I'll Make You Bleed

Peering into Madness (Armin POV)

**written by: thesketchytepe**

11:23 PM 

Annie shut the basement door behind her and stared at Armin over her shoulder. Her thick lips were ajar like she wanted to tell him something, but it was lodged deep in her throat, a grenade waiting to burst. He held onto her hand tightly and watched Berthold and Reiner hurry down the carpeted stairs before disappearing around the corner. He whipped back to Annie; she lowered herself onto the top step and gripped the hand that held hers. He did the same thing.

"Is this real?" she whispered to his face, hot air pushing against his lips as she rested her forehead against his.

The darkness made everything worse. It was much darker here in the basement than it was in the living room. He tried to focus on her snow-white skin, her lemon-colored hair, her electric blue eyes—anything other than the deep blackness that surrounded them, an army of fright closing in on them, readying to strike.

"I—I don't know," he breathed.

Historia was dead, that was a fact. But how did she die? There was so much blood and her skin so white; his stomach churned at the thought of it. And Eren, was he actually stabbed? He was also soaked in blood, though nothing to the extent of Historia. Was it his own or all hers? How severe were the wounds? Eren appeared genuinely horrified and was truly convinced there was someone out there. But Ymir wouldn't abandon Historia, would she? Where was she? Was she dead too? Was the killer someone they knew? Was Eren telling the truth? Was any of this real?

He swallowed, his tongue dry, his skin hot. The darkness crept into the edge of his vision and he felt the violent shaking of his own hands, despite Annie's strong clutch on him. His head felt warm and light as if he were a hot air balloon. If only he could float away from here, away from the Jaeger cabin and even further away from this everlasting darkness.

"I don't know what to do," he confessed to Annie in a strained whisper.

She hesitated, but then he felt her squeeze his hands even tighter and held them up a little higher. "Then I'll tell you what you're going to do."

He locked eyes with her as she murmured in a firm tone (though he could plainly see the dread behind her own stare): "You're going to act like everything's okay. Don't let the others know that you're just as lost as the rest of them—that'll upset them even more. They're going to look towards you for an answer and you can't let them down. If you tell them enough times that everything's going to be okay, then they'll start to believe you. It's like in history, right? A commander doesn't let his soldiers know that he's just as scared as the rest of them, that they're all at the brink of a hopeless death. Instead he tells them to stand for the cause they think is righteous. Don't let your soldiers panic, Armin. There's no time for that."

The words sunk into his brain and he repeated them over and over again as if he were studying for an exam. Don't let them know, everything's okay, don't panic—there's no time. Annie pressed her lips to his sweaty forehead.

"You've got this. You can do it."

He briefly wondered if that was a lie she conjured just to get him out there. But, like she said, there's no time to panic. He slowly withdrew from her and then stood up and walked down the steps. He stared out into the madness before them.

Eren was sitting on the loveseat against one wall with his pants halfway down, exposing a decent size tear in his right thigh. Marco sat next to him with the first-aid kit in his lap; he was currently pouring alcohol on Eren's wound while lightly swatting at it with a towel. Mikasa sat on the armrest, holding Eren's hand as he winced at the sharp pain flowing into his thigh; she also held up her phone's flashlight to help Marco inspect his work. Reiner had gently laid Historia down on another loveseat across from Eren, Mikasa, and Marco. He now had her blood soaked into his shirt, but he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were stuck on Historia's bloodied corpse. Berthold was standing off to the side with his hands covering his mouth, looking just as shocked as Reiner. Sasha was throwing a fit, sobbing hysterically, grabbing at her hair and clothes. She fell to her knees and crawled over to Historia. She reached out hesitantly to her but pulled away before collapsing into another panic attack. Connie was trying his best to control Sasha's hysterics, but was having a hard time just coming to terms with what just happened. He was pulling at her waist, trying to hold her down while aiming his phone at Historia, but it was like attempting to catch a panicked cat, darting from corner to corner at each noise it heard. Jean was pacing back and forth with his own head in his hands. He was mumbling something to himself, but it was hard to hear over all the other chaos.