Invincible: What was born in Shiganshina

What was born in Shiganshina  

It was a bleak spring morning; gray and black storm clouds had floated in from the south and rain poured freely from the heavens as if the sky itself was mourning. It was nearly 4 a.m. and yet the world refused to be claimed by sleep.  Though the villages behind Wall Rose and Maria were spread wide, the news had traveled faster than the wind. It was almost as if the world had stopped spinning, and time itself had frozen to take in the horror of it all. . . And then, they had come.

The Borderline- Wall Maria- had been broken through by the Colossal; the Titans were in. And as always, they had left a path of utter destruction in their wake. The once lovely hamlet of Shiganshina was gone; as well as countless other towns dotting the south side of the outer wall and outlying districts.

Death, shrouded in the most putrid kind of fear imaginable, tainted the streets in blood and gnawed corpses. Houses smashed, lives ruined- and for what reason no one could say. But then again, the Titans had never needed a reason. . . Never gave a second thought as to what drove them to mindlessly wipe out the human race, or for what purpose their morbid goal was achieved. And as a young woman now currently thought back on the last week of her life, and once more remembered the indescribable desecration of Shiganshina, she found herself asking why.  

* * * * *

Several Days Prior. . .

Kohina Gray felt bile rise in her throat at the sight of the Titan’s hairballs lining the now uneven cobbled streets and byways, but fought it back with all her might. The woman had seen her fair share of gore since she had joined the Scouts a year ago, but nothing like this. Before now, the death had always just been soldiers who chose to tread past the safety of the Walls. . . . But now the horrors of the Titan’s Wrath had found its way inside of the stronghold.

Re-swallowing the contents of her stomach, the woman tried to reprimand herself. There would be a time to get sick, and this wasn’t it. Not when the danger was ever present, and her life depended on her ability to stay focused.

From her place atop her horse, the woman had an unhindered view of her surroundings and her heart shattered in her chest. She wanted to be strong; to face this devastation with the cold resolve that usually drove her- but this time was different. This time it was her home that lay in shambles.

“Eyes ahead, Gray.”

The woman lifted her uniquely shaded orbs to the man beside her, gazing at him with barely contained emotion.

“I can’t-” she began, but his deep voice cut her off sternly.

“You can, and you will. We have to make it to Wall Rose by nightfall, and I don’t have time to babysit you.”

The woman usually would have brushed off the rather brutal manner of her companion with laidback ease, but seeing the place she had grown up nothing more than a ghost town, had taken its toll. Instead of letting the rude remark bounce off her skin, she shook her burnished-gold head.

“No need to babysit me, Captain. I take full responsibility for myself from here on out.” Then, to the man’s surprise (and her own) Kohina spurred her mare forward into a gallop. Even as she heard her commanding officer’s voice carry after her, she couldn’t stop. She had to know what the damage had been . . . what had been lost. And she wouldn’t know for sure until she saw the proof with her own two eyes.

She knew that deviating from the Scouting Regimen would most likely be her signed death certificate. But even as she moved away from her brothers and sisters in arms she couldn’t bring logic into the equation. There was only one thing on her mind, and it currently held all of her attention. For a long terrible moment, there was only the sound of her own breathing and the clomping of her mare’s hooves as she entered deeper into the once quaint housing district . . . and then there was nothing but silence. Silence as she reigned in her beast, and sloppily dismounted. Then she was moving forward with shaky legs- her heart and mind numb as she drew closer to what had once been a sound structure.

Kohina let her wary gaze travel over the caved in dwelling she had grown up in, and took in the ruins with a drawn breath. A thousand recollections of her life in this home raced through her mind as she drew closer to the structure. And it came to a peak as she drew to the nearest pile of rubble. It was here, in this particular patch of debris, that all of her worst fears were realized.

With a gut-wrenching sob, the woman fell to her knees as the weight of it crashed down on her tenfold. She had prayed that her anxieties would be for not, but the fates had been mocking her. She had willed her instincts to be wrong, but they had proven to be sharper than a knife.

