With just my heart and my mind
I can be driving, driving home
And you asleep on the seat....
Hello Earth by Kate Bush
====================================
"I'm going back to New York Eren..." you whimper, your boombox held against your chest, your eyes unwilling to meet Eren's. "You don't have to come too; I'll be okay now... I just need some time to myself. I'm glad we got the chance to reconcile; I really am, I didn't want to hate you anymore, I don't have room in my heart to hate you anymore. Now go back and be with her, you have my blessing, you both do.... I genuinely hope you two have a good life, I swear to god I do. Take care of yourself Eren...goodbye." With that, you disappear from Eren in the blink of an eye, faster than he can stop you.
You keep your eyes shut as you go away, disappear through space and time and you slowly open them again to see you're standing in your pitch-black living room with the tv and lights off, the records and CDs and mattress still on the floor. You sniffle and sadly put the boombox back in its place and pick up the mattress to put it back on the bed. You feel numb as you look around your home for 50 years, knowing that you could soon lose it... lose it when you're sent back to a life of loneliness back in the paths as your end of the deal for getting a shot at true reconciliation with Eren.
It was bright day in Prague but it's still dark in New York, still an hour before the sky begins to lighten and you sniffle as you strip down naked and climb into bed. You lay in your bed, feeling so terribly miserable and alone. It's hard to believe that only last night you two had renewed your vows on the bridge, only to immediately part ways. At least you've cleared the air though, at least you've found closure, as much as you ever will with Eren.
You listen to the sounds outside and slowly play Running Up The Hill while seeing images of a far-off time and place in your old memories. You see an ancient Egyptian temple, a temple you once called your home. You see yourself standing and looking out at the ancient Alexandrian Lighthouse one fateful night as Eren stands beside you and reaches for your hand. You hold his supportively as you two stare into each other's sad glowing eyes before stoically turning to look out to at the lighthouse, its bright fire blinding your sight as you slowly drift off to sleep.
♫ If only I could,
I'd make a deal with god
And I'd get him to swap our places
Be running up that road
Be running up that hill with no problem ♫
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Several hours later you wake up to the sounds of the city outside your apartment and moan softly as you rise from your bed and stretch out. You try as hard as you can to remember that dream you had last night, something about a lighthouse? You try and retrieve the memories of that dream but they're gone, like someone's deliberately ripped out their pages.
You spend the day in a state of numb reflection, trying to process what's happened with you and Eren. You try to not think about him as you zone out to muted reruns of Twin Peaks, as Ultravox's Vienna plays loudly on your CD player. You numbly watch a scene of a blonde beauty lying dead on the shore of a lake as sheriff's deputies look her over in shock. You watch the clear plastic tarp she's wrapped in get pulled back revealing dirt and grime imbedded into her cold blue face and limp hair and your mind flashes back to those cold dark waters that kept pulling you down and under 30 years in the future, 2 years in the past.
You close your eyes, and you can feel the cold wet darkness envelope you as you plunge headfirst into the sea like a rocket. You twist and turn and are pulled apart as you thrash around in a panic, your wedding train flapping around you as you're violently jostled around by underwater currents. You panic and kick, trying to find where the surface even is before your pregnant body grows weak, your head grows light and your eyes slowly close for what must only be a few seconds before you're jolted awake as you feel something grab your hand, grab it and pull you up as you rise from the depths of the sea.
You sniffle and hot tears sting your closed eyes as you envision pitch black darkness before you open your eyes weakly to see the surface just above your head. Your head bobs limply up above that water of the open ocean and your eyes saw the far-off light of a lighthouse. The light stares right in your eyes and seems to get brighter and brighter as you keep struggling to stay afloat above the surface. It beckons you; come towards the light Rose it says, as a lone teal blue convertible sits next to it, signalling for you.
"Don't look at that Yurie," Eren says to you simultaneously, noticing you staring at the lighthouse and turning your face back to his as you sit on one of Liberio's harbour docks late one night. And yet you look at that lighthouse again and again. You look at it from the dock, from the window of your studio loft, from the Egyptian temple in Alexandria, from the waves of the open ocean. You look at the lighthouse on the lonesome beach, drawing closer to it, floating closer to it as its light gets brighter and brighter, as the vintage teal blue convertible got closer and closer.
