ONE

At the end of your life, you watch the world crumble and reminisce growing up with Eren Jaeger.

"You have dirt on your face."

As the sirens reverberated throughout Shiganshina District, signalling the end of the world, you watched the skies turn gray as you recalled the first words Eren Jaeger had ever uttered to you. It had been here, so many years ago, when you were so young.

The memory of meeting Eren for the first time replays in your head like a crank losing control. He had angered you when you heard it the first time, but now, you would like to go back to when he was the only thing that incited emotions in you.

Paradis has fallen.

You don't know how it escalated to this. The battle of heaven and earth had been fought years ago, and yet, the remaining twenty percent of humanity that had been left unscathed somehow managed to bounce back and gather the forces to stage a counter-attack.

It had been all for nothing. Everyone had fought for nothing.

Eren had died for nothing.

The ground shakes beneath your feet, sending you scrambling to find the closest thing to hold onto, as the screams and pleas ring across Shiganshina. You've felt this despair before, a long time ago when you were a child watching Wall Maria fall for the first time in a century.

Pulling yourself together, you run from your house into the street, where the residents wail and point at the airships that are dropping bombs from the sky. Each impact with the ground sends an explosion rampaging through the earth, and it is not going to be long until flames engulf your home.

"Armin!" you shout over the fray, trying to find your friends. You shout for Mikasa, for Jean, for Connie, but your voice is drowned out in the screams of terror and the explosions.

You collide with someone's body and both of you stumble to the ground. When you make sense of your surroundings, you realize that it is Armin, blonde hair disheveled and his skin smeared with dirt. Your hands find each other and you immediately embrace bodies like it is the last thing you'll do. It probably is.

You can't tell if your hands are shaking, or if it is the bombs hitting the ground that are making everything shake.

"How could this happen?"

Armin shakes his head. "I don't know. I thought our peace talks with the survivors were successful all those years ago. I guess they changed their minds."

"Where's Mikasa and the kids?"

"Home with Jean," he answers. Another bomb goes off, and there are more screams. "They're together."

As in, They will not be alone when they die.

As more missiles rain from the sky, and fire burns around you, crowds shriek and run in hoards past you like Liberio when you ransacked it so many years ago. You realize that this is the karma from having done terrible things when you were young. The karma of following him.

"Is there nothing we can do?"

Armin is at a loss for words, then he swallows. "[Name]," he says. "I don't know. It's... it's too late."

The airships begin their descent. You see a hatch open, and the missile that hangs from it. Blood drains from your face. It would surely be enough to wipe out the entire district. There isn't enough time to flee, or to find a place to hide under. In one second, it will all be over.

"But Eren!" you shout, your voice so desperate it sounds more like a pitiful sob. "But everything we fought for—it can't end like this. We didn't fight for this!"

Armin holds your hands tighter. He's squeezing so hard that you're certain he's trying to stop the blood flow in your fingers. He had always known what to do. Seeing him lost is confirmation that there is nothing to be done.

The missile drops. The people scream. You're immediately flooded with regrets. You don't even have enough time to run to Mikasa and Jean, or their children, and spend your last moments with the people you've grown up beside and loved like family.

They say your life flashes before your eyes moments before death. The memory of bright green eyes breaks into your thoughts and the cold shock of it brings you back to earth.

This feeling is not new to you. You've felt this before decades ago, when you were but a child watching the Colossal Titan break the impenetrable wall of Shiganshina District. Armin holds you closer, and you close your eyes, letting the tears flow freely in your last moments like animals before the rapture of asteroids.

How did it get to this?

-

Shiganshina District was considered to be the most undesirable place to live in the Walls, but the people were content to simply live their lives hidden from the man-eating monsters that ruled the world beyond. Contentment was easy to practice when things could be worse. As long as you were alive, that was enough. Even if it meant having to live next to strange neighbors.

