Chapter Text
Annie
Annie had always been told that she was too bold for her own good. That, for a Borrower, the combination of fearlessness and curiosity could only ever mean one thing:
Trouble.
Over the course of her entire life, her dad had made sure to drill these words into her head over and over and over again. For beings that only reached four inches, the outside world was dangerous. In fact, there wasn’t much out there that couldn’t kill her. Death lurked in the form of rats, foxes or martens - not to mention stealthy cats and perfidious crows. Even a simple change in the weather held the risk of trapping her kind in water and mud, or whisking them away by sudden torrents.
All the dangers of the outside world, however, paled in comparison to what awaited them beyond the Wall: The world of the Titans. Bloodthirsty monsters that devoured everything unfortunate enough to cross their line of sight. Not only were they intelligent, but also the most enormous entities that roamed this world. Some legends claimed they were a hundred times their size - like living mountains, stretching up to the sky!
They were the unquestioned apex predators of this world. The stuff of nightmares for Borrowerkind. And from the moment she first heard about them, Annie had sworn that she would one day see one for herself.
Whenever she had trouble sleeping, her father would tell her stories about the Borrowers of old. Of their distant ancestors that built boats to cross the largest rivers and tamed birds to ride on their backs. And of the ‘original’ Borrowers among them who, before adapting to the harsh wilderness, mastered the art of living right beneath the Titans' noses to gather supplies in their homes.
It seemed like no matter how many stories he’d told, he always had a new one up his sleeve. There was not a single night, however, on which he told a story about the Titans or the world beyond the Wall. One evening, when she had asked him about it, his eyes had taken on a glint so dark and dangerous that it sent a chill down her spine. ‘There are no stories about the Titans beyond the Wall,’ he had said with iron in his voice. ‘Because no Borrower who had ventured past had ever come back alive. Because, as fate would have it, the Titan residing beyond the Wall was not just any menace, but the most gigantic and fearsome of them all.’
And that was it. The topic silenced before it could arise. But for Annie, it only added fuel to the fire. The more she thought about it, the more she suspected that the ‘never coming back’ part had been simply made up. Nothing but a weak attempt to keep her from trying something stupid (like, trying to scale the Wall by herself). After all, how could Alder know that the Titan beyond the Wall was so enormous if no one has ever come back to tell the tale? And why would someone go to such lengths as to build a ladder all the way up the Wall? There must have been a good reason for it, right?
That was one more reason why she had to see it for herself, perhaps even the most pressing one. To her, it was obvious that her dad was hiding something when it came to the world beyond the Wall. And she wouldn’t rest until she found out what it was.
There was only one, tiny problem.
Annie was short. Even by Borrower standards. Too short, in fact, to reach the first rung of the staple ladder. And much to her dismay, it appeared that time alone wouldn’t solve it. She had stopped growing for a year now.
It wouldn’t have been a problem if the lower rungs hadn’t been removed. And she had a growing suspicion that her dad was behind that. It had been that way ever since she first set foot outside the house – at the tender age of four, not to brag. Apparently, her incessant begging and perfected doe eyes had paid off after all. And while there was still a lot to learn, Annie prided herself on the skills she’d honed when it came to stealth and climbing. By now, vigilance had become second nature to her, and to this day, she had never come close to death. Or, well, at least if you didn’t count the one time that she was chased by a cat. Or the time she fell into the light shaft. Or the time she fell off the bramble bush. But hell, were those berries worth it.
Anyway, she had learned a lot in these years. And to make up for her short stature, she channeled everything into getting stronger. Today, she was running faster, jumping farther and climbing higher than even her dad – and that was saying something! Dare she say she could call herself a full-fledged Borrower by now, ready to face the impossible!
After all, ‘impossible’ had never been enough to stop her.
It was the day after her twelfth birthday that Annie decided that she was ready to put her skills to the test and finally meet the unknown. With the excuse of spending the day scavenging outside, she snuck into the passageways leading into the house. The excitement grew with each step she took along the great hallway, across the nail hops and past the long pipes, until she reached the base of the great staple ladder.
Bright blue eyes trailed up the line of rungs, unable to see its end in the darkness.
There it was. The Wall.
The barrier between her world and theirs.
The place that held truths and mysteries.
She would be the first Borrower to scale the Wall in generations. Soon enough, she would see if the stories were true.
Annie took a deep breath, then took three steps back. With eyes igniting in determination, she took two large steps, placed one foot on the Wall, and leapt.
Bertholdt
Bertholdt’s weekend had started in the worst possible way. Granted, his average day wasn’t much to celebrate - but with Upper Sixth starting this week, the grim reality of approaching finals hit him as hard as the overhead serve in this morning’s tennis session.
His cheek was still pounding from that one single moment of carelessness, and he was lucky it missed his eye by a few inches. All just because his thoughts kept bouncing back to the message he'd received last night.
