Once upon a dream// ereri one shot

Understanding

WHEN YOU SEE // PLAY THE MUSIC PLS THANK YOU
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Levi's pov

I knew something had been up with Eren. He's been acting strangely for months. Ever since Hanji took him in for a new experiment, he just...changed. He would lock himself in his room for days at a time and when he would finally come out he was always a mess. Things would be thrown around his room and there would be scratches on the wood of his bedroom door. Naturally, I was worried about him, but every time I asked about it, he would just say it was nothing. That was obviously bullshit given the condition his room would be in after one of these 'episodes'.
He wouldn't stay with anyone for long periods of time. Well no one except me. But sometimes when we would just be relaxing, he would just suddenly leave and lock himself in his room. Once, I actually pressed my ear to his door to try and figure out what he could possibly be doing and all I could hear were noises that sounded like what I would describe as a wounded animal. I tried to get him to let me in, but every time he only told me to go away and he said "I don't want to hurt you." After that I contemplated what would happen if I broke down the door, but I decided against it and just waited until he came out again.
I didn't understand
I tried
But I couldn't
There was no explanation
Not until now
Now, I stand in a field
It's dark
Something I can only describe as a failure of an expedition.
Hanji is standing next to me
The expedition was going smoothly at first. We rode out on our horses at the crack of dawn and we actually made it pretty far without being attacked by Titans. After about fifteen minutes we finally found Titans. We didn't realize that we had just rode into a nest of them. They were everywhere. We tried our best to kill them all. We actually did manage to kill them all. We all thought it was a huge accomplishment, we killed this large group of Titans without any casualties, although my gear broke along with a few of the other cadet's. I thought Eren would've been happy, ecstatic even. But I was wrong.
I went up to speak to him, he had killed quite a few, but before I began to speak, I noticed he looked worried, mortified if you will.
He told me we needed to leave immediately. I asked him why. He said he needed to be locked in his room. I still
didn't understand
I argued with him for probably a little over ten minutes about this. I told him he should be happy that an expedition was actually going nicely. He was far from happy. He looked scared. I could see him shaking. He kept telling me to get away from him, but I didn't listen. I asked him why he kept pushing me away and he said "I don't want to hurt you." I didn't understand why he kept saying that. Why would he be afraid of hurting me?
We argued for a bit more, but soon after I could see him physically change.
All emotion left his face and his eyes went cold. He stopped shaking. His eyes were no longer the eyes of the beautiful boy I fell in love with. They were the eyes of a lifeless possession that had lost all control.
Everything became very clear to me
Hanji had done an experiment months ago to see how much she could turn Eren into a Titan without physically making him a Titan
She had said it was unsuccessful
Obviously
She had been wrong
And after that Eren had begun to have these episodes where he would just go basically psychotic
He didn't have a clue what he was doing
That's why his room had always been a wreck and why he would look so terrible after having an episode
He would become literally mindless
I could've helped him if he had just told me what was happening
I should've stayed with him through an episode
I should've held him when he was scared and didn't know what was happening
There were so many things I should've done
But you know what I did?
Nothing
I did nothing
And now, there was a mindless create standing in front of me with a killer like look in his eyes.
"Levi, run." Was all he said to me.
I started to back up.
I backed up far enough that I was standing next to Hanji.
She knew she had done this, now.
She looked mournful and stoic.
Neither of us had understood
But we do now
// I watched as Eren pulled the knife from inside his jacket and begin to kill the people around him. I watched as he killed his friends and family that he loved dearly. He slit their throats and cut out their organs and I did nothing. Hanji and I stood frozen in our spots.
I watched as the boy I loved killed his sister and his best friend. I watched as he killed his comrades and his training squad. I watched Erwin try to stop him with reasoning and then brute force, but muscles were nothing compared to a Titan's strength and he was killed almost immediately.
Some of the people, he didn't quite kill. He just left them in a spot between life and death so they would feel the searing pain of agonizing reality.
I didn't know what to do
My gear was broken
I was defenseless
Completely at the will of the person I loved most.
I watched as he calmly began walking towards Hanji and I
We didn't do anything
We were both probably in shock
Hanji most likely believed she deserved to be killed by something she created
Eren took knife and stabbed the woman next to me, the blade going directly into the front of her skull with ease. I watched as Hanji fell to the ground
I knew she was dead
Eren then turned towards me
Well it wasn't exactly Eren
The Eren I knew, wasn't like this. He was kind and gentle when he wanted to be. He was brave and strong, so very strong. He was compassionate for others and he was often called suicidal because of the nature of his actions, but in reality the only reason he was like that was because he was determined to follow his dream and if he died trying to reach it than so be it. He was called suicidal, but he never put other people in harms way. Not intentionally at least.
So this person in front of me
This bastard
Was not Eren
I hated this different person
Sure it looked like Eren, but I could tell from his eyes
I couldn't bare to look at the damage he had done anymore
I still loved Eren
I loved him more than anything
I knew he couldn't control this thing inside him
I didn't try to stop him when the blade of his knife sank into my chest over and over
I fell to the ground and he hovered over me and for a second
just a split second
I could see his eyes change and he leaned down to kiss me gingerly
When he pulled away I could see it looked like he wanted to cry, but then he changed back to the evil thing that had stabbed me and he got off me
Leaving me to bleed on the ground
Alone
In the dark
I could just barely see him as he began to walk away
Then suddenly he stopped
The knife dropped from his hands and he just stood there
I believe he was realizing what he had done
I don't know if the sound he let out was more of a sob or a scream, but it pained me to hear him in such agony.
I saw him drop to his knees
I watched him kill himself
My comrades
His friends
And my lover
All dead by the hand of the evil being inside of Eren
I could've prevented this
I could've stopped this from happening
Maybe Eren and I can be together in a different life
One without Titans
I didn't understand
But I do now