Humanity's salvation

2 : Training Corps

The instructor went in the ranks, interrogating his new students on where they were from and why they were here. Only a few of them stood out, because the man named Keith Shadis didn't interrogate them. Other stood out for their answers. He stopped in front of me, trying to stand still despite the apprehension. 

"Who are you ?" he asked me. 

"My name is Isabella Ritz." I answered with a clear voice. "I am from Krolva District."

"What are you doing here ?"

"Enrolling, obviously." I immediately regretted those words, that were way too smug. I absolutely did not want Shadis to be on my bad side, so I continued. "I want to serve the people and protect them, sir." 

"And you think we want scum like you to protect the walls ?" he immediately answered. "You think you can do anything ?"

"I think you'll be surprised, sir." I muttered when he went ahead. 

He asked the same questions to a few other. Two of them wanted to serve in the Military Police to live confortably, another misplaced his right and his left, putting his hand on his right side. And one of the last was eating a potato she said she stole in the kitchens. All the recruits were silent, and even Shadis stood there, baffled. She cut it in two parts and gave one to him, as we were all still watching, absolutely terrified. That was a bold move, and I wasn't even sure she realized. 

After this short introduction, we settled down in the cabins we would be sharing. During this time, the potato girl, Sasha, had to run around the grounds. 

"She's been at it for five hours now." one of us said. 

"It's quite impressive." I admitted. "I would have just skipped dinner."

"She's from Dauper, isn't it the small village of hunters in the mountains ?" asked a small guy with shaved grey hair, Connie. 

"It is." I nodded. "By the way, what's happening there ?" I pointed to carriages leaving the grounds. 

"The ones that failed." answered another one, with brown hair and green eyes. "They asked to go somewhere else, even though it's only our first day." 

"That Shadis guy must have made quite the impression." 

"That's the way it goes. The weakest have to go." continued the same green-eyed guy. 

"By the way, he didn't ask where you were from." notted another guy with freckles, Marco. 

"Just like Armin" he said, patting a small blond on the shoulder. "We're from Shiganshina."

There was a silence following the declaration. We all knew what had happened in Shiganshina a few years earlier, and it wasn't the most heart-warming story. On the contrary. 

"Wait, that must mean you were there on that day ! You saw the Colossal Titan ?" Connie exclaimed. 

"I did."

The same conversation took place at dinner. The green-eyed guy's name was Eren, I learned that quite fast. I learned a lot about what actually happened back then. I used to meet a lot of people in the tavern, with different stories, but it was the first time one of the refugees actually talked about that day with details. 

"Sorry to ask about that, it must be traumatizing, but what did he look like ?" I interrogated him. 

He didn't even hesitate. "He barely had skin and his mouth was huge". 

"What about the Armored ?" I asked. "I heard that even canons couldn't stop him."

"Well, thay say that, but I didn't think he was that impressive." Well, he was obviously bragging when he said that. He was one of the few of us who already witnessed a Titan, so we had nobody else to ask, but I knew that couldn't be true. We were all children chen it happened, so it was quite obvious he would have been terrified.