~𝘓𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘳~ // 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘪 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘻𝘶𝘨𝘢𝘸𝘢 𝘹 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

Update - AoT Fic

Hey guys.. soooo I mentioned in a previous update that I had an AoT fic written and I was considering publishing it— before I go and rewrite all of it, I wanted to get some feedback on
what I have thus far. So, if you like Attack on Titan, or even if you don't, I'd appreciate if you'd take the time to read this and let me know if this is something you'd be interested in 🙏 . This chapter might still be subject to editing/change. Thank you guys so much, and enjoy.

Edit: It's published!

Warning: graphic descriptions of gore, injury, & death.

—

Pitter-patter
Pitter-patter
Pitter-patter
Her hand lay limp, fingers relaxed and curling inwards. The red liquid fell from the edge of the dining table. She lay in a pool of her own blood, her eyes glassy. Her hair stuck to her face. She had been crying. Her eyes were still red and puffy, her cheeks crusted with dry tears now. Her lips were pale, parted slightly to show her teeth behind them. There was a hole between her brows, which were still cinched in distress. Her cranium was splattered out across the coffee table.
She looked cold, like she might start shivering soon.

      It hurts. Everything hurts. It all tastes like salt and coins. It's dark.
The first of your senses to come back is your hearing. A sharp ringing noise pierces your skull. As it ebbs away, you can hear low whimpers of pain leaving your own throat, like a beaten dog. Beyond that, there's the sound of water crashing against the shore and being sucked back out. Something squawks nearby, and branches rustle in the wind.
Next to return is your sense of smell. Salt burns your nostrils, accompanied by an overpowering smell of rot and gore. Following smell, your taste returns, and it's to a similar effect. Blood coats your tongue, filling your throat and mouth with the taste of iron. A sharp cough leaves you, sending a jolt of agony through your chest and ribs.
Your eyes fly open, wide with shock and pain. White flight floods your vision, though, and your headache starts to pound harder. It had been dull and throbbing before, now it's sharp, right in the back of your skull and between your eyes. Your hands clasp helplessly at the earth, but it's loose and squeezes out between your fingers in grains, working its way into the crevices of your palms.
Finally, your eyes adjust, although you have to squint. You're laying face down in the sand. Blood and beach are caked across your face and body. You lift a shaky hand to try and wipe some off with two fingers, but it only smears.
The bird squawks again, and it lands in front of you. You raise your brows to see its white and black plumage better, unable to lift your chin off the sand.
It tilts its head at you, peering at you with a big, round, golden eye. It hops forward and pecks at your left elbow, making you lurch and yank it away with a cry of pain. The bird squawks at you and flies away quickly. Your hand lifted to cover it, and when you pull it away, it's covered in puss and blood. You slowly shift onto your back, looking up at your elbow. Maggots crawl in the open wound. The bone is visible, and it's not in the right place. Your throat squeezes, but you choke down the bile that almost comes up.
You let your arm fall back to your side and stare up at the clouds between the boughs of great trees, where more birds fly, occasionally swooping down. With your good arm, you slowly sit up. Your left side cries out in agony, making you gasp, which only serves to worsen the pain. You hunch over, holding your side and taking quick, shallow breaths. Tears glass over your eyes.
After a moment, you look back up, faced with a sparkling blue body of water. Waves curl at the tops, capped with white foam, then crash on the dark, wet sand. Black and grey rocks sit to your right, scuttling with little orange critters and filled with water. To your left is more sand and water, but it's short lived. It turns into thick soil, home to the roots of low-lying bushes.
Your dressed in torn white pants, which are now an off yellow stained with black and brown and scarlet. Instinctively, you are aware that something is wrong with your leg. Slowly, you roll your pant leg up, revealing a leg twisted horrifically inwards at the knee and then again at the ankle. Your whole leg has bruised, black and blue and yellow and purple. A huge gash travels from the arch of your foot up your calf and to the back of your knee. Like your elbow, it crawls with maggots.
You groan in pain, tears stinging your eyes, lifting your head to the sky. Blood drains from your sinuses, rushing down your throat and making you gag suddenly. Your stomach clenches, and the vomit comes up before you can stop it a second time. You puke into your lap. It's all acid and blood, burning your throat and gums and tongue. Hot tears run down your cheeks, and all you can do is sit there for a few minutes, crying softly. Occasionally, you choke back a sob and your ribs flare up in pain again, only wanting to make you curl up even more.
Eventually, you lift your head again. Slowly, and trying not to put any weight on your left leg or left arm. You crawl towards one of the many small pools of water between the rocks. You grunt, sitting yourself against the stone. Cupping your hands, you splash some of the salty water against your face. It stings the cuts and scrapes on your palms and cheeks. Regardless, you scrub the crusted blood and sand from your face, small, pathetic whimpers leaving your throat unbidden.
You slowly exhale, leaning your forehead against the rock. One of the little orange critters, whose name sits on the tip of your tongue, pinches at your hair and tugs. Groaning, you swat it away, and it scuttles off, little feet tap-tap-tapping. A bird swoops down and crushes it under its foot, then begins to rip its legs off and swallow it down. Your stomach growls, and your mouth is suddenly flooded with drool.
Your good hand flies out and shoves the bird off the orange thing. The bird squawks and bites at you in protest, but you shout at it, and it flaps off. You pull the legs off the creature, biting down on it. You spit it out quickly and pick the remaining shell off your tongue. With your fingers, you pull what little meat is there out of its legs, swallowing it down without chewing. Limb by limb, you feed yourself. Eventually, you toss the rest into the small pool you're sitting by, feeling at least a little bit better. Right about now, you could eat anything and everything. Even the little spiky urchins in the water are starting to look yummy.
