Chapter Text
The ocean was a deep blue, so deep, charading itself into a bottomless, enormous lake. The sky reflected the ocean, but its color was a soft, light blue, the clouds scattered over it, slowly drifting with the breeze.
It was peaceful.
Too peaceful.
And Annie might go insane at any moment at how serene her life is at the moment, as if she is on some sort of a vacation, while the rest of the world is being flattened underneath colossal, mindless monsters.
She bites her lip and digs her feet deeper into the solid, wooden floor of the boat, as she leans against the railing, taking deep breaths, letting her thoughts drift with every exhale, only for new ones to occupy her mind.
Annie has left her crystal for only a few days, and she thought if she should’ve crystallized herself back into that cold prison, or if she shouldn’t have imprisoned herself in the first place.
Or maybe she should’ve betrayed the whole mission from the beginning, and went back to her father and tried to have a normal life…
Huh…
A normal life…
What a foreign concept.
Even after all of this is over, even after she somehow finds a place to live the rest of her life in peace, how would that even be close to normal? Can she even live along with everything that happened to her through her life? And all the atrocities that she commited?
Why couldn’t she have been born into a small, normal family, and lived her life like any other normal girl? Is that too much to ask for?
Out of the millions who live on this earth, she had to be one of those cursed nine with these powers, with these lives, and she couldn’t decide whether that was a good or a bad thing.
Annie sighed and threw her head back, watching the blue sky, birds soaring up with no care whatsoever, and she thought of him.
It’s not like he left her mind at all… for the past four years. He was dumb for someone as smart as he is, dumb for visiting her in that basement, and he not only sat there and stared, he talked, loudly talked, what was he expecting? A heap of see-through-rock to speak back to him? Or for Annie to break out of it?
And she could make fun of him for the rest of her life; tell him how dumb he was, how ruthless and pathetic it was of him to waste his time on her, time many other cheerful girls would’ve fought for.
He was an idiot.
But she is glad that he was stupid enough to visit her, and to vocalize his thoughts out loud for her, and she is thankful, and will always be, because she can’t imagine how it would’ve been if he didn’t… how lonely she would’ve felt…
She watched her hands that clutched the railing in a death-grip, her knuckles turning white, she glanced at her finger, the metallic-silver ring no longer wrapped around it.
She ran her hand over where her ring used to be, and thought of where it is right now, and if the one who has is still alive…
A bucket of cold shivers run down her spine, instinctively she hugs herself, and she can’t help but remember the coldness from being inside the crystal, the sense of being conscious but frozen in place, unaware of time…
Annie closed her eyes and remembered that one time Armin visited her…
As usual, Hitch threw a few snarky comments at him as she led him for the uncountable time to that dim-lit basement. He tried to ignore her and not get flustered. Armin questioned if her daily goal was to make him an incoherent mess. She enjoyed making him flush and stutter, and she never grew bored of it.
She closed the door behind him after she told him that she’ll join him in a bit, Armin almost told her to take her time but stopped at the last moment, knowing that would be like offering her a golden opportunity to tease him even more than she already did.
Once again, Armin was alone with her, the basement was silent except for the crackles of the torches which cascaded dancing beams of light against the walls, making the crystal shimmer and reflect the light on the ceiling in spontaneous waves of cracked gleams. He walked around the crystal, watching the floating, frozen girl inside, desperately looking for any change, a crack, a dent, a change in her posture, anything… but nothing.
She was encapsulated in her crystal just like the very first day they brought her down there.
He looked at her face, scrutinizing her features; she was pretty, so pretty. Armin didn’t know why he hadn’t realized how pretty she was before; maybe it was the hair floating around her face, or maybe because her face was relaxed, no wrinkles between her eyebrows in her usual, passive face.
Or maybe he always thought she was this pretty, but never got to admit it to himself.
He wished she would open her eyes.
Just a small flutter of her eyelids; he was itching to see her eyes, and he wanted to make sure they were as blue as he remembered, he wanted to look into her eyes and for once, regard her as he finally was aware of her side of the story, of her motives, her reasons, and he understood, he really did, and was aching to tell her that...
For once, he wanted to talk to her, just a normal conversation.
Now that he has Bert’s memories, Armin knew all the details of how her life was, and thanks to Bert’s lingering gazes on Annie, Armin felt as if he did talk to her. And the sensation was almost too real.
And even though all the conversations in this basement were one-sided, somehow Armin felt as if they were equally developing a deeper understanding for each other…
Armin would tell her about his life starting from childhood, up until wall Maria was breached and all the following events. The more he talked about his life, the more memories he saw from Bert, the more he knew about Annie.
