Chapter Text
Grass…
Fields of endless grass and slight hills that break the linear line of sight from one end to the other stretch out in every direction I stand. Blue flowers too, patches of them among the fields of grass blowing with the wind.
Where am I.. better yet.. who am I..?
The last thing I can remember, when was this? I see my.. family? There’s a tent.. In a row of tents, and a girl.. Do.. I kiss her? I can’t remember. There's two kids as well.. What were their names? It’s all so hazy, and I have no recollection of how I got here, in the middle of a grassy field nowhere near anything but trees and grass. But I see something, no.. someone in the distance, around Seventy-Five meters in front of me. It’s a woman, she looks just as confused as I do. I call out to her “Hey! Over here!” But she doesn’t seem to acknowledge me. That's when I hear shouting in the distance behind me, I turn around and a man this time is Seventy-Five meters in front of me, in fact I see past him another person, and another..
What the hell is happening?
A ring in my ears, and suddenly..
The grass fields turn into blue sand as far as the eye can see, and a starry sky looms over with a far off blue light coming from the ground stretching into the sky. “Subjects of Ymir, Hear me” A voice commands
And suddenly now I am back where I stand in the grassy field, but only for a moment until that same ring is heard and I’m transported back to the.. Paths. I remember the name of the place.. Where did I learn it from? I can’t answer it in time until the voice beckons into my ear once more.
“The Eldians who have followed me across the sea shall be threatened no longer.”
The voice commanded.
“The violence of the world will no longer reach them, they will be protected. And on this island, I shall create a paradise.”
“And that paradise will be protected by the towering walls of titans, that I shall create.”
“The walls of Paradis, will begin their ascension."
I’m back to the grassy fields, and suddenly an explosion of lightning happens far off in the distance to my left, and then another.. The strikes of yellow lightning get closer until I finally see from where the lightning struck, mounds of flesh stretching meters up into the sky form, creating titans. The path of lightning strikes diverge into two, one of them, curving into a U shape, is heading in my direction.
I don’t want to be turned into a titan.. Please god no
But it’s too late, the girl turns glowing bright yellow before a shot of yellow lightning hits her, and then I do..
I’ll miss you, Madeline.
…
“Jackson..”
I hear a voice, I can’t see anything, it’s all dark.. It feels moist somehow. Where am I?
“Don’t leave me! Please..!”
I recognize the voice now.. It’s Madeline's, but.. Why is she calling out to me? What's happening?
“I love you!”
I finally see something, it’s me. I’m kneeled down, looking down expressionless into the reflective blackness of the nothingness that surrounds wherever I am. My dark brown hair is dangling from my head, covering my face a bit as I am kneeled down, or rather, my body..
“Get up, why the fuck aren’t you up? Do something for Ymir’s sake!” I shout at my body, I even slap it’s face, I feel it’s slight stubble as I hit it, yet nothing.
“Where is dad going mom..?” I hear a young girl’s voice, it’s my daughter’s.
It’s coming from behind me, I turn around and.. I see it, I see the tent, I see.. I see Madeline. The girl is tugging on her shirt while she's looking away, looking at me, or rather, my body once more.. Except this time it’s not kneeled down, it’s standing in front of them. Then suddenly, it turns away and begins to walk as the girls begin to call out to me, but to no avail as it continues its walk.
“Stop, STOP IT DAMNIT!” I scream, I punch, I kick, I attempt to shove yet not a single thing moves my body, it doesn’t even affect mine, no pain, nothing. Nothingness. Then I hear crying behind me, I turn around and yet now I’m on a sailboat looking at my body and Madeline huddled up in the corner of the ship with our daughter in a room packed with people.
The nightmare won’t end.
But then there’s light.
A blinding light in fact. I can’t see anything except sunlight, I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen sunlight, all I can remember is endless nightmares, constant painful memories of my past that I couldn’t quite piece together but could feel like I was actually there. Yet it felt like the nightmare was as quick as between the blinding light in front of me, and the fields of grass I stood in before.
Suddenly, a city is before me.
Where am I? No.. this is the grassy fields I saw just a moment earlier, except now I’m towering above them! And not just that, but it’s been so long a city has built itself.. How long was I trapped in that nightmare? How many years has it been? Fifty, Eighty? A hundred..?
