𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃; jean k.

chapter 2.

the next morning, i'm woken up to church bells again, just like yesterday. except yesterday everything was normal.

i look to my right and see that mikasa is awake too, but armin is missing. eren continues to sleep on the floor next to us before he wakes up gasping in a cold sweat.

"hey. you were just dreaming" mikasa greets eren.

"dad was... it felt so real..." eren replies as he puts his head in his palms.

"it was just a nightmare, eren" i say.

"come on, they're handing out food rations" mikasa says as she gets on her feet, and eren and i do the same.

"i think this used to be where they stored all the dried goods" i say as we walk out into the courtyard of the facility, which is filled with hundreds of refugees talking and sleeping. a few people in the crowd are even arguing over rations.

"hey guys!" armin yells. he runs up to the three of us with bread clutched in his chest.

"armin, what is all that?" i ask.

"grandpa scrounged a little extra by telling the powers at be he has kids" armin says as he hands each of us a small load of bread.

"thank you" the three of us say before we notice a soldier suck his teeth behind armin while rolling his eyes.

"what's his deal?" eren asks.

"just ignore it. there's a shortage. he's probably hungry" armin starts, "by the way, i'd make that last. they were already dealing with a famine before we got here".

"i can't do this. i'm going back to wall maria. the titans have to pay for what they've done to us" eren declares as he walks underneath an overpass and sits on the short stone divider.

"eren, you're not serious, are you?" armin asks.

"im serious! the guys standing between us and them are just a bunch of talk" eren defends before looking at his bread, "here!".

"what are you trying to do, starve?" armin argues back after being hit in the shoulder with eren's ration.

"when are you going to get sick of their charity? too much is handed to us. we have to stand on our own two feet!" eren yells.

"and get killed by a titan? i know i used to say our future was beyond the walls, but i never saw what they could do to us!" armin argues back.

"so that's it? this is just the way life is? run away and take what's given-" eren starts.

"look at us! what choice do we have here?" armin cuts off.

"if you want to scrape by in the charity of cowards that's your thing! but i'm not a parasite!" eren yells before mikasa's fist meets his right cheek and he falls to the ground.

"finally" i sigh while i cross my arms over my chest.

"have you looked in the mirror lately? all of us are parasites. we couldn't run from death without help, tell me differently" mikasa says to eren.

"yeah, don't take it out on armin" i add.

"we can't even find food on our own! we're parasites, we're cowards. pride be damned we do what we must to live. your mom didn't ask us to be brave" mikasa says before walking over to eren and shoving bread into his mouth.

"mikasa!" armin yells.

"eat it! you have to survive. i'm not going to let you starve" mikasa says, still persistent on keeping the food in the brunette boy's mouth. he struggles to fight back before tears stream down his cheeks.

a few days later, refugees were put out to plow the fields, but the winter weather didn't help any food to grow. i found out a week later that my brother, nick, had survived the attack, but he had been brought to a different district than we had. without knowing where he was, i had lost him forever in a matter of minutes.

in the following year, 846, the remaining refugees of age were drafted into the military to reclaim wall maria. of the 250,000 sent to battle, nearly 20% of the surviving population, only a few hundred had come home. that was the last time we saw armin's grandfather.

after getting word of the old man's death, the four of us swore to become cadets, and fight back against the titans that took all we knew. it wouldn't be easy, but nothing is sweeter than revenge.

A/N:
this chapter is so short but i don't want them to start cadet training until the next chapter so i guess i'll just leave it here