Suddenly you feel something help you, you feel something grabbing and holding you, swimming you to the shore as the waves help to push your limp body out of the thrashing violent waters of the open ocean. Something kicks and yells as it struggles against the rip tide and swims you forward, trying to keep your head afloat as it pulls you to the breaking waters and shoreline. It throws you forward, and your body rolls into the shoreline feebly, pushing in and sinking into the wet sand as you fall still, completely still. The waters crashes into you, your hair lying limply over your cloudy eyes, your breathing still, your heartbeat still. You lay on that lonely beach, your glassy eyes seeing that sunset slowly touch the horizon of the ocean as nearby, a woman lies on all fours , coughing and choking onto the sand before crawling over to your flooded pregnant body.
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You open your tearing eyes and sniffle as you sit on your couch, your heart aching. You pull up your knees and breathe deeply, slowly lowering your head as Vienna keeps playing. That's a vision you don't like thinking about... you switch Twin Peaks to Say Anything, watch Llyod hold a boombox over his head and sit quietly in your apartment. You sit and think quietly, trying to think of anything to get your mind out of those waters. From those cold waters, your mind travels back to Eren...
Eren hasn't not called you or shown up at your door. You don't expect him to, he must have gone back to Shiganshina, back to the year 2026, back to the tree on top of the hill. Once he's gone, he'll forget you're still around. He'll remember burying you and forget everything past that. And you'll forget him too. He'll get married to Mikasa, they'll have a family, all while he's aware he's set to die at a young age. They'll have a baby girl, and hold to each other tight, enjoying his last years together as a couple devoted to each other. He'll go through med school, maybe make it to the other side to become a GP doctor, a well-respected career.
Eren will think back fondly to those days he fronted Paradis Devils with his buddies, maybe once and a while he'll get together with them to jam when he has free time. Eren so rarely has free time between the life of a family man and the life of a doctor following in his distinguished father Grisha Jaeger's footsteps.
Every now and then Eren will pass a picture in the hallway, a picture of a beautiful redhaired woman in a wedding dress, smiling happily with her bouquet of white lilies, her hand on her small swelling belly. He'll look over her picture thoughtfully, maybe press two fingers to his lips to press on her face before he heads into his living room to happily pick up his baby daughter named after his first wife from inside her playpen, kissing her chubby cheeks, breathing in the sweet scent of her black hair. He'll move on and have a happy life while still honoring your memory. And that's okay, it doesn't hurt you.
You turn off Ultravox and silently switch back to Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. Running Up That Hill begins again as you go and sit in your bay windowsill, looking out at New York, see the Hudson, the tall buildings, the Twin Towers; how you'll miss this entire view. You'll miss seeing the world go on outside your home, seeing the planes and boats and the buildings and the people advance. You don't want to go back there, you don't want to go back to your life in the paths, you want to stay here.
You want to stay with people, you don't want to go back to that life of seeing people die in front of your eyes. At one point, you thought maybe you could do it if you had love in your life but it seems alas, you're back where you started; you're back and alone in your studio loft, back in your lonesome Reisswoods house, looking out the window to watch the people living their lives as you live alone with only your heartbreak to keep you company. You're right back to square one, looking at that lighthouse, looking out at the waves that keep calling you to disappear into them as you wait for your life to change for better or worse.
You sniffle and wipe your eyes as you listen to Cloudbusting, maybe being alone is ok. You've done it once, you've done it twice, you've done it over and over again. You know you'll be okay being alone. You've been alone for 50 years now; ever since Arthur died on that park bench overlooking that beautiful pond as air raid sirens begun ringing out over war-torn London. You were right, you were right to make that call as you sat with him, kissing his already cold wrinkled skin, you were right to say you never wanted to say goodbye to anyone ever again. You'd rather be alone. What's a lifetime of being alone when it's better than the alternative; being alone is better than saying goodbye.