He'd never seen Reiner use so many emojis before in his life. His screen hadn't been this crammed with colours since the last Candy Crush Saga came out.
So, he and Krista were officially dating now. He couldn’t say he was surprised. The air around them had been practically sparkling for months already. And as his best mate, of course he'd support him as best he could. For some reason though, all the blazing hearts and giddy emojis didn’t quite hit the mark.
It was stupid, really. It wasn’t like he was jealous or anything. From what he knew about her, Krista was joyful, kind and open-hearted - one of the few who wouldn't even talk behind his back. She was perfect for Reiner. They’d be happy together.
Happier than with him, at least.
The gloomy voice in the back of his mind was there in an instant, or perhaps it had never truly left. Lately, it had become as constant as a second shadow. Even on the brightest day, it would follow him like his own private thundercloud, shutting out any sunshine and draping everything in grey instead.
It was true, though. Ever since Reiner laid eyes on her, they barely hung out anymore. Instead, he'd started hanging around the juniors - Krista's classmates - whenever he could. Their parties were on a whole different level, he'd told him.
Reluctantly, Bertholdt pulled his phone from his tennis bag, opening the colourful message to come up with a long-overdue reply. Now that he was waiting for the bus home, he'd run out of excuses. In the end, it took him ten full minutes of scribbling, crossing out, and starting again to produce a staggering achievement of two lines.
‘Really?? I’m so chuffed for you two! Sounds like last night went well, yes?’
The answer came almost instantly.
‘It was mental. Shame you couldn’t make it. Should've seen everyone’s faces when we kissed’
Bertholdt inadvertently made a face.
‘You know how it is, extras are killing me. Sorry.’
‘Extras on Friday nights? Brutal. Hope you’ll ditch them soon’
‘Or finals will ditch me haha.’
Reiner’s reply took longer this time, and he wondered if his joke had come across too dark. It wasn’t like his grades were that bad. He had simply lost the motivation to put his all into his studies after what happened last year. And as much as he hated to admit it, watching that fairy tale unfolding in front of him didn’t make it any better.
‘Don’t be daft. You’ll be fine. And don’t forget, Krista’s offer still stands. She’s a proper angel, even when it comes to algebra.’
Bertholdt heaved a long sigh. Truth be told, he didn’t even have a class last night. He had dropped his extra lessons at the end of summer break since they only made him feel worse. But the thought of watching Reiner and Krista openly flirting in that painfully flashy way of theirs was enough to make him feel sick.
On top of that, he couldn’t stomach being around so many people. Never had. His own classmates went out of their way to avoid him whenever they could, and he was certain the juniors would be no different. By now, he was wondering if he was suffering some rare form of psychological disorder because whenever he went to parties, his hands would get sweaty and his body would start to tense up like a wire pulled taut. Wherever he was, he felt like he was taking up too much space. Like everyone was watching, waiting for him to mess up. The fact that he usually towered over everyone else didn't really help, either.
It didn't even help when someone actually took pity and talked to him, because in situations like that, he often lost the ability to form even the simplest sentence. Besides, it was always the same three words. 'Wow. You're tall.' Even after years of hearing it, he still hadn't figured out an answer better than 'yes'. Because honestly, what else was there to say?
To put it simply, being around many people left him painfully uncomfortable, and he was terrible at hiding it. He often wondered if that came from being an only child, or if it would be different had his parents put him through more community activities and fewer chord progressions and polyrhythmic drills. Not that all the piano training had done him any social favours. It only added to the label stamped on his forehead from the moment he started coming top in class. Reiner used to tell him that they were just envious and that he shouldn't worry about it. Easy to say when the only thing he ever worried about was the outcome of the next football match.
He had hoped that maybe, if his grades dropped, people might at least stop seeing him as a swot. Apparently, it didn’t make any difference whatsoever. Everyone still regarded him as the lanky, antisocial weirdo and always would.
Everyone except Reiner, that was. His best friend.
His only friend.
Bertholdt replied with a final ‘Will do’ before letting out another sigh. When the bus he'd been waiting for finally arrived, it was delayed by almost half an hour.
Not that it mattered. As always, he da no plans for the weekend.
As always, he'd spend his free time alone.
Annie
The climb up the Wall took longer than Annie had expected. Judging by her aching arms, she must have scaled about the height of the big ivy by now, and that was almost as high as the highest trees! The fact that some of the staples had come loose over the years didn’t make it any easier. More than once, they had given way under her grip, leaving her dangling in the air. It wasn’t enough to halt her progress, though. More than anything, the thought of treading ancient paths filled her with unbridled excitement.
It was a miracle in and on itself that the staple ladder had not been sealed or destroyed. Perhaps her father had not deemed her bold enough to actually make the climb. Or stupid, depending on how you saw it.
