Looking Through Me | Attack on Titan Fan Fiction

Chapter 2: Unbelievable

When I woke up, I felt something pressing on my chest. My eyes remained closed, but all the memories of that horrible dream flooded back to me. Was it finally over; was I finally awake? I jumped up, and saw sheets fall off me, and I let out a sigh of relief.

Just a nightmare, I thought. When I looked up at the patterns engraved into the wooden ceiling—

Wait, wooden? My ceiling is painted white. I shot up again, and looked around. There was a door on the other side of the room, and next to the bed I was laying on was a dresser, and at the foot of the bed was a desk. Holy crap, Where am I?! This isn't my home!

I looked around in panic, and ripped off the sheets. As I did, my head pounded, and I let out a small sound of pain as my hands held my head, trying to keep it from splitting apart altogether. I felt bandages along my scalp, and that was it. I was getting out of here. When I swung my feet off the end of the bed, the door opened, and I jumped back out of old habit.

Two people walked in. One was a boy, maybe slightly taller than me, and the other was a girl, also slightly taller than me. The boy had brown hair, and aqua green eyes. The girl had coal black eyes, along with a chunk of pitch hair falling in front of her forehead. I gasped, and felt something in my chest flip-flop.

Eren and Mikasa? Okay, I was torn as to whether this was a horrible dream or a great one.

"You awake?" he asked me, and I just stared at him with my mouth open like an illiterate moron.

He looked so...real! Just like in the anime, he had a straight jawline, bushy hair, and—

"She obviously is," Mikasa replied.

That only amped my starstruck-level up by one hundred notches. I couldn't believe this! My favorite characters were standing in front of me, and I was sitting and making an idiot of myself.

"Well, are you okay?" he asked.

I finally got ripped out of my thoughts, and focussed. "I...I don't know. My head hurts a lot," I murmured, still picking at the bandage wrapped around my temples and tied in the back.

Mikasa gave him a look. "I told you that you didn't bandage it properly with the ointment."

He raised his hands defensively. "Sorry that I've never done anything medical before."

"No, it's okay," I said in his defense, "I feel better. I think the ointment's kicking in."

He gave a small smile, and sat at the foot of the bed, while Mikasa leaned against the dresser.

"Are you crazy?" she asked dully.

My eyes widened, and I leaned back. "Excuse me?"

"Why were you out in the middle of the Shiganshina district? That area has been abandoned for five years," she said.

Eren looked at me. "The only reason we saved you is because we happened to be the area, returning from a mission beyond the walls. It's pretty lucky that we were there when we were, or you would've been eaten."

I shook my head. Is this actually happening right now? Is this not a dream anymore? Why can't I wake the hell up?

"What's going on?" I asked.

Eren stood up, and Mikasa walked next to him. "What do you mean?" he said, "What part do you not understand?"

I gave an incredulous gesture. "Like hell I know! What's happening? Where am I, and what am I doing here?"

Mikasa stepped forward. "First of all, do you even know what a Titan is?" she asked.

Well, I did, but I couldn't tell them that. I couldn't tell them that I knew them either, and nearly everything about them. I was technically a newbie here, so I had to play the part of one, or I'd possibly be in danger.

"No, I don't."

Both of their eyes widened, even Mikasa's. "How can you not have heard of a Titan? Where have you been up until now?"

Not here, I thought. My mouth was agape once again.

"Let's just explain it to her from the beginning," Eren suggested. Mikasa nodded.

Holding out his hand, he said, "Hey. I'm Eren Jaeger, a member of the 104th Trainee Squad."

I gingerly took his hand, and he basically shook for me, and smiled. Mikasa stood in front of me, and with no hand out, said, "I'm Mikasa Ackerman. We're both members of the Scouting Legion, the Survey Corps."

I nodded, the last of my starstruck attitude fading. "I'm Jennika Manri."

His smile slipped away, and they both sat on the bed. "Do you want us to tell you everything?" Mikasa asked.

"Only if you feel that it's necessary," I responded.

Eren nodded in silent agreement with Mikasa, and they looked at me. "Well, it started about 107 years ago, to be exact.

"That was when the first Titan was spotted. We don't know where they came from, or what they want, but they are uninterested in any animal except for humans. As you've seen, all they do is eat us. We've observed that they can survive for prolonged periods of time without food. Therefore, we've made the assumption that they only kill for sport.

"They're nearly immortal, and a pain in the ass to kill. Their bodies are extremely overheated, and they can grow back any limb they lose, even their head. They can't be brought down. Their only weak spot in the nape of their neck. When you hit that, they die for good, and evaporate.

