Levi POV
The boy met his gaze, his pain plainly written out on his devastated face while his eyes seemed to be searching for something in his own.
Levi suppressed the urge to swallow and for the first time in many years did he feel the wish to avoid the dark-haired boy's hateful expression.
"Where are your precious authorities now, General?"
Those words...spoken as if the guilt in his stomach wasn't already killing a part of him once again...
He held the boy's gaze, who's name he couldn't even remember. Now and then did his eyes flicker down to the dead woman in the young man's arms. It must be his mother although Levi would rather not take a second look to check if they looked alike.
"You said they would give us what we need. What we needed was protection. We asked for nothing more. Just the assurance that we would be safe here."
The boy hissed the words as if they were filled with the venom he probably wished upon the army of the King who had so tremendously failed his people without him even being aware of it.
When the boy walked past him, keeping his mother pressed up against his chest, he saw the silent tears glistening in those viridian eyes.
"We asked for nothing else. Just for a way to keep living. And you couldn't even give us that much."
- - -
Levi woke from his nightmare with heaving breaths and sweat glued to his skin like a second layer.
Izzy startled from her sleep, ready to attack whoever had scared him with the fur on her neck raised and her teeth on full display.
He inhaled deeply, still too disoriented to fully grasp that he was awake and safe in his chambers back in the palace.
The stench of burning flesh and the sight of destroyed houses were so real there for a second. All those corpses on the sidewalks had been real and Levi closed his eyes, trying to get his heartbeat down again.
His fists clenched around the sheets he was lying under and with a snarl he ripped them off his body to leave his bed in one not all too graceful move. Levi pushed his black hair out of his face and walked over to the open window next to his nightstand.
Izzy was still lying on the bed but her ears were raised attentively and her head tilted as if she expected him to explode any second now.
"It's fine, Izzy.", he whispered, not trusting his throat to voice words any louder than that.
He rested his elbows on the windowsill and leaned his body forward so he could glance up to the bright moon and the thousand stars.
And here I was thinking the nightmares would finally go away.
A raspy sigh mixed with a dark chuckle left his mouth and he shook his head softly.
As if the daily reminders of the horrors he had faced in his youth weren't enough...
Just why the fuck did the massacre in Shiganshina affect him like that?
It wasn't the first time that he remembered the events back then.
And it wasn't the first time that he regretted his late arrival. And all the unnecessary deaths. He was under no illusion that those corpses on the street were the only ones that died that night.
"We asked for nothing else. Just for a way to keep living. And you couldn't even give us that much."
To forget the words of that boy had proven to be the greatest challenge for Levi.
YOU ARE READING
Coming for your heart
Fanfiction|| Book 1 || Eren Yaeger had to flee from his home when he was only six years old. With his mother and his adopted sister he tries to forget anything related to the King and the secrets they left behind. Many years later war comes for Eldia and Er...