He sat on the floor a few feet away from the crystal, he had so much to say, so much to ask, so much to know.
The first few seconds he sits in front of her are almost always awkward, he would feel uncomfortable , sometimes anxious, but for what reason, he didn’t know.
So he would start talking about how his day went; the training was a bit harsh with captain Levi, Eren was getting more control over his powers, they were making progress developing this island, and how the technology of the outside world was sometimes overwhelming for him.
Then he would get to the deeper topics, sometimes he would say things that he wouldn’t dare say outside that basement, sometimes he would just rant and rant and rant about how everything was overwhelming and how life was more fucked up than he could ever imagine.
But on that day, he had nothing on his mind…
He didn’t know where to start ….
So he talked about a day from their past, a day that wasn’t from long ago… but it felt like ages ago.
“Annie… do you remember… that time… when you got injured in training and I found you…?”
As the blonde spoke, his voice barely got through the crystal, and it was far, distant, unreachable, but she still listened, and remembered...
It was a cold autumn afternoon, the 104 th first year training, in the forest, experimenting with their ODM gear.
Annie can’t remember how or when… but all she knew is that she was falling.
Luckily, she shot her wire to a close branch, but the halt was so sudden, it jerked her torso forward…
Hitting her leg
Annie landed harshly on the ground, and she fell onto her hands, the dirt was needles digging into her palms, as a sharp pain shot up her right leg,
It’s not a broken leg…
Annie knew the feeling of broken bones too well, she got her bones crushed many times before, and she was sure that this wasn’t one. A warm moisture spread on her legs from right under her knee tracing down to her ankle. With her eyes closed she stretched her hand and felt the torn fabric, tried to trace the wound but flinched at the touch. It stung, so bad. She hissed, even though she would heal in no time, it still hurt. With the least fraction to the laceration, she dragged herself to the closest tree, and leaned against it.
She was panting, and she hated how such a non-peril gash made her feel, she must’ve gotten used to minor injuries since she arrived on this island and started the mission; her body forgot what it was like to bleed through sweat and keep going.
She scoped around the area, searching if there was anyone who might catch her healing inhumanly fast; she didn't want to go through explaining why steam was emitting from her wound.
Annie was almost sure no one was around, but right before she healed herself, she heard the rustling of leaves from nearby.
She tried to shrink on herself and make herself as invisible as possible, but it was too late.
A blonde boy landed on staggering feet in front of her, his eyes immediately looking at Annie’s wound.
“Annie! Are you ok?” he rushed to her, squatting in front of her, “I-I mean obviously you’re not, we noticed that you weren’t following so I uh yeah I looked for you and-”
Annie closed her eyes and held in a sigh, she didn’t have time for this, she really didn’t have time for this.
“Is it too bad?” He asked.
She wanted to shove him away, to make him leave her alone, to stand up and act like it didn’t hurt at all. So she tried to get up, and pain thundered from the laceration up her spine, she plummeted back on the ground, an involuntary groan left her mouth.
“Hey hey hey!”
In a second, he was right beside her, telling her to not move an inch, she speculated him with half lidded eyes; barely opening them, the pain pulsating in her skull, rummaging and threatening to crack the thick bone open.
However, she attempted to move again, but she was shoved into the tree trunk behind her, gently shoved. She looked at him, he had both his hands on her shoulders, lightly, and as if he had a magical spell casted over her, she stopped moving, looking in his eyes, and through the pain, she thought they were beautiful.
When he was sure that she wouldn't move, he retreated his hand and searched in a small bag he had around his waist.
She watched his movements and hated how the pain only burgeoned, and how she couldn’t tell him to stop whatever he's doing, she watched as he bent down to her leg, checking her wound, his face scrunching before he looked up at her and said: “It’s not looking… the best.”
She nods, indicating she figured out that much, but she found herself too weak to make any sound, or maybe she just didn’t feel like speaking…
From the same bag he was searching in a few moments ago, he produced a small pocket knife.
Annie’s eyes widened and this time she found her voice: “What are you trying to do?” her voice wasn’t as stoic as usual, and she found it ridiculous that a mere knife intimidated her.
“N-nothing! I wanted to ask first, I swear! I-I think I have to cut off your pants, only from the knee down!” He was panicking, and Annie wondered if she scared him that much or if he was a coward himself.
“Well it’s not like these pants are useful any longer,” she eyed them; shredded and splattered with red, spreading more into the stretchy, practical fabric, the edges implacably turning into brown.
