Fighting For Freedom (Aot x Reader)

Falling Behind

[Year: 841]

[Three Months Later]

It's already been a year since I've became a warrior candidate. It also has been 3 months since my parents told me that they were Eldian Restorationists. Ever since the big news I have felt out of it these past 3 months. My parents would try to educate me mostly everyday about our Eldian past, they would also keep telling me stories about our founder. They even want me to be a part of restoring Eldia once I become an official warrior. I, on the other hand, didn't want to have anything to do with the Eldian Restorationists. I have begged my parents to leave the group before we get caught, but I was only met with a disappointed look on my parents faces. Since I had joined the warrior program my only goal was to become a warrior so that my family could receive the Honorary Marleyan status, and that way we could live outside of the internment zone and my parents could live a better life. I guess that goal seems like it's slowly fading away each day since my parents came out with their truth. I am still amazed we weren't found out about yet. I wasn't doing so well in training these past 3 months, I didn't think that my parents' truth and needs would affect my training but I guess it did. I would rank at the bottom of the group that I even made Reiner look good, I started to keep my distance from everyone, everyone including Violet. I was afraid that they would find out, I didn't want people close to me to betray me and my family. I guess I didn't want the people who I cared about to hurt me or get hurt because of me. Since I had been falling behind in training Commander Magath would always assign me to cleaning duties, so I would usually be the last one to go home.

"(L/N)! What's wrong with you?! Failure is not an option!" Commander Magath yelled at me as I was spaced out. 'Wait, what was I doing? Oh! I was running!' I thought to myself as I snapped back into reality. I was behind the other warrior candidates as we were running in the forest again. Commander Magath was ahead of me on horse yelling at me for falling behind and that it wasn't like me to do so. I continued running as I was behind Reiner, I then noticed Marcel slowing down to get next me.

"Are you alright? Do you need a hand?" Marcel asked me as his worried Hazel eyes glanced over to me. "I-I'm alright...you don't need to slow down for me." I responded as I continued to look ahead while running. I don't think Marcel was satisfied with my answer as he continued to speak to me. "We're a team if one of us goes down then the whole team goes down..." And with that Marcel grabbed a hold of my heavy backpack. "Wait! W-What are yo—" I couldn't finish my sentence as he yanked my backpack off of me. "Marcel! You're going to get in trouble!" I called him out, but he brushed me off as he started to run ahead of me. Now that I didn't have any weight on my back, my body felt lighter as I knew I could run faster now since all I had was my rifle in my hands. "Marcel!" I yelled at him as I continued to advance towards him as I got ahead of Reiner and Pieck. I gripped down on the rifle as I was behind him, he peeked over his shoulder to glance at me. He decide to run even faster as he passed Bertholdt, Zeke, and Porco. Marcel was now following close behind Annie as he was trying to keep his distance from me. 'What is he doing?! He did this to Reiner before, but he got lucky the commander didn't see him. We're both going to get in trouble!' I mentally panicked at the thought of getting in trouble again, I didn't want to get dropped from the warrior program. "MARCEL!" I screamed out as I lunged towards him, in the process of knocking him down Annie also went down as well. "Oof!" Marcel winced in slight pain as he had fallen face first even with the two heavy backpacks stacked on top of him, I was also on top of all of that which was putting pressure on his back. All of the other warrior candidates stopped running and circled around us to see if we were okay.