FicWad

Hanji
Late November
He sat alone. With his cutlery and silverware untouched, he blankly stared at his lap, down at his hands. Distant, remorseful, it flavored him like salted meat.
I sat away, but with friends, their talk and laughter more empty company than their actual presence. I watched and listened, to the clatter of forks and knives biting sparse plates to the bubbling breath of my friends, to the silence of some.
His silence, that day, screamed bitterly to me.
Suddenly, quickly, he stood up from his seat and braced himself on the table with white knuckles. His body shook with a quivering breath. After sliding his chair in and fixing his cravat, humbly he left the dining hall.
And with him a storm brewed behind and before him.
Levi
I walked through a dream with the milky eyes of blind sleep as I solemnly shuffled through the creamy walls of the bulwark to my room. The stars shone through the glass ceiling above, casting long shadows through the hall. My mind and body craved rest, craved sleep.
I locked my bedroom door, but it wasn’t enough, so I pushed my wardrobe in front of the door and then shoved my desk in front of the wardrobe.
No one would be able to get in. At the time, I was alone, but not really alone; I was never really alone.
I looked at my dark, blue room, at my few possessions. A fine powder of grey dust encrusted my room, and it was barren of anything besides what all rooms in the bulwark had. I didn’t bother to open the blinds or light the candles because I welcomed the hushed, cold pitch.
On the white sheets of my bed sat my gear with its blades, freshly polished from the night before.
That evening everything would change.


Hanji
I tried to eat my bland, small portions and ignore the overwhelming panic choking me. I couldn’t fight the anxiety and nausea that rolled and churned inside of my stomach. I abruptly left the mindlessness around me and headed for Levi’s room. I had to be sure he was okay, even though I assumed he’d ignore me like he had everyone else since his squad’s death.
I came to his sleek metal door and knocked softly, politely, but there was no response.
Levi
I heard a timid knock on my door, muffled by the wood of the wardrobe and desk. I stared at the dark mass of furniture before me as I absent-mindedly held my blades.
I looked at the sharp metal and saw my face. It had been a very long time since I had looked at myself.
My black hair was greasy and long, dead and plastered to my face. It hung like drapes over my sunken black eyes, devoid of life and luster. My pale skin was ashen and yellow with lack of food. I was thinner than I was in the spring, and my skin clung tightly to my bones. I looked ill.
I lightly ran my finger over the length of the blade and saw my blood stain the metal. I stopped and took a breath. I felt no pain.
Hanji
I awaited his response but heard nothing, so I knocked again, more urgently. My heart pounded inside of me like the booming walk of titans approaching to gobble us all up. Still, he didn’t respond, which wasn’t abnormal, but tonight it was abnormal and the metal of his door clanged oddly, as if something held the door up from the inside. There was no light seeping from the bottom crease of the floor, so he was in the dark, alone, with whatever few possessions he decided to keep.
I heard the unmistakable sound of titanium blades prepared on to 3DM gear.
Levi
What would I miss? The sound of Spring grass lipped by the warm breeze, lavender kissed with the buzz of bees, and the oranges and yellows of butterflies. Cool fresh water streams through creeks, grey and silver fish dancing beneath its mirror-clear surface. Dark chocolate cake, strong and bitter with steaming black coffee. The piano played with sweet melancholy, warm voices singing lullabies. The laughter of my friends-of what friends I had left, at least.
What would they, my survivors, miss? My lifelessness, my self-loath, my silence?
What would I gain? Everything I lost. Everything I took for granted. Everything I had stolen from me.
What would they gain? Nothing, so why did it matter so much to me?
I thought these morbid thoughts as I attached one blade to the handle and held it up to inspect it, and it tinkled like wine glasses together for a toast. It glinted even in the dark. The blade was made with great craftsmanship, and I admired the work appreciatively. This blade had slashed through titans and murdered monsters.
A final time it would destroy a monster.
Hanji
Silence, once again, answered my knocks, so I smashed my fists in to the door with all of my strength. The bangs rang out through the metal and through the halls and stone walls.
“Levi, please answer the door, I want to talk to you!” As I beat my fists against the door, I felt something pushed up to it to keep the door steady and from budging. Levi wanted to keep things out, keep himself private, but he couldn’t continue on like that. It would be the death of him.
Levi
I wanted to scream at her, to beg her to go away and leave me alone, to let me do what needed to be done. I didn’t want her to feel guilty of her inability to save me, but no one could save me. I didn’t want to be saved.
I set the blade down next to me on the stiff bed, and unbuttoned the pearl beads down my stiff white shirt. I closed my eyes and shouldered the shirt off of my body, and I felt the cold air of my room press against my skin. It raised the hairs all over my body, and, in the silence, I heard my heart beat. I felt its warmth as it pumped life through my veins, and knew it wanted to keep me alive. My body had worked so hard for so long to keep me alive. It fought so hard for me, and I, along with it. It was like saying the last goodbye to an old childhood friend.
Goodbye, old friend. I’ll never see you again.
Death himself is a selfish man. He falls in love with what he cannot have, and so, like a child, he greedily steals all that his lifeless eyes fall upon. But Death is not alone in his sins; Man and Woman sin the same, seduced by Devils’ promises and pleasures. It’s not his fault though, this selfishness, it’s just his part to play in the show whatever above made for us all.
I was a selfish man, as selfish as Death; I wanted what I could not have, and what I wanted was not what others would want for me.
I looked back at the blade and knew it was time.
Hanji
I was not Humanity’s Smartest, as Levi was not Humanity’s Strongest. I was mad, but that was what made my genius; I thought in ways others would not fathom to do. The label of Humanity’s Smartest was more of a lie, a misnomer; I was not Humanity’s Smartest. I just chose to question everything while others accepted what they were given, like lambs blindly awaiting the slaughter. Levi was not Humanity’s Strongest; he just had to fight his whole life and knew nothing more than to fight for what he believed in. If he believed in something, he was unstoppable.
