Haze [AOT Female Reader Insert]

Prologue: To You, The Girl Caught in the Haze

Would you do it all again?

It was a question I didn't think would carry so much weight before until you said it. Mindless mutters like that, I would catch you saying to yourself whenever we walked home together that had been reduced to somber silence. It wasn't the silence that bothered me so much, not until after you spoke to me that day. I remember you telling me of a memory associated with that question. You had asked your father that same inquiry after hearing him recount his journey to Marley years after war broke out in his home county. He paused for a moment and let out a quiet, drawn-out breath as if releasing a drag from a cigarette. You observed him seated on the back doorsteps of your shop.

'Why wouldn't I do it all over again?' He'd finally say.

And in your child state, you had replied in a confused tone. 'Because sometimes you look sad about it.'

You chuckled dryly, mumbling that it had seemed so obvious then. Why would you do anything that'd bring you so much pain and sadness? It just didn't make sense to repeat decisions like that.

'I just get sad that it took so much for me to get here and not give you enough,' he'd answer back, his eyes fixed on the setting sun that cast its warm glow over the land. 'If I could go back and do it again...do it better for you to live better, I'd do it a million times.'

You said you didn't get it then, and maybe you'd never understand what he meant entirely. You'd never truly know how it was to live the life he did. Then, you grew quiet, and I was too afraid to betray the intimacy of your shared story. I was always scared I'd do something wrong when the silence became unbearable. You had talked less animatedly those days, and it always sounded like you'd cry any moment.

And even now, I can still trace the image of your face, warm and bright from the evening sun, the colors bleeding into your eyes. The two of us, having walked onto the very steps where you and your father once sat. It hurts me to think that back then, you must have felt suffocated, unable to carry your pain any longer. If I wasn't such a coward, I would have done something before it was too late. But I could not save the person I viewed with the same fondness of the sun you stared at.

"Would you do it all again, [Name]?"

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You've been having strange dreams.

Most of the time, you'd barely be able to grasp them before they could leave you. A myriad of scenes stitched together that wouldn't make sense, as if someone had haphazardly shuffled them and dumped them into your brain. A few you would be able to decipher, like those of memories with your father or mother. Some you knew your brain conjured up, products of fantasy scenarios in the back of your mind, regrets you wished you could change.

But until a few weeks ago, that's all that there had been. Now, there were things you couldn't recall, playing in your head with a dark veil you couldn't seem to pull back to get a glimpse. Whatever dreams...well, they seemed more like nightmares; they plagued you as of late and were some of the worst you had—the most intense you had. It was frustrating waking up with the feeling of a weight crushing you as if your chest would cave in. You'd think you've done something terrible had you not realized they weren't real.

You rubbed at your face with a hand, using the other to wipe away an eye that had shed a few tears in your listless sleep. Your room was dark but still had some presence of early light from the beginning of sunrise. After getting some grogginess off your face, you reached over to your nightstand and fiddled with your alarm clock, having woken up minutes before it rang again. Your body had naturally learned to wake up without the metal device. Still, there were a few times you had stupidly underestimated your exhaustion and slept a few extra minutes, or so you thought, leading you to make too many close calls for tardiness. And that was definitely what you didn't want.