“Y-yeah I guess so,” he let out a small laugh, and Annie studied his features; he looked younger than his peers, and noticeably shorter, she opened her mouth to throw a comment on that, but then she noticed his hands.
They were shaking, the knife trembling, cramped in his sweaty palm.
A sudden and unfamiliar urge wanted to make him at ease, but at that time, she didn’t understand why.
So she leaned forward and told him: “You know I can do this myself.”
“I-I know, I just want to help.”
Annie looked into his eyes that were frantically looking everywhere except her, before she leaned back on the ragged tree trunk and stretched her leg, gesturing with her hand for him to start.
He swallowed and shifted closer to her, holding the knife up, then he observed the destroyed fabric, and Annie could almost see the lines and dots he was drawing with his eyes, as if he was mapping out a whole plan on how to cut this mere fabric.
Annie wanted to snap, to tell him to get on with it, and that they didn’t have enough time to idle, instead, she found herself checking how the space between his eyebrows were wrinkled, and how his eyes were determined to get this job done, and even though this task would’ve taken someone else only a few seconds, he took his time analyzing and garnering whatever was need to cut the fabric.
He brought the knife to the torn part, and then titled it at an angle, before he slowly started cutting, at certain points, he would change the angle, sometimes he would cut with the tip of the knife while other times he would use the whole shaft.
Soon enough, from knee down, the fabric was gone, the splitting line cut so precisely, no one would’ve thought it was cut by someone with no tailoring experience.
“This fabric,” he started talking, as he fished for more tools from the small bag, “was weaved in a way to make it stretchy, but at the same time it holds its shape, and it’s just about how threads are arranged into tissue. It was specifically made to not be torn but if it was cut on a certain line, you could cut it easily. you must’ve hit a branch hard when you fell.”
Armin looked at Annie, she had a prosaic look on her face, he sheepishly giggled and apologized for explaining unnecessary stuff, but she cut him off: “We didn’t learn anything about this in class, who told you?”
He was shocked for a second, his mind stuttered, before he averted his eyes and said: “My grandfather used to sew us our own clothes.”
Annie didn’t inquire about it.
Armin opened a small vial of a clear liquid, he told her that it was a sanitizer and that it might sting a bit, she nodded, and he poured the liquid on her gash.
She lurched forward, hissing in pain; it stung and burned and she was looking for water to put out the fire roaring in her leg, but again, she was gently pushed back. She saw stars while he mumbled apologies and that this was an important step to avoid infections.
“Infections are nasty, you don’t want to try them,” he said in a somewhat comforting voice, as he started dabbing something on her leg; her skin was numb.
Annie rested her head on the tree trunk, deciding she no longer wanted to see what he was doing or if it was right. The pain in her leg ceased, leaving a numb-soreness behind, the adrenaline slowly leaving her veins, and her eyelids were growing heavy as delicate hands were wrapping something around her leg, meekly lifting her leg up at some points.
“You can sleep for a bit, it’s fine, we have time,” Armin said, and Annie flattered her eyes open, only to see that he was carefully watching her face, his hand on her wrapped, recently-aided leg.
She shook her head and told him that it was fine, that she was awake enough to walk, however, he insisted that they stay there for a few more minutes so she could gather enough strength.
Annie was sure he was fully aware that she had enough stamina to fight a titan, and something nagged at her mind that he had another reason why he was insisting to stay there for some time.
Exhaustion got the best of her and she decided to close her eyes for some time, it wouldn’t hurt anyone, besides, she ranked among the elite in this class, so even if they were late, they had an adequate excuse and probably wouldn’t be punished.
“Um…” Armin cleared his throat, and Annie peaked at him through a small crack, sleep was taking over her, but for some reason she didn’t want to fight it, “your fighting technique is… different.”
Annie raised an eyebrow.
“I mean,” he continued, “I don’t think it's taught anywhere inside the walls, and I was wondering if you were the one who… came up with it…”
Annie was silent for a while, remembering all the training she went through when she was only nine, only to come to the island for even more training, unnecessary training, and she flipped what Armin said in her mind, how could she invent a whole fighting style? Would she even want to do that?
“My father taught me,” was her only concise answer.
Armin nodded, running his hand up and down the bandages he wrapped around her leg, now stained with a few spread-out, smudged red dots, before he stood up and told her that he will go check a nearby running water.