♫ Cause every time it rains
You're here in my head
Like the sun coming out ♫
♫ Ooh, I just know that
Something good is gonna happen
I don't know when
But just saying it could even make it happen ♫
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As a semi-inheritor of the Attack Titan's powers, you experience past, present, and future memories all at once. As Eren's wife and equal, you share dreams with him, you have in life and death...
You vaguely hear the sounds of Dream of Sheep as you remember the dream, the first dream you shared where Eren saw you fall, fall past him and into the depths of a dark void, doomed to fall through space and time. You fell for thousands of years and only a few minutes through space like a shooting star before plunging into a sea that swirled around you and grabbed you and pulled you into its depths, regenerating your body within it.
You remember... you remember bobbing around in that cold sea water at sunset and then slowly opening your eyes to your sea of stars in the paths.
Your mind trails through the dreams with Eren and you slowly come to stand in a dream, a dream experienced years ago; experienced the first night after you were abducted. In the dream, the sun again sets over the sea, the clouds glow yellow, orange and pink, the sky slowly turning purple as seagulls and a white bird fly overhead. You turn to watch from some distance as Eren walks through a busy beach at sunset, walking away from his friends playing volleyball and setting up a bonfire. His long hair is tucked into a hoodie and he huffs in boredom as he walks before stirring as he hears the sounds of women laughing near him.
You walk closer to watch with him as two woman go laughing and running past him in a mad dash to race into the ocean, one of them dressed in a strappy purple bikini, her red hair blowing past her. You both watch her as she rushes into the waves and swims out a little with her friend.
"You were the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen here Rose..." Eren says quietly as you both watch yourself frolicking in the water. He swallows hard as he absentmindedly pulls his hoodie back and ties his hair back. "You were as beautiful here as you were walking on the waterfront, happily taking pictures. You caught my eye this moment and I couldn't keep them off you ever again."
"I know..." you say just as quietly. "I'm sorry I wasn't as happy as first impressions suggested... in either lifetime."
"It's okay... neither was I..." Eren says. "We made each other happy though..."
You smile gently and clear your shaky voice. "You umm... you should go out Eren... I always wondered why you didn't."
"I wanted to... I really fucking wanted to but I was shy. I already knew you were too good for me," Eren says. "That's probably why I was so smug around you at first... I guess I was trying to overcompensate..."
"Hmmm, I had a feeling," you chuckle. "You were too much of a softie under that arrogant hot-shit exterior... you cracked almost immediately once we went on our first date."
"You really had me figured out that quick?"
"Oh yeah, I could read you like a poem Eren," you laugh gently as you watch Rose happily splash Rochelle before leaning back to float in the ocean by herself. You turn your head up and watch as a shooting star flies past, the same shooting star Rose sees.
"Hmm, a shooting star; a soul being released from its body and into the heavens," you say sadly.
Eren hears you but doesn't say anything as he watches Rose turn to look around the beach. Her face freezes when she sees him and he grins happily and raises his hand to give a small wave to her, his foot starting to move. But Rose doesn't grin back, her eyes widen in fear as she exchanges a few words of goodbye with her friend and you both watch as she slips beneath the waves.
Eren's grin fades, his hand drops as you both watch the waves as Rochelle swims back to shore.
"Why did you do this?" Eren asks quietly, his voice shaking as he swallows a lump in his throat. "You said we'd meet on the beach..."
"I...I'm sorry Eren..." you whimper as you shuffle and look down. "I wasn't ready for you to see me...I knew you weren't ready to see me but I wanted you to see the truth..." you say sadly. "I was too afraid to tell you so...so I showed you instead..."
Eren nods slowly and is quiet for a long time. "When did you enter this dream Rose? Was it the same night you got kidnapped..."
You shake your head solemnly as your eyes well with hot tears. "No...." you tremble. "I... I entered it the moment I died... we experienced it together at different times... I was dead in the wa—"
"She's not coming back," someone says behind the two of you and Eren turns to see a young man named Ramzi, holding a bag of sweets in his hand.
"What?" Eren asks, his eyebrows furrowed as you sniffle and keep watching the waves.
"She's not coming back," the man repeats himself as he nods out to the waves. Eren turns back to look at you as you watch the waves crash on to the beach again and again.
