Red Swan

Breaking Ties

Anxiety Warning ⚠️

"Eren, have you lost your mind?" my voice and hands were shaking.

My world was crashing down. "If someone tries to take away my freedom, I won't hesitate to take away theirs."

Those words horrified me to the core.

"Do you realize what you're saying?" more tears were brewing. "Eren, you starting the Rumbling will destroy the world. Think of all the people you'd be killing."

"It's better this way, Greta. It's better for Eldians to never be born again." his teal eyes were emotionless and lifeless. The more I looked at my brother, the more I saw our father, Grisha. Eren looked just like him. If Dad would have been there, he would've been absolutely heartbroken.

"You really are a psychopath." Jean scowled. He put his hand on my shoulder protectively.

"I don't care anymore," Eren muttered. "I can see now that I'm more of a threat to humanity than someone who could help restore it." it couldn't have been my brother threatening world domination, it just didn't make sense to me.

"Who are you and what have you done with my brother?" I was desperately attempting to hold back my tears, trying to stop them from overflowing.

"He grew up, and saw things as they really are. That's something you wouldn't understand, you're just a pathetic little girl."

My heart was aching in that moment, and it was one of the most agonizing experiences of my life. My brother talking down to me was extraordinarily painful, because he was the last person who would ever talk to me like that. Everything we'd gone through over the years seemed to be thrown out the window, like our family never meant anything to him; like I never meant anything to him.

"Jean, I need to go," I got up from the ground and sprinted out of the room, and down the hall to the cabins.

"Greta." he called back to me.

I collapsed on my bed and began to hysterically cry. I buried my face in my pillow so no one would be able to hear me. This was the worst I've ever cried, and it sounded like I was screaming.

"EREN!!" I yelled through the torrent of tears. I couldn't stop crying, and I was feeling agony. I was losing everything, and I was truly alone. My mother and father were killed, and I lost my brother. I had lost every member of my family, my own brother had become my greatest enemy.

Eren was the only family I had left, and even though he was with us on the hovercraft, he was mentally somewhere else

Darkness was closing around me, suffocating me, like someone was smothering me until I met my end.

My eyes were getting dry from the constant flow of tears.

Like a child, I covered myself with the blanket on my bed and hid myself. I wanted to get away from the scary events that were unfolding. I didn't want to believe Eren had lost his mind, I didn't want to believe Erwin had been killed, I especially didn't want to believe my brother had the capabilities of ending the world.

I was grateful I had succumbed to sleep, to escape the painful moment.

I woke up, laying down in the middle of the square back in Shingashina. The area looked eerily clean and untouched, like no one had lived there. I looked up at the Walls looming around me, and I felt like an animal that had been caught in a trap.

"Greta."

I turned around and I saw my parents!

"Mom! Dad!" I ran forward to them and gave them the biggest hugs I could manage.

"Oh, Greta. Thank goodness," Dad returned the hug. "You're so grown up," Mom smiled tearfully.

"Where are you guys?" I couldn't believe my parents were right in front of me after eight long years.

"We're in the Paths, we're safe there," Mom replied, still hugging me. "How is everyone?" Dad asked with hopefulness.

"Things aren't looking too good," I told my parents. "Eren has lost his mind, he's developed a taste for violence." my words felt foreign to me. I filled them in on everything that has happened over the years, including my encounter with Zeke Jaeger.

"Zeke made you a Titan?" Dad asked, his eyes were wide with shock. "Yes, he kidnapped me from my fellow Scouts, and that's how I became the Cloaked Titan." I showed my parents the scars that had now been embedded in my hands.

"Oh my..." Mom gasped with fright. "Are you alright, Greta? Are you in any pain?" Dad's mannerisms as a doctor never left him. "No," I replied. "When you became a Titan, did you eat anyone?" my father interrogated. "No, I didn't feel hunger at all. I've heard the Cloaked Titan hardly ever eats humans."

"That's right, that's why the transfer of its power is unknown," he recalled his research.

"I was afraid of that," Dad hung his head, as if he was mourning his son's death.

"Eren said that if someone tries to take his freedom away, then he won't hesitate to take theirs." I recalled while shuddering. Those were the words of a madman.

"Eren must have seen what will happen," Mom told Dad. "What do you mean?" so many things have happened that it was starting to give me a headache.

"The power of the Founding Titan allows him to see the past and the future. I didn't think it would affect his mind so greatly, I have failed him as a father," he recalled injecting Eren with the Serum.

"Grisha, you didn't fail him or our daughter," Mom assured him, kissing him on the cheek. "I put him through pain by force, and for that I will regret it." he touched her face.
"Dad, you didn't fail me or Eren." it broke my heart to see my father so sad.
In the presence of my parents, I could feel more vulnerable and able to express the pain I was feeling.

"Mom, Dad, what should I do?" I begged, the tears returning. "Oh, sweetheart," Mom stepped forward and hugged me, just like she did when I was a little kid; whether it was waking up from a nightmare, feeling ill, or just needing a hug.

That's one of the things that caused me to cry even more.

"You need to use your powers to stop your brother from obliterating the world, all of those lives he's after need to be saved. Taking away people's freedom doesn't solve anything," Dad informed. "Revenge is never the answer," Mom told me with a motherly smile. I had held onto her advice for years, but I've had my vengeful moments. From that moment forward my motives wouldn't be out of revenge; I would remind Eren of that when I would face him as he attempted to start the Rumbling. I was the new hope for humanity, and the fate of the world rested on my shoulders.

"I'll remember that," I smiled at my parents.

"Greta, remember that your father and I love you and your brother so much, we hope things will get better and that you will save the world." those were the last words Mom told me before I woke up.