If Levi believed this was the answer, then he would be unstoppable, and I his challenger.
“Levi, you don’t have to do this. This is not the answer!” I paused and breathed. I had to think, to figure out how to approach the situation because he was not a man of reason; he was a man of choice and chance. He knew this was his only chance and felt this was his only choice. But I was a woman of cunning, and I would stop him. Brains against brawns, an age old fight.
I started to slam myself against the door in hopes of knocking down whatever blocked the door from the inside. He most likely had the wardrobe all rooms had in front of the door with the desk after that, so, if I hit the door hard enough to shake the wardrobe, it could push both itself and the desk away from the door just enough for there to be space to open the door once it was unlocked.
Levi
I looked at my reflection in the blade a final time and saw hot tears roll down my cheeks. I hadn’t realized I began to cry, but this was not a sad moment in my life for me.
I began it.
Hanji
I slammed myself against the door over and over and over until my shoulder protested with agony and my body was sore. I screamed myself hoarse, begging him to open the door and let me in, to at least say something. I would not give up on him.
I could smell hot iron from the room each time I hit the door, and I wished it was just the smell of the metal door that would not budge.
I wanted to run for help but I was too scared to leave the door, to leave his side. I wanted him to know I would never give up on him.
“Levi! Levi, please. Please, don’t give up now, not when we’re so close. There’s so much more than this, more than the Walls and the titans and what little of the outside world we have seen! Don’t you want to see it all-the endless mountains that seem so tall and high that they scrape the sky and that salty thing, the sea, which goes on for so long that it falls off the edge of the world? Don’t you want to see a world without monsters everywhere we turn?”
Levi
I let Hanji’s words paint a picture for me, of the freedom I sought.
I was on the floor, and inside I was cold but my skin was hot and wet. All I saw was red and a spinning room before I closed my eyes.
As I laid, I heard song birds and I saw her smile. It filled me with the warmth of the sun, and I knew everything would be okay.
Hanji
I started to sob hysterically. It came in fast like a pack of voracious wolves and I couldn’t speak anymore. I could only gasp for breath with a thick throat as I kept attacking the door. I would never give him up.
I heard the rush of footsteps echo closer and closer through the thick halls until it was right behind me, and I pleaded for help from my savior with blood shot and tear-blinded eyes: it was the titan-shifter boy.
“Eren, you must assume your titan form and break this door down!” I fell from the door and into the child’s arms. I grabbed his shoulders and swung him in front of the door before I collapsed on to the ground behind him. My body shook with fear and pain and sorrow as he looked at me with confusion.
“Hanji, what’s going on? I’m not supposed to Turn unless it’s a life-or-death situation.” He was alarmed but I couldn’t waste the time.
“IT’S THE CORPORAL. YOU MUST OPEN THE DOOR BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!” I screamed at him and sobs racked through my body. I began to wail in agony. Levi was dead; I could feel it in my bones. Icy fear blistered my nerves: what if Eren could not transform when Levi’s life depended on it?
Eren became pale as my words sunk in to his thick skull. “Is he…?” He breathed, and his hands began to tremble. I clasped my hands together with white knuckles and shook my head, my eyes tightly shut to fight against tears. I dropped my head as I felt the tears drip down my jaw and into my lap.
I heard Eren shuffle back towards the door, and a sob escaped through my chapped lips. I heard him whimper in pain as he bit in to his thumb and I smelled that familiar iron smell that came from Levi’s room. There was a crack of brilliant lightning that burned my closed eyes as the world around me shook and crumbled from Eren’s Turning. His titan smelled of burning corpses and ash, and I found it ironic that the embodiment of death was Levi’s savior from Death.
I looked up and saw Eren’s steaming body, crimson embers falling like snow from the ivory skin of his titan. He bent down in a crouch and breathed. He smelled of rot and blood. He looked from me and then to the night sky that shone down upon us from the glass ceiling he somehow managed to not destroy, and then he looked upon the metal door. I fought with the door for almost 20 minutes without relief or triumph, but Eren, with one finger, pushed the door. The door sighed as it crunched and dented from Eren’s strength until, with a snap, it broke from its hinges and pushed the wardrobe and desk- I correctly guessed- out of the way. As I saw the door break, I sprinted in to the black room.
Levi
Through my blissful sleep, I heard lightning and a brewing storm. I heard thunder and warm winds blow over me and, soon after the lightning and thunder, warm rain splash from the blackness around me onto my cool cheeks. The rain traced patterns on my skin and it washed down to the brim of my chapped lips. My dry tongue tasted its saltiness, so sweet and sorrowful. I felt Death take me and I heard an angel weep and call my name. It was okay to let go.
Hanji
I waded through a shallow pool of black blood that covered Levi’s body like a blanket in his slumber. He laid on the stone floor with his dark eyes closed, and his skin was grey with Death. I fell to my knees over his body and pulled him in to my arms. I cried like I had been burned with hot metal, and I heard more footsteps run through the hallways towards us. I held Levi’s face in my lap and called to him but he did not respond. I leaned down and blew in to his mouth to breathe life in to his lungs.
“Levi, you can’t give up on us. You can’t give up on this life.” He was still silent. “I can’t give you up like this. Oh Lord, oh Lord, what have I done? I’ve fallen in love with a man on the run. Oh Lord, I’m begging you please, don’t take this sinner from me.”
Levi
I heard an angel sing to me, and I opened my eyes to see a brown mop of hair and glasses upon a weeping face that sang so sweetly it made my heart ache. She sang of love and loss.
Her face was a face I could get used to seeing.