"Why not? I need to see her," Eren asks sorrowfully as you turn to hold Eren's gaze as the young man turns into a small boy with a red fez hat. His bag of sweets turns into a bag of money, his right hand missing, the stub wrapped in a bandage.
"She's not ready to see you. If you want to see her, you'll have to prepare yourself for the end, the end of everything."
"The end of everything..." Eren murmurs slowly as he keeps his eyes on you. "Her end or mine?"
You and Eren watch each other as the sun begins to brighten on the horizon. It slowly gets brighter and brighter as the beach empties of people including the little boy and your friends, leaving the two of you alone in an empty world devoid of people. The sand slowly falls away, as giant footsteps impend into it.
"The end of everything for both of us Eren..." you say quietly. "The end of us..."
Eren looks around, his eyes falling and dulling in sadness before he turns back to you and pulls you in for embrace; a sad and heavy embrace of two people knowing they're not long for this world as the sun keeps brightening as it sets on the water.
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Let Me Dream of Sheep continues to play as you snap back to the present. You groan and hold your head, it feels horrible and fucked up how you seem to have fully tapped into the Attack Titan's full abilities, experiencing everything, experiencing everywhere all at once. Your head races with the experiences of 2000 years of a lifetime as well as the experiences of your past lives. It races as it experiences your three lifetimes simultaneously and your mind swells and pushes against the confines of your skull.
You're looking out at the waters of the sea from your shoppe in Liberio while running into the ocean in your purple bikini while thrashing under the water while working as an aircraft spotter as bombs drop around you during the Blitz in WWII and riding a horse through the French countryside with Anne by your side while you're thrashing in the water.
You're standing in a temple overlooking Mediterranean Sea and the Alexandria Library while sitting on a tour bus driving through a snowy blizzard in the Marley Mountains while piloting an air tanker biplane over rumbled earth while diving headfirst into the ocean while you're thrashing in the water.
You're standing on a bridge overlooking a cold icy black river while pulling your convertible up to a lighthouse and lonely beach while cradling Oliver in your arms while sitting under a tree all alone while trying your hardest to hold Eren's hand as he helps you step further into the ocean as you tremble in fear. And all while you're thrashing in the water.
Your fragments pull at you like thrashing under water, like being trapped in the undercurrents, like being pulled in every direction by violent possessive waves that try to fight over you and claim you as their bride. You don't know if up is down or if left is right or if side to side is really upside down. All the while, you're kicking and twirling and spinning, trying to find salvation deep in the depths of the ocean. You're thrashing and panicking and all you want is a hand to reach down and pull you out.
You shakily turn up the volume as you go run yourself a bath, set as hot as it can go. You step into the tub and sink in, watching your skin barely flush as you lay in the visibly bubbling water. You moan and close your eyes as you listen to the music, trying not to think of anything. You just want your mind and body to go numb as you slip below the surface.
You close your eyes as you lay underwater in your tub and you slowly open them and let out an underwater scream in shock; you're suddenly in your bathroom in Reiswoods, underwater in your bathtub, battered and raped and bruised and screaming out your agony, desperate to drown yourself that fateful early morning. The golden morning light pours in through the frosted windows as you lay in your bathtub, screaming under bloody water as Under Ice begins playing.
♫ It's wonderful,
Everywhere, so white ♫
You frantically slide out of your tub and onto the floor and cough feebly, coughing out water from deep in your lungs, your hand bleeding, your arms covered in fingerprint bruises. You cough up water before feebly moving through your bathroom and walk-in closet and into your bedroom, hunching over in pain and climbing weakly into bed. You lay under the bed covers, soaking wet and naked, your teeth chattering as you curl into a fetal ball, drifting off to sleep as if you're once again underwater, enveloped by cold darkness.
♫ The river has frozen over
Not a soul on the ice ♫
You shiver as you lay on your side and when you awaken, you're sleeping rough on a park bench in Lucerne on a cold winter night, your carpet bag under your head. You pull your blanket closer to you, keep it wrapped around you as you sit up and place a hand over your swelling belly. You look up at the twinkling stars in the black night as your breath visibly moves from you. You get up and shiver feebly as you walk through the snowy park, past other homeless people on park benches as you make your way to the bridge. You walk and sniffle, your hot tears cooling and freezing on your face.
