Let's Start Again

Chapter Two: Flashback

Levi's POV

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Will you please get out of my house?"

Dr. Zoe pouted as I walked into the kitchen, a mop and bucket in hand.

"Levi, really, I can help, you know."

"I'm good!" I called out, "Just close the door. I'll lock it."

"You're such a mea~nie!"

"Are you always this annoying to your patients?"

"None of them have ever come back to life!" Dr. Zoe exclaimed, "Do you know how cool that is? Besides, anything could happen-"

"And I have the hospital's number if anything goes wrong" I groaned, "Now, please, go back to work, and once you're there, clean out your car. It's absolutely filthy!"

There was silence as I filled the mop bucket with water from the kitchen sink (I was going to scrub that down, too, anyway), and when I dunked the mop in, I heard the front door open and close. A twinge of regret crossed my mind as I cleaned the floor, but I brushed it off. I rarely ever felt regret; a mangy-looking doctor was not going to illicit the feeling out of me.

Half an hour later, I had the entire kitchen floor mopped and waxed. It was only as I put everything away that I realized how quiet it was in the house. It wasn't just quiet...it was lone -

"AAAHHH!"

My knees hit the floor as the memories flooded in with a vengeance. I had always had flashbacks, but never had they been so painful.

§

"Petra! PEEETTRRAA~!"

"Let it go, Captain. She's gone!"

"No! I can save her! It's not over!"

"Levi -"

"It's NOT!"

Levi shivered as the chilled rain ran under his Survey Corps cape, eyeing his blood-stained hands. She was the fifteenth comrade he had lost. The fifteenth, and she was only nineteen. Truthfully, he was lucky to have only lost fifteen, but it was the fact that they were all so young, and that, as Humanity's Strongest, he couldn't save any of them.

Another comrade of Levi's, Gunther, kneeled down and closed Petra's eyes, which had been opened in terror.

"At least she won't have to fight anymore, right, Captain?"

"R-Right..." Levi stammered, his hands shaking, "b-but...she won't get to live, either."

Gunther gave a grim smile as he helped Levi to his feet, and said, "Can you call this living, especially for a young girl like that? She wasn't living. She was merely drifting along. Now, she doesn't have to."

Drifting was what Gunther called it, but, to Levi, drifting was a whole lot better than having your heart stop.

"Whatever" Levi muttered, "Let's regroup with the others. With all this fog, there's bound to be more Titans around."

"What about Petra's body, Captain?"

"What about it?"

All Levi wanted to do was hug Petra's body close and wait out the fog, but he refused to look at her any longer. He would be driven insane if he had to hold her, rock her, and pray that she'd miraculously breathe again.

"We've never successfully brought anybody else's body back. Why try with her?"

Before Gunther could say anything, Levi mounted his horse and rose into the darkness. If he rode far enough away, maybe he wouldn't be plagued with the anger, the terror - the guilt...