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Anxiety's eating our insides
Too much pressure behind our eyes
Running out of time
Minutes closer to our deaths
We look down with such heavy heads
Running out of time
We’re jogging along the top of the wall, not feeling the gas tanks beating rhythmically at our thighs. The the dust thrown up by the racing boots and pounding cannons drifts off the walltop, where the high noonday sun catches it and illuminates it to a glowing gold. It sifts down over the city like fairy dust, obscuring the more distant rooftops and turning the shadows directly beneath the wall even deeper. There’s a light breeze whispering down the river from the north, enough to ruffle the fringe on the rose-charged banners but not enough to cool us off.
Ten years ago, this would have been a perfect day. Ten years ago we would have been allowed out of school early to race in sweaty packs through the tall grass at the edge of the city, grab at darting fish in the still-chilly river, and dry ourselves in the sunshine until it disappeared behind the wall and we were called home to dinner. Today the river is visible as occasional flashes of silver between the dull stone buildings. There are no darting fish left, as they’ve all fed the refugees whose ever-advancing camps have chewed up the grasslands at the city’s edge until there’s nothing left to play in. Today we’re sweating as much from fear as from heat, and if we have chills it’s because we know what awaits us at the apex of the Trost retaining wall.
I look away from the city to the rest of my formation. Jakob keeps glancing over the other side of the wall as he runs, as though he could fly away over the side and away from the future. Amey is staring at the sky, at the back of the cadet in front of her, anywhere but at the distant ground. Lars is watching the toes of his boots. Katrin is looking straight ahead, but her face is so pale it’s almost grey. None of us wants to think about what’s coming.
We do think about it, though. We think about it as much as we can without driving ourselves crazy, and then we think about it a little more. I’ve thought about it more times than I dare count, lying in bed at night turning these images around in my mind like they’re an enormous knot that I need to untie. I can never do it, though. I’ve sat in the dark chasing thread after thread and they all lead nowhere. I’m thinking about it now, thinking so hard that my stomach is boiling and my head is light. It doesn’t help at all - being able to ponder something in the cool of the night didn’t prepare me for facing that same something in the bright of the day, sweat pouring into my eyes, a buzzing cloud of dread where my lungs should be.
Trapped inside our own minds
They're getting frustrated
They can't find all our dreams
Armed with power to crush them
Change them into nightmares
Haunt our dreams
None of us has actually ever seen a titan, at least not up close. We’ve seen drawings, and diagrams, and enormous straw-and-timber mockups. We know what parts to avoid and what parts to aim for. We’ve even been told what we’ll feel when we first see one face to face. We’ll be afraid, and a little awed, Steinbrenner told us in the psychological preparation course. We’ll want to freeze and hide, he said, when we should leap up and slice them and then move on to the next.
Most of us imagined ourselves as great titan slayers, like the elites of the Survey Corps, dancing from neck to neck in a whirl of wires and blades, leaving a trail of enormous steaming corpses. Steinbrenner told us over and over that this doesn’t really happen. There are no elite titan-slayers, he said, just lucky ones. We nodded and tried to look at the situation realistically, but inside we all had a little kernel of hope that we’d make it to greatness.
Many of us had lost a family member or a friend to the titans. It was a usual enough thing among our class of recruits, and we quickly learned that a little bit of care when discussing the homes and families we’d left when we came to training would go a long way toward avoiding an outburst of tears. It was common courtesy to acknowledge that those who had lost loved ones were the ones who most deserved vengeance. Common courtesy also said that when dreams of enormous black shadows made them wake up screaming, the whispers that followed would be pitying instead of scornful.
Come one, come all
Where is your support?
Watch them, watch us
Who deserves a standing ovation?
The air is still in the shadow of the wall. The assembly ground is packed with Garrison soldiers, and our class of trainees has been ordered to stand with them to wait for an address by Commander Pixis. We’ve been packed in here since eight in the morning, and everyone’s sweating and fiddling with their harnesses. Around us, the Garrison soldiers have begun muttering to each other. This is suicidal, they whisper. We don’t have the technology or the manpower to defend the Rose gate, let alone retake this city. What are they thinking? Are they that starved for glory?
Each voice makes the lump in my throat grow. Even the trained garrison soldiers are terrified. How can they be so cowardly? Why aren’t they thrilled at the opportunity to slice some titan necks to defend their homes? Don’t they want glory?
They’ve seen this before, part of my mind says. They know what they’re up against, and they’ve spent the last four years knowing what it’s like to be in combat. You’ve spent the last four years staring at diagrams and stalking wooden puppets through the woods with your buddies.
“I don’t want to die! Let me see my family!”
The voice breaks out somewhere ahead of us. A squirming ripple propagates outward through the crowd, as if the speaker’s put an ice cube down the back of everyone’s shirt and they all want to get it out and stop him before he can do it again.
We can hear the crowd part to make way for one of the Garrison’s captains. He’s looks just as scared of the future as the man who called out, but is held back by what looks like a wild-eyed devotion to his job.
“Are you planning to abandon your duty?” he yells, grabbing the reluctant soldier by his collar and shaking so that his arms flop limply at his sides.
“Yes! There’s nothing to be gained from this mass suicide mission!”
“How dare you make a mockery of mankind and order! I’ll have you know I have the authority to execute you on the spot!” The victim’s face is flecked with spittle ejected with the captain’s last words, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Fine, it would be a thousand times better than being devoured by a titan.” His voice rises, and he begins to struggle. “Get off! Don’t touch me! I’m not going back there!”
At this point, he’s grabbed under the arms by a pair of burly military policemen, who drag him, still shrieking, out of the staring crowd.
