I watched the muscles of his face grimace up, wincing in pain as my hand grasped onto his arm, pulling it over my shoulders. Stefan’s entire shirt was now soaked in blood, but I tried to ignore the smothering metallic smell and ushered him along by my side. Every once in a while, the young boy would stumble in the dark and it was up to me to pull him back up beside my tired figure again. His weight was leaning to my side as he weakly propped himself onto me. Instead of leaving behind a trail of white stones to mark our path in the moonlight, we were leaving behind a trail of blood across the dark dirt.

“Stop sulking and move.” I sneered into his ear, tugging him through the dimming shadows as the light of day started crawling back into the horizon again. My hand immediately clasped over Stefan’s mouth as my hearing picked up on light shuffling noises in the nearby bushes. After a while of silence, I began scurrying along forest ground again, picking up the speed as Stefan seemed to be getting worse. His condition doesn’t look too good and I didn't have all the time in the world. 

We all knew that time was never on our side.

A damp feeling was growing a little below my shoulder and I lowered my head where my eyes stared down in the dark, focussing on the wet spot where Stefan’s hand was beneath my cape. My eyes narrowed at his paling face.

“Is your arm bleeding?”

He shook his head immediately, gulping agitatedly at my interrogation. I didn’t buy that distrustful expression of his, and with one hasty move, I stripped his arm from beneath my green cape. My face scowled in horror as the sight of where his wrist was supposed to be had completely gone missing, leaving behind a bloody stump of bones and jagged flesh at the end. Blood was trickling out of the open wounded end where Stefan’s wrist had entirely been hacked off.

“You idiot,” I muttered under my breath, “What happened? Where’s your hand?”

Without waiting for further explanation, I pulled his arm away from my shoulder and grabbed hold of the end of my cape. The slow ripping sound was quite distinct in the quiet hazy morning as the fabric of my green cape tore into shabby rags. I reached my hand out, expecting for the output of his chopped off, now remaining stub of bones and flesh. He was hesitant and kept his wound be his side, shaking his head timidly.

“I don’t want to be a burd-”

“Shut up.” I hissed, pulling his arm towards me and swiftly bound the cloth over and around the bloody end. I seriously wasn’t in the mood to put up with his shit any longer. Stefan bit his lip to stop himself from yelping out in pain as I roughly tried to finish the whole process as quickly as possible. Finally tightening up the knot, I held his stump up to my face and examined my quick fix tourniquet. This should buy us at least another half an hour.

“You should probably tell me if you’re missing a hand.” I breathed, rolling my tired eyes as I pulled his arm over my shoulder again.

He was so stupid.

Stefan awkwardly placed his arm around me again as he listened to the annoyed expression of my tone. Even in this murky lighting where the sunlight was barely visible, my eyes could tell the guilty expression washing over his face. 

“No, seriously. You could have easily bled to death from a missing limb.” My additional clarification seemed to have put him to ease a bit, but he still appeared to be really twitchy around me. 

I sighed and escorted him across the uneven forest lands, watching out for rocks that we could potentially stumble over. Beads of sweat were starting to form on my forehead when I realized that Stefan was getting heavier and heavier, until he pretty much wasn’t moving his legs at all. Stefan had no co-ordination of his arm anymore, whoever who dug the dagger into his shoulder must have popped the entire thing off.

“Who the heck did this to you?” I growled, expecting a full detailed explanation from him. But instead, his speech was starting to slur, as if he was another regular drunkard from the capital of Mitras, taking the secure walls of Sina for granted. I snapped my fingers at him and even pinched his cheeks in attempt to get the rosy colour back in exchange for his current pale one. However, nothing seemed to work; Stefan was growing drowsier and drowsier by the minute.

Just when I thought things couldn’t have gotten any worse, my eyes drifted to the increase levels of leaves rustling around us. The ground was vibrating and unsteady, which resulted to Stefan now hugging tightly onto me for support. I pulled back from his sudden touch, but still steadied him on the imbalanced ground.

I immediately discharged my cables at a thick high branch, grumbling as I tried to lift the weight of both Stefan and I off the dirt and up a nearby tree. He squirmed a little after I placed him on the tree, securing ropes around his weak body.

“What are you doing?” He whispered at me, absolutely clueless. 

My hand extended to my back pocket to get my flare ammos ready, thrusting the whole stash which consisted of a flare gun and my remaining signal blazes into his shivering hand. Attention seems to have crawled its way back into his light orbs as he looked up at me anxiously.