There’s people staring up at me, the roofs of the houses are all tiled, orange, and they're all stone brick houses, white stone brick too! What gives? Why can’t I move, why can’t I even feel my body? I look around, there’s a towering wall that surrounds the city, as tall as I am, that’s why I can’t move.. I’m part of the wall.
…
The sun I can’t see turns the sky a deep orange, and just when I’m appreciating it, I’m cast into the darkness once more by a sheet covering my eyes. It’s back to the same nightmares, over and over, watching myself leave my family. The family I’d die for, again, and again for, and watching me somehow turn my back on them, it’s impossible.. Why would I ever do such a thing? And I can’t even remember why.. Then back to staring at my hopeless body kneeled down in the abyss, as I stand there looking at it, pathetic. That’s all I’m reduced too, staring helplessly at my pathetic self.
…
But then, I spot something in the emptiness, a lone girl, with blonde hair and old clothing. She's walking in my direction. I watch her, with awe, as she walks up to my body, and simply grabs my shoulder.
I see my nightmares flash before my eyes in a second.
Now I’m back to towering above the city, except I hear crashing sounds of debris, screaming, and then my eyes are uncovered, and I see.
The walls of Paradis are collapsing.
When all the bricks have unveiled the titans hiding beneath, when the ground stops shaking from the constant bombardment of rock, the titans begin moving. I begin moving. Without any consent from myself, I can’t stop it, all I can do is watch as I march across the land alongside the other titans. I’m terrified. Why, why am I marching? Who am I going towards? Why is this happening? I just want this to end.. Please, I want this to end…
Suddenly I’m back in the paths, I’m chained as I was once before as I hear a man’s voice command over.
“Hear me, subjects of Ymir.”
“My name is Eren Jaeger.”
He continues his speech, all of it is so confusing to me.. But I understand a few things better.
“All the walls on the island of Paradis have crumbled to the ground, and the legions of Titans buried within have begun their march.”
All of them..? There’s more people like me..?
“The Titans of the walls will continue their march until every trace of life beyond our shores is trampled flat..”
I’m going.. Trample people?
“and the people of Paradis are all that remains of humanity.”
I’m going.. Murder all of humanity, outside of us..?
…
I’m back outside of the paths, back to reality, the reality where I am a titan going to trample humanity flat. I don’t want to, but my legs won’t stop moving, why did this have to happen to me? What did I ever do to deserve this..? If I could cry, If I could scream, If I could be human, I’d burst my eardrums screaming. But no, I’m simply a gigantic titan whose face is unmoving, unwavering, while my head’s a mess. I feel the trees I crush beneath my feet, I feel the wheat that gets turned to mush as I stomp on it without any consent from my conscience to do so. I lived through, or at least I thought I lived through a hundred years of torture, although it at the same time feels like simply a few minutes past from when I came-to standing in that field of grass.
Finally after maybe a day of marching alongside other hordes of titans as tall as I am, crushing the earth beneath us, I witness the sea. I can’t stop and admire it though, even if I could there’s hordes of titans covering its vast beauty, now cast under dark fear and misery of what’s to come. I feel my gross, gigantic legs submerge under the sea and soon my entire body. Without consent of me, it began to swim. And swim fast. My titan body doesn’t breathe, it doesn’t move its face an inch, I’ve stopped even yearning for air consciously myself.
It’s been hours of constant swimming, but I see something under the depths I face while my gigantic legs kick the water to propel it forward. I see tons of sunken and destroyed hunks of metal on the bottom of the seafloor, were those sailboats? What even is a sailboat.. I try to focus my memory, but it’s so hazy, like I existed only when I stood on the grassy field, but that’s not true. If that was true, who were those people in the paths? I know who they were for certain, they were my family. And for whatever reason, I left them, but I know, I know deep down, I didn’t leave them consciously..
I left them unconscious, someone else controlled my actions.
But I’m thrust out of recalling my memories as I, or rather my titan body, emerges out of the water alongside other hordes of gigantic titans. From here on, my body will trample flat the humanity outside the island of Paradis. It continues its march forward, with the rest of the gigantic titans.
