𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 |𝙰𝚘𝚝| 𝕸𝖆𝖑𝖊 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗

|Chapter 9| Forgotten past

"Wake up! Armin, hey! Can you hear me?" Connie suddenly yelled at the pale looking blonde that was zoned out of her mind. "Come on, snap out of it, I need you to talk to me. Say something!" Her vision suddenly came back after being blurred for a while as she finally made a noise. "There you are, you with me now? What's going on? Where's your squad?"

That word rang in her head like a church bell, wait bell? "-and what do you have on you that's so damn slimy?" Everything hit her like a train wreck as she let out a painful shriek.

"You're worthless! Why can't you just die!" Armin yelled out with voice cracks as the scenes kept replaying in her head. "Hey, pull yourself together. Where is everyone?" Connie asked again as she suddenly stopped yelling. "Let it go Connie."

Connie looked at the female that called out to him. "Hurts me to say it, but she's it. The rest of them are dead." Ymir stated as she kept looking around for any approaching Titans. "Dammit don't talk like that! We can't assume he's the only one!" "Take a look around you, isn't it obvious. We can't waste anymore time here with her. We gotta move on." The tall female added, not really caring about what happened. "You're not making any sense, why would the Titans ignore her?"

"I don't know, maybe they thought she was already dead or something. When you get right down to it, that's the real tragedy here. Elen and the others bust their asses and the one left standing is her. Where is [Y\N] anyway, he was supposed to be in our squad but he just up and left?" She said nonchalantly while looking back at the two. "Alright, that does it bitch. I'm gonna shut your mouth up permanently." "Both of you stop it right now!"

Christa got behind Ymir to make sure nothing escalated. "Look we're all at the end of our tether, okay? We're seeing our friends being killed like animals. It's normal to be upset." The young woman argued before an arm snaked around the back of her neck. "Look at my Christa keeping the peace. You are so gonna have to marry me when all this crap is over." Ymir said though no one knew if she was serious or not, but she hid it with a laugh.

"Yeah well. Let's get a hold of that mouth." Connie said through his gritted teeth as he temper decreased. "Alright come on, we gotta get out of here. Are you able to stand?" Connie asked crouching down to Armin's level and lending out his hand but all she could think of was Elen and [Y\N] doing the same. "Sorry to be a nuisance, don't worry about me. I'll rendezvous with the rear guard." She whispered with emptiness in her voice as she walked to the edge.

"But, Armin?" Connie didn't get a response as she jumped off and propelled somewhere else. "Connie! Hop to, we've been given orders to advance." A random voice called out as the sound of ODM gear followed, he gave one last look before heading back.

'I was wrong, this world hasn't become hell. It's been hell, just couldn't see it before now. We're condemned, all of us, we have been from the beginning' Armin thought as a flashback to when she was bullied appeared while she continued on he way wherever. 'Strength preys on weakness, it's a very straight forward arrangement actually, and my friends they- they tried. They knew how the world worked, they wanted to be strong for me. Someone who only brought them down, in their eyes I was a victim, I needed protection but all I wanted was to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, to be strong like they were, to be worth something.'

Her thoughts were interrupted when her hook smacked against the brick wall instead of plunging into it sending a short burst of panic through her as she fell to the ground. Giving up, she started sobbing as she leaned her back against the wall. 'This is how it all ends up? Elen tried to protect me and-' She heard the sound of heavy breathing coming from behind her as she saw the woman from before desperately try cpr on her "boyfriend" (I'm bad with names)