eye of the sky.

chapter 1. THE FALL OF SHIGANSHINA

𖤣𖥧.𖤣𖥧𓆏𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
━━━━━━━━━━━

On that day,
humanity remembered the dread that was a life under their rule. . .

The humiliation of being caged like birds.

❝The Scouting Legion is back! Opening the front gate!❞

Year 845, Shiganshina District.

The echoing sound of the local bell tower rang throughout the town. Young and old, men and women, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, gathered on the sidewalks nearby Wall Maria's outer entrance. Murmurs flew around and almost blank faces were ever-present as they await for their arrival.

Then silence.

The word engulfed the crowd and she wonder why were they acting so odd from this almost weekly circumstance. Aren't they joyous for all the hardworking soldiers' return from their mission outside the walls? Protecting and serving the people inside the barriers with their life, gathering more whereabouts of the titans.

The uncomfortable silence reached her deafening ears, it was loud but not louder than the fast beating of her core inside the ribcage that would seem to burst out at any second in anticipation.

It was the 11-year-old's first time to see them up close after all, she always wanted to see the Scouts, and now is her (un)lucky chance. She has decided for herself that her laundry task can wait, she just hoped her guardian can abide a little longer before supper. A little peek won't hurt, can it? She internally nodded in determination as she began to near the forming crowd.

(Name) pushed her way through the front, a basket of clean sheets in her arms securely. The gates finally opened and the tension began to have thickened like the blood-smeared onto their slouched, defeated form. She felt a shiver ran through her spine at the sight — how cruel and even pitiful. It perfectly matched the gloomy sky, darkened with the grey moving clouds above and suffocating for her to breathe at the same time. She was conflicted about what she was seeing and it left an unpleasant churn in her stomach.

She looked up from where she currently stood; their almost dead, weak condition. She wonder what occurred outside these walls whenever they left its confinement, just to come back with a few and injured men — a drastic decrease of number from earlier.

(Name) wanted to vomit at the horrid sight but pushed it down at the back of her throat, she didn't want to be rude. Her blank gaze fell to the ground as she kept her extent on the townsfolk's babble around to where she stood, listening carefully.

"So few of them returning. . ."

"It has been awful this time as well. . ."

"There were over a hundred when they departed. . ."

"They aren't even twenty,"

"Do everyone else get devoured?"

Her dull eyes slightly widened at the question. Devoured. What was that word mean? It then sent her in a dreaded state of realization. She remembers Al-Jahiz's Food Chain Cycle. It shows how the organisms are related to each other by the food they eat. She read it before when she visited the public library the other day. But at the top of the food chain wasn't man, instead, she believes it was the titans — the apex predator that'll gorge the species and creatures under it.

An unsettling emotion flushes through her whole body at yet another realization. Then why were they inside the wall? The wall that'll hinder their escape when the titans. . . No. She shouldn't deem of that. Not now, when it is peaceful for her and for everyone within the walls.