Continuing the march, the hordes of titans are growing smaller and smaller as they continue in separate directions, and just in the distance to me, is a small city. I hope the people fled, please, I pray to god they fled, I don’t want to crush anyone. My legs continue their march towards the seemingly desolate city, alongside the other towering titans beside me. I first feel the crush of pavement, I then feel the trees engulfed in flames from the heat of the colossal titans. Then finally, a building is turned to dust beneath my feet, debris flying high above the sky as I move my legs forward. They leave a trail of dust where they flew, soon coming back down to earth with a thunderous boom and dust cloud where they land.
Please god, please tell me this city is empty.
My body continues its march forward, more houses crushed, more debris sent flying. Flames erupt where it stomps, where it moves. That’s when I see it, that's when I see them…
People in the streets, running wildly, I see it from all the way above… I even hear the screaming.
Please, stop moving, why can’t I stop moving?! God save me, god forgive me.. What am I about to do..?
Am I really.. About to crush these people?
My body moves closer and closer to the people, I want to stop.. I want to stop, I can't stop my body from moving. I don’t have any free will anymore, I’m not in control of my gross body…
I’m a slave…
A slave to Eren Jaeger.
Closer, and closer my body, and the bodies of other like-minded colossal titans move towards these people, faster than they can run from us.
That's when I feel the first humans crushed beneath me.
The screaming is louder and louder, but it’s muffled by the crushing of houses and debris crashing down on the fleeing crowd. As my legs move, debris from buildings go flying towards the people, crushing them.
I have so much pain in my heart…
But it doesn’t change the course of my actions, my body’s movement. It continues to crush people, I can feel the moisture of their blood staining the bottom of my feet. The people begin igniting into flames when the titans get too close to them. Soon the people are crushed beneath the titans anyways, no difference.
The city has been leveled flat. Its remaining inhabitants, crushed. My body continues its march forward, alongside many other colossal titans. Why.. Why did it have to come to this? What in the time I’ve been gone occurred? Why.. Did I crush those people? So many innocent women, children and men with families were crushed beneath my feet, all for what? I want to scream, I am screaming, yet my mouth, my titan body’s mouth doesn’t move an inch. My heads a mess, what did I do to deserve this torture? It doesn’t matter to question it.. After all, I’m heading forward to do it again, and again, until there’s nobody left.
Let me die already…
I’ve crossed countless rivers, forests, mountain ranges, towns and the earth alike. Now, alongside the other colossal titans the vibrant green forests and plains have turned into a dark yellow sweltering landscape of desert with large buttes as far as the eye can see, even from where I’m towering. I’m surrounded by hundreds of colossal titans like me, all walking forward to something far off in the distance I can’t see with the titans in front of me. That’s when I spot something different, a titan unlike all the other flesh monsters, one that's towering above them all…
A titan made up of only bone, in the shape of a gigantic spine stretching out so far, and at the front, its head with hair dangling from its scalp almost all the way to the ground.
Is this.. Eren Jaeger?
It has to be, there's no other explanation for why or rather, who could possibly be that titan. But I don’t have time to focus on that, because soon dozens of explosions erupt on the titan’s spinal back and even below him on other colossal titans like me. They all seem to be exploding from his neck, BOOM, after BOOM erupts the area. Suddenly a different BOOM erupts from a-top the pointy spikes lining the spine of the gigantic titan’s back, it shines brighter than the others. Soon after, that explosion transforms into some gigantic monster-like form that then throws debris into the air. It seems to be aiming at something, the things that were dropping the things causing the explosions. Suddenly now the sky explodes where that monster aimed, and the bombs exploding on the titan, Eren’s titan, ceased.
But then the monster titan on the bone spikes along the titan’s back shifted its focus, up to the clouds where thunder was coming from. Soon it did the same thing as it did before, sending flying rocks at the incoming flying machine, but there were no explosions. That was not until soon after that, a large explosion happened, similar to the boom before that shined bright, except it shined yellow looking like lightning. What was happening? Out of it came not a titan looking like a monster, but rather a titan looking like it had thick, concrete skin. That said titan tackled the monster-like, beast titan. Then soon after that another yellow shining lightning strike, BOOM! I couldn’t see all that far, my body kept marching even while the battle raged on Eren’s titan.
