Makes Me Feel Like I'm Falling Down

Chapter One

Original work is posted in descrip. and I will be putting the original authors notes as well.
ミ☆　　ミ★　　ミ☆　　ミ★
I.

During Hanji's first week at the Survey Corps, Isabel told her that it wasn't smart to fight angry. She'd been part of Hanji's Trainee Corps, a pale girl that seemed to be more bones than meat and who tended to laugh at everything, and who almost choked on her food when she saw the look Hanji gave her after hearing her comment.

"Don't look at me like that!" she said between coughs while Hanji patted her back. "You'd better learn it before it gets you killed."

"How am I supposed to fight them, then? Happily?"

"Sure, why not? But not in a psychotic 'I'm so glad I get to kill you way', though," said Isabel, smiling, showing the spot where one of her teeth was missing (she'd crashed against a tree during her first time using the 3D maneuver gear, and she'd laughed despite the blood and the pain at the way the air passed through the gap producing a whistling sound).

"You can't be serious. Those things have killed hundreds and you expect me to ignore that as I fight?"

"Of course! If you think about it, you might get scared, and then you die. What a stupid way to die! I wouldn't be able to cry for you, it would be too dumb. And you can't fight angry, angry people fight like idiots, and I can't pity you if you die like an idiot. I'll just get mad at you."

"Why do you assume I'm going to die?" said Hanji, feeling herself get angrier at the girl with every word that she said. She was remembering why she hadn't spent much time around her when they'd been trainees.

"We're all going to die here, it's obvious. No one joins the Survey Corps expecting to survive, and even if you do, then you die of boredom because life at the walls is too simple. No matter what you do, this job kills you at the end!"

"Then why did you join?"

"I liked the uniform, and it's not like I had a more promising future. But you? You? I remember you at class, you're smart, I can tell! What's the point in dying earlier than you should by acting stupid?" Isabel's eyes were wide, and she stared at Hanji in puzzlement. It made Hanji uncomfortable, and she quickly excused herself, wondering if she should have tried explaining to a madwoman that there wasn't any other way to fight the titans.

"Don't waste your time, there's barely nothing left of me," Isabel muttered two years later as she laid on the ground, with Hanji desperately trying to stop the bleeding. "You know, Hanji? I always thought that I was skinny enough to slip between a titan's fingers. Guess I was wrong!" She'd tried to laugh, but what came out was a weak noise that sounded more like cough, and Hanji blocked the sound and tried to focus on her task.

Isabel had been seventeen when she died, and Hanji felt so furious that it took her a week to calm down and cry for her friend.

She decided to remember Isabel, because someone had to, because no one else remembered her correctly, they only got parts of her right and they only thought of her as the laughing girl. She decided to forget the advice she'd received two years ago, because, really, how could she be expected not to be angry after that?