A Choice with Regrets [Levi Ackerman]

6

I finish my glass of water and set the empty glass on the table with a disturbed look on my face. I have blood on my hands now. I can't go back to who I was, because it was a cruel reminder that I am just a dirty murderer.

"You don't seem very comfortable... it's okay if you don't want to share." Farlan understood that I have a cruel past just by reading my face.

"I killed a man."

I answered boldly, and their faces were completely pale while Levi raised his brows at me in surprise.

"So you've finally decided to speak up..." Levi is eagerly craving more answers from me and turns his head to stare at all the blood painted on my skin. "What made you brutally kill him?"

"He..." I cracked, attempting to hold back my tears. "He did unspeakable things to me..."

I suppressed the large lump that crawled up my throat, threatening to break loose the tears that welled up in the corner of my eyes. Before I could decipher the situation properly, beads of water had fallen from my eyes until my cheeks became wet.

I hate bringing up the dark past.

The sight of my crying appalled them and Levi furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"Why the hell are you crying?" Levi stared blankly after my slim figure, blinking his glossy steel-gray eyes, which were completely blunt.

"She's gone through so much, Levi. Can't you tell?" Farlan pats my head as Isabel hugs my shoulders for warmth. I feel so disgusted with myself since I was covered in dried blood.

Maybe now is the right time to explain myself.

"So that's how you ended up in the Underground District?" Isabel asked and at that moment, they weren't afraid of me but shocked. I then finish up the story about my crime and how I am currently running away from exile. They all stared at me with concerned looks.

Levi paused for a moment to observe me and asked them, "Should we trust her?"

"Why shouldn't we!? She didn't have a choice! And she's not lying either, right?" Isabel tried to squeeze an answer from me and I agreed with her. It was all unintentional and I wish to put an end to this suffering.

"You were raised as a titan's child, brainwashed into eating human flesh by your adoptive father, killed him, got sexually assaulted earlier, and now you are running away from the Military Police and possibly the entire royal government. You don't deserve all of this..." Farlan tried to understand me and I appreciated his concern.

"But you're not a titan are you?" Isabel questioned me and I simply answered no.

"But why..." I then uttered. "What drove me to kill him...?"

"I'll tell you why you stabbed that bastard." Levi interrupted me."Because you were about to die."

We all stare in his direction when he pushes himself away from the door to approach the couch, crossing his arms at me.

"If your hands were still clean, you wouldn't be alive right now." he bluntly tells me. "Just embrace what you are now."

He's probably right. If I didn't kill him in the first place, my life would've been in his hands instead.

"So keep surviving, whether it costs someone's life or not." His words echo inside my head and my guilt begins to shrink little by little, but it still stings. I was tormented, ripped away from my innocence, and forced to live a cursed life.

I don't want to live like this...

"Since she committed a crime, our only option is to keep her in this hideout for now," Farlan explains to us. "It's possible that those perverts reported us to the Military Police."