THIRTEEN • Eren Jaeger

EPILOGUE

There is hope. Everything had gone just as planned from the very start. You've lived through twelve different lives, each one ending in disaster. This last loop — the thirteenth — is the only one where you prevented Paradis from getting destroyed.

You had only been twenty when the Titan powers ceased to exist, but by then it had already felt as though you had lived a thousand lives. Guts spilled, kisses exchanged in the dark. You had witnessed the birth of innocent creatures and the fall of fascist cartels. You had been trapped in a samsara of perpetual life and death for so long that it felt as though you had not lived through anything at all. 

But there was always one thing that was certain, and it was him.

Eren.

There is hope when you look at them, and the normal life you've been rewarded. They love sledding down the mountains with you during winter, and they giggle when Eren throws them in the air and catches them again in his strong arms.

There was hope the moment you knew you could run away, the first time you made love with your lover, the first morning where you had a quiet breakfast together and realized that the thoughts of war hadn't crossed your mind in hours. It was as though you had broken free. The chains that bound you to fate had withered and your hands were free to write your own destiny—a better destiny.

When you first felt the kick, years after the incident, you were not frightened. Unsurprisingly, you were happy. It had been ages since the Titan powers disappeared, and the flowers surrounding your house had grown well in your garden. When you held your son for the first time, drenched in sweat from the labor, you and Eren both wept in joy. It was the most physical pain you had felt in years, and it was the only pain you could tolerate. You had been pained for love many times before.

Beautiful, you had whispered.

You're amazing, said Eren before kissing your temple.

Life was kind to you.

The world did not pause. Eren had never passed. All of you had simply gone on—quietly, peacefully, easily. Every problem—the Titans, Marley, the Rumbling—had ceased as though they never existed.

Perhaps this was not at all how it was originally supposed to go. You knew you were stupid with fortune, greedy for it, having evaded the horrors of being a member of the Survey Corps unscathed. Life was never supposed to be easy. The world should be cruel and unjust no matter how hard you try. But it was not, and you knew you were lucky for it.

Deep down, though, something tells you that it is not luck.

Many should have died—and the idea of it was so painful, that you couldn't stomach the mere thought. But that was the thing—this peaceful life was what happened. As far as you know, this was always the proper outcome. There is no other outcome.

Why think about Eren's death if that wasn't going to happen? That seemed like a paranoid thought now, far away in your memories.

The girl followed not long after. You felt as though you had hoped for this with Eren before. To have a family. To have a home, where you could live a quiet and normal life in peace. You both lived just as normal people should.

Where had you talked about this? About marriage, family, and life? In Shiganshina, the moment you reclaimed it? You swear you did. Perhaps it was just a strange dream you had. You could not remember the details anymore.

They are innocent, kind, and soft—not unlike you and Eren as kids. They grow up in a world free of Titans and war, or a social class divided by concrete walls, and they reside happily in the mountains far away from the old battle scenes. You visit Paradis every summer, or your friends from Paradis visit you, and life falls into place like pieces of a puzzle that have never broken.

Armin, Mikasa, and the other Scouts have turned into diplomats. Trying to make peace talks and show the foreigners that Eldians are good people to reconnect Paradis with the rest of the world. There are rumors that the other nations are interested in giving technology to Paradis, eyeing political gain with resources in exchange.

And the strings of fate weave back into the old pattern again: Jean and Mikasa together. Sasha and Connie are happy. Armin, happy. Hangë, Levi, happy. None of you would forget your time in the Survey Corps—all that gore and sheer misery. But it paid off now. You all readily accepted the happiness because thinking about the other possible outcomes was too horrifying to bear. Still—happy.

The boy knows about the Titans. He asks many questions, and he is aware that his father had a part in it and that you were part of the people who fought against it. Paradis is open and free—they teach about your stories in the school, like they are dates to simply memorize in a textbook.

Sometimes, you get the dates wrong. You don't know why.

You and Eren had never gone to school other than the military, but your children could. You studied to kill. They get to study to learn. And secretly you still think the books are not enough to fully capture the full experience of the human life.

How could you tell your children about the cruelty of the world without scarring them forever? How could you look them in the eye and tell them that their mother and father were both trained murderers without scaring them off? That in past lives, you had both killed enough people to fill an ocean with blood?

But the reality was, there was no way to conceal the truth.

Deep down, you could feel it—the weight of everything you had to do to pay the price of an easier life. You had given everything for the sake of fate.

For now, you only know your life as a story. You had told it to your next of kin again and again, hiding the ugly parts and saving them for when they were old enough to understand the bloodshed. Somehow, it felt like you had spilled countless oceans and drowned in them each time. You made many mistakes. It was a story that had been redundant many, many times.

Perhaps if you could remember your past loops, you would agree that the ends justify the means. But it did not matter.

At last, it did not repeat.

the end.