Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The man felt like he was floating.
His body felt weightless and detached. An innumerable amount of memories were flying by him. The fragmented images created a cacophony of noise and there was a distant sound of crying echoing around him.
The images continued to flash by. They overlapped one another, becoming more distorted and the sounds grew more incoherent. Terrified screams and explosions permeated through the dark space. He heard a name being spoken again and again.
Eren.
He gazed upon the vague images. He saw a young child with green eyes and brown hair. The young boy woke up alarmed. He sat up in a jolt and touched his hands to his face. He stared in confusion at the tear stains. He was crying. His sister, a young girl with dark hair and overly mature eyes, peered down at him in concern.
“Eren, why are you crying?” She asked.
The sound of her voice drifted away. The man tried to reach forward to grasp the memory. It slipped away. He held onto her name desperately.
Mikasa.
He watched as the moments began shifting more rapidly. He knew deep down that those memories belonged to him. He saw the young boy, standing in the cold, outside an old rundown cottage. His body was covered in blood. The boy glared angrily at his father as the man stared back at him with wide eyes. Eyes that conveyed concern and held an inkling of fear. He heard the distorted sound of his own voice, rebuking his father's claims that he had killed men .
“I disposed of some dangerous beasts. Mere animals that just happened to resemble humans.” He argued as the man stared at his child.
The image slipped away before he could grasp it. His father disappeared like quicksand. He did not get his name. He could not recall. What was his father's name? He felt sick with loss. He did not say goodbye. Everything around him grew darker.
The images moved at a quicker speed, the years passing away in a flurry of unclear scenes as he watched himself grow older, always accompanied by his sister and best friend. More recollections embedded into his mind.
He saw a young boy with inquisitive eyes and blond hair.
Armin.
He held onto the name.
Armin, Armin, Armin.
He watched as the years passed by. He grew older, faced many trials and became hardened by a cruel world. He watched as he grew into something hated, a creature that garnered fear in those around him. He became a monster, a demon, a titan.
He watched the people running in fear. His body chained and shackled. His humanity was questioned.
“What are you?” They asked.
“I'm human!” He yelled.
He watched his two friends change. He watched them turn from young children to hardened soldiers. They grew exhausted from the long battles.
His best friend's voice echoed wearily.
“A person who cannot sacrifice everything, cannot change anything.” He spoke.
More names became clear to him. More memories sped by him.
Jean, Sasha, Connie, Erwin, Hanji, Levi.
They were comrades of a life lost to him. The voices became more and more unclear and the images grew more distorted, fragmented into small pieces as everything came to a close. His life slipped away and everything descended into darkness. He felt his body fall.
He closed his eyes in acceptance, accepting his death, accepting that his life had ended. He did everything he could. The rest was up to them. His fight was over. He pushed against the regret that surfaced. The last image played before him. He was crying, hugging his best friend.
“I don’t want to die.” He spoke.
The memory disappeared. He lay suspended in the dark.
The sound of the distant cries became louder and louder, more forefront. He searched the darkness for the cause of the distressed sounds. The cries continued around him. They grew shrill as the moments passed.
He frowned. The sound was very grating to his dulled senses. He wanted the noise to stop. It grated on his peaceful state. He had imagined death as peaceful, as an absence of life and yet he was surrounded by the sound of the living.
It was the cries of a newborn.
He looked around him in alarm, trying to pinpoint the sound. Everything was dark. The darkness stretched on and on. He was suspended in a space with no end or beginning. He frowned as the cries grew louder and louder, drawing closer and closer to him. The cries were desperately trying to reach out to him, latching onto his airy form. He felt the sound take a tight hold of him. It grew louder in his ears.
Where was the noise coming from? He thought in annoyance.
He could not see a single thing. Everything was dark and he began feeling unbearably hot.
His entire body was burning and he could not move his limbs. The heat surrounded him from all sides. He felt his awareness slowly come back to him. His senses grew sharper and more alert as his body grew heavier. The darkness began to recede and he saw the rays of light break through the empty space.
He blinked his eyes open.
His eyelids felt heavy and he winced in discomfort, slipping his eyes shut. He tried again. He opened his eyes slowly, looking away from the bright lights on the ceiling. He blinked at his surroundings, confusion filled him as he attempted to move his body.
He was alive.
He had died.
He felt a sense of dread fill him at the possibility that he somehow had survived.
The shrill crying continued and he tilted his head to the side, looking around for the source of the noise. He felt wetness on his face. His head felt heavy. His breath hitched at the realization. His head was intact. The cries stopped abruptly and he felt his heart rate pick up as he looked around him.
There was no one in the room. He was alone. The cries were his own.
He moved his head to the side, a strange sound came from his mouth. It sounded infantile. He could not move around freely. His mobility was lacking. He frowned and tried to move his limbs.
It took a while before he was able to clumsily move his arms. He moved his small arms upward in a slow, careful motion and blinked at the tiny limbs in confusion. He gazed at his clenched fists with a confused gaze. He felt his stomach drop at the sight of the pudgy hands that were held in front of his face.
He blinked at the sight, trying to flex the fingers but was unable to move them. They were clenched tightly and he felt the muscles of the tiny fingers shake in response as he tried to get them to move. His eyes widened. The small hands belonged to him.
He was an infant again.