This is My Last War (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) - Part 3

The Founder's Dilemma, Part 1

I am the Founding Titan, I am the Founding Titan, I am ...

He has to repeat it to himself, constantly. Has to. If he doesn't, he forgets.

No.

He doesn't forget, it's impossible to - this fate is a weight on his shoulders that only grows heavier with time. But without repeating who he is, things become... hazy. Insubstantial. Like smoke in the air. Like a dream? It's like he holds a thousand reins in his hands one moment and they're slipping out of his fingers the next. As he stares at his empty hands, he feels the greatest of despairs.

Everything is pointless. Can it just end?

Yes, sometimes he thinks about dying. Then, shame grips him: He does not want to go down in history as a coward but as the one who fought for a better world until the end! He saved Eldia! That's what he wants people to remember about him. Not surprisingly, it's Erwin's voice Eren hears in his head in such moments. Garbled fragments of his fiery speeches that made young men and women feel enthusiastic about their impending deaths: "All of us want to be heroes. Everyone who rides out the gates to fight for humanity's freedom is a hero. But will we be remembered as such? Probably not. History has a mind of its own. What appears heroic today might seem folly tomorrow. Do we care? No! Be your own hero, soldiers! Be your own hero today - today is all that matters!"

Erwin was justified to see the world as he did, forced to live in the moment of kill or be killed, where all that mattered was the courage to face one's own fears, but Eren has no such luxury. Everything he does matters - and he has to care, because he is the Coordinate. He is the only one who can see into the past and into the future, even if it takes such an effort. The future is forever changing, he is never certain on which path they're on and where it leads. Is it one step taken in the wrong direction, one decision, one chance encounter that changes the outcome? How can he know what to do so that the world doesn't end up burning? Can there even be any control?

Or the most terrifying thought of them all: Is it all happening purely by chance, over and over? No. He has to push this possibility away, deny it, but... I can't do this. Why me. Why me. WHY ME!!!!

Pffft, he can rage all he wants, it is pointless to fight fate, he knows this by now, but Eren fears he is going insane? Everything feels unstable.

"Can't be insane yet if I am capable of thinking that," he tells himself, his voice sounding strangely hollow to his ears. He doesn't believe it but what choice does he have but to pretend that everything is going to be okay?

It's damp in the cellar and it smells like unwashed socks. He is hungry, but the only provisions he has left is a junk of moldy bread and two wrinkled apples. Is the sun shining outside? He craves to feel it on his skin but going out is too risky - they must be looking for him by now. Fooling Mikasa is hard as fuck, it's like she can smell him, appearing out of thin air when he least expects it.

"Just another day," he tells himself, watching a cockroach scuttle across the floor and suddenly disappear.

They will survive the Rumbling! he thinks, and laughs like a lunatic. A world ruled by cockroaches - surely it's a better world. Maybe he should stop caring about what comes after. Maybe following his instincts has always been the best idea? Let the world burn. Let them die. He doesn't even like most people; actually he hates them!

Eren springs up and looks at his face in the mirror on the wall of his self-chosen prison. In this body, at this time, he is 19 years old - in his prime, strong, healthy. The hair is too long, it falls into his eyes all the time. But he forgot to bring a hairband. Cut it? He knows he is considered very handsome - he knows because people tell him, women and men. Not Mikasa though, she only looks at him disapprovingly. Yes, he gets it, he is messed up, he cannot sleep, he often feels like bursting into tears, he has to avoid her because if he doesn't, he will be distracted way too much.