After I died

35

Anastasia

The sun was starting to set so we trted getting onto the lifts that would bring everyone over the wall. People were calling from down in the city, telling us to survive and get the wall Maria back. They seemed way more positive than they were as we left or came back on the other missions. Somehow, these people had found out whhat this mission was about, eventho it was supposed to be kept a secret. No one was really knew how they found out but it was probably Reeves which had provided the meat for the dinner last evening.

I really wasn't used to not eating any meat in such a long time. The anchor had always made sure thatour diet was just right for top scores, which didn't include tons of meatof course ut at least some. speaking of, there were indeed some things I was missing form backk there, like phones, cars, motocyles, fridges, proper radiators and most of all gummibaers. Sweets in general, sugar seemed to be a rarityso sweets had only been available for the richest. What I alsomissed was coffee.yes tea is great and taste better but starting day without a mornign coffee to wake up is torture- Erwin pulled me out of my train of thought by announcing the start of the mission the lifts started going down, everyone down bit by bit and short later, we were ready to start towards Shiganshina.

As the night got to an end, we got off the horses and walked, to make less noise. There were no titan encounters the whole way to the outer district. The sun would be coming up soon but our organisers said we wereclose to the districts. Eren, Armin and Mikasa were short behind us, talking about recognising the surroundings. The second the sun came up, everyone got onto their horses so we reached the wall just a few hours later. Erwin and the teams he had chosen stayed on the main wall just above the inner hole while Levi, Hanji and the squad, including me started making our way to the outer hole. Hanji stood nexttome on the wall while looking around. "There is not a single titan to be seen, I have a bad feeling about this."

But we didn't have time for concerns, eren had already transformed and would hopefully close the outher hole in a matter of minutes or seconds. And he did, getting out of the frozen titan just in time. The troops on the ground sent green flare signals, telling the rest of us, that the hole was completely sealed. Making our way back, I was wondering why this was so easy. The others had said that Reiner and Berthold should still be here, so why didn't they do anything yet to stop us.

We were halfway there when seeing a red signal flare, the mission had been paused? Why that, did they finally find the enemies? Hanji ordered all of us onto the wall to get ready for a fight to come. So, we stood there watching Armin leading a team that was checking the wall, knocking with their sword to find somethin. So if we found them now, what would happen after, we couldn't risk a straight up fight again, out chances for surviving that were low looking at the fact that they were three titan shifters while we only had one. Yes we had soldiers buy thinking back to all the other fights, that didn't help. If not through fighting then how could we win.

... with a tactic that has worked over and over again. Shock them out of their strategy, the trojan horse, hannibal with the elephants over the alps, the Russian burning oscow to the ground.... but how? "You're mumbling again.", Levi said, standing next to me. "I gotta go talk to Eren." "Ana what-" But I was already off to go find the boy. "That woman's gonna drive me insane one say.", I heard Levi mutter behind me as he watched closely what I was doing.

"How old were you when this district fell?" Eren looked a bit confused at my forward question, before he caught himself, Mikasa replied. "12, why?" I nodded slowly. These two titan shifters, Reiner and Bethold, they were the same age as Eren, no twelve year old would do something like this unless... "That time when they kidnapped you, Reiner and Berthold, back on wall Rose, you remember what I mean?" "Yes, why do you bring that up now?", Eren asked, looking a bit nervous. "Did one of them, or maybe both seem a bit out of place? Like they were talking about two different things at once or suddenly drastically shifted their behaviour and opinion triggered by a certain word or just out of nowhere?"

J could see the wheels in Eren's head turning as his eyes slowly widened. "Yes, Reiner seemed out of touch with reality. One moment he was sad and guilty, then suddenly excited about going home or whatever. And he sometimes talked about not being a soldier but a warrior and sometimes the other way around, as if it made that much of a difference." I nodded along to his explanation, mentally noting all of this.

"Was there something he talked about that he felt guilt for, or something he had a conflict with?" Eren thought for a moment. They killed one of our cadet friends right after we graduated from training. His name was Marco. And Berthokd once apologised for killing my mother.... other than that, the obvious thing with tge wall, perhaps." "Thanks, that was really helpful."

Eren stopped me before I could leave them after having just asked these random questions. "What are you planing." "Something shocking.", I replied. "I cant tell you tho, because it won't work if you guys aren't shocked by it too." He still semed confused but nodded, letting go of thr subject. I walked back over to Levi who was looking at me with this expectant look.