From Marley, with Love.

Chapter 75: Sinking

"Yurgh!" Rosanna exclaimed as she got swiped out of the air and pulled from the hail of stones. She could taste blood, the sharp chunks of rock had sliced open her face, and small streams of blood ran down her cheeks and forehead. Like gruesome bloody tears. Paralyzed, Rosanna stayed put in the giant hands of the Armored titan. All around her, she could hear the panic and the chaos of soldiers. Through a crack in the titan's hands, she could see the world wiz by. Titans, buildings, soldiers. All scrambling for fight, food, and freedom.

Rosanna felt a throbbing headache behind her eyes, she felt the Armored titan sidestep and tackle a group of three titans who clung to him. their nasty grinning mouths salivating and gnawing at his armor. The armored titan roared, pushing a way through the enemy lines and crossing the enemy line into safe territory.

"You found Bauer!?" a familiar voice barked, there was the sound of automatic machine guns. The Marleyans were pushed back into the back of Shinganshina. Squashed between titan attacks and the enemy soldiers that still led their attack.

Rosana squinted her eyes shut when the bright sunlight got in her eyes, she raised her hand to block the light.

"Rosanna!" A clear, concerned voice called out. The sun was blocked out by two familiar silhouettes.

"Commander?" Rosanna groaned, wiping at her wet face.

"Thank god, you're alive."

"Am I dead?"

"No, no. You're hurt but not dead." Pieck said reassuring her, gently taking Rosanna's hand and holding it.

Rosanna's green eyes peek out from a red mask of blood, and she felt a strong urge to sob. Finally, familiar faces whom she trusted.

"Thanks for saving me. I... I almost thought I was done for."

"We need to get you out of here, we need to fix those wounds," Pieck said.

Rosanna felt herself black out as she was lifted up and carried away.

Rosanna was out for many hours; she only came when she felt the sensation of being lifted and put down on a moving creature. At first, she thought it was a horse. Or a cart. But she could feel a massive heartbeat underneath her, her own heart matched it. She woke up when she heard the ricochet of bullets off of metal, she blinked and shot up. She pushed her blanket off of her, she was put into a small compartment of the Cart's armor, she had been in there before during longer military travels or chases. Through the gunner slots in the armor, she could see they were being chased down.

"Aha! You're awake!" Magath said he was at the front of the armor, handling the massive guns at the neck of the armor.

"Make yourself useful, if you will, Bauer." He added, before taking out a small group of swarming soldiers with the guns.

In a daze, Rosanna grasped for the gun that lay at her feet. She felt up her face, feeling the bandages and the few stitches in her face. She did not feel any intense pain, except for the cold burning of the wind in her cuts.

She pushed herself into a crouching position, aiming her gun into the gunner slot and taking aim. She knew she would have trouble handling the ricochet of the gun, her muscles were painful from laying still and the strenuous movements she had made to escape Zeke. As the group of soldiers that were making chase of the Cart came into view. Rosanna shot at them, taking down the front two guards. More seemed to pop up from behind the wall.

She reloaded and aimed again, only to be jerked back onto her side when the Cart made a large jump to the right to avoid a force of soldiers coming at them. Rosanna groaned, grasping her side and propping herself back up on her knees to keep shooting.

"PIECK TAKE A HARD LEFT HERE! I CAN'T AIM!" Rosanna yelled over her shoulder.

The cart yanked itself left across a few houses and knocked down a bell tower on three titans. The bell in the tower let out one last pathetic, dim "BOING" before falling down onto the street. Rosanna took aim at the soldiers, shooting down a large portion of the swarm. Rosanna's shirt stuck to her sweaty back and shoulders, her hair disheveled and sticking to her forehead. She felt a shiver down her spine, her finger tense around the cold trigger... and then....

Nothing.

Or something.

She had sunk through the ground into a dark blue desert stretching out before her. She was frozen to the ground, her hands touching the fine, white sand. She blinked and looked around, seeing the soldiers she had just shot. The one mid-fall lay in the sand, gasping for air and pressing on his wounds. His eyes were enormous.

"I just shot him... but..."

Rosanna looked around, there she saw all the other soldiers, and Pieck, and people in the town and peaople miles and miles away on the continent. And her aunt... her aunt was there... alive and well. Only old and her painful back bent by the many years of hard labor.

"AUNT! LOOK HERE!!" Rosanna wanted to yell, but her throat was shut as if she would choke on her words. Then all the people looked up at the large, glowing tree on the horizon of that desert. And a voice spoke.

"To all subjects of Ymir. My name is Eren Yeager. I'm using the power of the Founding Titan to address all of Ymir's subjects. The hardening of all walls present on Paradis has come undone, and all titans entrapped within them have started marching. My objective is to protect the people of Paradis, the place where I was born and raised. However, the world wishes for the annihilation of the people of Paradis. The hatred that has been swelling up for so long will certainly not end until not just the Paradisians, but all of Ymir's subjects have been eliminated. I reject that wish. The wall titans shall trample all Earth outside of this island underfoot until all life existing there has been exterminated from this world."

"No..." Rosanna sobbed... she could see the people in front of her phase away, sinking into the sand. Just like her aunt, that old, proud, and loyal woman with her walking stick and a bad back. All those people... would be horribly crushed... like ants.

Tears ran down her cheeks, as she nervously looked around to find any familiar faces. In the far distance, she saw a silhouette, sitting on the floor. Building a sandcastle. Zeke.

Rosanna gritted her teeth; her mind went blank and she started to run.

"YOU FOOL! YOU POOR EXCUSE OF A HUMAN BEING!" She cried, "WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW!?"

Zeke slowly looked up, peaking at her with sad dark blue eyes. Rosanna felt herself sink away into the sand; she fell.

"WHEN WILL IT EVER BE ENOUGH!?" she gasped for breath, struggling against the sand that was trying to drown her. She grasped hold of his arm.

"Why couldn't we just play catch? Every day?" she muttered and sank down.