Window Pain

The Portal (Act One)

Cadet (Name) (Last Name) was peacefully reading a book only an hour before in happened. She had no way of knowing about the events that would occur only sixty minutes later. If she did, things may have turned out differently for both her and Corporal Levi Ackerman. But because she didn't, the course of the day could only be determined by a cadet who was left in the dark.

~*~

(Name) looked up from the novel she was reading when she first heard the sound of footsteps. She marked her page and stood up herself to greet the confidant that came running towards her.

"Hey, Armin. Do you need something? Why do you look so freaked out?" (Name) asked, shoving the book under her arm. Cadet Arlert grabbed her hand and tugged her in the opposite direction of the tree.

"It's Hanji! She's been doing all of these dangerous tests and making all of these wild theories—" Armin cut himself off to take a heavy breath and compose himself. "I wasn't worried before, but she's going insane! What she's doing can potentially hurt her! I've been trying to stop what she's doing... everyone has! But she hasn't been listening to us and you're our last hope!"

(Name) was kind of confused at first because Hanji was always doing crazy things, but after sensing the urgency in Armin's voice, she decided that this was a situation that needed to be pacified at once. She sped up to the point where she was dragging Armin behind her and burst through the doors of the Survey Corps.

"Hanji!" (Name) screeched while booking it up the stairs, "if you're doing something stupid, you'd better stop before I kill you!" She broke open the door to Hanji's lab and quickly looked around before finding the young adult huddled over her desk. "What do you think you're doing?!" The cadet barked.

"Oh, hi!" Hanji beamed, looking behind her to study the two people at her door. "I'm glad you could make it! I'm just putting the finishing touches on my project!" The scientist waved around a metal remote in her hands.

(Name) chucked her book at Hanji to try and knock the blunt object out of her possession. "No, you aren't! That thing is dangerous!" She cried. Her attempt with the book didn't work, so the cadet dashed over and strangled the remote out of her hands.

"What?! No! Give that back, you jerk!" Hanji shouted, struggling to try and get out of the arm lock she was in. (Name) studied the remote skeptically and glared down at her.

"What does this thing even do?" She hissed, preparing to severely damage Hanji's project with a screwdriver.

"Don't do that!" Hanji shouted when (Name) began to jab at it. "I'll tell you if you promise not to stop me from doing this! You have no clue how long I've been working on that thing! I've been trying to get it right for months!"

"I can't promise that," (Name) began slowly. "But I can promise to not get angry at you."

Hanji took the offer, figuring that the cadet was dangerous to be near when she was super mad. "You know about parallel universes, right?" She tested cautiously.

(Name) nodded her head. "Yeah, I've read about them before."

"Well, I figured that it would be pretty cool if I could contact one, right? Maybe convinced them to help us out with the Titans and stuff..." Hanji trailed off.

"So that's what this thing does, right?" (Name) asked, staring down at the remote. "It phone-calls parallel universes?"

"Yeah, kind of," Hanji said. "But I need that back now because I'm super close to having it done." (Name) looked over to Armin for help. He stood at the door nervously the whole time, so right now, he wasn't quite sure what to do.

"Commander Erwin didn't approve of it," he stated. "He said it was too dangerous and that it probably wouldn't work anyway. He told Hanji to cancel the completion of the project because it was pointless." The blond-haired boy shuffled out of the door nervously after that because the tense air was getting to be too much for him.

"Hanji." (Name) chastised.

The scientist huffed in annoyance and sent an icy glare over to the cadet. "I already know what you're going to say," she grumbled. "But just think about it for a second! We could finally put a stop to all of this nonsense! Imagine all of the benefits! Imagine what the outside world would look like! Imagine living a life without having to wake up and wonder if you're going to make it through the day!"

(Name) sighed. "Hanji, I really don't want to see you get hurt—" the pleading eyes of her friend made her stop mid-sentence. "But because I have faith that you could make everything better for us... why not? It's worth a try, I guess." She untangled her friend from the arm lock and handed her the remote. "But if this goes horribly wrong, just say that you knocked me out with a metal pole and that I couldn't stop you." (Name) offered her a quick smile.

"Thank you so much!" Hanji grinned, wrapping the cadet in a hug. "I promise that I won't start the apocalypse!" She got to her desk and started to apply finishing touches to the remote before proudly showing it off.

"Come on, start it up!" (Name) encouraged, her attitude about the situation doing a complete turn-around . "I wanna see it work!"

Hanji pressed a button on the remote eagerly, awaiting something spectacular to soon occur. The two girls huddled together in excitement for a few minutes until they were faced with disappointment.

"I guess it was a dud," (Name) shrugged. Hanji stared down at her contraption dejectedly. The cadet patted her back in comfort. "Come on, let's get some lunch in you. That'll make you feel better." She suggested. Hanji silently agreed and they both headed out of the lab.

~*~

"Don't worry, Armin," (Name) sighed. "It didn't work." She was sat down at his table, but she was about ready to make her daily round to Levi.

Armin picked at his food. "I've got to be honest, I was kind of hoping that it would work. It would have been cool to see a second me and ask him if he read any good novels." He laughed at himself. "Well, anyway, I bet you want to go see Corporal Levi, now. I won't keep you any longer."

"Thanks, Armin! Make sure nobody takes my seat!" (Name) said, getting up and trotting over to where her captain was. She was about to tell him a really good pick-up line when a bright purple light made itself apparent right in the middle of the cafeteria.

All of the occupants stopped ingesting their food and gaped at the swarm of indigo clouds that began to swarm around the light. It seemed as though time had stopped when a white flash overtook the purple clouds and temporarily blinded everyone. A few seconds later, everything dimmed down and the cadets all stared into the hole in the middle of the clouds that displayed an exact mirror of the people in the cafeteria.

(Name) squinted her eyes at the figure that looked exactly like her. Something about the figures in the portal seemed a little bit off. It took the cadet a few seconds to realize that the (Name) that stared back at her was wearing the cape of a corporal. Her eyes widened noticeably as curiosity got the best of her. In painfully slow steps, (Name) inched towards the girl in the portal. It took only a few seconds to reach her.

"Hanji," (Name) called. "I think your project worked.

To be continued...

Word Count: 1270

That wasn't a super long chapter because the point of it was to set everything up for the next one. See you then!