~from Levi's POV~
Annie started screaming, and then...she shattered. I can't describe it well. I'm not a poet or anything. But one minute, she was whole, and the next, she was in pieces.
And then she was gone.
Something else was happening, though. The sky was getting brighter and brighter until it turned white, and then the sky shattered as well.
When the brightness dimmed enough for me to see again, I saw something I wasn't sure I'd ever see again.
People.
Milling around outside the barrier, then slowly spilling in as though nothing had happened.
But it had happened. Hanji was dead. Sasha was dead. Marco was dead. Armin was dead. Erwin was dead. (Y/n) had almost died.
I knew without checking that no time had passed. If I went and checked a paper, the date would match the day the barrier went up. Somehow or another, and most likely because of Annie, we had all been stuck inside a timeless dimension.
Why us, though? I wasn't sure. We were all around the same age, but that wasn't enough.
Had we all been picked beforehand? But why?
I couldn't be sure. Maybe it was random, maybe not.
Either way, something had happened here. I knew it. Jean knew it. Eren and Mikasa, who has climbed back down to safety, knew it.
(Y/n)...
I stared at the phone in my hands. It was (y/n)'s, wasn't it? I thought so.
Only one way to find out.
I jogged back to her tent. None of the people had made it this far into the park yet, so we were safe for now, but we'd have to leave soon to avoid suspicion.
I entered (y/n)'s tent. "(Y/n)?"
She was awake. "Levi...I dreamed that I was being buried alive." She touched her throat lightly. "I can still feel the dirt being sealed over my head."
And then she was crying, and I was standing there like what the hell am I supposed to do?
Finally, I went over and patted her head. "Come on. The barrier's gone. We can go."
Her eyes widened, and she got up slowly, with my help, and went outside. She gasped at the sight of other people and the birds moving in the real sky.
And then Jean came over and hugged her so tight that I thought her bones were going to snap, so I dragged him off her.
Then the five of us - Eren, Mikasa, Jean, (y/n), and myself - left the theme park.
We weren't the same people who had walked in earlier in the day. Two of us were murderers. We'd left behind our friends' bodies.
But we were still alive.
I had to hold on to that.
That, and (y/n)'s hand.