“For now, just concentrate on not falling out of the tree and getting the right colours up in the dome. I doubt anyone would be able to see in this kind of light though.”

My blades drew out by my side as I turned around, directing my attention towards where the shaking and vibrations were coming from. Whatever I do now, I absolutely cannot leave Stefan’s side. If someone really did try to kill Stefan tonight, there was a huge chance that they’ll show themselves now. My hawk eyes will keep an eye out for that.

I knelt down in front of Stephan, his curious golden pupils following my hand as I rested it on the back of his head. The blacks and reds were snatched off his lap as I slipped those particular coloured ammos back into my pockets again. Titans weren’t the main concern now, but it sure looks like it to him. Leaning closer, I finally whispered into his ear.

“Go for yellow when you sense danger. Not a titan this time.”

"Why yellow?"

"I like the colour." I willingly lied, not giving a damn if it sounded believable or not. These are the lasting effects of being insincere to society for too long, I just simply accept it as a natural gift now.

The green hoodie was pulled over his ash brown curls by my fingers as the shaking of the ground became more distinguishable, coming closer and closer towards our direction.

“I’ll fucking kill you if you fall asleep.”

The young boy sudden grabbed onto my hand with his only palm and pulled me towards his face. I immediately halted before I would get too close, heaving away from his grip in mere disgust. My dark annoyed eyes watched the edges of his mouth lift into a familiar smile jokingly as he managed to shoot a grin at me playfully, nodding to my words.

“Be careful, Hazel.” His voice echoed boyishly, wishing me all the protection of the world in one phrase. I smiled in return, reassuring him that everything will be fine.

You be careful, Stefan.

*****

I snickered as I slashed deeply into the nape flesh of its neck. The usual blood I’ve grown too used to splattered all over my face, but the killing felt good. Too good to stop. I couldn’t stop spilling the blood.

My feet landed on a sturdy branch of a nearby tree as I watched the aberrant shriek into the lonely dawn sky before disintegrating to the grounds below. The steam emitting into the thin air from my face was visible from the corner of my eye as the titan blood disappeared into nothing.

I adjusted my sore neck as my head tilted to the side when the view of another 2 titans rushing towards our direction became visible. I could feel the adrenaline circulating in my veins; my whole body was taken over by this energy. This unhealthy thinking… this obsession was tinting my mind once again; the obsession to kill.

A sigh left my lips as it curled into a mocking grin, my body turned towards the emergent titans from the big trees in the community of forestry. I didn’t care about where these shit heads were coming from, they were here now. Here to die by my sharp edge. No thinking required.

I raised my blade, which reflected in the now rising sun of the horizon. My eyes caught sight of Stefan’s peculiar and full of astonishment gaze at me, but my mind disregarded that act as I jumped off from my perch, my heart set to kill.

The images of Bella’s dead body and her glossy wide eyes staring… staring at nothing advanced throughout my mind. It wasn’t just Bella either. My mind raced through the string of memories of all the people I’ve worked with throughout my life, my lips muttering the names of those who died in such vain.

Ruth.

Clara.

Luisa.

It was thoughts like these, the thoughts of grief and negativity and suffering and pain that have caused my impulsive actions all my life. But I never fought to stop them. I let them take over my mind like a diffusing disease, getting worse and worse by the passing years. It made people fear me, it gave me such power.

These feelings gave me the power that no one else gave me.

The way that I’m thinking now… resembles to a complete sadistic monster.

My fists were clenched tightly as my narrowed eyes stared straight ahead of me at the titans.

It was their fault.

It was their fault that everyone died.

That all this grief was secreting from these woods outside the walls.

I launched my cables into its smiling cheeks as it attempted to slap me away. With one quick blow, I stabbed my knives into its lustrous gaping pupils as it shook its face in agony. My boots pattered up their face, my cables relaunched to the back of its neck as I swung across in the air. A new pair of blades was hurled from my blistered hands as it dug unrestrictedly into the back of its neck. I stood on the back of its head supporting stem, retrieving my blades out from its flesh as I watched the meat of its nape soar high in the air. It flew as free as the wings of freedom, with a trail of blood spraying behind it. What a beautiful sight.

 The vulgar sound of the cannon like flare tore up into the divine morning amber of nature’s dome. My eyes drifted away from the last titan left to kill and shot up at the sky above my head, eyeing the flare alarmingly.

Yellow.

Immediately, my eyes ripped away from everything, only catching the view of the hooded figure again, which was raiding through the dark giant trees towards the young boy that I had left tied to the tree. I was ready to sink my claws into their throat.

