After I died

2

Anastasia

Days were passing by like minutes, this was indeed the freedom and peace I had hoped for. Nothing more and nothing less. Anya and Tom treated me like a friend from the first day I was working there. They had told me about their son being in the military.

It was late in the evening when we were talking about this. I remember that the windows were open, warm summer wind was going through the inn as Anya stood behind the bar, polishing glasses like always while I was sorting them into the shelf.

"His name is Heinrich. He joined the survey corps when he was 16. He wanted to go to the military police at first but didn't make it to the top 10, so they didn't let him. Now he is with this crazy people." "Crazy?", I had asked. 

Anya had this shocked look on her face, she looked almost offended. "Of course. Do you not think they're crazy? Fighting this pointless war against the titans outside the wall." "I'm not well informed about that. You see, my family did quite live for themselves, would you mind telling me something about these survey corps people?" 

To my favour, Anya believed my lie and started talking about the titans and how they broke through the wall and how the survey corps always goes behind the walls to find some way to win against the titans. "I still remember how horrified people were five years ago, when wall Maria fell. It was terrible, so many fleeing people with no food or homes."

My gaze had switched to the map on the wall. I had looked at it before to figure out how this... country worked, there were three walls. We were in district trost which was at the outer side of the second wall, Rose. The third wall, Maria, seemed to have gone down a few years ago, with titans claiming this territory. I didn't exactly know what a titan was, but Anya had mentioned that's it's some form of human eating giants that can only be killed when cutting their neck open at the back. 

Seems pretty hard to cut a neck that's 40 feet in the air, but Anya also mentioned the military having some form of equipment to move in the air with. How she put it, it seemed rather crazy what those survey corps people were doing but I knew what I did for my freedom. That made it less crazy to me. 

Anya and Tom went ot bed before me that evening, as I was still waiting for the last drunk customer to leave. At the end of the night, I had to carry him to his room. At the time, I didn't knwo how bad the next day would turn out, eventhough it had started so normally.

There weren't many people around for breakfast, except the ones living in the inn, as always. Tom made scrambled eggs and some bread for breakfast. We were fine until around noon, that's when it all went down. A loud bang noise caught my attention as I was just serving a customer his lunch. Both me and Anya went outside, to see what was going on, but all I could see was dust swirling through the air causing a fog. In between that, I saw a huge frame, approximately 50 feet. 

I was in shock when it's hand reached for us, grabbing Anya, who had pushed me out of them way. "Run!", she yelled, after that, I could only hear screams from her and sound of bones crashing. I ran back inside the inn. "Tom, you need to leave! Right now, take all the customers with you. They broke through the wall." Tom came rushing out the kitchen. "What? Where is Anya? Is she safe?" "Yes.", I lied. "She's already on her way to wall Rose, go. I'll just handle soemthing." 

I had told myself to never fight again, but this was about people that were dear to me, and I would not run away doing nothing, when I could at least try to help. Tom did as I said and left with all the customers that were still in the inn by the time. In the basement, was some useful stuff. When cutting out a piece of the neck, I'd need two sword, for getting up to them, I needed a rope with a hook and the end. 

All the stuff I needed was in there, so I took it, put on some pants and a cloth around my face to not start choking on all the dust in the air. I climbed up the roof of the inn, a sword in each hand and the end of the rope, that did not have a hook, knotted around my waist. Let's do this then. 

There were dozens of titans in Trost and people in uniforms flying around fighting them, probably the survey corps people, that Anya had told me about. One of the titans was right before the roof I was standing on, so I threw the hook to get stuck on the roof across the street, I jump off the roof, swingin past the titans slicing it's neck and landing against wall of the house across the street.

The giant fell over, starting to steem on the ground. I had never trained to fight against an enemy like that but eventhough they were way taller than humans, they were also stupid and not really that fast, a challange but no impossible quest for a trained Anchor-assassin. Hanging against a house, I decided to get onto it's roof. 

Standing there, a girl landed next to me. "Are you a civilian?", she asked. "More or less.", I replied. She looked at me through narrowed eyes. "Why aren't you fleeing?", the girl then asked. "I'm helping.", I said, pointing at the steeming titan on the ground. The girl eyed it and then shrugged. "Fine. Good luck." with that being said, she left, flying off to the next titan. 

I wasn't as fast as her but also stayed, doing what I could. I noticed many titans standing around a big building in the middle of the town. There must be something important inside, let's see. I ran over the roofs getting to the building finally. Inside were people hiding. fromt he titans, but they wore the military uniforms as well. why are they hiding if they cam here to fight the titans?

"You don't by any chance got some more of those equipment stuff, do you?", I asked. One of the people hiding under the desks pointed at cupboards on the other side of the room. I got over to get one, there was a full leather strap thing going with it. "How does it work? The short version, please."

The girls voice was shaking as she explained how the leather strap system and this 3dmg thing worked. I left as soon as she finished. It was difficult to hold balance with that stuff and staying in the air, but in some way it was similar to what I had when at the Anchor. Fighting was way easier with this 3dmg stuff. 

I was out there for quite some time until a bald guy pulled me out of the fight, dragging me on top of wall Rose. "And who might you be?", he asked. The man seemed like some kind of higher up, so i answered like I was tauhgt. "Anastasia Srijokowitsc, sir." He chuckled. "Well, Anastasia, I'm Dot Pixy and we appreciate your help but let's just keep the civilians here, my people will keep you company."

He left without room for further argument, so I was alone with three men wearing the same symbol on their jackets as him. So I'm just supposed to.... stay here now?