She wondered how long it had been since a Borrower had last been here. Whoever had built these stairs must have put their everything into it. Judging by the amount of dust and rust, however, it must have lain untouched for generations.
Perhaps, she thought to herself, they aren’t even there anymore. Her father had said himself that he had never been past the Walls, so it would only make sense that they had abandoned the place. It would certainly explain why she had never seen a trace of them.
“Please be there…” she whispered to herself while straining her eyes in the weak light of her pocket lamp.
When she finally reached the top, she almost bumped her head against the ceiling. For some inexplicable reason, she had expected the top of the ladder to be flooded in light - that the portal to the other world would reveal itself in the most spectacular fashion. Perhaps she had been imagining this moment with a bit too much eagerness.
With her lamp held high, she followed the path further until she reached another set of stairs, this time built with nails. It was then that she noticed it: a strange, rhythmic ticking coming from somewhere up the stairs. It was sharp as a cricket’s song, but persistent as the dripping water behind their house.
As if pulled by invisible threads, she followed the unknown sound without another thought.
It took her a total of almost an hour until she finally found the source: a slim yet distinct crack of light.
All her exhaustion was forgotten the moment she noticed it.
The crack was surprisingly small. She would have totally missed it if she had come at night. And at the first glance, it was far too narrow for even a Borrower like her to fit through. Upon closer inspection though, there was a larger contraption attached to it - or rather, to the end of the corridor. A rectangle wall with a circular ring in its centre – a perfect ring, no less. It was odd, to say the least, but even more was the bundle of cables attached to it. She wondered if it was a door powered electrically – if such a thing were even possible. That didn’t explain why there was no handle, though.
She ran a hand over the edge in search for a knob. The surface was smooth like glass – a special material that they rarely came across. It made her wonder if that, too, originally came from the world of the Titans.
In the end, she didn’t find a handle, or anything related. She did notice, however, that the structure didn’t fit smoothly into the wall. Perhaps, if she gave it just a little more of a push…
“It worked!!” she exclaimed, more to herself than anyone else. She had actually managed to move the wall! Now the crack was wide enough for her to squeeze through.
Annie took a deep breath. Then another. And another. Then she pushed herself through the crack and made her way toward the light.
The world Annie found herself in wasn’t anything like what she had imagined.
Granted, she didn’t exactly know what she had imagined, but certainly not… this.
The first thing that struck her was that everything was huge. And with huge, she meant freakin’ enormous!! Instead of the blue sky, there was a ceiling overhead, so far away that for a moment, she wondered if it was even higher than the sky. And there was so much space! No grass, no bushes, no nothing on the ground that could obstruct her view or offer shelter. Just a plain wooden floor and a second, softer floor on top of it. There were structures, yes, but those too loomed high like trees on all her sides. Dare she call this a room? It wasn’t a room in any ordinary sense, but she didn’t know what else to call it. A hall? A great hall? It made the great hall in the passageways laughably small in comparison.
Annie almost forgot how to breathe from the excitement flooding every vein. Carefully, as if afraid she might wake from this dream, she took one step after the other toward the centre of the ‘room’. Treading in open space like this made her incredibly queasy. All her instincts told her that she was presenting herself on a silver platter. But she trusted her senses and scanned her surroundings meticulously. So far, there was no sign of any other living being.
From her new position in the centre of the room, she could make out a lot more details that had evaded her before. The most massive of the blocks looked like a solid wooden cube, while the tallest reached almost to the ceiling. It ran around one corner and had numerous boards filled with all sorts of colourful things. Even an ivy was nestled on one of the higher boards, potted into a container almost as large as her entire room. Bordering on one side was a long, flat plain on high pillars with a second object on lower pillars beneath it. A similar set of structures was on the opposite corner of the room, though entirely black and distinctly slimmer. The strange ticking was coming from a wooden disc on the wall.
And lastly, there was a really massive plain with two layers that took up at least a quarter of the entire space. The fact that the lower layer appeared to be wood made her wonder how a structure this size didn’t collapse under its own weight. A bed, some insane part of her mind pieced together. A bed for a being that must be a hundred times her size.
It then all clicked together in an instant. The wardrobe. The corner shelf. The chair and desk. The door on the opposite wall that was just about as high as the bed was long.
This entire world was a room made for an actual Titan!!
It took her a moment to calm her racing heart and prevent her from fainting right there and then. No matter how many times she had imagined this scenario, how many times she had pictured a world fit for Titans, nothing could have prepared her for the shock of actually seeing it.
So… they were real. They were actually real. No way could a place like this have been built by Borrowers. The stories had been true, after all!
Good thing this room was obviously abandoned. Judging by the tingling in her fingers and toes, she wasn’t sure if she would survive even seeing an actual Titan.