When the carrier hawk had reached the Scouts outside of the Walls- asking them to return and aid their comrades after the Titan’s had gotten in- they had returned as quickly as possible. Led by the notorious Captain Levi, the Scouts had entered through the now smashed section of Wall Maria and arrived in a Titan populated Shiganshina- where they had thus far remained unnoticed. This was only due to extremely good luck and the fact that the band of Scouts were so few in number in their returning.

But now, as Kohina cried bitterly in front of her lost home, she held no thought for what could be. There was no future now . . . not when her greatest treasure had been taken from her.

As countless tears slid down the woman’s ashen face, she placed her hands up to her golden eyes to block out the sight before her- as if to wipe away the very memory with her fingertips. But the devastating image ignored her feeble attempts to block it out, and seeped further into her- taking refuge in her very bones. There was so much pain that it caused her entire body to shake from the impact. Grief so thick she choked on the essence and spat it back out with incoherent noises. And for one moment, she was mad. Broken down into the state of insanity … before a firm hand on her shoulder brought her back into awareness.

Kohina turned her head to look up into the emotionless eyes of her Captain, but for once she had no words for him. She had no words for anyone. Nor did she have her senses- for if she had, she might have pondered over how gentle the man’s touch actually was. Or questioned the fact that he had come after her- without cussing her out- instead of cutting his losses and leaving her behind to be Titan fodder.

For a minute the man was still, allowing his subordinate to mourn- before his fingers tightened around her shoulder.

“Come on Gray, let’s go . . . we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

She shook her head as a shaky gasp escaped from her clenched lips. “N-No. . .  I can’t leave him.”

Levi turned his eyes to regard the object of the woman’s heartbreak, and felt the stirrings of sympathy well up within him. Though on the outside his face remained expressionless as always, internally he pitied her. Thrown carelessly onto the pile of rubble of the smashed house was a body; bent and already in a sorry state of decay. It was so twisted and deformed that one couldn’t tell exactly what the person had looked like when alive. But none of this held the Captain’s attention for long.  It was the severed head, resting several feet away that made the surge of empathy wash over him. Though it too, was decayed, there was no mistaking the odd eye color of the lifeless orbs, or the burnished-gold shock of hair that the disembodied head sported. He was a male version of the distraught woman now crying silently. . .

“Kohina.” The Scout once more lifted her eyes to her Captain as he spoke her name. “If you stay you’ll be eaten. And I know your brother wouldn’t want you to die here.” 

“B-But I can’t leave him,” she whispered brokenly- sounding nothing at all like herself. “Not like this.”

“You’d never make it up the Wall carrying him.” It was cold logic, and it was an undeniable fact. But when the woman made no move to leave, the man continued. “There’s nothing that you can do for him now.”

For several moments, Kohina cried, gazing at the head of her deceased twin brother, before she reached out her hand to Levi. With a steady grip, the man took her hand in his and moved to help her stand.

“I should have been here with him,” she said to herself, even as Levi helped her up from the ground and they silently walked back to their horses, both mounting. “I failed the one person who mattered the most. I wasn’t here when he needed me. And now he’s dead.”

For some time Levi studied his subordinate with calculating gray-blue eyes, before he said, “Then get even.” Though the CO’s voice usually consisted of a bored or pissed off tone, he now sounded encouraging. And as he continued to speak, there had been no way to mistake his words as they pushed their horses to catch up with the Scout Regimen. “You’ve got the chance to pay the bastards back in kind. I suggest that you take it.”

And as they finally spotted their comrades and began to return into formation, the woman lifted her teary eyes to the sky- letting her commanders words sink in. For a minute, she felt the agonizing sorrow blind her, making more tears fall . . . before the sorrow was joined by something else. Something far stronger and more consuming.

And as the Scouting Regimen left Shiganshina far behind, Kohina Gray’s golden eyes burned with determination- her mourning, dead orbs now shining with a hell-fire fury. She would fight the Titans in every waking moment; with each breath she would curse them, and dream of chopping them apart piece by piece. And she would have her revenge one way or another.

* * * * *