After I died

17

Anastasia

A man arrived at our table short later. "You guys are the new elite squad under captain Levi, he expects you on the training grounds." We all got up,  gathering the plates and cutlery to bring it all away. The man looked at me nervously. "Uhm, not you. You were put in Hanjis team." I blinked a few times. "That can't be.", Eren chimed in. "She was in the elite troop befor, why wouldn't she now?" "C-captains orders.", the man stuttered before turning and leaving. "But, that's not fair, you deserve to be on the team.", Sasha complained.

"It's okay.", I sighed. "You guys get to training, I'll ask Hanji later. See ya at lunch." I made my way over to Hanji's office. She loked up from her notes. "Hi, have you seen my new assistant? She's supposed to arrive here now." "I'm your new assistant.", I grumbled, setting my stuff down. "You? I thought you'd be an official part of Levi's elite squad by now." "I don't know what that guy is thinking. If he thinks   I'm not good enough or whatever." "I think it's not about your skill, its about his trust issues." I sighed, sitting down somewhere and starting to work on something that Hanji gave me.

She looked through my reports somewhen before lunch and noted: "These are really detailed, I likeyour work, but let's go to lunch, the experiments need to sit for a bit anyway." On the corridor, Hanji looked over at me at one point. "What'cha thinking about with that frown of yours?" "I just don't understand why this little gremlin still doesn't trust me. I risked my life for his team more than once, proven times on times that I wouldn't betray them so why is he still sending me away?" "Dunno. Levi is a bit weird sometimes, but you get to work with me now."

I sighed, throwing my hands in the air. "Yeah that's nice but I actually wanna fight for something right for once. And he won't let me." "I can't do anything about that, Levi doesn't listen to me. And even if he did-" She was interrupted by a male voice. "My decision is set." It was Levi. "I just wanna know why? Why you still see an enemy in me." He just looked at me. "I don't see an enemy in you, I see myself in you. That's even worse. Its that look on your face that tells me something is off. Also, you are unable to work in a team." "What? Thats not true." My first lie that day.

"I've seen the way you fight, your first instinct is always to take things on alone. I don't think you've ever worked in a team before." "Of course I have." Second lie. "We both know that's not true. You managed to fight alongside my squad because this was a new situation for you and you had to rely on them, but those seconds of hesitation will always be there." Hanji chimed in now. "You were a single fighter when you got here too. And you learned to fight in a team just fine." "This is not your place to argue, four eyes."

"Shes a really good fighter, Levi, and we shouldn't waste her strenght on the sidelines.", Hanji replied, ignoring Levi's order. "That is my second point, all these skills and we don't know where you learned a single one of those.", Levi continued. "I see that look on your face that tells me you fought way more battles than your telling us and until I don't know who made you fight them, and who you were fighting against, I am not risking putting you on my team, end of discussion."

With that he turned and started walking away. "It was called the Anchor.", I called out and he stopped, looking over his shoulder. Hanji also seemed surprised. The decision to tell him was stupid and impulsive but there was no taking it back now. "They bought children off poor families and raised them to fighters and spies and killers. I-... I've killed more people before I turned 15 than I have titans in my time here. They restructure your brain, make you compliant, only praise you when you did something so terrible to someone else that you can't sleep at night but you'd do it again if they ordered you."

Levi walked back over to me and Hanji, standing extremely close and right in front of me. "Go on.", I could tell he believed me. I knew the look in his eyes the first time I saw him and I could tell, he knew mine. "They told us the only way to not get killed was to kill everyone else. The ones with better results in combat tests or training would get better food. Children who didn't follow orders correctly didn't get food at all. The children they deemed too weak would-..." My voice cracked slightly.

"Would get eliminated... they made us turn on eachother for our own survival." It was quiet for a bit Levi looked me straight in the eyes while Hanji stared between us. "Is there any way you could prove that?", the man in front of me asked. I hesitantly reached up to pull my hair away from my neck, revealing a small anchor symbol tattoo and 5 digits. "That is my name, 31008. Anastasia Srijokowitsc is the one I found in the files. The name of the woman that I was stolen from."

He sighed. "Where are these people?" "I don't know. Me and a few others destroyed the Anchor as we left, killing the leading figures and burning all files and data about it." It was a lie but telling them I died and then suddenly woke up here would make them think I'm crazy. Levi stared at me in silence a bit longer, as if trying to see if I'd crack or contradict myself. But then he nodded. "I'll reconsider."

He stepped away from me, turing away again. "Captain?" "Nobody needs to know." "Thank you." Hanji still stood next to me, frozen in place as she stared me down. "Except Erwin." "Of course, I unerstand." And off he was to lunch. "Damn, what was that?", Hanji exclaimed. "I think I just fell for a setup.", I mumbled.