♫ Little lines in the ice
Cutting out little lines in the ice
Splitting, splitting, sound ♫
You approach the bridge and look up at the night sky, see the white wings of a bird call down to you as you slowly strip off your blanket and coat to stand shivering violently in your nightgown. You tremble as you step out of your shoes and move up to the railing, climbing over it frantically as you hear the screech of a white bird above your head. You quickly look around the bridge, no one's in sight. You turn to look down to see your swelling belly with the black ice-cold waters of the river rushing below your feet as the bird cries out again.
"No matter what happens, you will fall."
"What..." you whimper as you fearfully hear that voice cackle... it's cackled this into your ear every time... it cackled in your ear on the bridge in Lucerne, it cackled in your ear as you looked down on the streets in Odiha on New Years, it cackled in your ear as you stood on that small balcony as you looked down a long 30m drop to the waters below you.
"You can't fight fate dearest red rose, look what happened to you when you did."
"Fate always wins out in the end. Don't stray off the red thread this time dearest red lily."
"That's right. No matter what happens, you will fall so fall. So fall already and be done with it."
The white bird shrieks out again, a desperate shriek for help and you look up at it in despair.
"No, not this time Eren; this is how it should have ended all along," you say sorrowfully.
With that you step off the railing and plunge down, drop down into the cold black waters below your feet. You plunge down into the pitch-black freezing waters, feeling knives stab you all over your body as you're enveloped by the waves. Your body temperature quickly plummets as you instinctually begin gasping for air and kicking for the surface, trying to reach it as your pulled through the rushing currents of the freezing cold river.
♫ There's something moving
Under the ice ♫
You kick and scream underwater, trying to frantically get back up to the surface and when you finally rise to it, you bang your head hard and crack it on the surface. You can't break the surface; you can't break through it.... you're trapped under a solid sheet of ice. You scream underwater, bubbles shooting out of your mouth as ice water floods into you. Your eyes widen in terror as you try to bang your fists into the ice. You try and kick it, hit it, bang yourself into it but it's too thick and there's no one on the river this late at night.
♫ Moving under ice through water
Trying to get out of the cold water ♫
You look through the ice as you feel your head growing fainter and fainter, still trying to bang frantically for help. As you bang, you see the shadow of footprints walk over the ice, footprints that draw closer and closer to you. You bang your hands desperately, praying that someone, anyone can break through this as the figure steps into view.
Your eyes reflect horror as you gaze up through the ice to see a woman get on all fours to stare down at you and bang her hands into the ice. She tries to help but she's as feeble, as in trouble as you are. Her violet eyes match yours, her face mirrors yours, and she stares down at you, her red hair drenched and hanging low, her wedding dress soaking wet, as helpless as you are. You both look at each other with matching terrified expressions, both of you pregnant, drowning through the water, facing your inevitable death together.
♫Something, someone help her... ♫
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You let out a loud scream of terror and shoot up in bed, your eyes wide with fright, your body wracked with tremors as your New York apartment fills with the bright light of morning. Your red hair, your whole body is drenched and before you can stop yourself, you drop out of the bed and get down on all fours, as you feel your lungs push up. Your throat cracks and dries and suddenly a torrent of sea water pushes out your mouth and splashes down on the floor. You cough and hurl sea salt water from deep within your body as your mind races to that dream.
You look down at the puddle in horror and confusion as you breathe heavily. The pool of water lies forebodingly on your floor and you watch it, completely terrified as it slowly disappear.
You sit on your floor and feel the sea water on your tongue, like you've licked a salt-lick. You shakily get back into bed, desperate to forget everything you've just seen and experienced. You grab your blanket and throw it over you, burying yourself under it. You nestle into your bed and curl into a trembling fetal position, sniffling, trying to forget. You desperately need someone to hold you as you lie in bed, naked, alone, wet and terrified. The taste of salt burns your tongue and your teeth chatter cold as your always-hot body goes cold for the first time since you died. You can hear the constant crash of waves in your head and you try and calm yourself as you slowly fall back asleep, drift off to the feeling of floating in deep waters.