Blood (Levi x Reader)

40. ** Resonance **

The loss of rationality one experiences when staring down the barrel of a gun is incomprehensible; Yet, it seems to multiply exponentially when the innocent life, hidden safely within your womb, is endangered.

Towering over me as I clutched my blood-stained arm in agony, it was obvious that the woman had the upper-hand. There was no doubt in my mind that the person who was aiming her weapon straight at me was a titan shifter. However, something was off... she didn't seem as confident as before, now void of her protective shell. I had been around Eren long enough to grasp that shifters lacked the ability to disconnect from their titan forms so effortlessly. It was almost as if she had never even transformed in the first place! Her cheeks were smooth and unscathed, already fully healed from being ripped from her cursed giant. There were no signs of trauma whatsoever to her human form, and the steam emitting from her skin had long since dissipated. As blood continued to stream down my arm, seeping rapidly out of the jagged bite wound, it formed a dark pool of crimson mud below. My initial shock left me catatonic when a disturbing revelation invaded my thoughts, but the second I acknowledged my possible predicament, I lost all sense of logic.

Using the only hand I could still maneuver, I rapidly slapped the gun out of the woman's hand before she could fire, sending it flying into the brush nearby. With a roar of desperation, I launched myself forward, scrambling after the weapon that would either kill me or her. I was so wildly determined to fight for the future, to ensure a peaceful life for my child, that I had failed to see the present that hovered so delicately before me.

My fingertips barely pierced through the air that cradled the gun when I felt a crushing grip encompass my right ankle. Lacking an ounce of mercy, my battered body was yanked backward across the forest floor, twigs snapping beneath my weight as thorns stabbed the skin underneath my clothes. I was helpless to the fact that she had noticed the difference in my gaze, the slight gasp within my breath, and the sudden shift of power. As I tumbled away from the tool that could redeem me, my enemy's hands reunited with her instrument of war, immediately pulling the trigger when once again introduced.

The silence that followed hung stagnant in the air, broken only by the rapid shuddered exhales of my wide-eyed assailant. The pain that followed was either too intense to mentally comprehend, or I had finally just become physically numb to its sting. I could have sworn that my eyelids had surrendered to their weight until my vision suddenly discovered its unfortunate focus: I had been shot... yes, shot...but the bullet that was lodged deep within my thigh wasn't the reason behind my gut-wrenching horror.

There, protruding through my upper abdomen, was a spearlike branch, splintered upon impact and coated in thick, dark blood. My hand involuntarily floated up to where I had been impaled, shaking in disbelief as my fingertips confirmed its existence. Releasing nothing but a fearful whimper, my strength abandoned me as I slumped over in defeat.

No.

My head was suddenly yanked back up, as I was forced to stare back into the eyes of my accursed enemy. I had expected to see a proud, victorious expression plastered across her face, but instead, her complexion was paler than before as she emitted a daunting sense of dismay and apprehension.

"Speak to me, goddammit! You're still alive, and you're not a Titan, so speak already!"

When she shouted out her demands, I noticed her voice crack slightly, as if she were now pleading with me instead. Yet, the moment I parted my lips in an attempt to reply, my chest heaved violently, causing me to cough up and spew blood onto the ground below. My obvious inability to communicate with the woman caused her grip to loosen as she dropped to one knee, aligning our height. Still holding up my head with one hand, she glanced back at the crates she had transported as the Cart Titan. She began to speak again, but in my utter state of confusion, I wasn't even sure it was me she was addressing. Sounds were beginning to fade in and out anyway, as a mixture of dull rumbling explosions overpowered her voice. However, a clearly audible set of curses burst from her lips as her fingers flew from my hair, rapidly releasing my head to surrender to gravity.

Don't go.

The earth quaked violently beneath me, accompanied by a spark and a shockwave, as the dark-haired woman snaked her spine back through the cargo-laced straps and returned to all fours. Before the newly transformed Titan returned to the Beast, she glanced back at my pathetic form, slumped over in defeat.

Please, don't leave me.

Not long after she disappeared from sight, I felt all of the pain reemerge. Its origin was not physical, but more the most devastating emotional pain I had ever endured. Useless, alone and fading fast, I was bombarded with the sickening sounds of blood-curdling screams. I slowly and painfully tilted my head to find that most, if not all of the smaller titans had left their post. Although I wished to deny the truth, I had come to recognize the hellish sounds of life being ripped from the human body; final pleas fading with the wind. I struggled to grasp the reality of the situation, which could only be defined as an inescapable nightmare.

I can't lose you now.

Each desperate attempt to block out the deafening wails of shattered souls was a miserable failure on my behalf. The now recognizable explosions from detonated Thunder Spears had been my last glimmer of hope; proof that they were still alive and fighting out there... but even that dissolved into a falsehood when the roars of the Armored Titan reverberated through the air. As if on cue, the Cart Titan returned to the Beast's side as he turned to grab a barrel from her back. In one swift maneuver, he launched the barrel over the wall and into the crumbling town of Shiganshina.

Shame and regret immediately began to consume my mind. Whatever had been thrown into the fray, I could have intercepted, and effectively prevented the Cart Titan from ever returning to battle. Instead, I failed...and made everything worse.

Don't give up on me yet.

My definition of 'worse' was cruelly put to shame when a sudden violent tremor erupted from the epicenter of battle, leveling the ground below. The once blue sky was engulfed in a blood-red mushroom cloud, where none other than the Colossal Titan had surely made his appearance. The earth's violent upheaval propelled my limp frame forward from where it hung, effectively freeing me from the claws of death. Sputtering and spewing my insides across the grass, I cried out in agony as I reached toward the Wall that held my lover, my comrades, my people. I watched in horror as the Cart Titan reappeared to retrieve another boulder for the Beast Titan. Once delivered, she turned right back around to retrieve another from the woods. The beast bent down and lifted the boulder into his gigantic hand, crushing it within his mighty grasp. Then, retracting his arm, he prepared to launch fragments of rock straight at the Survey Corps. If only I could have stopped time, or even rewound it to the days prior, then the hell that followed could have been avoided. However, I was only human, barely hanging on as it were, and powerless to prevent the merciless slaughter of the Survey Corps by the hands of the Beast Titan.

How could all of this happen? We had all come so far... so why? Why now!?

...Now.

As the rock and rubble ripped through the old village, scattered with huddles of mortified soldiers, I felt my chest begin to tighten. Each breath swiftly became more and more labored with each passing moment, yet it didn't feel as though death was forbidding my gasps for air. It felt more like a corset being cinched around my core, binding my ribs ever tighter with each relentless pull. Through all of this, the strangest sensation began coursing through my veins, electrifying my nerves. As if to match each step taken by the Cart Titan as she rapidly approached her target once more, my heart began to surge and swell, pumping and swirling new blood to every inch of my body. Somehow my strength was returning, but I had no time to investigate why.

I had been given a new mission to accomplish, and that was to do everything I possibly could to stop the Cart Titan from ever touching a boulder again.