"We later built the walls. Wall Maria, Wall Rose, and Wall Sina. They'd kept us safe for a century, until 5 years ago. A huge Titan, the Colossal Titan, was tall enough to look over the wall, and kicked a hole in it. Titans invaded our home, the Shiganshina district, and reduced our population. Later, an Armored Titan smashed a hole in the inner wall, and infiltrated Wall Maria. We lost a fifth of our population and a third of our land.

"We were lucky to escape onto the boats leaving Shiganshina, but others were left behind. After that, we decided to become soldiers, and here we are now. Fighting Titans to make sure no one has to go through what we did.

"The first day we were brought out onto the field, the first day out of training, the Colossal Titan appeared again. It kicked a hole in the Trost district along Wall Rose, and we barely managed to fight it off. Lots of our friends died in front of us and there was nothing we could do. Lately we've been finding people who can actually turn into Titans, which we called Titan Shifters.

"We tried our hardest, and later we joined the Scouting Legion. We just came back from our first mission to capture a Titan Shifter. She's currently being held in...captivity, you could say, in the epicenter of Wall Sina in their prison. Then we found you when we took a shortcut through Shiganshina, and here we are," they finished.

Of course I obviously knew all this, but I had to play dumb. They avoided the fact about Eren being a Titan Shifter, and for obvious reasons. I'd have to pretend like I didn't already know. In a way, this was completely new to me.

A small knock interrupted our conversation, and Eren and Mikasa gazed at me for consent, and I nodded. "Come in," called Mikasa.

Someone pushed open the door with their back, holding a tray with cups of water and bread. He stepped in and kicked the door shut with his boot, and set the tray beside us.

His loose blonde hair hung barely to his chin, and his pale blue eyes smiled when they glanced at me. Wow, Armin looked exactly the same as in the series. I always thought that he was really kind.

"Here you go," he said when he put the tray down. "It's the only rations that they're willing to give you. When you're done, they want to see you outside, uh..." He trailed off when he realized he didn't know my name.

"Jennika," I said, sticking out my hand, "Jennika Manri."

He took it, and smiled. "Armin. Armin Arlert."

As much as I wanted to say that I already knew, I stuffed my mouth with the hard bread to refrain. He seemed really sweet, smart, but not really physically adept, as seen in the show. That isn't to say that he could probably beat me in every athletic game, along with Eren and especially Mikasa.

When we finished, Armin and Eren let me slip my arms over their shoulders because I felt too dizzy to walk. Even standing made the room spin. They took me out of the building, and onto the streets that made me think that it was almost real. I still wouldn't admit that it was reality, not yet.

All the houses had red roofs, and were made of wood and brick. The shingles looked ceramic, and it made me cringe when I recalled the scene when Eren was skidding across all the roofs of buildings, before he saved Armin from being Titan food. Had that actually happened? Probably did.

The toes of my sneakers dragged along the cobblestone, and it was then that I realized that I probably didn't look like I belonged. My black Puma shoes, dark skinny jeans, and a brown tank top with faded print of Journey's Greatest Hits album with the winged scarab.

Yeah, I wasn't your average Joe.

But now that I thought about it, who was the "they" that Armin was talking about? Who wanted to see me? What did they have to do with me?

I was brought out of my thoughts by the whispering crowd clearing the middle of the road, with women, men, and children alike covering their mouths and shaking their heads like I was a sin. They whispered things about me, that garbled together and I could barely make it out.

"It that her? The one that appeared out of nowhere?"

"I heard that she was in the Shiganshina district when they found her."

"Maybe she's allied with Them! Maybe that's why she was there!"

"I heard she fell from the sky with no memories, and the 104th Trainee Squad brought her back."

Whoever said the last part was WAY off track, but it made me more curious. Finally Mikasa stepped aside, and Eren and Armin stopped. The crowd surrounded us in a circle, and I looked up to see who I was facing.

It was man, who seemed like he was in his late twenties or early thirties. His dark blonde hair was drawn back, and he had thick brows that creased his forehead. He had a straight nose and a chiseled jaw, and blue-green eyes that were intimidating and just dared you to step out of line.

"Is this her?" he asked.

Mikasa, Eren, and Armin nodded.

He gave a tight smile. "I am Commander Erwin Smith, the 13th commander of the Scouting Legion. And you are?"

I gulped. I thought he had authority on the screen, but meeting him in real life was almost as scary as being yelled at by Gordon Ramsay. Now that I thought about it, they both kind of looked alike...

"Jennika Manri," I whispered. He quirked his brow like he didn't hear. "Jennika Manri," I said with more power.

He nodded. "Miss Manri, you're probably wondering why you're here?"

I nodded.

He adjusted his collar, and walked closer to me. Smith towered above my short frame. "Well, I can tell you that you are here today, being accused of heresy, and will have to appear in court in a month's time to decide whether you will be placed on death row."