ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

29. 𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿𝘽𝙔𝙀

ch 29, 𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿𝘽𝙔𝙀

.⋆𐙚 🍒

𝘆/𝗻'𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘃 | 𝘄𝗲𝗱𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝘀𝗶𝘅 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲

|| 𝙉𝙊𝙒 𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙔𝙄𝙉𝙂... 𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿𝘽𝙔𝙀, 𝘽𝙄𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙀 𝙀𝙄𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙎𝙃 ||

i can't breathe.

The thought claws its way through my chest before I even realize I'm standing again on the rooftop. That rooftop. The same one from that night. The air is sharp and thin, cold against my skin, and the sky above is bruised with fading streaks of pink and purple. In front of me stands Eren.

My heart stutters, then slams against my ribs. The sound roars in my ears–thump, thump, thump–until it drowns out everything else. His eyes are on me. Those impossibly green eyes I've always, secretly, stupidly adored. My chest burns with the need to reach him, to close to space, to wrap my arms around him and hold on until the world disappears.

Those green eyes—so bright, so familiar, so unbearably pretty—are fixed on me. But there's nothing inside them. No fire or softness or affection. Nothing.

I try. I swear I try. But my body refuses me. My limbs are cement, my throat a knot. My lungs ache as if the air itself is poisoned.

"Eren," I mouth, though nothing leaves my lips. The silence is a chokehold.

A cruel trick of fate.

And then I notice–his gaze isn't soft. Isn't warm. There's no fire there, not affection. His face is empty, his eyes blank.

"Please," I rasp inside my own head, though no sound follows.

Eren's lips begin to move. I can see them forming shapes, words, but they're nothing but static to me. Mute. Mocking. My vision swims, edges blurring, and then–without hesitation–he turns. Walks away from me.

Leaves me.

The colors collapse, the rooftop dissolves into black.

Stop. Please. Stop.

I'm left in a darker place. A sadder place.

Two figures materialize in the shadows, louder than the silence of the rooftop, louder than my own heartbeat. My parents. Locked in that vicious storm of yelling and accusation, their voices jagged shards cutting through the air.

I want to run. To escape. To disappear. I want the rooftop back–even with Eren walking away, even with the emptiness in his eyes. Anything but this.

But I can't move. I can't fucking breath.

Please stop. Please.

Their faces twist mid-yell, their mouths stretching unnaturally as if yanked by invisible strings, and then—suddenly—they whip their heads toward me.

That stare.
That stare I drowned in as a child.
Cold. Unforgiving. Utterly disappointed.

Stop. Stop it.

Their mouths move, just like Eren's, but this time I hear it. The words are knives.

"It's all your fault."

The floor shatters beneath me. My body snaps backward, flung into a blur of color that twists and spirals and won't let me go. My stomach lurches, my head spins, bile rises in my throat. I'm sick—so sick.