"Crab," you wheeze. "It's called a crab."
Your memory had jogged itself slightly after eating. But that's all that came to you.
Which draws another slow, sluggish thought to the forefront of your mind.
'Where the hell am I?'
You have no recollection of... well, anything. How did you get here? Why are you here? Where is here?
You touch your hair gently. It's matted with blood and sand and seawater. The ocean disappears into the horizon. There's no land beyond it that you can see. So... you're stuck here.
Your heart skips a beat, sputtering as your mindset shifts to one of survival. It's like an instinct, like someone had drilled it into you, but you drag yourself over to the small tree that's growing out of the rocks. Its branches bow in the breeze, leaves rustling. You grab a branch and yank down on it. It snaps free, and you snap it in half using your good leg and your good hand.
You take your shirt off, a brown, dirtied thing. Your arms and the back of your neck burn, blistering from the sun, and pulling fabric over it only hurts more. But you sigh, scratching at your bra wire before tearing your shirt into long slivers. With your pant leg rolled up, you tie the branches to either side of your ankle. You take a slow, deep breath, ignoring your side. Quickly, you shove your ankle, screaming in pain as things pop back into place. You tighten the splint as puss and blood weep from the wound, bubbling and foaming.
Another deep breath, and you shove your kneecap back into place. Another guttural noise leaves your mouth, head falling back. You can't even muster tears this time. You lay down on your right side and curl up, holding your wounded elbow with one hand, cradling it, feeling the maggots squirm under your skin.
      The sun continues to beat down on you. Your already burned skin seems to sizzle and pop in the heat.
You're not sure how long passes before you sit back up. You look down at your elbow and pull one of the white grubs from the wound. More drool floods your maw. But something inside you is too disgusted by the sight, and so you flick the thing away. One by one, you pull the maggots from your elbow, then your ankle. You soak the shirt in another pool of water, larger than the last, rinsing it clean of sand and blood. You bandage your elbow tightly, then craft a shoddy sling and hang your arm in it.
You grab another branch from the sapling and snatch up a fistful of reeds from a nearby patch in the sand. Carefully, you craft a crutch. But the reeds keep snapping and nothing seems to cooperate.
Suddenly, the ground shakes, a low boom reaching your ears. Then again.
You crane your neck, looking over your bare shoulder. Your heart stops.
It's a person.
      No. Not a person.
      It's something far from human. Its huge. You would hardly come up to its ankle. Its pink skin is burnt from the sun, blistering on its back and shoulders. Its hair is matted and greasy, dark brown and reaching its shoulders. It's naked, revealing its grotesque body, with fat rolling over its sides. Its eyes are big and blue, too round and unnatural, and it has a permanent smile creasing its face. It's close enough that you can see its long, dirty fingernails and claw-like toenails that are growing into its skin. It lurks between the tall, looming trees that surround the little inlet you're stuck on, a hand resting on one of the thick red trunks as it passes.
It stops suddenly, turning its head as a flock of birds take to the sky out of fear. It watches the flock scatter among the canopies, and then looks at you. Your eyes meet, and it turns its body to face you.
Before you can stop yourself, a bloodcurdling scream leaves your throat. You scrabble at the loose sand and duck behind one of the rocks. The adrenaline coursing through your veins gives you the strength to ignore the pain in your leg and arm. The earth shakes again. Then again.
      'I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die, and it's all...'
Carefully, you poke your head up over the rock. The monster has its back to you now, walking away. It's a forest, you realize. Everything around you is a forest. The beach is a mere pocket, ending curtly on either side. The trees stretch to the sky, towering over you. Some must be a league tall. Maybe more. This place has a name. It's tickling a memory. It's like the answer is in a book, on some high shelf tucked away in your mind, but there's no ladder to reach it.
A sharp pain shoots down the back of your neck, sending a wave of heat across your body. Sweat pools on your forehead and the back of your neck. You groan, bowing your head. Stars speckle the sides of your vision as it blackens. Forehead pressed to the rock, you take a second to breathe.
'I'm dehydrated,' you conclude. The water in the tide pool tempts you, but the smell of salt reminds you that drinking it is probably not the wisest decision.
You scoot out from behind the rock and pick up the scraps of your crutch back to your hiding spot. By the time you finish making it, the sun has begun to set, and darkness swallows the forest up.
The temperature drops, but the cooled breeze feels good on your sunburns. The bottom of one of your feet, thankfully the bad one, has been burned badly. You only have one shoe on. The other isn't in sight.
Slowly, you hitch the crutch under your armpit and try to move forward. The wood creaks, wobbling like it's threatening to break, but it holds. The earth shakes periodically from one of the giants walking, but you don't see another one. The forest must be full of them. When the sun has fully set, the shaking stops. With the courage you can gather up, you head into the woods.
Perhaps a league into the trees, you see between the thick trunks one of the beasts laying on its back, eyes closed. It's asleep. Beside it is a second smaller one, also asleep. Quietly, you move away from them and head in the opposite direction.
You freeze suddenly. A noise. Running water. Hurriedly, you near the sound, hobbling on your crutch. A stream! You drop to your knees carefully and bow over, cupping your hands together. Laughing raspily to yourself, you scrub your face clean and cup your hands, drinking from them. It's cold and refreshing. You rinse the blood and sand from your mouth, trying to get the grains of beach out of your molars.
You use the water to rinse your wounds out, and although it hurts, you're sure it's worth it. You pour the cold water over your burns and the rest of your body, carefully picking off all the flakey blood that's crusted to your skin.
You scoot yourself down the bank and sit in the water, closing your eyes as your clothes soak. You lay down on your back, sighing softly. Exhaustion washes over you, and before you know it, you're sound asleep.