The flying machine flew off into the distance, beyond which I couldn’t see from the titans in front of me. The battle continued, so do I marching towards the last of humanity alongside the other unwilling slaves Eren has control over. That’s when I see past the other colossal titans in front of me, I see people, hordes of people, thousands of people seeming on the edge of a cliff. There's nothing I can do to stop myself from inevitably crushing those people to piles of mush, or making them fall off the cliff and die. So, I watch helplessly as my gigantic titan body marches towards these people, slowly but surely alongside my fellow slaves.
…
We’re almost there now, just a bit further and thousands and thousands of women and children will fall or be crushed to death. I’ll kill them with no reason, no answers to my questions, just an inability to stop myself and thousands others from doing the exact same thing. Why did Eren have to do this? What does he gain? Is this really the only outcome..? I want it to stop, please, I don’t want to kill these people. I already feel a few of them being crushed beneath my feet, their blood feels like the shallow shores of the sea. I want it to stop…
BOOM… BOOM… BOOM….
Did I go deaf? The bombardment of thousands of titans marching has stopped. Do I finally have control of myself again? Am I finally.. Free?
But I can’t move an inch, I still don’t have any control over myself, so then why did I stop marching? Did Eren finally lose control over me, over his army of slaves? As I stand unmoving, I see the ocean stretch out endlessly, I see the people stand still at the edge of the maroon cliff. How long am I going to stand here, will it be another span of years before anything happens? Will I ever even be human again? That’s a stupid thought, of course I’m not going to be a human ever again, I’m just going to be a titan that people will always fear as it stands towering above them.
…
As I stand here, towering helplessly over humans who were just about to be crushed by myself, I try to remember my life. Yet the more and more I remember, the more hazy it gets, the less I know. All I can remember is t- BOOOOOM!
An explosion like no other goes off, the yellow light is nearly blinding even if it’s coming from behind me. The shockwave ripples through the sandy ground I stand on, and even the air between the hordes of titans behind me. And then, silence.
The silence continues on for a minute, or two before yet another explosion happens not nearly as powerful but within the same manner. I can’t see what's happening behind me and the hordes of titans on the near of the cliffside, but the sounds of a battle seem to be echoing. It goes on and on, why doesn’t any of this make sense? What’s happening, why is it happening, why did I have to crush all those innocent people?
Then suddenly, the sea that was laid before my eyes just hanging below the cliffside stretching out as far as I could see, it was gone…
Suddenly I was in the paths again, within a second, I was instead looking down at the blue sand, my hands restricted with metal chains. I gasp for air, hastily looking up, what the hell happened? I’m in my body, my real human body, the one from before that was chained kneeling to the ground, I’m finally in control of it again. I look to my left where my hand is chained, I lift my knee and put my foot on the ground to stand up. The chain holds me down, but it’s weak, I can tell, I stand up with every last bit of physical and mental strength I have and with that.
Snap
It breaks, the iron around my wrists soon turns to sand and falls to the floor, I turn to my right and push my arm away from its chain.
Snap
Just like the other, it soon turns to sand and falls to the floor. I finally stand on my own two legs, within my own body, finally free.
“Jackson, honey look!”
I turn around, and now I’m in a small stone brick house, I recognize it. It’s the house I lived in, with Madeline for years before.. Before what? In front of me Madeline is lying down on a comfortable bed with white sheets, a blanket and a wooden frame. And in her arms is my beloved, it’s Abby, our daughter. I remember this so vividly, the first time I laid eyes on her, my world, my new found meaning in life. Such a simple moment, yet it still burns so brightly within my mind, even after so much has happened.
“I love you..”
Why would I ever leave them..?
…
CA-CA-CA, a crow high above me screeches, flying off into the sandy arid desert. I blink my eyes, it’s a bit blurry at first but it comes to, where am I? My head is face up, blue skies and clouds like that of which I saw before encapsulates my vision. I feel the sun beating down on my face, with sandstone beneath me on my back, feeling ever so slightly warm. Why is that crow here? It should be far away, it can fly away as far as it wants, so why is it here?
I sit up finally, thick fog that I hadn’t seen before surrounds me, blocking my vision even just ten feet away from me. There's large bones that's smoking alongside muscle and flesh attached to it, I finally pick up my hand and touch my face. I did it, I controlled my own body, am I finally free? Is what lies in front of me, my old titan body?
Am I finally Free?