Annie watched him as he walked away. She had many thoughts running through her head; why did she accept his unnecessary help and why didn't she shove him away? She conceded that she pitied him and his weak figure, remembering his poor performance in hand to hand combat…
But she also remembered his hand shooting up at every single question about anything in theory class.
Her eyelids slowly closed, a blond boy at the front of her mind.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, but when she opened her eyes, the sun wasn’t as harsh any longer, the light was soft and the air was chilly, she turned her head and the same boy she slept thinking of was sitting beside her leg.
He was hugging his knees and resting his head on them, his back rising and falling slowly, did he fall asleep?
She speculated him, his sleepy face peaceful, and she wondered how a guy like him ended up in military training. Annie glanced at her leg, and the bandages were drenched in blood.
Losing blood wasn’t a problem, the whole injury wasn’t a problem either, but she couldn’t just heal it off after this Brainiac saw how severe it was; he wouldn’t leave her alone and she would have to either kill him or bang his head hard enough on a wall to cause him memory loss.
She noticed the water skin and the bag beside him, she slowly reached out for the water skin and gulped down a few chugs, making sure to keep half of it for him, eyeballing her wound, she decided to not waste time and replace her bandages, so she reached for the bag again, moving her leg-
A sharp pain pierced through it, Annie involuntary hissed, and that small sound woke him up.
Woke him up startled.
“It’s fine I was just trying to-” Annie tried to explain, however, he only looked at her, his confused, scared expression melting into a soft one, he smiled, his chest rapidly moving up and down, he shook his head and chuckled.
“I always wake up startled, it’s not your fault, that’s my default reaction, I guess… and yeah I do give the other guys in the dorm a nightmare every morning.” He sheepishly scratched his neck and averted his eyes, landing them on her leg; his shoulders slumped and he immediately produced what was left of the bandages, “I thought the bleeding stopped, I’m sorry, I must’ve done something wrong.”
She wanted to tell him that it was fine, that they can walk back to the camp and get actual medical care. He studied her face for a moment, and his eyebrows rose up his forehead as if he heard her thoughts out loud, before he said: “Alright, just let me change the bandages one last time.”
That one last time made the wheels in Annie’s head whirl endlessly.
As he took off the old bandages and started applying the new ones, it dawned on Annie that she didn’t get to thank him, but he was being too nice that she thought maybe he wasn’t even waiting for a thank you for saving my life cliché scenario.
She still wanted to show him her thanks, so, she mumbled: “Uh… you didn’t have to do this, really.”
He smiled but didn’t lift his head up from his busy hands: “Well it’s not like I could just leave you here, could I?”
“But you risked failing at this training,” that was true, he might fail, but at the same time, he could’ve simply acted like he didn’t find her in the first place and went on with the training, or maybe joining the Military Police wasn’t what he was aiming for. Grades weren’t a pain for him.
“Annie…” he caught her attention, and she looked at him, his eyes still focused on wrapping the pure-white bandage over her red wound, which looked better than a few hours ago, “sometimes… we like being taken care of.”
Annie observed his delicate fingers tugging and wrapping the bandages, she didn’t reply to his statement and perhaps he deemed that as an invitation to keep going.
“Well, who am I to say? Eren and Mikasa take care of me all the time,” he smiled, and she wondered if he smiled because he liked being taken care of or at the reminder of his childhood friends, “it does get annoying sometimes… but I know that they do that because they care…”
“They do,” Annie said, but she didn’t intend to say that, it just slipped off her tongue.
“Indeed, and…” he tilted his head up, and looked straight into her eyes, “sometimes we should let others heal us, sometimes… we want them to.”
Annie watched his eyes, and she found herself unable to turn away from them; a glint adorning the blue spheres. They felt familiar, as if she knew them for so long…
An ocean.
Annie’s eyes widened at her own realization; his eyes reminded her of the ocean.
But the ocean in his eyes wasn’t cold, it radiated warmth. An ocean that she wanted to dive deep into, get lost within.
Then he averted his eyes, and she was anchored back to reality. A tingle of fuzziness crawling over her skin, and she wasn’t sure if her titan’s powers could take them away.
Maybe that’s just a normal charm that blue eyes have, some sort of a spell sprouts from them and bewitches the spectator… but she had blue eyes herself, and she never got the feeling that anyone lost themselves in them, if anything, it made them turn away.
They didn’t talk after that. Armin helped Annie to her feet, and they merely walked side by side, slowly, with him glancing with concern at her leg, and her looking straight forward, eyes fixated on the path, until the sun went behind the mountains and they got to the camp.
