and postured like he was giving a sermon.

"He screamed out to me and told me he was subject to a great evil, and unfairness. And there I went red I tell you. Red. Spat on the ground by his writhing form and left him there begging in delirium. He talked much, but at his last breaths, his spirit waned."

He then squatted on the grass, his height even to my face. "Their people, and our people. Their flock, our flock. For let It be titans even, Is there a need for a emboldening of comforting precepts? Maybe they harbor a civilization that holds a sense of waging war the same, and the decision-making meanness of their courts to cull themselves by half all the same. A case as old as time. A clash of two peoples. Who'd think and have it any other way?"

He then paused, and I saw his mouth shifting before he continued,

"And from the decision writ of the commencing of this operation, and to how those titans tore limb from limb all ages here on this ground. An absolute risen from rest atavistic. It was always there. Every plea and considerations divested and void. And every man, woman, and child know it and in naivety sees it antic. The terminus to which thy soul must be driven to."

I watched him, shifting only ever slightly.

"So, you're the lunatic here then." I noted, after my own bout of silence.

The pale man shrugged his shoulders, his lank arms raising.

"How much revelations does insanity bring?", I inquired,getting less tense.

"It doesn't bring anything at all nor much, but you'll realize that you've seen its accumulation has been set in stone since the womb. And no matter how you come to value your own judgements and notions of righteousness, there can be naught of any saving law nor outlier found in this ground. All third options just mirages."

After he finished, I saw his shoulders sag downwards and his head slightly bent.

"It all comes too late anyhow."He remarked.

He then muttered something under his breath.I couldn't catch it. He took a step back into a wall of dark behind him;his lower form plunging into the blackness. Like a floating torso, with his eye sockets becoming bereft of any greater light. And the ground of small rocks and dead leaves beneath him didn't even look one bit disturbed or dispersed of their place.

Then the whole of his form disappeared into the fold, and there faint murmurs in the wind getting more faint. And it went silent.

Daybreak arrived like a flash to the retinas, and I'd been rubbing my eyes nonstop.

The survivors of the operation had went on just as thought. I'd barely slept, always having my hand to my knife eyes wide the whole of the night through. But I didn't see that lunatic again for what the hours were left, not even here. Which just made me more alarmed to be honest.

I need to be more watchful. I think I got cocky thinkin living in a town full of titans for months had me tempered. And inching closer to civilization had me relaxed.

But that man. That's what Marley's capable of? And not just him either. That whole group. Just a whole lotta madness. Is that the absolute hidden?

...

I didn't hear nothing.

I looked past and over the march I was apart of, and the trees in their numbers were getting sparse in number with the grass shorter and vast plains marred by abundant sunlight on the horizon again.

And there lay just the walls stretching seemingly endless, slowly swallowing up half the sky as It came closer.

I let my eyes dart around the trotting crowd as the exit of this forest finally came by. And I was out there in the fields when the long shadows of the pitch had been left behind in the distance.

My eyes couldn't help but turn back to those gigantic trees again. And all there's to see was the huge oaken trunks and sphere of leaves on top. And that stony ruin was long gone in the thick of it.

I spotted something in one of those trees, and the mornings rays struck its trunk in a tall column of orange. And two shadows lain dead center; dangling side from side held by the silhouette of something like a rope.

Huh.

"Name?"

A spectacled man wardrobed in the MP uniform asked to the man about two men past in front of me. He held a lax tone about him, seating by his table with a mass of documents to him with an opened ledger book at his grasp.

Civilization.

A sprawl, no, more of a mess of people on the stone streets. And it smelled like something was always sulphuric in the air or there was some musk rank in the air of unknowable origin. But hey, it's better than woodsmoke and fumes of monoxide. More variety too.

The feeling of walking in some archaic scape was still there. And I think that feeling's here to stay.

Every squint or brow furrowed I watched like some starry eyed child there. Expressions borne of all composures.

And the noise too. Jeez. But I guess I missed that too.

There were eyes watching the survivors including me, as we were dragged to some square in the district with luggage to them and MPs patrolling or gulping down their wine sitting on the rooftops nearby. And they all were wearing their maneuver gear.

Some people outside watched us. Children running by and just stood staring. And some other denizens with baskets and grocery bags just looking at us by their own mass. And they harbored each to their own expressions.

"Hey, kid. Don't just stand there gawking. Come on over here for processing."

That four-eyed MP guy's voice came to my earshot, and I halted my observing to look at the man. A wide space laid between me and him.

Oh, looks like I'm next. Let's get this over with, then.

I strutted over to him, and the man stared me straight in the eye , squinting, and his lips jerking slightly.

"Finally." ,The man sighed, "Name?"

Name?

...

I don't think I'll like using my name. Don't feel like getting reminded of that just by remembrance alone. I'm not forsaking it, oh god no. Just reckon that a new name might be in order. Yeah, that's it.

But what?

"Kursk." I answered. "Kursk Holden."

Huh, not sure where that combination came from.

"Two surnames to you, huh?" The MP asked, a brow raised.

"I..." I stammered, "I'm an orphan."

By technicalities alone, I probably already am. And there's a quality cover story to that too, ain't it? Or is there more background checks to come?

"Hm..."The man mused, "Strange name."

He swiped away a paper from a stack of it off the table, then planted it in front of him, jotting something down on it with a stick of ink, his head leaned forward.

Yeah, strange.