She Who Seemed Heartless

Chapter 19

There was intense breathing. So intense that she could hear him wheeze as he rushed through the thick forest. After she was saved by someone she had never met, young Annie Leonhardt found herself under the arm of yet another man. Unlike the other one, he was dressed in his military uniform with a cravat. Strange. Annie was but a mere girl, but she knew all too well that he didn't belong to their homeland.

It was the enemy's.

Realizing this, she began thrashing about and yelled for help. The man, face stained with the color of death that had seemed to dried already, stared down at her with a glare that could send titans running away. She had never felt so scared in her entire life. "Continue doing that and I might end up killing you, kid." His rage and worry was highly evident in his voice. He instantly stopped in his tracks and looked around. She could hear him muttering foul words and kept on repeating the same question over and over again to himself.

"Where's ***?"

The girl shut her eyes tightly and the moment she opened them, she found herself on the floor sitting in between Reiner and Bertholdt. The place looked like an old, run-down house. Perhaps they used this as their means of shelter whenever they tried to escape. In front of her was the man who was carrying her earlier, seemingly staring down at someone intently while he remain seated on a wooden chair. Annie decided to take a closer look as to who it was, and all she could make out was ginger hair covered with a blanket full of filth. Underneath him or her was nothing but hay.

Was the person dead?

"Hey", the man had said, staring at her with the same cold eyes she was terrified of earlier. "Would you mind if I mutilate him?"

"Who did he mean by him...?"

"Um, Annie?"

"Huh?"

Annie broke free from her trance and was welcomed with worried faces of Armin, Jean, and Mina. A few weeks had passed since the last day of their short vacation and they all went back to school not so long ago. All four of them stopped by the library to work on the history project that were assigned to them. Luckily, the teacher was generous enough to let the students choose their own group, which of course ended up with their party of friends. Eren was on cleaning duty and bound to wait for Armin and the others once they were done. Mikasa, on the other hand, was also on a meeting with her team with the similar project.

"As I was saying, we will use these books," Armin pointed to the ones they have gathered on the table earlier. "...so all of us will have uniform information. Do you have any other ideas?"

Jean raised his hand. "I suggest we don't split up the parts that we need to work on so we would all know what the report is all about. I mean, sure, we have to do our parts but I think it would be better if all four of us read the entire books since, well, our aim is to have similar information."

Mina nodded in agreement. "He's right, I totally agree with that. We don't really need to read all of the contents of the book anyway, just about Angkor Wat and its history. What do you say, Annie?"

She imitated a thinking face. "I don't think anything else is necessary to add."

After a few more minutes of strategizing what they needed to do to make their project a success, they all met with Eren who was already with Mikasa waiting for them by the school gates. Since they all have their homework to finish and school work to get started on, the group of friends no longer wasted their time in going straight to their homes.

While Armin and Annie were both busying themselves with their assignments, the latter couldn't help but halt herself from reading or writing from time to time. She tried her utmost best to remember the details of the dream (she doesn't consider them a nightmare anymore) she recently had. Of course, Armin already knew about it. "Do you remember anything by any chance?" He seemed to have startled her as she jumped a bit when he spoke out of the blue. She glanced at him then back on the books without saying anything though she had no intention on reading the content. "I take that as a no."