The moment they showed up, Mikasa and Eren made their way to Armin, worried expressions on their faces. Annie started to walk away, but Armin whispered her name one more time, before he mouthed something to her.
That night, Annie slept, bundled in her sleeping bag, her thoughts overlapping, and a few words on repeat confided in her mind.
Thanks for letting me heal you.
Annie would never forget about that day.
Neither would Armin, so he sat there, on the cold basement floor, after narrating his anecdote of that day.
“We passed that training…” he said, a smile stretched on his face when he remembered how Mikasa threatened to kill Annie if she hurt Armin in any way, but he only laughed and tried to calm her down; not really sure if she was serious or just joking.
“I sometimes wonder…” he fidgeted in his place, “how you tolerated me…”
A beat of silence.
“You know… you could’ve healed yourself in a minute or two… you must’ve cursed me when you saw me,” he chuckled, though it sounded dry as it echoed against the cold walls.
“But… I’m glad that you let me help you… I just think that… sometimes we really should let others in, to show them our scars, our fears…” his voice was shrinking on itself with every word, “it might lessen the burden each one of us has, but maybe we just don’t want to bother anyone with it…
“Or maybe… we’re just scared… because letting someone in… doesn’t it mean showing them a side of you that no one else saw?” his eyes fluttered to the torches, before they turned back at Annie, “it’s… brave.”
He nodded to himself.
“It’s so brave to show that side of you to others…” he thought of how he was doing the exact same thing by talking about all of this to Annie, but he shook his head, dismissing the idea. With an inhale that inflated his chest, he continued: “and… I thought I could actually be open to people… Eren, Mikasa, Jean… but… no matter what I say, or what I do, I just feel like there’s a translucent barrier between us,” his flattened palm gestured up and down in front of his face, mimicking a barrier, “and I don’t know if I have that bond with them anymore…”
At that point, Armin was no longer sure if he was talking to Annie or if he was talking to himself.
His voice faded into a whisper, until it dissolved with the fire crackle. His throat tightened on his vocal cords, and he thought it might rupture if he tried to make any sound. The basement around him was blurry, and the edges of his eyes burned.
He sniffled and shook his head, not comprehending why he was getting emotional, he looked up at Annie; she was still suspended midair in that crystal, her face unchanging, her hair fanning around her head, the light beams from the torches penetrating the clear crystal, their reflections creating a golden halo levitating above her head.
He didn’t know if he should say something or scream it, he wanted to rage, to throw and break things, he wanted to shake that crystal and shout at the top of his lungs, to pound his fists against it, to jolt some sense into Annie, to make her break free of that prison she crystalized around herself.
But he sat as still as Annie, looking at her face, swallowing whatever words he had in his mind and wondered if a day would come where she would actually break out. He hoped she would, so, he stood up, plodded closer to her with a hunched back, and uttered a few words, these words that he made sure to tell her at the end of each visit, “ I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but, Annie… now we know everything… you can come out… we can talk…please…”
Each time, the only response he got was silence.
And this time was no different.
He ascended the stairs, glanced at her one last time, before closing the door behind him.
And Annie was once again left in the agonizing silence.
A bird cooing passed right above her head, anchored her back to reality, to the current day, where she was out of that crystal, and watching the ocean from a ship in the middle of an endless blue.
Annie swivels her head; she sighs.
The serene silence of the ocean is taking over her again, numbing her skin and cutting her breath short, the humid, salty air of the ocean is pressing down on her chest.
She finds herself gripping the railing with a death grip, so tight, the iron bars might dent under the pressure. She releases it and runs her hands over her face; this isn’t the right time to think about the past, it was set in stone, and she can’t alter anything about it.
She wonders if she would change anything if she has the chance to… what would she change? Would she break out from the crystal? Would she think of another plan? Would she kill Armin at that expedition?
A shiver runs down her spine, and she shakes her head.
Annie gazes at the horizon, where the blue sky meets the blue ocean, blending in a line of varying shade of that blue, everywhere she looks is blue, she basically is immersed within blue from every angle.
Everywhere she looks, she sees him.
She sees his eyes, his nose, his hair, and his lips.
And maybe it’s not the right time to think about him either, maybe she should let this go too. What is the point of holding onto thin threads of hope that would break with one blow of the wind?
And she closes her eyes, squeezing them shut, blocking as much light as she can, and even though no one is around her, an imaginary crowd push at her, jostling around her, and she is trying to stand on the tip of her toes, trying to breathe, but it’s getting harder with every passing moment.
