IMMORTALS • Levi Ackerman

chapter forty eight

048: demand a raise

The wind is invading every crevice of body, there's a slight sting in it's wake. A forest of urgency awakens inside my heart. There's an after thought of doubts in my head, questions between survival, death and the presence of failure.

It's grueling.

Tomorrow, everything could be better.

Tomorrow I could be dead. 

The odds are miniscule and divided by a tiny, single thread.

The top of the walls provide me a foreign feeling. The sight of everything below is sad, yet nostalgic. 

Everything. Five years ago. 

I was younger back then, a bit more mischievous and cunning. Times were different, and I wasn't so sure if the version of myself from five years ago would believe that I was where I am now. The dream of my father's role was not something I rejected, but something that seemed impossible to grasp. 

Funny how the future is uncertain, yet frightening as well. 

We'll have hoods covering the faces of one hundred deployed soldiers, by the time they figured out where Eren is, we'll have the outer gate plugged in already. 

Perhaps everything that I have done, and every mistake I have committed has lead me here, now. Perhaps this is where I am meant to be, not matter how hard I try to think in altering the past. 

All roads will lead here. At this very moment. 

"Don't stop!" Levi yells.

That's right. We can't stop. Not now. Not ever.

I can't stop now.

"Head for the outer gate!" he orders. 

I have to get my head in the game.

There's a burn in the air of the atmosphere. My lungs feel void of actual oxygen; it felt like I was floating, in the air, with every step I took. 

"This is all too strange..." Hange trails off after everyone had close in on the perimeter along the walls. "Not a single titan in sight?"

All of this felt strange.

Well, it was supposed to be. Nothing about this, about this job, this life was supposed to be anything but normal. 

"But we have to keep going. " Levi answer. 

I nod. "Yeah there's no reason to call it off." Hange agrees, firing the smoke gun to signal. 

There's a swift change in the mood on the wind. A warmness in its wake and a small change in the pull of its direction. My eyes circle on Eren aiming at the outer a gate, a flash in his path and the gleam of a bright, golden ray bursting in all directions before the roar of his Titan emerges. 

Gold lightning strikes from the heaven, like some deity had descended in the land. 

It's getting hot now. Eren's transformation brought a gust of hot air. The eyes of his titan turning emerald green, shining as his flesh turns to crystal, mirror like in nature.

Levi gently places his arm below the small of my back as the wind grew stronger. I adjust my hood to shield my face from the harsh air. 

"I'm fine Captain." I whisper, just for us to hear. It was as if he knew of my earlier monologue.

"I know. I still got you." he whispers back, like out conversation was meant to be just a secret between the both of us.

Before long, the scenery calms down. The roars of a mighty titan have gone silent, and smoke rising along with the skeleton of a crystalized titan are what's left.