アッカーマン | 𝚕 • 𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗

𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚞

[pronounced tore-roo, soften the 'r', roll the 'r']

"Maybe I was everything they feared."

♘ ♛ ♘

YOU REMAINED on your own for a year after that.

Independence was your strong suit. You never went to Shiganshina to seek out the Jaeger family, Grisha never returned and you refused to have anyone else help you again. You were thankful, sure, but you couldn't go about your life while depending on others for survival necessities and such, so you chose to resort to some lows you were never prepared to face.

Your food and other supplies were all gained out of theft, and you'd like to think you had gotten pretty good at that. There were a few times you had just escaped a supply haul by just the fraction of a second, having just missed shopkeepers or customers by a mere inch. You finally had decent weapons, fresh food and new clothes that actually fit you, but you chose to leave the stolen clothes to wear while you stayed around the cabin to avoid the attire being recognised by those who lost to your hand.

It took you a month to go back to your village, and for some surprising reason the bodies were gone. You weren't sure where, but you were certain your family hadn't just woken up from death and walked away. Besides, the smell of rotting flesh and decaying organs remained heavy in the air, and that was proof enough.

You managed to raid the place to the best of your abilities, the task taking you two whole days from dusk until dawn. Clothes, tinned foods, weapons such as bows and knives, torches, books, blankets, flint and steel to make lighting fires a whole lot easier. You had even managed to muster up the courage to search through your own house, the final building in the area, and found your father's diary hidden beneath the mattress of your parents' bed.

You wondered what was in that diary when you had found it but chose to finish looting the place before you left for good. You didn't want to risk getting caught by anyone who thought the ghost town was a good place to find something to eat.

Before you left the village, you decided to go and check the barn, hoping that the animals you and your family had spent so long making sure were of the best quality were still alive. You couldn't hear them as you approached, your newly enhanced senses slowly becoming easier to control with each passing day. You couldn't sense anything within the large building.

Perhaps the animals were all dead? No, you couldn't smell anything beyond the stench of decomposing human, maybe they had escaped. Yeah, that'd be what you'd prefer. And as you checked it, the barn sat empty in the midst of the field. The back door was wide open, meaning either the wind had opened it, or someone intentionally opened it. You hummed in question, wondering who would've came by and freed the animals.

Or better yet, who disposed of your family's bodies. That thought in particular bothered you. You were young but you certainly weren't stupid. Bodies don't breakdown that fast and there was no way a carnivorous animal had passed through and dragged dozens of bodies away without a trace. Not a blood trail, not even a shred of clothing. Few blood puddles still stained the streets, an old rustic brown taking the colour away and slowly blending the blood spatters with the dirt.

You didn't think too much about it though, you got what you had returned here for and you had no intentions of coming back again. With a heavy bag of your new second hand belongings, you heave it all the way back to your little cabin.