After I died

54

Hanji

It was raining as we were riding through the forest. Floch had decided that Ana wouldn't come with us. I didn't know why. She was a great fighter and the best leverage the Yeagerists had to keep me and Levi in line. Floch must know that Levi might even help them if he threatened Ana. There must be a very good reason to not take her with us and I had an idea what that reason might be. If Floch, like I assumed, triggered some kind of assassin persona from her time at the Anchor in Ana's mind than his only fear was someone bringing the real Ana back out. So the only person he had to fear would wake up Ana was Levi.

We were just about to reach Zeke's hideout when hearing a loud bang. "Was that a lightning?", one of Floch's soldiers asked. No, that was a thunderspeer. When reaching the place of action, we saw a dead horse, a shattered cart, a titan laying on its stomach and.... Levi, covered in blood. If this was really caused by a thunderspeer, he probably stood too close to the explosion. No, this can't be, he has to be alive. I squatted down into the grass next to him, feeling for pulse, trying to get an overview of his injuries.

He was alive, thank god. But if the Yeagerists found out, they would kill him, he was comepletely defenseless in this state. I had to find a way to get out of here as fast as possible. Floch walked over to us. "Whatever happened here, it now has our biggest threat on the ground covered in his own blood." "We should shoot him in the head, just in case.", one of the soldiers said. "He's already dead.", I mumbled in response, staring down at Levi. "He probably stood too close to the explosion." "I wanna see that for myself. Let me check his pulse." Floch wallked even closer but then got distracted by someone calling for him.

The titan laying on its stomach was suddenly absorbing steam. "Did he die?" "No, titans usually make steam and don't absorb it." Short later, someone rolled out from inside the titan.... Zeke?! Everyone stare at him, that was our chance to escape. I held Levi closer and jumped into the river, swimming as fast as I could while Floch's people were riding next to the river, shooting into the water, trying to hit us.

We managed to get out of the danger zone and I was able to put Levi down and rest for a bit. The people following us arrived some time later but I shot them before they got closer. Levi was still passed out so I started treating his injuries, sewing the cuts shut and bandaging most of his face and upper body. We spent about half a day in that forest, I was trying to make something out of the cart that I could transport Levi on, carying him the whole way didn't seem like a good plan.

"This really is a shit situation.", I mumbled to myself. "Now that the Yeagerists took over, they will probably start looking for us. Maybe e should just live here in the forest forever, huh? ... But I refuse to leave Ana with this bastard. We could.... make a plan to rescue her and then just flee-" My talking was interrupted by a weird day dream, I found myself in some kind of desert, it was night but there were some weird lights in the sky.

I could hear Eren's voice saying that he had started the Rumbling and was trying to keep Paradise safe by destroying the rest of the world. "What was-", I stopped myself when seeing Levi sitting up in the corner of my eye. "We can't run away like cowards.... Zeke escaped because I didn't think he would risk his own life just to do so. We have to fight." "Oh, so you heard my little conversation with myself?" He ignored my question, going back to something else I'd said.

"You mentioned Ana? Where is she?" I sighed, knowng I had to explain that at one point, eventho Levi was still recovering and I wasn't sure how he'd react but if he knew something, I didn't about her, I needed to tell him now. "The Yeagerists have her... but she's not herself. Floch orders her around like a puppet and she doesn't even hesitate to follow, also he keeps calling her '31'." Levi went completely still for a second, eyes widening. "How did he find the code words?" "Code words?", I asked. So, he did know something.

"Ana told me about it some time ago. There is a row of numbers that, if you tell them to her, it's like her personality gets tunred off. She becomes a mindless puppet, listening to the peson who put her in this state without questioning or second thoughts." I listened carefully to what he told me. "That does sound like what we've seen of her so far. Damnit, our poor Ana. The way Floch talked about her in that state, I wanted to break his jaw or something like that." Silence hang between us for a while before I caught myself again.

"We need to find the others, then we make a plan to get Ana back and then we do something about the Rumbling." We got Levi onto the cart I'd built and we left to find someone who might help us, but the first people we found, weren't who we'd hoped for. Pieck, the one who had the cart titan, and general Theo Magath from the military of Marley. It took some convincing but in the end they agreed to work together because now that the rumbling was really happening, we had to take all the help we could get.