Chapter 4: Meeting

'Just a bit more and we'll see Shiganshina's wall, I now need to think of a way to convince them of our words, if not for our abilities anyone would have died in that situation' running helped Klemens with thinking more clearly, the sorrow had to be repressed until they got a safe place.

'Just a bit more' thought the girl at the same time.

But they stopped when they saw titans passing through the broken gates of the city and spread out into the walls.

They then turned to the waterway were they could see batches of blood on the ground, limbs, torsos, heads and other mangled corpses were on the ground.

The water of the river was red colored with titans still walking around there.

It looked like a scene from Hell.

The two remained silent for a minute, then the boy took the girl's hand in his.

"Let's go" he managed to whisper.

"...Yes" was her answer, all she needed to reply.

The two then started their journey once again, this time they didn't go at full speed, they preferred conserving their forces to use them in case of an emergency.

Titans filled the land, they couldn't take any rest and had to keep going no matter what, or they would be eaten like everyone else.

Night quickly came, but they had to keep going, they had no idea if those monster slept or not so they had to keep going.

Day after day, night after night, three days later they couldn't keep going anymore, they had to rest otherwise they would collapse.

"Look at that" said the boy, those were the first words that were spoken in since they left Shiganshina's wall three days before.

The boy pointed at a house, the were currently inside a forest, the plains were more dangerous at this point, titans from afar would have been able to see them and run after them, they were far too tired to be able to run at full speed and run away.

The house was small, the door was broken in.

Coming closer they could see blood on the ground.

"Is it safe?" asked the boy to the girl.

"Yeah, I feel nothing dangerous" confirmed the girl.

"Good, let's go rest inside it for now"

Inside of the house there was a simple bed, a wardrobe and the blood stained ground, there was a bow with a few arrows in a quiver near it.

It seemed that the person who lived here had died while trying to fight a titan that had now left.

"Let's sleep" said the two at the exact same time, they threw themselves on the bed and closed their eyes.

It was still daytime, but they were far too tired to care about that.

The evening after they woke up, the boy groggily opened his eyes and looked outside, but his eyes shot open once he saw the sky outside the window.

He shot toward his friends swords and out of the door.

Seeing that there were no titans around he released a breath of relief 'How lucky'

The two had slept for almost an entire day and no titan came to eat them in their sleep.

The girl came out of the door right after him with an alert expression on her face, but feeling no danger she finally told him "Come inside, there may be some food around"

"Yes" he said as he returned inside through the half broken door.

"Yes!" she couldn't help but shout in joy as she found a small bag filled with jerky inside a drawer in the wardrobe.

"And look here" said the boy with a small loaf of old bread in his hand, while old it looked really delicious to them, who hadn't eaten in three days.

"Look for a cellar, sometimes there are in houses like this one, maybe we will find something to drink" said the girl who was happy enough with their findings to talk a full sentence with the same tone she used before the fall of the wall.

*Tun* "Bingo" said the boy as he lifted a piece of the wooden floor to show the cellar beneath it.

They went down the stirs to find a couple of filled barrels and a shelf full of mugs and a couple of goblets.

"If they had a place like this, why did they try to fight the titan, I don't get it" said the girl.

"I don't know, maybe they didn't know that it was a titan, maybe they thought that it was just a person, then they got eaten before being able to run away" answered the boy analyzing the situation he had no mean to know the reality of.

"Anyway, let's drink and then let's get beck on the road"

They took a mug each and opened the cork of the barrel, letting a dark yellow liquid into the mugs.

He looked at it weirdly then he sniffed it, realizing it wasn't water.

'Meh, smells good so whatever' he thought while taking a sip of the golden liquid.

"Mm... It tastes good, maybe a bit bitter" he liked the light burn in the back of his throat, but his companion didn't agree with him.

"Bleh, it's too bitter, I don't like it" but she kept drinking it anyway while eating a small piece of the bread and one of the jerkies, she was too thirsty and hungry to mind the taste.

After being done with their meal they searched around a bit they found two flasks they filled with the golden beverage to drink later in their journey.

They then put all the remaining jerky and bread into a sack and hit the road once again.

They kept going without resting once more, the more they kept going the less they had to worry about titans, with their speed they had long since passed all of them and left them behind.

Eventually, two days later they took another break, this time shorter than before, inside a small cave they found on the road, they once again slept hugging together to keep the night's cold away.

And once again they returned to their travel, and again, and again.

