𝔇𝔢𝔣𝔦𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢 (𝔏𝔢𝔳𝔦 𝔵 ℜ𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔯)

CIV - An Eye For A Life

"I saw Hange and Moblit before I got to you, I'm not sure they made it through the explosion," he voiced, and my heart dropped.

***

I wasn't sure if I had heard him correctly or not, but the more my head seemed to echo the words through what was now an empty void in my mind, the more it seemed to sink in.

"Hange's..." Her name was the quietest of whispers, even quieter than the crackles of what sounded like a fire nearby. But I refused to think it was true. She couldn't be dead. Not her, not Moblit, not all of them. I had never felt such a crippling defeat overwhelm my body before. My muscles were tight, my lungs were burning, my head was spinning.

"Hey!" A voice shredded through the numbing barrier my mind had built around itself, sight finally returning to reality as my eyes met Zion's green ones. The zip of an anchor ripped through the air, the crunch of stones beneath boots followed after as Reece's disheveled appearance made itself known in the alley we hid in. He coughed, soon pointing in the direction of where he came from. "We need to go now! Half the damn district is in flames!" As he said that, the loud sound of a house collapsing with the accompanied sounds of flames crackling ricocheted off the cobble streets.

"Where do we go?!" I exclaim, pushing myself up to my feet and stumbling towards Reece, pulling him into a tight hug as well with a sigh of relief. "Is anyone else still alive?! Eren and the others?" I ask pulling away from the blonde. He only shrugged, gripping Zion's hand and heaving him up to his feet in a second before dragging us both out of the alley behind the house we hid behind and into the open street. The sky was darkened with huge clouds of smoke coming from the blast area, ground trembling every few seconds as the colossal put a foot in front of the other.

Roars came from the enemy entity that was out of sight, rubble from everything that made a district a district spraying all throughout the town as they were all set alight with scorching fires. Pulling a trigger, an anchor shot out from my gear and into a building, bringing me with it and swinging me onto the roof. The entire district was in shambles, half of it engulfed in titan sized flames that created those fatal clouds above. The colossal stalked towards the wall, huge streams of steam following after him as the exposed muscle of his titan form only allowed for it to think it was regenerating. Each step he took only set more houses on fire, taking no time at all for them to go from an abandoned wood and stone house to an unidentifiable hunk of glowing charcoal.

"Holy shit," I whisper, watching as the flames only got closer and closer. "Surely we're not the only ones alive in this mess," as if on cue, the familiar roar of Eren's titan form only confirmed their survival and I can't help but let out another sigh of relief, falling to a knee and clutching at my chest as another cough left my throat. The sound made Bertholdt stop and look for a short second before he turned his attention back to the wall and continued on his way.

"Absolute champions, those kids," Zion murmurs with a firm nod.

"Let's go look for survivors, they can't have all been wiped out," Reece said, his gaze set in the direction of where the Armoured Titan was last resting.

"I need to help the squad," I mutter, the words leaving my mouth only provoking death grips to appear on my shoulders from the hands of the boys.

"After all that, no. Take a breather from the action and help us find someone, anyone, from the ashes," Reece returned coldly. It was rare seeing him so serious, though, I would've likely questioned his lightheartedness in a situation as dire as this one. My eyes went from him to the colossal, and then to the sky that managed to peak over the wall in front of him. I wondered how bad things were on the other side of that wall, if Levi, Erwin and the others were all okay. The massive titan lifted his leg, something attached to the shin before I realised it was Eren.