Your ears rang as you heard the harsh banging sounds of a gun. With novice hands, you aim the nozzle at the unknown shadow of an enemy near where you stand.
‘Calm down, follow the protocols.. just like you trained.. calm down.’
Beads of sweat trickle down to your brows, and smudges of the now-dried blood of your allies smear your delicate skin. Your hand still hesitates to shoot at the fear of killing another person.
Of abandoning your humanity.
Unfortunately for you, the enemy in front of you has far abandoned his humanity to hesitate in ending your life. He moves swiftly and with a deft set of movements that you trained, your survival instincts kicked to further the distance between you two from another sturdy cover of whatever debris there is. Your gun still pointing at him.
"Hands up in the air and identify yourself!" You shout, your voice is full of authority and command. Masking the nervousness of your voice since you only had one shot left. You were too reckless in spending those damn bullets and look where that got you and your allies now.
You were at the top of your class, but you realize you're nothing in the face of real-life adversity. The culprit to the deaths of your allies did not stop walking towards you his form ready to lunge at you and prepare to shoot you. In panic, you shot at him and he shot at you. At that moment you immediately switched to your tactical knife and lunged toward him. The adrenaline rush fuels every inch and vein of your body.
You barely felt the impact of the shot to your chest. It didn't matter as long as you were to "defeat" the enemy in front of you. You stabbed his chest, intentionally missing his heart with your mind still positive you could apprehend this guy alive.
Oh, what a fool you are.
‘Dangit..’
The sirens and the flickering lights of blue and red shining down on you and your adversary were the last things you saw. The reinforcements, your superior officers are now here and you feel so much safety now that they've arrived. Your job here is done all you're doing is now to wait for them to carry you and what's left of your allies.
You feel the darkness envelop you in a warm embrace.
“Always and always prepare your mind to strike the fatal points.
No! Not like that
Your enemy won't be as merciful and as kind as you.”
The fond memories of your father teaching you self-defense as a child wash over you. Your father's last sentence of those lessons blurs in the depths of your memory. You feel safe in his presence as he teaches you things important in life.
“No! Don't be reckless!
Here, always watch for the shoulders of your enemy.”
You miss him. You wish just about right now your father would protect you. Your eyes open up and you find yourself in the middle of dark nothingness. Your feet feel the texture of the warm sand. The peaceful something about the air graced by the stars above you. The near blinding light that's branching out in the vast starry skies. You find yourself in a warm embrace of a girl. Her blonde hair cascaded to frame her solemn face but something about her eyes looked like she was grieving. She's muttering something under her breath you can't make out of. Something eerie about her voice as she suddenly sounded like your father.
‘So that your wariness of his form won't give away where you'll guard.’
You wake up, your breaths ragged and your heart beating fast. You never felt anything as unsettling as that. You try to remember the dream of that girl. Your mind filled with what she was saying. You could've sworn you heard her tell you something. You forgot but you can tell it's very important.
Your complicated thoughts wake you to realize you're in a bed. A wooden one at that. You look around your room with complete confusion and recognize almost all of it to be made out of wood. Wood you don't recognize. Not like you know the differences of wood at a glance but something about them feels so different. Just as you are about to sit up to make sense of your surroundings, you feel a pang on your head. You instinctively held your temples in a futile effort to support and alleviate the pain. Just then you felt a fabric wrapped around your head.
Then everything floods in,
‘Memories? Who's? Mine?’
Everything came at once at you but at the same time, it's not all of the memories. You knew deep down you were missing some of them still.
‘This is all too weird…’
Then it suddenly dawned on you. Your allies back then lying on the ground with bloodied gunshot wounds, you didn't know if any of them were alive. You had no time to check. The culprit in front of you, you try a last desperate attempt to survive the encounter and him trying to kill you and the bullet piercing your skin.
Panicked, you hurriedly checked under your chemise for any gunshot wounds and were surprised to find none.
‘But wait. Chemise? A rough fabric at that.’
