Looking Through Me | Attack on Titan Fan Fiction

Chapter 17: Linga Sharira

"I don't see breakfast on the table. Do you want a repeat of last night?!" Rick yelled, and clenched his fists. He was obviously hungover.

"I-I..." I stuttered, and looked at my little clock.

March 4th. The day after I left. Had really only been one night?! Had that all...been a dream after all? No... It couldn't have been... Eren, Mikasa, Armin, everyone, was a dream...? Eren?

"Get up and get your sorry ass downstairs in five minutes," he warned, and slammed the door as he turned to leave.

Well, I thought, this is my life. This is what I missed. This is what I didn't want back. Eren, help me. You promised I wouldn't be hurt.

My legs threw themselves off of the sheets, and my foot hit something. When I reached down to grab the object, I realized it was my phone, and deleted the tab that had the season finale of Attack on Titan and threw at against the post of my bed where it belonged.

One Week Later

Had it really been that long? Yes was the answer. I'd convinced myself that it was nothing short of some crazy hallucination after being beaten to ease my subconscious mind. After I accepted that fact, I just...lived. Accepted it. The beatings, the abuse, the sinking grades, the whispers when my back turned, and that feeling when reality hit and I realized that I wouldn't see Eren, or anyone, again.

Another part of me murmured in the back of my mind, like those voices that schizophrenics have that tell them to kill the crowd surrounding them. I don't know if I still believe it, but I wasn't sure whether it was telling the truth.

It wasn't a dream, it would whisper, it was real.

Like a bobber trying to reel a fish in, it caught my attention the first time I heard it in the back of my brain. I listened in, but soon I let it go. All I wanted was for it to go away-but I knew that if it did, I'd probably be just as lonely as before.

Life really was a dread when I woke up. I did go and make breakfast, dropped a porcelain plate, cleaned it up, and then went to the bathroom to clean the rum that hadn't made it into Rick's mouth. It was a daily routine, except for when the weekend ran its course. Life back at school was worse. First, eat, then I got ready while Rick screwed around on the computer, selling his "stocks" or whatever he claimed to have. Go to school, ignore the world, fall asleep, eat whatever was left in the fridge from a week ago for lunch, fall asleep, doodle, walk home, and voila, right back where I started. Cleaning and accepting all the shit given to me on a silver platter. Beatings optional.

The weekend was one day away, and I couldn't wait to... Oh, right. I didn't watch Attack on Titan anymore. Who's up for a fun weekend of staring at the ceiling while the bruises heal? I was. As long as I could stay out of trouble.

"And what is an isotope? Anyone?" Mr. Stele asked, waving his pen like he knew it all when he clearly didn't.

The class just stared back, and a few people in the back snickered. Some kid stuck his gum under a desk, and another girl accidentally touched someone else's gum prior to her sitting there. She gagged and reached for hand sanitizer in her bag.

"Anyone? It's an atom with a different mass than others of its element, therefore making it charged to become an ion, not following Dalton's theories...so that it..." He carried on, sounding like the boring teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Mr. Stele would ask if we had questions, and even if we did, he had no intention whatsoever of answering them.

An hour after I needed it, the final bell rang, the announcements blared about how to have a great weekend. I had no homework, which was a bonus, but sometimes I wish I did. It gave you something to do when you had nothing else, as stupid as that sounds.