Annie considered bolting right back to her room to process everything she had seen. To maybe even tell her father about her grand discovery. She was about to turn when she noticed a few more details that had eluded her on the first sight: a bundle of large sheets, most likely clothes, stapled in a messy pile. An open book with lines upon lines resting against the backrest of the long, black table. A couple of bags scattered against the shelf and the desk.
The obvious fact that the plant looked vital even though rain would never reach it.
The bone-rattling truth that this room was not at all abandoned made itself known in the form of a distant, powerful quake.
Oh gods, what had she gotten herself into?
Bertholdt
Bertholdt closed the door with less care than usual.
“Darling, careful with the door, please!” his mum called from the kitchen. Apparently, the bus ride had taken so long that she had already started preparing lunch.
“Sorry.” He mumbled under his breath before dropping his coat. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, really.
“Did something happen? Lost the match again? You know you could always switch to a club where they don’t go so hard on you.”
“It’s fine. Just a bad start, that’s all.” He was already rounding the corner when his mum took a good look at him and dropped her work altogether.
“What happened to your face! Look at you, you’re all red and swollen!”
“I know. Certainly feels the part. Completely messed that one up.”
“If you want, I can wrap a cooling pack and get you some decongest-“
“I said it’s fine!” He almost spat the words. “Just give it some time, alright? It’ll heal on its own.”
He started to climb the stairs in lumbering steps, deliberately ignoring the worry plastered on his mother’s face.
“And stop calling me darling, please. I’m turning eighteen next year.”
Annie
When the first quake subsided, Annie was about 80% sure that it had only been her imagination. When a pair of muffled voices followed, not as much anymore. And when the quakes grew even more heavy, she finally snapped and bolted for the nearest hiding spot which was the footing of the bed.
No epic tale nor wildest dream had prepared her for the moment that the door started to move - only to reveal an entity that was the stuff of nightmares. A Titan. An actual living, breathing Titan was pushing aside the massive door like it weighed nothing before ducking his head under the towering doorframe.
Annie forgot how to breathe. She forgot how to exist. She forgot how to do anything other than stare higher and higher and higher from behind her hiding spot in sheer disbelief.
The door closed with a deafening clack! and Annie's entire frame cringed. She was now trapped in the room with a Titan. Oh gods, how could things end up like this? She had only wished for a little peek!
The quaking steps drew closer to her hiding spot.
Oh gods oh gods oh gods!!
A yelp escaped her throat when - out of thin air - a giant bag crashed down to the floor right next to her hiding spot. Then the pair of gigantic feet stopped right next to the bed frame and turned on the spot until they faced away. An unnerving growl was all the warning she got before an explosion louder than anything she’d ever heard reverberated through the bedframe overhead.
She couldn’t help it. She shrieked in terror at the prospect of being buried alive beneath the wooden construction most definitely not sturdy enough to support the weight of a Titan. The moment he all but collapsed on it, she had accepted her fate and sent a final prayer.
Only she wasn’t dead. And the bed had not crumbled as expected. It took her several moments to realize she had just made a very grave mistake.
At first, the Titan’s feet stayed planted on the floor as if nothing had happened, and for several blissful seconds, Annie almost convinced herself that he had been too distracted to hear her. Then, he started to move. Some panicked breaths later, the bitter reality crashed down in the form of two gargantuan knees and a pair of equally horrific arms dropping to the floor next to the bedframe. When his head, too, came leaning down, she finally tore her eyes away to make herself as small as possible.
Oh, how she wished she could merge with the wood right there and then.
She could feel his presence like a leaden blanket. His massive form was enough to cast heavy shadows across the entire space. Her throat constricted with fear while heart ran faster than a hawk-moth. From right behind her hiding spot, she could hear the subtle noise of shifting fabric and heavy gusts that were his breaths.
“Huh.” He finally said.
It was the most menacing thing she had heard in her lifetime.
“I could have sworn that…” his voice was right behind her now. No doubt he was scanning the floor inch by inch in this very moment. If he decided to look deeper into the space or wrap a hand around the footing, she was done for. If she flinched even a little, she was done for as well. Even with her hands folded over her mouth, she was praying he didn’t hear her breath.
“Bertholdt, darling! Lunch is ready!” A new, female voice called from beyond the door.
It was like the voice of an angel. One that magically pulled the Titan’s – Bertholdt's– attention away, granting her just a small reprieve.
“Coming!” Annie instinctively sheltered her ears from the booming voice. It wasn’t even directed at her, and yet it hurt like crazy in her eardrums.
For a few more agonizing moments, he scanned the area before finally, finally retreating from her hiding spot.
“Urgh, whatever. Must've really hit my head or something...”
The moment she was alone in the room, Annie crossed the floor with the speed of lightning.
No way in hell would she ever come up here again. She wouldn’t leave her room for months!