Twelve days after they began their travel, they finally reached the door of the Wall Rose to the Trost district.

They saw the gate sealed shut to keep all the titans outside, they had already let in all the refuges and wouldn't open it again in fear of the titans coming inside.

The two ten year olds where right in front of the gates, they understood that they wouldn't be able to see them if there wasn't someone looking down from the top, so the girl turned her head to the top of the wall and shouted with every single ounce of power she had left "Soldiers! Come and get us up!"

She shouted so loudly the person at her side thought that it was a titan's screaming instead of a person, leaving him almost deaf.

The two could see a soldier with a bewildered expression looking down from above, before he jumped down after shooting a hook to keep himself anchored to the wall.

After he reached the ground near them he told them "Hey kids, I'll take you to the top of the wall, opening the gate for two people would give too much of an opportunity for the titans to enter"

The two had no problem with this, they also understood that what the man said was true.

Once the two reached the top, the man who had taken them up let them on the ground.

The man was old man with brown hair and wrinkles around his green eyes, he stood in a military brown uniform with a coat of arms with two roses on it.

"Hi kids, my name is Ronald and I'm very happy to see that you two made it here" he said with a slight, forced smile on his face, at that time smiling was not an easy thing to do at all, he got on one knee to get to their eye level.

"Now we will bring you to a nice camp where you will be given food and drink, you are safe now, no need to be worried" said the man, Ronald, with a soft tone to his voice.

The two children understood that they were now safe, that they finally made it, they had nothing to worry about now.

The two turned their faces to each other and after seeing the first tears since their parents deaths, they finally allowed themselves to not suppress the sorrow finally grieve for the loss.

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Later that day, they finally reached the place where they where going to live together with other refugees.

After a few days they finally realized the truth about the camp, it was a newly created village inside the Wall Rose, the terrain wasn't suitable to grow crops on it and the only food that came was what was given to them by the government.

And it still wasn't a lot, but it was enough for the two of them to survive.

There were other children in that place, like the trio with the quiet girl, the angry kid and the coward boy, but Klemens didn't care about them, on the other hand Lie seemed interested especially in the girl of the trio.

"Hey Kle, doesn't that girl look a lot like you?" said the red haired girl while pointing a black haired girl to the black haired boy.

"Really? I don't think so" answered the boy, how could he look like a girl?

"Yeah, same pitch black hair, same slightly apathetic look in your eyes and the same air of strength and intimidation around you, let me tell you, the two of you have to be related" said the girl showing a slight smile, not at all as wide as the ones she did before.

"Let me go ask her" before the boy could stop her he she was already gone, 'Still as excited as before' thought the boy as he gave up and started walking towards his supposed relative and the weird girl that loved talking to new people for some reason.

"Hi girl, I'm Liesl Stark, what's your name?" said the crazy girl to the quiet girl.

"Why do you want to know?" said the angry boy interfering in the conversation.

Lie smiled at the angry boy without getting angry, everyone was on edge right now after all "I want to know because she looks a lot like my friend over there" she said while pointing to the quiet boy a few feet of distance behind her.

"He does look like her" mumbled the blond boy that was part of the trio.

"My name is Mikasa Ackerman" said the quiet girl, who now the two knew had the same last name as the quiet boy.

At that answer the crazy girl's eyes appeared to have stars in them "Yes!" she turned toward her friend "See you idiot? I told you were related!" she said excitedly, for an instant her smile appeared like those from before the fall, which brought warmth into the boys heart as a genuine smile got on his lips too.

She then turned once again towards the trio "This guy is Klemens Ackerman"

"Why are you smiling like that?" screamed the angry boy "How could you laugh like that when thousand of people just died? You must be someone who lived near Trost and didn't lose anyone!"

But before the angry boy could keep going he was punched in the stomach by Klemens and thrown in the air, seeing his relative about to attack him he lifted his hands in the air "Stand down sister, we lived in a village near Shiganshina, but the news never reached us"

The boy who was about to scream to them hysterically stopped with his mouth hung open before he could say anything, but eventually he slightly lowered his head and after realizing what those words meant he said "I'm sorry"

"Good" said the quiet boy as the now not angry boy collected himself and stood up again.

The awkward situation was saved by the blond boy of the trio "Why don't we all take a step back? I'm Armin Arlet and the guy you just punched is Eren Yeager, we lived in Shiganshina"

Those words brought back silence in the ground, as all of them thought back about their fallen families and friends.