LIfe's Too Short

Chapter 8

Warning: A bit of vulgar language in this chapter.

Petra woke up in a cold room under itchy blankets.

Where am I?

She observed her surroundings.

The room was relatively small, about half the size of her room in the old Survey Corps HQ. It had old walls with peeling cream-colored paint, with cracks sprouting from the bottom. Next to her bed that was pushed up in the corner, there was an aged table with cobwebs laced between the legs. The floor was hard concrete.

Her gaze drifted to the only thing that looked new in the room, vase atop the dull table. It was a dainty porcelain-blue color with a freshly picked lily peeking out from the inside, the sun from the window shining onto it. Its violet petals had fresh morning dew that shone from the sunlight.

The caramel-haired girl laid back down.

She'd never had nightmares like that for a long time. Especially about Sara.

Sara.

Even her name made Petra feel guilty. Sara always tried her hardest in hopes of getting noticed by Levi-Heichou. When Petra had been recruited to be on Levi's squad after their first mission together, her immediate thought was of Sara. She was where her dead best friend wanted to be. Petra thought that maybe Sara would be happy for her. Sara never had a jealous thought in her head, Petra told herself. But she knew that was just desperate thinking. Of course everyone had those feelings. Sara was just good at concealing them.

Truth to be told, Petra had some skill in concealing her feelings too. A small bud bloomed in her heart that was planted by the captain. Just, something about him drew her to him. Of course, this was before Sara told her about her crush, but she had her suspicions before that. The way Sara fidgeted with her hands whenever he was around and looked down. When her pale cheeks flushed during her first time meeting him. It had been a crush-at-first sight kind of thing, unlike Petra; her feelings for him had developed over time.

Her vision flashed and she saw Sara's gruesome end, her body bisected horribly.

Petra's hand flew to her temple.

No. Not again. Calm yourself. Control yourself. Don't let the visions get to you.

Suddenly the large door opened.

The two large men who had come to take her to the psychiatric rehabilitation appeared.

"Time to go."

Petra got up out of bed and quickly fixed the sheets. in a few seconds without complaint. She raked her fingers through her tangled hair.

She walked towards the door and the shackles were on.

The two walked silently behind her as she walked towards the doctor's office, which was apparently located in the same building she was already in.

Petra was escorted to a room where another lady was sitting in.

She had dirt brown hair that cascaded down her shoulders in shiny waves and intelligent eyes beneath rectangular reading glasses.

"Ah, you must be Petra Ral," her voice greeted her. "Sit down."

Petra was seated across from the therapist on a round chair with a glass table in the center.

"So, Petra," the doctor said. "I'm Dr. Marlene, and today I'll be..."

Her voice melted into the background of the other trainees in the squad, talking at the dinner hall loudly.

It was a hot, humid night at the training grounds. After a hard day of work, the trainees were rewarded with some sort of dessert in a cup.

Sara curiously stuck her spoon into the brown goop.

"What is this stuff?" she asked, observing it.

"Hmmm," Petra pondered, scooping up some from her own cup. "It smells like... Chocolate, I think?"

"Eww!" one boy, Kyle, said, from the table next to theirs. "It looks like someone took a shit in a cup and decided to feed it to us!"

"We should be grateful," Sara scolded, "that they're giving us extra food at all. Normally it's just soup and bread."

The boy then grinned evilly and poured some of the goo onto his hand and slapped it right onto her face.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" he snickered, enticing other of the trainees to join in. "Didn't mean to do that! Shit Face."

Sara looked up at him murderously.

But before she could do anything, Petra pulled the back of his collar poured her whole cup down his neck and back.

He howled like a banshee and began to run around hysterically, whipping his sweater and shirt off.

The rest of the trainees all doubled over in laughter as he looked down to see that the dessert was so runny that it had run down to his pants and leaked down his crack.

Even Sara and Petra were laughing so hard that Sara's eyes became watery.

"Look! Kyle shit his pants!" one of the guys called out.

Kyle's face turned a bright red as he rushed out the door in embarrassment.

Sara turned to face her but her voice sounded different, like someone else's. "Petra! Petra!"

The world around her morphed and shifted back into the doctor's office as she found herself laughing just as hard as she did that night, her face reddening at the cheeks.

"She's definitely crazy," one of the men said.

She continued to laugh like Kyle was still there in front of her.

Dr. Marlene pursed her lips and jotted something down on her clipboard.

"Petra," she said forcefully.

Petra's laughing stopped.

"You need to learn to either control your visions, or learn to snap back from them quick. Right now your mind is divided between the past and the present; it's confused and it's blending the two worlds together. If you don't learn to keep yourself in the present you won't be able to do much, let alone serve in the Survey Corps."

The girl looked down in disbelief. It had felt so real. Like she'd been right there. She could feel and remember everything so perfect and vividly.

"Doctor," Petra said quietly. "Do you think I'll be able to serve in the Survey Corps again?"

Dr. Marlene looked at her intently. "That depends on you."

Someone then knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" one of the men asked.

"It's me."

Petra tensed at his voice.

They opened the door.

Levi's cold gray eyes soaked in what he was seeing.

"When will you be done? I'm here to bring Petra to the Survey Corps HQ."

"We're done for today," the doctor smiled.

"Nice to meet you, Petra," she said, extending her hand.

Petra shook it happily and replied with a smile.

Author's Note: And scene! Short chapter, I know, but I'm finally starting to get into more present story and this chapter was a shift from the past t. The present, although we'll see some more flashbacks from Petra's P.O.V. Anyways, thank you so much for the follows, reviews, and favs, they really mean a lot to me! As always, feel free to do so if you haven't already and I'll have the next chapter up soon!