The boy peeking from over the fence was beginning to puzzle you. You noticed the little brunette with the apathetic look and the red scarf he wrapped around his neck almost every day because he wouldn't stop peeping at you doing garden chores. You have waved hello out of politeness a few times, but he only stared at you like he was having a difficult time understanding your actions.

It had crossed your mind that this boy might have been a simpleton, but you brushed the thought away. His father, Doctor Jaeger, was well-respected beyond Shiganshina and therefore the reverence had to extend to the rest of his family. Perhaps he was just shy.

One day, he finally spoke. You had been humming to yourself as you watered your mother's plant despite the fact it had been starting to die in the past week. The summer sun had you wiping your face with your sleeve.

Then after some scuffling, the boy appeared above the fence separating your houses. He blinked at you a few times, then he pointed his finger at your cheekbone.

"You have dirt on your face."

It took you a moment to realize that he was saying it like an insult.

You scowled. "Excuse me?"

"Eren!" a woman called. You craned your head to see her marching towards him with a stern look on her face. "Hard-headed child, what did I say about bothering our neighbors?"

"But Mom," he complained. "She was just watering plants, you see? I'm not even talking!"

The mother pinched his ear, ignoring his complaints and smiling at you apologetically. "I'm so sorry about him," she said. "He's not good at interacting with other people."

You decided to spare this boy some mercy.

"It's alright," you said. "It's good to have company."

The woman looked surprised but pleased. "Oh! Well, I'm sure Eren won't mind! Mind you, he's not very popular with the other children..."

"Mom," Eren whined, embarrassed, and she glared at him. He shut up immediately, sulking. He slumped over the fence with his arms hanging while his mother went back inside.

"Hi, Eren." You reached out at hand for him to shake. "My name is—"

He took your hand and yanked it. You yelped in pain and retracted your arm. Eren's face went from blank to intrigued. Affronted, you picked up the watering tin and returned to tending to the garden, ignoring the little kid's eyes watching you.

What a weirdo.

Every day, without fail, he watched you do your housework from the fence. Sometimes, he watched from what you assumed was his bedroom window from the second story of his house. You found his weird stalking creepy. Still, you lazily saluted at him each time you caught his eyes on you. Sometimes, if you squinted hard enough, there would be a semblance of a smile on his lips.

You were surprised when he introduced you to Armin one day. You didn't know why such a sweet and kind-hearted boy would want to be acquainted with that strange kid. Still, you made idle chatter with him every now and then, when they would play in the street together.

Eren refused to tell you how he had brought home that little girl named Mikasa. You didn't know why and you weren't nosy enough to pry. She was quiet but polite, always looking out for Eren and Armin. Eren forced you to play with them, tugging your arm to the other side of the fence so she wouldn't feel left out.

He was bad at making excuses, you knew. If he just wanted you to hang out, he could have said so. You didn't mention it anyway.

One day turned into seven, and four weeks turned to six months, and those months turned into years of friendship racing down the street and looking out for each other. It was a simple life. You were quite happy to live like this, but Eren had bigger dreams.

"I hope you're not planning on running away," you said to him. "Military is for twelve years old and up."

"I'm not," he said defensively. "I just — want to see more of the world. You've read that geography book Armin keeps, you know there's an adventure out there!"

"Oh yeah?" you challenged. "Like what?"

"Like... like the sea!" he answered cheerfully. "I want to see that ocean thing, whatever it's called. I want—" His cheeks flushed. "—to see it with you."

You reached out to ruffle his hair. "Sure thing, kid."

Eren smacked your hand away, distraught. "Stop treating me like I'm a baby!" he shouted. "I'm just a year younger!"

You rolled your eyes. "It's hard to do that when you always act like one. Look, you're so much tinier than me." You measured your shoulder against his, and Eren pushed you roughly.

"Just you wait!" he said. "I'll be way taller than you, you'll see! When we see the ocean!"

Then, the wall broke.

You escaped with Armin and his grandfather. You never saw your parents again. Your mother's garden got crushed under the debris that hit Eren's house, and everything you knew faded into the past.

