Hellfire • L.A.

Secrets Inside

"Hanje, remind me what we're looking for again?" My hands traced over the spines of the ancient books. The cellar of the Survey Corps headquarters was old and smelled of mildew. I had no idea how Eren slept down here every night.

"Ah, well," Hanje laughs nervously, "I'm not so sure either."

Armin sighs. "There has to be something recorded from the past. Something about titans crystallizing themselves."

I hum in response as Eren scoffs.

"There's nothing from before the walls. Everyone knows that." Eren frowns as he searches through a crate. I watch him carefully, wary that his anger might be able to turn him as well as self mutilation.

Originally Levi was supposed to help out, but Erwin called him to go into town on "urgent business" and therefore the responsibility was shoved on me. The four of us had been down here for an hour, and so far all we had found were old uniforms and patches, some really aged wine, and a few files of deceased soldiers.

I pried the top off of another wooden box, and threw it to the side. This box wasn't much different than the others. Yellowed papers with ripped edges laid inside and a few dark black folders. I started to put the top back on, but Hanje stopped me.

"Hey! Go through everything. You never know what we might find."

I suppress a groan and put the lid back down. I grab a stack of the folders carefully in case they fall apart, and sit down next to the box. If I'm going to be reading paperwork all afternoon I might as well get comfortable.

"Is your leg hurting, commander?" Eren looks over at me with big green eyes full of concern.

"Just a little. I'll be fine kid." I try to give a convincing smile, but Eren stares back skeptically. I ignore him and start to open up the folders.There's nothing I haven't already seen so far, just former soldiers listed as Missing or Deceased. It's not until the fifth folder that something seems eerily out of place.

On the top of the front page, in the right corner, there's a wax seal of a red star. The rest of the page is completely blank, but when I flip to the next one there's an unfamiliar picture of a young woman, but the face makes my heart ache in shock.

My mother looks young, maybe in her late teens. Her red hair is long in this picture, but she isn't smiling like she is in any of the pictures I have. Her face is stone cold, her lips set into a hard frown. The nose looks the exact same and so do the eyes, but something isn't right.

Next to the picture in bolded letters is a name, but it's not hers. Underneath the name is a section similar to that of all the other profiles I've been flipping through.

Deceased: died of natural causes - childbirth

My throat feels dry. I swallow harshly, trying to wake myself up. Why would my mother be in a file at the Survey Corps headquarters. Why is her profile different from everyone else's? Why does she have a fake name?

Scenarios and possible answers begin to swarm through my mind. It could just be a lookalike, a doppelganger. But, someone that shares the same face as my mother and same cause of death seems highly unlikely...

"Lux?"

Armin's timid voice causes me to look away from my mother's face. "Huh?"

"We've been asking you what you're looking at for five minutes? Are you ill?" He glances down at the folders in my hand. Eren and Hanje stand behind him and stare at me with concerned eyes.