the hilt | eren jaeger

s e v e n - E.J.

[TW: Swearing, Violence, Mentions of abuse]

[Read at your own discretion]

YEAR 849~

Looking back now, I would do absolutely anything to be around them all again, laughing happily, without knowing what the future would hold.

I didn't see the future as a reality, nor did I see it as truth.

I was wrong.

I slowly watched Josephine collapse in on herself, agony being the sole resident inside her fragile mind. 

I watched her drown in her own insecurities, and I did nothing.

She became more calloused and closed off, and began to spew off more and more bullshit about nothing mattering.

It'd be insanely profound and awe-inspiring that she could translate her thoughts into words like that, but her twisted motives brought chills to the spine of all who she spoke to.

I always wondered if it was a coping mechanism to make up for the fact that she felt like she didn't matter, to make up for the fact that she felt like a dismal stain on the timeline of the universe.

Bertholdt distancing himself from her was negatively impacting her more than he or I could've ever expected.

He thought she'd latch onto other people in his absence, but the divide between her and all those who surrounded her only grew exponentially.

She'd argue with me, more than usual, and the arguments would start as bickering, and end up becoming full fledged debates about morality and the existence of life-- Sometimes even getting physical.

Every word that came out of her mouth was hateful and spiteful.

At first, she attempted to mask her anger, but over time, that façade faded entirely. Her innermost thoughts were spewed with neither condolence nor regret. 

The agony she was in would drip off her words, seep into the ground, and sow the sand beneath her feet into a dangerous garden. The one drop from her forbidden fruit would've instantly killed anyone who came into contact with it, and I made that very mistake of feeling hunger in her presence.

Looking back now, I see that I should've been more delicate, more caring, more understanding-- But I wasn't, and that is my burden to bear.

The moment I tried to console her, a few weeks after the winter trip, was the worst argument we'd ever have. It paled in comparison to everything else we had ever said to each other-- and still paled in comparison to everything we would ever say to each other in the future.

There was no more sarcasm in the blunt remarks, there was no more strained empathy, it was only pure anger and agony.

She was demented by her own anguish, and lashed out at me. 

I didn't deserve what she said, and she knew that too, but her heart never seemed open enough to show it. 

She'd matured disturbingly fast, and as fast as that happened, the light in her eyes slowly dried up, leaving only a dry, dark shadow of what she had once had.

Even if Hoover has told me the light died in her eyes the day he met her, I strongly believed that it slowly worked its way back, crawling and raking on whatever stronghold it could find. It struggled to exist, but it had existed nonetheless.