The rest of your life followed.

You joined the military. You found a family in the Cadet Corps. You fought at Trost and joined the Survey Corps. You reunited with Eren there. You lost friends. You gained new ones. The world changed and nothing stayed the same. You began to feel tired. But as long as you were with those you cared about, you pushed on.

When you got older, your affectionate feelings for Eren only strengthened. He found consolation from the cruel hardships of the soul-crushing world in your warm embrace. Even in the dull moments, you found that his presence was just as comforting in the lackluster afternoons as it was in the starless evenings.

"Promise me one thing..." you said to Eren, one night as you stargazed in the fields of Historia's orphanage. He turned on his side to see you, and his green eyes bore into yours. While others found his seriousness irritating, you secretly loved it when he was attentive.

His lips whispered, "What?"

"That you'll try to live."

Eren snorted. "'Try?'"

"Will," you corrected. "After everything, you will live. We will live."

He hummed, arm coming up to rest over your middle. Petrichor was fresh in the air as he pulled you closer but only he filled your lungs. It was a naive and difficult promise to keep, but your eyes were as starry as the sky above.

"Okay," Eren said simply. "Then I want you to make me a promise too."

"What?" you asked, echoing his earlier question.

"That we'll see the sea together, like I always said," he said. "And that one day, when all of this is over, we'll be there together."

"With Armin and Mikasa."

Eren scowled at your words but you knew he meant it as a joke.

"If you really insist on sticking around my dumb ass," he said, "you have to keep promises."

"Yeah, yeah," you said dismissively. "You're part of me."

You should have known better.

Something was pulling you to immortalize this fleeting moment. You didn't know why, but something inside you made you glance at his lips. Something was telling you that if you did not speak now, you would probably never have the chance to speak about it again. But you pushed the feeling away.

You ended up never figuring out what the feeling was.

The next thing you knew, you were standing in that ocean Eren had told you about. Sunlight glinted in his dead eyes as he pointed to the horizon. Your happiness at seeing the sea for the first time dissolved at his lack of excitement.

You had fulfilled your promise. You were seeing the sea, but Eren was seeing something beyond that.

"If we kill all our enemies over there, will we finally be free?"

The world changed some more. You fought more battles. The blood of strangers was spilled by your hand. You made new friends, lost even more. Sometimes you would dream of your childhood, playing with Eren, showing your mother the plants you cared for. You were content with this, the way you learned to be content with everything.

Then Eren left you and nothing was ever the same. Titans marched the land, and it burned to dust in a slaughter of blood.

Eren died. The world went to a halt. You were supposed to rest. But you didn't. For the rest of your life something in you was hollow with deep regret. You refused to acknowledge it, terrified of the pain that came with accepting the truth of your feelings.

The ache of love.

An ache you never wanted to feel again.

Even after the death of your friend.

-

You close your eyes as the sea of grey clouds washes over Shiganshina District. You choke on the ash and lose your grip on Armin as the earth quakes. You are separated. The dust fills your lungs and life fades to black, then white.

This is death. You feel it before you realize it. It feels light and painless. You feel relief.

But energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form to another. This is a basic law of science. A law that is absolute and can never be changed in the universe. Even when you are dead, you are never truly gone.

Then you feel your consciousness slip into another.

You open your eyes and find yourself laying in your childhood bed, your mother telling you to take the watering tin and tend to her plants. You're a child again and for a moment you wonder if this is just a dream. You do as she says and you go outside where a fresh flower blooms. You focus on only this flower.

You hear scuffling in the fence behind you and you freeze. You drop the watering tin and everything spills onto hard soil as you watch a young boy with brown hair and green eyes push himself to lean over the fence and look at you with a quizzical expression.

"You have dirt on your face."

You opened and closed your mouth like a fish out of water. You couldn't remember what you had said to him the first time, but you were so shocked that this was not a dream that you couldn't help but say the first thing that came out of your mouth.

"What did you say?"

Thus began your second chance at life.