Chapter Text
I heard the front door close downstairs, softly closing my book as I heard heavy footsteps make their way up the stairs. I held my breath, trying to discern the level of drunkenness based on the cadence of the footfalls as they thumped up the steps. The wooden floorboards creaked outside of my bedroom door and I felt my heart jump into my throat. I could hear muttering outside my door and a soft bump against the wall before the procession continued past my room. I exhaled slowly, slipping off from where I’d been lying on my bed to softly pad across the floor. I pressed my ear to the door as the footsteps disappeared into the room at the end of the hall and abruptly stopped with the distinct creak of a bedframe. I waited a few minutes before slowly opening my door and peeking into the hallway. Empty.
I hurried across the hall to my mother’s bedroom. She was sitting in a chair by the window, her hands folded in her lap. Despite the air of calm, I could see her knuckles turning white from how hard she was clenching her fists. Somehow, she seemed ever thinner and more frail than the last time I’d seen her, making my stomach flip. Her head turned towards me, a small smile forming on her pale lips at the sight.
“He’s home,” I whispered and she gave me a simple, slow blink in response.
“Why don’t you run out for a bit?” she said at a normal volume. “See if any of your friends are around.”
I knit my brows. “Mama--”
She shook her head pointedly as I heard a deep groan from the bedroom down the hall. “Clara!” called a gruff voice and the unsteady march down the hall began again. I skirted around my mother’s chair to stand stiffly behind her as the looming figure of my uncle filled the doorway. Even from a distance, he reeked of alcohol and I fought the urge to wrinkle my nose at the stench. His gaze slid from my mother to me and he frowned.
“Garrick. I’m just about to send (y/n) to the market,” my mother told him. “Could you fetch her some coins to buy ingredients for dinner, please?”
Garrick belched, shuffling into the room and regarding me with bleary eyes. “Nothin’ fancy,” he grunted at me, digging into his pocket and dropping a few coins into my hand. I clenched my fist around them, sparing a glance at my mother. She merely nodded her head towards the door and I reluctantly made my way out of the room.
“Close the door on your way out,” Garrick growled at my back and I did as he said, shutting the door behind me. I lingered a few moments, fighting the urge to re-enter the room before finally slumping my shoulders in defeat and making my way downstairs. The room was sparse -- just a simple kitchen with a table and chairs. Many of our personal belongings were now gone -- either sold by me or my mother to make ends meet or stolen by my uncle to fund whatever it was he got up to when he was out. All we really had left were a few books from my father’s collection that I kept hidden safely under the floorboards of my bedroom. I stepped into the cobbled streets of Shiganshina and made a beeline for the market with guilt twisting up my insides.
It had been two years. Two years since my father passed away. Two years since my mother’s health began to decline. Two years since my uncle moved in with us under the guise of taking care of my mother and me in his brother’s place. Instead, he had been slowly drinking and gambling away my father’s hard earned money.
My mother had started getting sick just before my father’s accident. Back then, we had been able to afford medicine for her. Once Garrick moved in, the caretaking role had fallen solely to me. I’d done the best I could with some apothecary books from my father’s collection, but it paled in comparison with a real doctor. Without proper care, and with Garrick’s habit of taking his gambling losses out physically onto my mother, her health had been rapidly declining to the point where she seldom left her bedroom. I stared up at the indifferent grayness of Wall Maria, feeling as though they had inched inwards and made my world just a bit smaller. I felt dizzy with claustrophobia.
I was so consumed by my thoughts that I didn’t notice the blond boy with his nose buried in a book until we had collided head-on. Both of us fell to the ground with grunts, the book skittering across the cobblestones to slide to a halt by my knee. I rubbed my forehead where I had unintentionally headbutted him. The boy was mirroring me and gave me a sheepish look.
“Sorry! I wasn’t looking!” he babbled, big blue eyes widening until they almost swallowed the top half of his face. His straight blond hair fell neatly to his shoulders and I recognized him as another local kid my age, Armin Arlert. I’d seen him running around with Dr. Jaeger’s kids -- they always seemed to be getting into trouble with the bigger, meaner kids in town.
“It’s okay, I wasn’t paying attention either,” I replied, slowly standing and offering my hand. “Your name’s Armin, right?”
The boy nodded and took my hand gratefully. “And you’re (y/n). My grandfather knows your family.”
He let me pull him to his feet. I knelt to pick up his book but paused, my hand hovering over the open pages. An illustration of a vast, sprawling field of white with a multicolored sky took over half of the page and the sheer unique beauty of it made my throat close up. I’d never seen anything like it in any of my father’s books. I picked it up, flipping through it, finding more fantastical pictures. I noticed Armin stiffen slightly and raised my eyes to catch his nervous expression.
“What is this?” I whispered. He hesitated, so I quickly added, “My father kept a lot of books. I really like to read, but I’ve never seen something quite like this before.”
He flushed, looking around anxiously as if afraid of being overheard. I did the same; wariness was second-nature to me at this point. Armin leaned forward conspiratorially and I unconsciously did the same. “It’s about the outside world,” he whispered. “Beyond the walls.”
My eyes widened and I snapped the book shut, clutching it to my chest and moving into the shadows of a nearby alleyway. Armin trailed after me, stumbling a bit on the uneven street as he tried to match my quick pace. I whirled around again once we were safely out of sight, pressing the book back to him. He seemed to relax once it was back in his possession and he thumbed through it with a sort of reverence. “These books are forbidden,” I murmured. “You shouldn’t read them out in public.”
Armin didn’t seem to be listening as he turned the book back towards me. It was back on the page I had seen when I first picked it up. Despite myself, I leaned in to get a better look. The ground was flat and pristine, the purest white I had ever seen. Above it, the night sky was blanketed by rays of green, purple, and pink. “It says there are fields of ice that stretch on for miles and miles,” Armin told me. “The ice never melts -- it stays that cold all year, even in the summer! And at night, multicolored lights dance across the sky…”
I sat down heavily on an upturned crate and Armin paused, watching me carefully. I was looking at the walls again, at the great, impenetrable stone that had kept me within the Shiganshina District my entire life. The walls that trapped me with Garrick. I turned my gaze back to Armin. “What else does it say?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. He gave me a toothy grin, joining me on the crate and shifting the book so that half of it spread over my lap. He spent the next hour weaving tales of giant mountains, endless salty waters, sandy plains and water that fell from enormous heights. I latched onto his every word, riveted by even the idea of a magical world beyond the walls, even if I wasn’t completely sure it existed. Armin was an excellent storyteller. He had that in common with my father.
Eventually the sun began to set behind the walls, dipping us in deep, purple shadows. I paled, realizing I had little time to pick up what I needed for dinner before the merchants started closing up their stalls. I jumped to my feet, cutting Armin off in an explanation of animals with necks so long that they could feast off the tops of trees.
“I have to go!” I gasped, turning to rush back into the street. I paused, turning back to Armin and flashing him a grateful smile. It felt odd on my lips, like a stranger. “Thank you for sharing. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“Wait!” Armin called after me, but I was already rushing down the street.