Remembering You

Dreams of the Dead

He dreamt of the Smiling titan. Watching a building collapse on his mother and being dragged away by a faceless Hannes. His blood boiled at being helpless as they flew away from the titan, watching with tears in his eyes as the titan devoured his mother. He was so weak back then, and yet, he had lost more than just his mother.

He found himself waking and chained. Faceless strangers opening their mouths and asking silent questions to answers he didn't know. Fear clawed at him as one of them forced his head down and injected him with something. He felt like he had failed once more, that he was just going to let everyone down once more.

He felt like he was over ten feet tall and crushing buildings in his wake. All he could feel was rage, bloodlust, and a need to devour things. He didn't know who he was as he attacked one of those skinless giants. Suddenly, he felt a sting against his neck and felt himself being forcefully pulled out of something steaming hot. There was a faceless stranger yelling at him, but he couldn't hear a word or understand what was happening. All he could smell was the stench of blood and the searing heat as the world faded to black.

He saw the battle for Wall Maria and Shiganshina. He didn't know what was so special about his home district, but he had a sensation of something rubbing his neck and warm against his chest. He saw countless people fall at the combined might of the titans. He didn't know all of them, but in many of their eyes, he could see the fear that they weren't going to survive. Scenes of battle flitted before his eyes. Boulders flew through the air smashing everything in their wake. The heat from the Colossal titan scorched his skin. The near hopelessness he felt watching his friends fall. And then there was the aftermath. He walked through the streets littered with rubble, saw from atop the wall a bloodied field of dead soldiers, and wept for the faceless men and women who had died. Somehow he had survived the massacre.

The feelings of guilt and loss inundating him only grew as he saw the Female titan.

He wept as faceless individuals urged him to escape, falling in their desperate attempt to protect him from her. All he could see were their tattered and bloodied cloaks as they fell one by one, broken and limp on the ground. Even though he couldn't see their faces, he knew who they were. They were members of the same squad he had been in. He was simply a recruit who somehow managed to end up in the Legion's Special Operations Squad; the group for only the most elite of members of the Scouting Legion.

Someone wretched him away from the bodies before he could properly mourn their deaths. The person was just as faceless yet familiar as Petra or Oluo had been, if not more familiar, but he once more had problems putting a name to the image. Again, he couldn't see the person's face as they pulled him away from the sight of carnage. Hot tears stung his eyes as he wept for his friends and fellow soldiers, as they made their escape from the Female titan.

Opening his eyes once more, Eren groaned in frustration as he found himself staring up at the dark stone ceiling back in the small room he had commandeered. His eyes were hot with tears as if he had been crying at the memory of losing his squad mates. It was a sensation the brunet would always remember; the feeling of loss and being able to do nothing. A pale shaft of moonlight crept into his room, chasing the shadows, but it wasn't able to chase away the shadows in his mind. Groaning quietly, Eren banged his head against the pillow.

Every single time he had one of these strange, almost life-like dreams that seemed so real but filled with faceless remembrances and events that seemed like they might have happened, it was always accompanied by a mixture of sorrow and longing. Sometimes, Eren felt like he was so close to an epiphany and would soon be able to make sense of it all. But it never happened. It tickled his mind, like the gentle brush of a feather ghosting against his arm. Like a whispered breeze flowing through one's hair, barely noticeable unless one paid close attention. Or a lover's kiss in the pale morning when one's mind wasn't fully awake yet. There, and yet not there.