Hemlock

Part 1: Mortal Man

Scouting Legion.
29th Expedition.
Midday of Day 13.
Mission Target: Gather more information about abnormal Titans and their origins.
Mission Status: Failure.
Instructions by Commander Erwin Smith: Retreat and recamp on north side of the Forest of Giant trees.

The sound of leafs being picked up by the wind echoed against the hardwood trunks. A silent fleet of soldiers shuffled across the forest floors, setting up camp and preparing for the night.

The smell of the giant tree's whisked away the gagging smell of Titan vomit that covered most of the soldiers. The Scouting Legion had been assigned by Hanji to search through the disgusting bile for some kind of clue when the titans last eaten. The smells were so strong that Levi could almost taste it, a mixture of decomposing humans, burning flesh and wet dog. All wrapped up in a strange, sticky slime that was impossible to get off.

Levi and Commander Smith were sitting across from each other, between them a fire, annoyance wafting from both sides.

"Are you questioning my decisions to retreat, Levi," asked Erwin breaking the silence.

Levi breathed loudly, grabbing a branch off the ground to occupy his hands. "I thought your decision to retreat was unnecessary."

"How so?" Erwin replied, shocked by the retort.

"This entire mission was unnecessary, a waste of supplies and good Scouting Legion soldiers." Levi's lips pinched shut and his eyes narrowed forward. "A mission into the depths of Wall Maria for information on titans, no leads towards the whereabouts of abnormals was a death sentence only produced to keep us busy."

"We had leads-"

"We had an inkling blown out of proportion by Hanji and her wild theories about how titan's communicate, a song she's been singing for far too long. She has no evidence to support it."

"She has no evidence because we have never supplied her with evidence." Erwin replied, blunter then he was meaning. "Obviously we are not learning anything by killing the damn things. Our mission has always been to find their weakness, learn to exploit it and defeat them. The Counsel-."

"The Counsel has never taken into account for lives lost. Sooner or later we are going to run out of soldiers and we won't even be able to find out a damn thing about the titans." he paused. "Going out here into dangerous territories with no information? Tsk. They just want us to die out already so they can close all the gates."

Erwin pinched the bridge of his nose. What Levi was saying made sense, but he could never take his side. As much as all the puzzle pieces started to line up he would never allow himself to believe those words. Those were dangerous words. Words that could take every soldier's hope away, the only thing that kept the Scouting Legion alive.

"Levi!" Erwin shouted, snapping Levi out of his meaningless activity of stoking the fire.

"If you say something like that again in this camp, I will string you up one of these trees and leave you for the titans." Levi looked at Erwin like he had lost his mind. Perhaps the awful fumes of titan vomit had gone to his head. It wasn't until Levi met Erwin's eye line that he knew he was serious.

"Is that understood, Corporal."

Levi dropped his branch, saluted his Commander and got up from his seat. He needed a shower.

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The sun was going down, casting an orange dabble of light to blanket the forest floor. Lights from each squad's campfire spotlighted the circles of their camps, each one with a person as a lookout for signs of titans, camp fire attendant and a tent. With each squad only counting from 4 to 8, many of them had elected to just sleep on the ground next to the fire. It may be a little dirty, but it beat being stuck in a tent and being eating by a titan.