beyond the woods | eren x armin

beyond the woods

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pie in the sky

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it was, truly, a beautiful day.

eren gazed off, out of the windowpane, as his father hit him, calling him a diversity of titles. sharp points of pain that once felt like a thousand bees had stung him at once now felt like harsh blows of wind aiming to knock him over, slowly evolving into soft breezes. his tears were a soft mist that rained down where he stood, his cries nothing more than nature playing its melody.

eren convinced himself that he was outside, and not trapped in with his father, chasing butterflies and sniffing flowers with a friend. the lullaby increased in volume, but eren kept his eyes shut; he wanted to believe, just for this moment, that he was in the field beyond the woods.

when eren was pushed to the floor and kicked until he coughed up blood, eren did not find himself in this hand-me-down home. he smiled as he felt the prickling grass brush against his back as if it was not broken glass. he snuggled close to the ground, feeling the sun's heat beat against him.

the sun seemed to walk away, leaving nothing but the fading voices of the mockingbirds and cicadas. eren got up and bandaged himself; a price he must pay for going to the field beyond the woods.

eren did not like his reality, to the point of escaping it whenever it drew too near. though, one day, he knew that he would no longer settle for his imagination, as prominent as it was.

but, for the first day of dreaming of the field beyond the woods, a reality that eren would never touch, he would embrace his imagination, though it was just a fictional picture of his head.

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a fantasy of freedom

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when eren entered his imagination, he was not sitting in the field as he would have hoped. instead, he was hiding behind a bush, watching a little boy with long blond hair spin around in the field.

the boy had stopped spinning for one minute and looked at eren's bush, in which eren was gazing so intently. he had never seen such freedom before! to be so close to it, oh, it frightened him.

with one sigh, the boy stopped glancing at the other child behind the bush and instead tried to show him how free he felt on in the meadow. he skipped, hopping over blooming flowers and squealing when he fell. he laughed, all by himself, and danced some more.

eren longed for that feeling. even if they were so close to it, he couldn't bring himself out that bush — he couldn't bring himself to freedom. reality dug its nails into eren's back, reality hit eren, reality kicked eren on the floor to the point of bleeding. reality treated eren like he was nothing, and yet, he didn't think he was ready to leave reality all on his own yet.

the boy stopped playing after a while. they huffed, and put their arms over their chest. they were clearly frustrated, but at who? it was only them and eren in the field.

they started to walk towards eren. freedom was coming so close, beaming brighter than eren could've ever imagined–

the boy stuck his hand out to eren, smiling.

"do you want to play with me?"

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