Wings : Attack on Titan x Reader Scenarios / Imagines ▼

[The Moments After :: Eren]

For a long while you weren't fully conscious of the events occurring all around you. The spattering of blood on the streets were just stains of scarlet sanguine rain, the screams a lost symphony of sorrowful souls repenting for their sinful sanctions, the scraping of bone against tooth and nail the sadistically spiteful scourge of a supposedly benevolent destiny. Jurors had pitted karma against the stoutheartedness human spirit, and the scales so savagely favored fate. The flapping of your own clothes against the wind faded into the noise until you too were merely a shadow.

Your determination had pooled in your feet, and your sole tie with Armin, his hand clenched tightly around your wrist, forced mind to move body. The thoughts of terror that trudged through your mind were only traces of tired terrors that had once fully controlled your frozen body. If it wasn't for Armin's warmth you would have been left to freeze.

Then again, until the flickers or Eren's fire were reunited with that of your own, the chill in your chest would remain.

The intense flames behind his fervent turquoise eyes still leapt at the back of your brain. They were all you could think of, paired with the heaviness that hung, implacable, within your head. His frantic motions and the fear in his voice were stuck on repeat in the broken theatre of your memories, a film so garish and gruesome that no matter how truly you wished to tear your eyes away, they would remain, fixated, until the finish.

Happy endings were so clearly a thing of the past, but it was all you could do to hope for both his, Mikasa's, and their mother's safety. Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay, okay, okay...

"Th-they will be," the boy in front of you stuttered back. It took you a moment to realize that your thoughts had materialized into words and sounds loud enough for him to hear, and almost as though a reflex, you sped up your pace. The soil beneath your feet sunk deeper with every step as the two of you traced the well-worn path. It had undoubtedly been untarnished mere moments ago, but now it was in and of itself a historical mural, an epitaph on the unsealed tombs of so many footsteps that had now lost their owners.

The three you'd left behind wouldn't join them. They couldn't. "They will be okay," you repeated.

With Armin's gentle guidance and your own overwhelming origin of stamina, you managed to avoid the sight of the towering beasts for what felt like miles. That said, the crowd around you was beginning to reform, pulsing and clustered like a swollen wound on Earth's very skin, and the only advantage you seemed to successfully find was that of your small statures. The two of you managed to duck beneath stray arms and torsos, bent heads and chests, racing to the other side of the boisterous band of outraged citizens. Once more you managed to block out their noises, though this time it was out of focus rather than terror. A faint sense of assurance had begun to return to you, drip by drip, allowing you to breathe a little easier than you had all day. Whatever was at the end of this could get you out.

Suddenly the presence of the boy in front of you faded, and you skidded to a halt. Oh no. Not now, don't let him be gone, no no no no -

"Armin!"

Your gaze flicked up, only to find yourself beneath a tall older man lifting your friend off his feet, hugging him close like a security blanket, a last shred of sanity left in a scene of ultimate shock. Armin's small arms returned the hug, tightly, and you could make out the word "Grandpa" as it left his mouth in a relieved sigh.

No longer were you at the heart of the city, but rather the hull of a boat. A wooden plank extended from its deck to the harbor. Parents, children, and disarrayed citizens alike crowded the oaken outline, herding one another onto the ship by the dozens. It was then that you realized this wave was what you were swept up within - the path to the boat was now directly beneath your ever-moving feet, following Armin and his grandfather as the man set his younger relative down.

You kept your distance, close enough to not lose sight of your companion but far enough so as to not intrude upon his reunification with his family. At that moment another myriad of thoughts carved a deep trench into your trembling body.

Where is my family?

The inquiry was so heart-shattering that you nearly let out a scream of spiraling suffering from the mere recognition of its existence. Armin had his grandfather. Eren and Mikasa were in the process of - and would - save their mother. But you...you were alone.

Now you were no longer keeping an eye out for teal eyes and red scarves, but the distinctive faces of those you called mom and dad, grandparents, uncle and aunt, sister and brother, cousin, family. Anyone. Anyone. Anyone.

No one.

Instead of wailing you bit your tongue. The rational part of you, fractured into millions of pieces of what is was formerly, however fragmented, was still functional. And somewhere along the lines you caught enough air to blow away your empty emotions and replace them with reason. Your parents had been on a business trip to the border, just between the beginning of Wall Rose and the borderline of Wall Maria. They had most likely been lucky enough to escape through the gates. The gates, the gates. They would've had to have been opened to accommodate for the influx of immigrants, wouldn't they? Yes. Yes.

The boat would take you to Wall Rose, to your parents, to safety.

But the possibility that the vessel wouldn't return for Eren, Mikasa, and their mother muddled up your mental maintenance.

As you followed your company to a seat on the edge of the ship, you turned your head back to the crowd. Everything was still a maze of measureless motions, a stippled painting of the human rainbow, a wheel of endless emotions.

A small shuffling next to you indicated Armin's seated inhabitance. "They'll make it," he murmured, his soft voice copious with the strong, clear conviction that only lifetime friends could share, "I know they will. Eren won't give up, and Mikasa will protect him."

"I hope so." Your response was dwarfed by your acquaintances durable tone.

A rush of indignation rolled over the crowd, suddenly, a tsunami coming from the belated boiling over of bodies. Ireful incantation crashed down like waves upon the river of riffraff. Demands and threats followed shortly after, and in a state of sweat you switched your gaze to the front of the ship, endeavoring to enjoin the chaotic chorus. It took your heart a few seconds to slow to normal pace upon the new scene.

Just as quickly as it had been restored, it sped up once more, striking your chest harder and harder with every millisecond that drifted by. Before you were even aware of your dynamism you were running to the boarding bridge, nearly tackling that familiar face off his feet in a hug.

"[Y - y/n]..." Eren began as if awakening from a trance, quickly followed by Mikasa's sharp observations.

"Armin's here too..."

You nodded, suddenly realizing the weight of what you'd done and retracting your arms. "We made it, we're safe," you beamed, breathless, "we're here, all together."

Something in your smile made Eren's face stiffen to stone. The aquamarine eyes that were once filled with fervor were now cold and lifeless, as though a ghost had crossed his path. He clenched his fists at his side and turned away caustically, teeth gritting together in the divulgence of something so sombre that you weren't even sure if you'd heard his harsh words honestly.

"Not all of us."

Of all the voices you'd heard so far, it was this one, this singular string of sounds, that made you nearly shatter. "Eren...n-no-"

"I'm going to kill them."

Once more you had to perform a double-take to clearly understand his sentence. This one stood separate from the other, however, in inflection and intensity, both of which increased as he continued, "The titans won't stand a chance. I'll never forgive them, never, not after what they've done..." his voice cracked with emotion and your heart cracked directly down the center, too, empty hand clutching at the empty air where he had once stood. "I'm going to kill them all. Them all. Every last one!"

His shouts shook both you and the boat to their respective cores, and when the last glimmer of sunlight shone down upon his face, illuminating the steadfast stream of tears that had begun to stream down his face, they reflected doubly off of those, equally uncertain, equally grief-stricken, equally pained sobs of your own.