It's unlike the cotton sleepwear you used to sleep with. Then you felt a knock and the door open just as you were still looking inside your chemise.
"Oh my, Eve my child is finally at that age huh? I guess marriage will come around anytime soon!" You hear a familiar voice from your side. You watched a familiar figure bring you what looked like a bowl of warm oats and freshly baked bread. Something about her tells your other memories that her name is Anne and she's your mother.
‘Mom?
Huh? She's my mom?’
You blink in confusion as you take in this new information around you. She looked at you, observing your expression. "The medicine the doctor gave you yesterday must've still been making you confused at the moment." She chuckles as she sits down on the bed beside you, gently placing the tray of warm oats and bread on your lap. Somehow watching you made her feel sad, her lips forcing a small smile on her face. "Next time child, don't be too reckless alright?" She said her face now full of worry.
“Don't be reckless child.”
Suddenly the words of your father surfaced from your memory and it snapped you back to your senses. Then you felt the rumbling tummy of your stomach that you could no longer indulge in your musings and ignore the warm food. You gobbled it up in no time. It tastes well, bland but tasty. No food doesn't taste tasty when one's hungry.
Your mother smiled upon seeing you eat very eagerly the worry on her face subsided and left you in your own space as you ate. Just as you were finished eating you finally feel like yourself. Now you have both the time and energy to make sense of your surroundings.
“Let's see..”
First, the place and the neighborhood outside looked, well underdeveloped and that's an understatement! You were going to try and walk around your bedroom as you remember it but it seems as though your left leg is injured which further limits your ability to explore. Then your head seems as though it was injured considering that you had a bandage wrapped around your head. It hurts whenever you touch the side of your temples! You have no bra and only have shorts tied like a sac around your waist for underwear. Everything is so weird and uncomfortable!
You take a second look at the neighborhood outside your window and breathe in the scenery of your room. The cold air of a sunny morning has a faint smell of horse shit and pee. What a morning, as your senses finally start adapting you feel as though you're having an uncanny dream. Like how you felt as a child when you first watched Alice in Wonderland or Coraline. Everything feels so real and so unreal at the same time. A stranger in your own home.
None of this makes sense considering the prior events that took place while you were in your internship in your criminology course.
“Whatever dangerous situation befalls you,
Always prioritize to survive first.”
The words of your father echoed in your mind like a warm semblance of home. You miss home. Then you decided, that you must at all costs survive first! Fighting! You throw aside for the time being the uncanny feeling and focus on healing those legs first. You can't fight back after all if you're not healed just in case danger happens right?
Just as you were in the middle of your self-motivation vibe, you caught sight of a bug crawling on your bandaged injured leg. Shivers ran down your spine as your hand immediately swatted it away then down on the floor. A thick book by your bedside caught your vision and you immediately picked it up and slammed it on the floor. Sentencing the poor bug to its early death.
[ ! ]
A popping sound echoed in your mind but wait in your mind? Whatever you hit your head with probably messed with you at some point. Not that it surprises you anymore, you're in a weird place, the weird neighborhood that smells like horse shit, and a person you never met but you knew is your mother. What makes things even weirder is that all these weird things are familiar because of an old memory that came out of nowhere. So no, a popping sound doesn't make things any weirder at this point.
You heard a knock and the voice of your father or Niels from the other memory calling you, "Eve, is everything alright? I'm opening the door okay?" You heard your father, the father from the other memories at least. The door opens and you notice another man behind him. "Doctor Yeager is here to check up on you and administer your medicine, child." Your father says with a smile then gestures towards the said doctor inside your room.
You watch the man and feel him somewhat familiar; every inch of your body screams it. His swept and neatly combed hair and that signature round glasses of the doctor. Paired with the familiar classy clothing. There's no mistaking it. This man isn't familiar only because of the other memories but also because of your memories during your freshman college years!
‘Doctor Grisha Yeager! Eren's father!’
I think I may now have an idea of where I am now. You sheepishly laugh to yourself.
Year 839,
