"The world is a cruel place, and also, very beautiful."
Oh, how true that was.
A vast unexplored world, full of wonders and magnificent places. Oceans filled with salty water, so much salt that even the greedy merchants of Wall Sina would need more than a life to waste. Seas of sand that extended for kilometers, making you lose orientation. Lands of ice inhabited by birds unable to fly, but dressed in fancy clothing. Forests, oh, the forests. So much different from those forests full of those annoying big ass trees. Forests filled with all kind of animals. That was your favorite part of the unexplored world outside the walls. Some were similar to those you already knew, some were different, filled with different kind of trees, plants and exotic animals, some beautiful and harmless, some astonishing and lethal. Who would have thought that the world had some tiny creatures capable of giving you slow and painful death just because you stepped too close to them.
That world, the world you lived in for so long, where the air you breathed seemed suffocating and laced with the smell of blood. The world where you lived as cattle for years, breathing the shitty air, as someone called it, enclosed in those damn walls. That world where the possibility of facing a brutal and sudden death was so concrete you could touch it... and see it every day take the form of creepy, ugly, funny looking monsters that would hunt you even in your sleep.
The world where you had to fight with your teeth and nails for freedom. A freedom denied to you by monsters. Monsters that sometimes happed to look like humans and had the ability to speak your language. That world where you lived every day as if it was the last you'd see, yet...
That beautiful world you've actually come to love, and love the people that shared it with you. The people you fought and lived for.
The cruel, vast and beautiful world you never had the chance to see.
If you were to make a comparison, between then and now, you would without doubt say you liked then much more.
Compared to then, now your life was like a living hell.
You always wondered if there would be something after dying. You never had an answer. You couldn't decide what would be better. Something or nothing. Not that you remembered anything after dying.
However, this was worse than any hell you remembered the fanatics of the Cult of the Wall describe to you. Scorching heat, burning flames, devils cut your flesh and crush your bones sounded so much more appealing to you than the torture your life has become.
Life?
You weren't even sure if you could call it that. You remembered life to be more exiting, bright and fun. All that remained of it now was dull numbing pain in the shape of nightmares and memories. Sometimes happy.
It felt like waking up in a sense.
Even since you could remember, you always thought that something was off, was wrong with your life. You always felt out of place, felt something important missing.
You were so much more comfortable closed inside your mind, in your dreams. Those dreams that made you warm inside, with people you didn't recognize but felt like they were family. They felt warm, they smiled, laughed, cried and... some died.
At first, it was disturbing. Seeing the people in your dreams die. You would wake up in tears and the pain and sorrow would feel so real it would affect you for days. But then there was always someone to cheer you up. There was him.
Then you decided not to care about it too much, but it was too late. You already started to live more when asleep than when awake. So you would sleep for hours. Your family worried, but you didn't care. They weren't your family. You were an orphan, never had a family before the Survey Corps.
