EAT YOUR TAIL ⸻ attack on titan.

01 ──── the bell rings like our hearts pound

HEARTS FLUTTER AND HEADS SPIN when the clocktower bell rings.

It is a deep, reverberating sound, metal vibrating against metal, hairs rising on arms and footsteps pattering out for the Shiganshina District. The slow pace of life that goes on in Wall Maria pauses momentarily, and it is like time ceases to exist as trepidation starts to rise in gathered crowds, slowly and gradually, much like the heavy wooden gate they raise up the wall.

"You're too slow, Vince, Ma! Hurry!" Loose lavender skirts are hitched up by tanned hands lit olive by the afternoon sun, new shoes crunching on gravel and sand and stone as Thea Lauriel runs ahead of her family, dodging groups of anxious adults and doubtful teenagers.

Not too far behind the sprightly ten-year-old girl runs Vincent Lauriel, whose breaths come out in shallow pants, braid thumping against his back. "You're too fast, Thea!" The boy calls out, his eyes, an endless void of iridescent violet, widening when he trips over three stone steps. Ten-year-old Vince's life is flashing past his eyes when his mother grabs his arm, saving him from his fall.

"Careful, Vince." Like Thea, Saadia Lauriel is unwinded. She sounds as if she were going on a stroll instead of chasing Thea down from the Serwil District nestled all the way deep inside of Wall Maria.

Vince huffs. Cheeks burning, he jumps down the little stone steps, and gives full chase. Saadia shakes her head fondly at her son, those same thick-lashed eyes of a vibrant brown and gold trailing after the backs of Thea and Vince.

Thea slows to a stop, having pushed herself all the way toward the front of the crowds, lined up on either sides of rows of shophouses. Vince squeezes through a pair of middle-aged merchants, and stops beside his twin sister, hands on his knees, eyes on his shoes.

Thea pulls on Vince's dark braid. "They're coming," she says in an excited hiss. Vince, hands still braced on his knees, looks up, and is greeted with a grim sight.

Thea searches for their father, blind to the masses of wounded soldiers on wagons, sitting beside stacks of something— bodies— covered in white sheets far from pristine, crimson stains marring the cotton. The sight never fails to make Vincent's heart clench. What if one day, those white sheets were presented to their mother, flipped back to show the lifeless body of someone who had taken him and Thea on a ride on his shoulders?

"As always, the Scouts come back with less than half their troops. Eat and die, they really do, don't they? Useless bunch of pigs. Going out and coming back with hordes of bodies and possible sicknesses."

Vincent's attention is brought away from the scene before him— grim soldiers on trotting horses, wrapped in an assortment of bandages, leaning on crutches and comrades— and toward the voice. His nails, long uncut, dig into the soft flesh of his palms. When he looks back at them later, he will see crescent-shaped arcs.

Now, he glares at the speaker, a middle-aged man with musky brown hair and narrowed blue eyes, his sharp face scrunched up in scorn. The man doesn't notice Vince yet. After all, Vince stands at his ribcage, small for his age and gender. He isn't much of a sight.

"At least they don't squander their lives away, trapped in these walls for well over thirty years," Vince retorts. In this moment, he is brash and reckless, all barbed tongue and heated glares. "They risk their lives for an honourable cause, unlike you who gambles away all your family's money."

The man notices Vince, and his glare is one without any pleasure. A low growl creeps up his throat, but he keeps his composure. Beating little children does no good for his image. "You little swine," the man snarls, "what are you to talk about adult matters? Why don't you join the Scouts, and then wonder why people would rather use their heads than their bodies?"