wings of freedom | aot x reader

Despair Kills

Chapter 20

You would never have guessed you'd be craving to ingress inside the walls again. After all the years of dreaming about this moment, everything went plummeting down to failure. Perhaps your legitimate downfall. And the worst was that you could see it creeping its way towards you while all you could do was runaway for lack of strength.

You began hyperventilating, your breathe matching the velocity of your horse's galloping. Your shoulders jumped up and down, sometimes you would glance backwards with your lips pressed in a straight line, only to be pressured by the proximity the titans stood.

He noticed your anxiety, "Hey, hey. It's alright, we'll get through this. Just like every other time, right?"

You didn't answer him, because even Jean knew he wasn't utterly right. There was no assurance that this would result like every other time, especially with everybody's energy drained away. For all you know titans could begin collapsing from the sky, or even appearing out of thin air. Humans had so little information about the titans, anything could put you to the disadvantage.

"They're bringing corpses with them," Jean mumbled into your ear in disbelief, somewhat convulsed at the causers of more commotion, "So irresponsible. Why bother joining the army if you can't handle the pain."

"I would've done the same." You interrupt the undignified man, attempting to reason the situation.

You could hear Jean's mouth spilling out incomprehensible words before he went silent. Looking at your right, you noticed Armin sinking deep into his thoughts, his blond hair covering those blue eyes that overflowed with concern, but at the same time determination.

"What do we do?" You scream towards Armin, but all he did was shift his stare to the pile of bodies and back at you.

"You can't possibly be thinking of that," Jean gasped, his eyebrows scrunched together, "It's too inhumane."

"Isn't this whole thing too inhumane, already?" The blond said, his shoulders not daring to quiver for a second, "I've never seen such miserable circumstances such as ours, in any of the books I've read. We can't deal on what's normal ever since the start."

You bit your cheeks in frustration, twisting your neck sideways and witnessing as another soldier flew straight inside the moist, fetid chamber of death that you might meet very soon. A few carriages away, Levi gave out orders to the fellow soldiers as they stared back in mortification, their mental consciousness sucked out from their bodies. But nevertheless they began throwing away the masses, one by one, each body rolling on the grass before it disappeared from sight.

It was a cold farewell, with no goodbye's, and in the blink of an eye all these bodies dissipated into non-existence. You watched for mere seconds, when the familiar beige-haired man had his turn in being hurled out. A titan stumbled with his portly legs in your direction, his body blocking the dark sunlight and allowing you to have an even clearer sight of how Oluo's feet dangled lifelessly as his body hit the ground. His body didn't deserve this treatment. Nobody did.

The desperation, mixed with despair and anxiety and confusion and madness was barely handleable. They were all clumped into this thick ball, and it kept aggrandizing, expanding itself inside your throat. Until it could suffocate your esophagus and stop the air from circulating throughout your lungs. And you kept watching, too busy fighting for air instead of forming tears.

You knew this was dangerous, letting your freaky emotions shake you up. It could shortly take over your rationale.

"Don't slow down y/n!" Jean yelled, squeezing your arm a bit too hard.