Memoirs of the Lost Loser

Trust

You sat there, disoriented. What now? Your horse ran away, you have no bomb to use against the female titan and you're barely conscious. What good would you be if you went inside the forest and took on the female titan as you are now?

"Hey, Clare." You mumbled, gaining her attention. "We packed numbing pills, right?"

"Sorry Johnson, we're not allowed to just take—"

"Give me." You growled at her, taking her aback. They already injected you with an energy boost shot, but with this much pain, you couldn't think straight.

You had an inkling any more dosage and uncertain combinations would kill you, but the gravity of the consequences have not yet kicked in.

"You know what morphine does to you—"

"Damn it Clare, just give it to me." You couldn't wait for her anymore and helped yourself through the boxes of syringes, with labels and color codes to indicate the contents of the syringe.

Without hesitation, you grabbed at least a couple of them, shook your gear to check and refill your gas range, and took off, taking one of the cart's horses with you.

***

"Phoebe, you shouldn't go inside! We have an order to stay away from the forest!" You heard Nanaba's nagging one last time, before you kicked the side of the horse and hurried off inside. Now that's what you call trees. As soon as the canopy covered you, there was this instant coolness in the air you can only feel in the early hours of the morning.

It was comparably darker inside too.

Wait, Nanaba?

"Johnson, wait!" What the hell? Your neck snapped almost immediately, your eyes widened upon realizing that Nanaba followed you inside. For fuck's sake, did Clara rat you out? To Nanaba no less? You groaned in frustration, riding faster, thinking that the speed and utter hopelessness will make her give up and hopefully report back instead .

Instead, she challenged you to a race.

"Johnson!" The trotting of horses behind you only got louder, indicating how close she was.

"Johnson we shouldn't be here!" Nanaba exclaimed. "Johnson! The order is to stay around the forest!" And it was nice of her to assume you're not doing this on purpose.

"Phoebe! I'm your senior and you'll listen—"

"Leave!" You abruptly pulling the reins, forcefully swerving the horse's neck and colliding with her horse. The neighs were the last thing that registered in your ears before the crash in the ground, with your groan in the background. The wind felt damp in your face, then a second later, the sensation of slimy, rough patch of moss rubbed into your cheek. Mud tasted like chalk and bitter, wild greens when you kissed the moistened ground. You expected pain in the extremes— you knew it was coming, but it surprisingly did not hurt as much.

Your senses were perfectly working— too perfect you thought you're high with a new drug.

Just what is this feeling? It's empowering.

You can feel the scarlet seeping from your bandages— hyper aware that your head injury must've reopened and you're in the verge of losing blood but the interesting part was, you can't feel any pain. You could feel the scalp and strands of hair in the bind of the bandage but it wasn't painful, at least, not entirely.

But now is not the time to be curious, Febe! A pregnant woman just fell from the horse!

Almost by instinct, you looked up, only to meet Nanaba's laid back, almost sleepy, hooded eyes with her hand stretched out. It took you a couple minutes to realize she knew what she was doing while you didn't, being the only reason that she survived a horse accident unscathed.