Microcosmos || Rivamika

Ch4 Ginseng

Summary: Levi is met with an unexpected visit from someone who presents to him a choice. The 104th Scouts share a meal amidst Levi and Mikasa's absence. Mikasa recalls what she's left behind as she pushes forward.

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Levi, I don't want you.

I'm in love with Eren.

A woman's voice repeated itself and somehow encompassed Levi in the abyss of a dark scene. He opened his eyes, and far from him there was a single light, a small fire that sparked in the depths. As he approached, the light revealed a raven haired woman in a crimson scarf with no face.

Please, Levi. Just leave.

Each step taken closer to her, the tighter the crimson squeezed around her small neck. He was running now, desperate to save her. And as he reached out his hand to take hold of the scarf and free her, the garment dissolved through his very grasp. Tighter and tighter of a chokehold it squeezed til her revealed eyes rolled behind the back of her head. Her voice fought for air beneath a muffled scream before she vanished from his eyes.

Levi looked down at his hands, covered in crimson blood.

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Levi shot up from the floor of his room gasping for air. His white shirt was drenched in sweat and his face was sweltering to the touch. Sleep was rare for him, and for a moment Levi realized maybe he avoids sleeping because of the familiar nightmares that haunt him - the unsightly visions of Farlan being devoured by a titan, the lone head of Isabel staring at him from the ground, Petra laying lifeless in the forest, and Erwin's last breath. It was all too familiar, but the familiarity never could take away the pain. Levi was simply good at ignoring his inner demons. He had to be.

But this was the first nightmare that didn't replay his past.

What was it again...?

The confused soldier held his head in his hands, still in a daze as he wiped sweat from his warm forehead. He propped up and sat against the wall, now focused on the sweat on the back of his hand; the dream of Mikasa's blood on his hands flashed again in his mind.

Mikasa...

He looked up at his room, dim and gray. It was hard to work out whether it was early morning or evening in the glum. All he could remember was walking back to the house late at night, sitting on the floor as he patiently waited for Mikasa to come back after... Ah, that's right... After she yelled at him to leave.

After she told him she didn't want him. Tch.

Levi pulled the drenched shirt off of his bare back and stood before a mirror, gazing at the scars on his body; each cut and scratch on his toned muscles held different stories, different memories, different victories, different pain. He sighed. The look in Mikasa's resentful eyes and the sting of her words might as well have left its own physical scar on him. He reached for his blue shirt, Mikasa's favorite, but paused. Something deep stabbed at the soldier's heart as he remembered the previous night. Wait.

"MIKASA."

Levi's eyes widened in the mirror as he threw the shirt over himself and darted out the room. The house was empty, and much too quiet. He turned left to Onyankapon's vacant room, and quickly read a handwritten note from the Marleyan man about his departure in the early morning. Then his head shot to the right, and he stood staring at the shut door of Mikasa's.