The muttering is louder now. “Did you hear that?” Amey whispers in Lars’s ear. “Given the situation, it’s not surprising. I wonder if someone we know will rebel too?”
“I also want to die on my own terms,” he replies, still looking at the ground. They both start when another soldier grabs Amey by the shoulders.
“Hey you,” he growls, “Do it. Make a real scene, with as many people as you can, Many of us in the Garrison don’t agree with this either. We’ll take advantage of the chaos and escape.” She looks at him open-mouthed, glancing around as though looking for someone who will tell her that this is a trap, and that she’s about to get dragged off like that other guy did.
Before she can reply, the messy-haired cadet on her other side - Jean something? interrupts. “Where would you go?” he asks the soldier, who slumps back and lets go of Amey’s shoulders.
“I’d go to see my daughter,” he replies, avoiding Jean’s questioning gaze. “This wall won’t hold for long either.” Jean looks he has a snappy comeback ready for the man, but he’s interrupted by the voice from the walltop.
The commander is a speck at the top of the wall, but his voice is loud enough that we can all hear. It’s early enough in the day that we’re still standing in the wall’s shadow, but he’s illuminated from behind. He cuts a dashing figure, posed up there on the parapet, surrounded by stoic subordinates and fluttering green banners. We all knew more or less what our part in the commander’s plan was - attract the titans to one corner of the city, while something happens by the broken gate. The specifics of this plan, delivered from on high in a strong, clear voice, have an electric effect on the crowd. We’re flooded with a weird sick joy at his words of a hope for humanity, but all the same, his source of hope is so startling that I almost pass it off as a joke.
I look at Katrin incredulously. The name is on our lips simultaneously - Eren? The kid who’s always yelling about killing all of the titans is going to become a titan himself? None of us really got to know Jaeger that well, he never seemed to want to make friends with people except that stone-faced Ackerman girl. Katrin had sparred with him a few times, but apart from his skill at hand-to-hand combat, it didn’t seem that there was anything remarkable about him. Apparently he, like Jakob was determined to join the Survey Corps, but as far as I knew they had not bonded over that common goal. I find myself wondering how the product of top-secret titan transformation research - was that what Pixis had called it? - could be so normal. We crane our necks and squint to get a glimpse of Jaeger, who’s standing next to Pixis on the walltop and saluting earnestly. He looks like he’s trying to be confident, but doesn’t quite know how. With a sinking feeling, I realize that I, my closest friends, and every other soldier assembled here has just been ordered to die to protect him.
As the rest of the Garrison soldiers realize this, the bitter stink of panic begins to rise again, and the muttering voices are raised to shouts: “I won’t risk my life for a stupid reason like that!” “What do you think we are? We’re not disposable blades, you know!” “I’ve had enough of this.” “I’m out of here.” “Me too.” “I’ll be spending the last moments of mankind with my family.”
Next to Amey, the messy-haired cadet groans, “ugh, fucking Jaeger. ” It briefly occurs to me to ask him if he knows Eren, but my mouth is dry and it’s taking all my willpower just to stand upright. There are already a few wild-eyed men and women pushing through the crowd, seeking to escape the assembly ground before the Military Police can catch them. I watch them go, too scared to call out for them to take me with them.
Far above us, Pixis’s aides step back to speak to each other, gesturing at us like we’re a bomb that’s about to explode. Once again, the commander’s voice yanks us back from the point of detonation. “Heed my command!” he cries. “Those who desert us now will all be pardoned! Once a man surrenders to his fear, he is no longer fit to fight titans. Those who have experienced that fear are free to leave. Furthermore, those of you who want your parents, siblings, and loved ones to experience that fear may also leave.”
I feel like I’ve been hit by lightning, and I smile in spite of myself. Of course. Perfect strategy. Hit us right where we’ll hurt the most. None of us wants to feel like we do, being boiled alive in an airless cauldron of dread and sweat. But we’d all happily leap into the open mouths of titans to keep our families from the same fate. A man who wouldn’t die for what he loves shouldn’t be given gear and blades in the first place.
These words make the other wild-eyed escapees stop in their tracks. I see one man nearly double over, sobbing. A woman who’d nearly made it out of the group gasps as though she’s been punched in the stomach. The man who grabbed Amey looks around at us and whimpers, “I can’t let that happen! My daughter is my only hope!” The messy-haired cadet on Amey’s other side, Jean or whatever his name is, just shakes his head and stares, bewildered, up at Eren.
We are the kids with high hopes
We're all dangling on thin ropes
We're the ones with the best behavior
Isn't that good enough?
We are the kids with high hopes
We are the kids with high hopes
Won't someone give us a chance?
Please don't let us fall
I’m not going to fight for Eren Jaeger, titan or not. I’m going to fight for my mom and dad, and for Lars, Katrin, Amey, and Jakob, and for their moms and dads. I’m going to fight for all of the rest of my fellow trainees, and all of the Garrison soldiers, and for the Military Police. I’m going to fight for the people of Trost, and for the people of Shiganshina, and for everyone who died over the past few miserable years, and for the people who survived. I’m going to fight for everyone who’s still safe within Wall Sina. I’m even going to fight for the refugees whose spreading encampments ate up the meadow by the river. I’m going to fight even though I have almost no chance of being an elite titan-slayer, and not much more chance of surviving the attack to come.
Most of all, I’m going to fight for myself, and for the past that I lost. I'm going to do it knowing that they’ll all be fighting for me.
We are the kids with high hopes
We're all dangling on thin ropes
Here come the non-believers
With the sharpest pairs of scissors
God, please save us now
We’ve all lived in this tiny nub of land our entire lives, and we’d all give anything to go back to the days of quiet and playing in the shining river.