The Birth of Freedom

The Choice

RIAN

Shiganshina was gone. In all the confusion and chaos only one thing rang true and clear, Wall Maria had been compromised. Within days of the news that Shiganshina had fallen, the central government had made the decision to retreat humanity behind Wall Rose, though little good it did the citizens of Maria. An estimated ten thousand people were eaten by Titans and the refugees, my family and self included, now faced the prospect of starving in the fast approaching winter months.

We had barely survived the horror of that day and thanks to Hannes securing our passage on the evacuation boats we had managed to make it the south side of Wall Rose and had been sleeping in a make shift camp for refugees for the last two weeks but the reprieve had been short lived as several days after humanities domain had been withdrawn behind Wall Rose, all the refugees were forced to labour in the frozen fields to try and produce a food yield regardless of age or injury.

Aurora had been hurt and rendered unconscious in our flight for safety and though her inflictions had not been fatal or particularly serious she had remained unmoving but for her deep breathing for days. Uncle Arlert said it was her spirit that needed to heal and not her body, she had lost too much. We all had. We had looked for Eren's father through the official channels as he wouldn't have been far from Wall Maria when it fell however all inquiries were fruitless, his name was added to the endless list of the missing.

I had sat by Aurora's side day and night with Armin, Eren and Mikasa waiting for her wake. She had slept through our eighteenth birthday and then into the next day and the day after, I had watched her sleep with Eren and Armin snuggled into her sides to keep her warm and Mikasa sat at her head gently stroking her hair all the while fearing that she had given up when suddenly her arms had lifted around the boys and pulled them closer. I knew then that she would be alright and allowed myself to breath.

No sooner had Aurora been back on her feet we were all sent into the fields to cultivate the waste land. Though a food shortage was inevitable we ploughed until our hands split and our backs broke in the hope that maybe this once fate was on our side but of course fate is a fickle bitch and the ground gave nothing.

I slammed my hoe down into the unyielding earth and heaved a sigh looking around me. Everyone was on their last legs; two elderly women had died yesterday, they had collapsed and just stopped breathing, the will to live gone. Garrison guards had walked into the field picked up their bodies and told everyone to continue on while taking the bodies to walls knows where without so much as parting gesture. That's the world we lived in now. The world the Titans gave us.

I had come up with a plan to save us from the fields. At least a sort of plan. We couldn't keep on sleeping in the camp, the snows would be here soon and we would either freeze to death or starve. The only way I could see out of this was if I found an income and got my family into a board house, it didn't have to big, it just needed to have a real roof and walls to shelter them from the elements. I was eighteen and strong but I had grown up in Shiganshina, Grisha had seen to my education and as such I had no official documentation to use. Grandfather had taught us how to fight, inflict damage on another human, to mend our own wounds, to spot a knife in the dark but nothing so much as a trade that could bring in an honest income. It left me with only one viable option with the skills I possessed and that was to join the military.

Even in training the military forces provided a basic wage, I could give that wage to Uncle Arlert and he could care for everyone. It was better than them starving. I would have to become a soldier and there was a chance I would not see Aurora or the others for a long time but I would be fed and have purpose. It wasn't like I hadn't already planned to join the military before the Titans broke through. I had made up my mind to join when Eren did, this was just me joining ahead of him. I could forge a career and when I graduated, I would have a better income to support them all, by then the children would be just short of adulthood and be able to earn their own wage.