RIVAL | Levi Ackerman

xiii. BLOOD, SWEAT, & TEARS

episode 21: crushing blow; the 57th exterior scouting mission, part 5

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BLOOD, SWEAT, & TEARS

•••

      "Get up."

      Heart placid and chest unmoving, she was a serene sight to witness. Calm, face at ease, knowing the untold damages surrounding her, entangling him as a heavy vine in his heart hauled him forward. Forward towards her. A step closer. Heavy boots landed on the ground, tips of his shoes meeting her body. A tilt of his head, grey eyes roamed her limp figure, running to every curve, cut that sliced through exposed skin, her arm resting on her stomach, with the other laying beside her head, he could almost feel the chilled sting of her cuts mirroring on his unscathed body. He waited, shadow looming over for her to move. Speak. Something.

      An absence of red. She lacked of it. Clean despite the few smudges of grime and dirt spotting across her features. He resisted the urge to wipe them all away pristine. Eyelids closed that he silently urged her to open them, to put the sky above him to shame with those blue irises. One that entranced people, that often bounded him towards her, eluded him to think they were guiltless. To maybe even glare at him, at the very least. She looked at heartsease. Not a single worried line etched her face. Even unwitting, she was too innocent to look at, yet a disarrayed mess all at the same time.

      "I said, get up." Voice thick, laced with edge and contemplation, his jaw clenched, tense.

      Nothing.

      Sheathing his blades back to his sides, he kneeled down beside her body. Strands of dirty blonde hair covered her face, shining like satin pulled under the light, reflecting a shade of flaring gold. He was tempted to tug the end of her ribbon peaking underneath her head to waver and see lengths of her hair billow in the breeze. However, he didn't. Rather, for a second, his cold fingers hovered at the side of her face, tingling between the distance of touching her flesh. Hesitant to even move an inch. It was an internal travail in his mind, chest straining that his breathing faltered, tender to breathe and losing air.

      Slowly, her warm skin was everything he could think of a the moment. His calloused fingertips was rough against the softness of it. So much so that he was gentle. Touch feathering on the surface, uneasy that glass would break. His right hand snaked to cup the side of her jaw, slender fingers tangling in her hair. A beatific repose as long lashes kissed her cheeks, thin lines looming. A crease formed between his eyebrows, falling back in deep in the depths of his thoughts the longer he stared. Though, it wasn't long before something hot hit the palm of his hand. A faint breathy exhale through her parted lips.

      Levi froze.

      Voices bouncing in her skull, drumming in her ear until it was all she could think of. Those two words. It yelled again and again. No longer desperate but a command. An order that told she had no choice but to pull herself out of the darkness. She could no longer feel a thing. Couldn't see. Couldn't think. The despondency she had heard in its voice was vigorous, wailing. Helpless and alone. Gone in the shadows. She was pitched in agony, demented that all was left for her to endure it. Counting the seconds that had ceded, she forgot, mislaying all thoughts until it was left empty. Slowly but surely, she was losing herself.