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Being dead was something Marco wasn’t prepared for, even beyond the painful feeling of a titan’s teeth ripping through his skull. He always told himself that he was fully prepared to die, but actually being dead instead of waxing poetic about what an honor it was to lay his life down for the king was an entirely different story. Death was supposed to be release. He was supposed to finally be free but he was tethered to the spot, unable to move more than 15 paces from his body in any direction. Nothing to look at but the flies that buzzed in and out of his mouth, landing on the tongue that lolled out from what remained of his jaw and the organs that leaked through the tears in his flesh as the days went by.
There was nothing Marco wouldn’t give to see someone, anyone one last time. Ever since he died on the rooftop there was nothing, no one but him. Alone with his thoughts, his sorrow, his regrets; he couldn’t take it. He may have been the type to bottle things up in life, but that was different because he chose to do so and now, the moment he wanted, no needed, to have someone to talk to, he couldn’t. Most of all he wanted to see his friends. He wanted to know if they, at least, managed to make it through the ordeal alive.
No matter his willingness to give, there wasn’t much he could anymore. He had nothing left to offer anyone but his crumbling bones and rotting soul.
Even if he did have something, there was nobody there to take him up on his measly offer. The streets of Trost were barren, save for the maggots and carrion that reveled in the death and destruction that littered the streets of what used to be considered a safe town in the interior.
Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, any more painful, Jean Kirstein was the one to find his body. He could do nothing but stare open-mouthed with tears pricking in the corners of his eyes while Jean begged for it to please be anyone else. Anyone else but his best friend and the boy he loved.
It taunted him, the sight of his trembling, terrified friend. All he wanted was to reach his hand out and stroke his fingertips across Jean’s cheeks, his lips, his forehead like he had done so often such a short time ago, but when he tried his fingers slipped right through the other boy as if he were reaching out for an illusion, a hallucination of the one he loved with all of his heart.
He got his second chance at seeing Jean, but it wasn’t what he wanted. Nothing was anymore.