She shakes her head, her hands gripping her skull, she’s tired and exhausted and wants these voices to go, to leave her be. The gritting sound of her teeth is echoing in her head, and with a sharp inhale, her head lurches forward, and she empties her stomach over the railing, right into the ocean.
Her eyes sting and her throat burns as she lets out whatever she found edible on that ship, and when her stomach calms down, she steps away from the railing, grimacing at the foul taste of bile in the back of her throat and under her tongue,the stingy smell of it infultrates her nostrils. She tries to not swallow or sniff until she finds a water skin, rinsing her mouth, spitting out the last drops of it.
As she catches her breath, memories of the night before speeds to the front of her mind... Annie was mooching around the ship, aimless, her legs taking her from one corridor to the other, while the ship almost arrived at their destination. The hallways dimly lit by a majestic blue and gray moon light, the hues mix together, casting a layer of crispy coldness into the air, making these vacant hallways occupied with shadows and ghosts.
While everyone was anxious to get the flying boat ready in time, her mind was tenanted by something else entirely, strolling down the lane of old memories…
To the day when she was on a similar ship with the warriors’ unit to commence the operation on paradise.
As her feet took her once again to another random corridor, she wondered how the last time she was on a ship -other than this night- she was only nine or ten.
She pushed open a random door, greeted the creaking sound of it, she stepped into what seemed like a past bedchamber; two bunks aligned to the left with no mattresses, and a closet to the right with a messing door. Dust danced in the light coming from the small circular windows, giving the place a sacred atmosphere.
Her gaze lingered on one of the beds, and she saw herself, nine years old Annie…
Small Annie was in a room on that ship, nine years ago, curled in a ball, sitting atop a bunker that had a suspicious smell with worn out sheets, and even though the sun was glaring in the center of the sky, it was dark, or at least it felt dark, and clamped and the air was dense and it was so goddamn hard to breathe. She hugged her knees to her chest, making herself as tiny as possible, but the walls of the room were clamping on her, closing down on her, suffocating her, and she wanted to shrink shrink shrink and be invisible.
A part of her wanted to jump off the ship and swim all the way back to Liberio, to her father, and escape with him to some far away mountains, or maybe if she was born in other circumstances, where she gets to spend the rest of her and father’s lives in peace, with no fighting, no training, no strategies discussed at dinners…
A mere father and his daughter.
But she knew that was impossible and that it was too late for that.
Her hands went up to touch her cheeks, and she was surprised to find herself crying.
She heard the waves crashing into the solid steel construction of the ship, and the vivid imaginations of these waves surrounding her, freezing her, sneaked into her mind, and she was six feet under freezing water, her chest heavy and her lungs filled with salty water, it was real, almost too real. Her breath was erratic and uneven, quick but shallow, and her mind screamed at her to open her eyes, that it was just an imagination, but she refused, because numbness was extracted from her body bit by bit, and she was finally feeling something-
Annie shivered, bringing herself back to reality, to the day where she was older, and she had lost her father, and the world was ending.
And she was yet again roaming the deserted hallways of the ship, her steps hastened and her sight blurry, crossing a corridor after another, with no end in sight, like an endless labyrinth.
She turned around a corner, and right at that moment, a door at the end of the corridor closed. Annie wasn’t fast enough to catch who it was, and she assumed that they didn’t notice her either.
She attentively walked to it, and saw a seam of light from under the door, she tiptoed closer, and when she was close enough, she heard sounds…
The door was cracked open, and Annie heard shuffling from the other side.
Her hand reached for the knob, almost pushing the door open, before she stopped herself. She shook her head and turned around; what was she doing? Prying on someone’s privacy? And why was she even curious?
She walked two steps, before she froze in place.
Annie heard more sounds… but this time they were different…
She retreated back to the room and pressed her ear on the door.
That’s when she was sure she heard it.
Someone in that room was crying.
And the sobs were muffled, as if that someone was trying to tame their cries, to make them inaudible.
She swallowed, the image of her nine years old self silently crying crossed her mind...
She stared at her feet, not knowing what to do.
Then her eyes glanced between the door knob and the very end of the corridor. She knew that the best thing she should do is to leave whoever was in that room alone, the last thing they would want is someone trespassing into their privacy.
But at the same time… she didn’t want to leave them, she wanted to know who they were, who was behind this door breaking into pieces while everyone else was trying to patch up a plan to save what’s left of the world…
The sniffles gradually died down, and soon enough it was silent again, as if no one was sobbing just a second ago.
Before Annie had time to react, the door swung open..
And she found herself face to face with him .