COMRADES • Eren Jaeger

PROLOGUE

YOU HAD WAITED your whole life to become a hero.

On the day the memory of your parents died, a woman whispered to you in your sleep.

It is the first thing you remember, and even now, as you walk the sandy dunes of your dreams, searching for the owner of the voice, you hear it still. You'd shut your eyes, hear the words, and you'd be back in Trost District, so many years ago, running barefoot through the corridors while you awaited the return of the soldiers from their latest mission. Another failure.

Memories. Lacking them had never been a new occurrence to you, but that was foreseeable, given the situation you lived in. You writhed in your sleep, searching for the answers, violation of peace invading all logical sense, like ruddy smears against palpable brown air.

As all memories of your hometown faded away, a new one entered, plundering your line of sight like mesomorphic fog to a guileless seer. Then you see him. There is a field of memories in those green eyes, and everything comes back to you at once, like daylight flooding the universe for the first time.

Eren.

He remembers everything.

"Hey, little L/N girl, fancy joining our church? Worship the Walls, pray for the souls of the departed."

"Not interested."

Clutched in your hand was a bag of bread you'd nicked from an lone stall in the marketplace. Brioche, your favorite. It was easy to steal, because no one ever seemed to man the bakery. You never knew why, but you certainly weren't about to complain.

You dodged priests and worshippers as you passed by the square in Trost, where pious bards sang Holy hymns praising the three sisters for their godly protection against the Titans. You couldn't understand why people worshipped giant concrete, but you guessed that this was just human behavior.

Their murmurs followed your ears as they watched you walk the path returning to the Survey Corps headquarters.

"Come on, young lady," another priest said as you passed him by, "do you not want to offer your prayers to your deceased friends in the Scouts? Your family, maybe? Pray for your soul, atone for your sins—"

"I don't believe in no deities or gods," you snapped, annoyed now. "Beat it."

Dawn broke in the sky. You brisk-walked across cobblestone, skillfully avoiding crowds and the occasional dropping from mules. Trost was for peasants, but it was home.

When you reached the Scouting Regiment, your thoughts returned to the memories you couldn't place. Every now and then, you would see a flash of green. Sometimes it looked soft as grass, but other times it looked destructive like thunder cracking against a lake.

And sometimes, you would randomly imagine a sky full of stars, with sand spread everywhere, and a beacon of light shaped like a tree shining up ahead.

You did not know why you kept thinking of this in particular.

You put the bread in the kitchen for later and tried to sneak back into your room. As soon as you closed the door, though, someone lit the oil lamp beside your bed.

"How many times do I have to tell you, we don't need to steal food anymore?"

You groaned and turned your body as Levi opened the window to your bedroom, allowing the sunlight to come in. He had interrupted the vivid dream you were having.