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↱"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."↲
-Mary Shelley
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Year 850/ Five Years After the Fall of Wall Maria
KATERINA AWOKE WITH A START, an animalistic grunt escaping her lips.
She bolted upright in her bed, the sheets that were tangled around her legs were soaked with sweat. Her hands frantically skimmed the surface of her body, trying to make sure she was actually awake and whole.
The same nightmare had been haunting her sleep for five years.
It would almost always be the same and it would certainly happen at least every other night.
Katerina would dream of herself in her baby blue lace dress holding Caleb. She would be consumed with joy until she realized she wasn't holding Caleb at all, but a small child-size Titan.
She would hastily chuck it away from her and spin around wildly trying to find Caleb. Finally, she would come across the back of a hunched over Titan. When it would turn around she would come face to face with the Smiling Titan. Katerina could hear her poor baby crying for her, but was nowhere to be seen. She'd try running away from the Smiling Titan, passing the bodies of Carla, Kato, her parents, and the kids.
She would always wake up screaming, soaked in sweat, with tears caking her face. Luckily for her, the cadet she got assigned as a bunkmate was a total idiot in her opinion. Once a week Katerina would bribe Sasha Braus with a box of stolen steamed potatoes. As long as Katerina provided them each week, Sasha would keep her mouth shut.
"That was a rough one," Sasha mused, dangling upside down from her bunk above Katerina's.
"Mind your own business, Braus," Katerina spat back, delicately french braiding her hair, which had grown to almost her waist.
Sasha swung down from her bunk, slamming her head against the floor with a thud, and crawled over to Katerina's bed.
"All I'm saying," she began, tentatively placing her arm on Katerina's shoulder. "Is that you could try talking about it."
Katerina's eyes zeroed in on the hand on her shoulder and Sasha immediately pulled back, fearing Katerina might be tempted to snap it like she did Jean's a week ago.
