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It’s like grasping at smoke. Like chasing the edge of a fever dream. So real he can almost grab it; swears he can feel his nails digging into something solid.
These memories; they have to be there, deep down, lost in a place so dark that even a monster like him can’t reach it. But something needs to give, needs to break, to tear that barrier aside and figure out what it is he can’t remember. And if he’s the thing that needs breaking – who is he to complain?
There’s something there, buried deep. Secrets. Important things that are worth far more than his life.
He’s getting better at noticing them. Even if he can’t remember, he can feel something there, something beating down on his frame, threatening to crush him beneath its weight. He knows they’re there, the same way a person facing the sun knows that their shadow is behind them. He’s grown accustomed to the feel of it: in the dripping of his blood, in the shifting of bones and ripping flesh, in the air that catches in his lungs.
‘I joined the Survey Corps to see all of it!’
Armin’s words remind him, remind him of a time that seemed so much brighter than this. Which is almost funny, because this is the closest humanity has ever gotten to victory, isn’t it? Back then, that bright world of hope and dreams of distant lands beyond the walls. How easy it was back then, to dismiss the walls, to think them an arbitrary barrier in his journey to see.
‘Yeah…you did.’
He remembers being little; being little but never young. Because when you're young the monsters are under the bed, or tucked into a closest. When you're young, you don't see people and realize that they are monsters too.
Nothing caught in this filthy society can ever be something so naive as young. Even worse, that he was born into this cage – a wild thing, too raw to tame. Born trapped, but with eyes turned to the outside - nothing like that can ever be content. There’s no going back from knowing the world exists. And he was born with eyes turned outward, seeing more than was allowed.
‘We have to go see it!’
Still a wild thing; he hasn’t changed at all. Still trapped, still wild, more of a monster than he ever thought he’d be. The cage of his youth hasn’t disappeared, if anything he’s starting to outgrow it; but cages are unforgiving, and the wire mesh is cutting through his flesh. He’s still trapped, and it's not enough - this life. He’s like a starved rat, gnawing at his own flesh to push the hunger back. Repulsive, but too starved to be anything else.
As each day wears on, the feeling in his gut strengthens. It’s a sort of apathy, one that’s settling deep into his bones. And he doesn’t even try to shake it, because his resolve is as strong as ever, and that is all it takes to feed this monster he is. Someday, someday soon, the world will be free. And he can only turn his eyes outward, can only grow still when he realizes that, someday soon, he won’t…
Well… he simply won’t.
‘Then it’s agreed? That’s a promise, alright?!’
He’d made a promise, after all, hadn’t he?
Dreams of what lay beyond the walls…those belong to humanity. To the good people of this world.
‘I’ll purge this world…’
And that’s something he’s not.
‘…until not a single one remains!’