I jumped off the titan’s head and darted towards Stefan’s direction too. This was a matter of a life and death, of who gets to the bait first. The drumbeat in my chest eventually increased as the revulsion amassed up in my pupils. The aching sensation started to scrape back into the pores of my flesh as I’ve took my mind off the butchery of the titans. The mammoth thumping sound was right behind me as the last titan came after my figure dashing through the trees.

My blades were hurled out by my side as I dodged the opposing edge of the closing shadowy hooded figure. They propelled another round of unlanding attacks as I swiftly countered back mid-air. The coils of my gear whipped through the air into the tree Stefan was on, flinging my light figure off the course adjacent to the back-stabber in the Survey Corps uniform as I curled back beside Stefan. My hands fumbled quickly with the rope as I ripped it away from young wounded boy, utterly aware of the hungry titan coming towards our direction.

Hasn’t anyone seen our signal yet? Why wasn’t anyone showing up?!

Instinctively, my body pulled away from the nearing blade edge thrown over my head. I ducted before swinging my leg around in a circular motion, sweeping the traitor off the branch. The urge rose inside of me as I craved to stretch over and seize the bastard by his cape, smashing his head into the timber. But I knew well enough that I didn’t have time for that. The titan would reach this tree the coming second.

My arms roughly wrapped around the young boy before the hooded figure recovered. Instantly, the cold morning air hit my face, driving my wild hair away over my shoulders as we both soared off the branch. Everything was so messed up now. No other Survey Corps soldiers were in sight. If I left Stefan alone to eliminate the titan, the hooded figure would immediately get to him. If I went for the hooded figure, the titan would sure reach the young boy anytime soon.

The crashing sound was so loud behind us, it partially sounded like a bomb when the titan roared in anger.

My arms were gripping around Stefan’s waist tightly as my cables slit through the air towards the further, once again lifting us both off the ground jaggedly. I could hear the nearing footsteps of the titan behind us as my coils struggled to keep the weight up. At any time, the man-eating creature would crush us.

“Hazel…” The young boy stammered my name in a small voice. His light eyes were tearful as he looked at me, trying to pull into a soft smile.  A jolt was sent through my whole body as he leant closer to my face. He wanted me to let him go.

I scoffed, irritated as I turned my head away from him, keeping my eyes directed to the front before we crash into a trunk of a tree.

“You always seem so hostile…” His voice reverberated into my eardrums, which were soon replaced with the distant hissing of gas tanks. The hooded figure was coming back at us, prepared to finish us off this time.

“I’ve actually seen you around a lot back then…” I felt my grip loosen around him as I listened apathetically to his words.

“I tried to sit with you at dinner a couple of times, but you end up moving to the courtyard to eat… away from everyone.”

“What are you running from?”

I couldn’t help but let out a low growl under my breath as the boy spoke, signally for him to shut his pie-hole and keep quiet for the rest of the battle. He was speaking of such trivial matters at such time; the desire of spitting out a curse at him was at the tip of my tongue.

“Once, you actually spoke to me. Actually, you told me to go to hell… but yet,” Stefan smiled, his golden orbs faded a bit even in the morning sun, “You were holding out your hand, offering a bandage to me.”

“You acted so ominous and cruel, but you were also too beautifully human.”

Once his words entered my ears, it rebounded endlessly in my mind. I mentally begged for him to stop.

“But they took you away before I could even thank you… or tell you how I felt…”

I sensed someone closing in on us. My guard was never lowered, but I didn’t stop listening to this boy either.

 “Just like the heavenly stars that filled up the night skies above, you were always out of my reach.”

“He told me that you weren’t mine.”

“Stop…” My hoarse voice managed to escape from my dry lips, the head of my brows rose in a pleadingly gesture. “Tell me this after the battle.”

But Stefan ignored my request, as if he’d never heard me at all.

“But I couldn’t stop adoring you.”

"If you tell me this isn't love... then I don't know what it is anymore."

He embraced my shocked body into a tight warm hug, burying his face in my hair one last time.

“So live. For him.”

My shocked grey eyes stared into those rare light ones the boy had processed, utterly flabbergasted after his unexpected speech. I didn’t even want to think of how red my face must have been of the growing embarrassment clouding inside of me. With one last smile, the young boy committed the most unthinkable and selfless move that I would have never expected any fearful soldier of this branch to even think of.

I prayed that he wouldn't make such an idiotic choice.

But when has my prayers ever been answered?

Stefan broke away from my grasp, smiling heartily at me while throwing himself at the titan behind us … meeting his end.

You're such an angel in disguise.

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