I'll Make You Bleed

In a Moment (Berthold POV)

**TRIGGER WARNING: A SUICIDE occurs in this chapter. If you are sensitive to this topic, please read with extreme caution. We DO NOT encourage the act of suicide in any way, shape, or form. Please read carefully. 

Written by: blueTshirts** 

1:10 AM 

"Reiner, what's wrong?"

Reiner has stopped just as the cabin is within a few steps reach. Connie's fragile body is held in Reiner thick arms, Reiner mumbles to himself around muffled cries. A gust of wind cools the sweat along my throat, but a chilling sensation rolls down my spine when I look over Reiner's shoulder.

"He-he..." Reiner hiccups. Connie's head lays tilted in the crook of Reiner's elbow, blood coats his mouth and chin and soaks into his shirt. The glow from the moon casts dim light over his pale features. His eyes stare unblinking at the starry sky.

"Connie," I mumble feeling hopelessness seep into my bones and hollow them out. What hope we had scrounged up with the false light of our imagination dissipates along with Connie's life. What hope can we expect to have when each life we try to preserve is taken from our hands?

"I was..." Reiner says through fat tears. The weak shells of my bones crack like toffee as Reiner sobs burn my core. Through all of this, this whole night, Reiner has fought to find a part of himself that will bring meaning to his life again. Reiner put the burden of this friend's life into his hands and told himself that he could be the one to save them. "I was going to save him."

"Reiner, you couldn't-"

A howling cry echoes through the woods, my voice catches in my throat as the temperature around us drops.

"Was that-?"

"We have to go," Reiner says, his voice cracks but he pushes through it leaving his weakness behind and running straight to the cabin where the earth shattering wail came from. My body refuses for a moment. My feet are planted on the cold, tainted ground and my legs are unwilling to sprint headfirst into another life threatening situation.

But of course I can't let Reiner go alone.

I follow after my boyfriend as he lugs Connie's body with him. It slows him down, that and the eternal exhaustion from his horrific night. I am able to pass him to pull open the back door of the cabin and let Reiner and Connie inside before me.

I pray for nothing to be waiting for us on the other side of the door. We have no control on anything at this point. We just have to keep pressing random buttons until something lights up.

I step into the cabin after Reiner and I want to run back out the other way.

My eyes first land on Eren. He looks up at us through his dark eyebrows with his eyes full of wild energy and sparking violence. Beneath him is Armin who's being pinned to the floor by a blood spattered Eren looking like captured prey in a wolf's clutches. Armin's blonde hair is a tangled mess over his pained face glistening with sweat and tears. His blue eyes don't bother to look at Reiner and I, he keeps his focus on the crumbled figure in the living room.

My lungs deflate like they've been stabbed with a quick blade. The punctured holes in my side ooze the oxygen from inside of my chest because I don't think I'll need it anymore.

The huddled figure on the floor is unmoving and bloody. Gray sweatshirt soaked in crimson. Bleach blonde hair flared across the dark hardwood floor. Annie.

My jaw hangs open as I look up at the monster standing over my crippled friend. Mikasa holds her fists at her sides, blood coats her arms from her elbows down and covers the lower half of her face. She looks like a feral cannibal that's just ravaged the insides of a human and eaten their guts raw. The look on her face does nothing to counter the villainous aura she owns. She looks over at Reiner and I with a dead expression. A shrill ache of fear closes my throat as I stare at her eyes that seem to be nothing but black.