Jo Origin Story [UNFINISHED 12/03/2014]

    I was there the day Shiganshina was attacked.

    I was only twelve at the time yet I remember it so clearly… The sky was the most vibrant of blue, the only thing breaking its vastness were the curling white clouds that floated nonchalantly over the rooftops.  There was a slight breeze, causing the wind chimes in my open window to sing quietly.  I was inside my house, reading a book by the light of the afternoon sun.  The air smelled of freshly baked bread from the house next to us, hollowing my stomach and making my mouth water.

    I set my book face-down on the table and stood up.  I quickly walked over to the pantry on the other side of the room, opening it up to find it neatly stocked with all kinds of breads, cheeses, and fruits.  It all happened so fast…  I was reaching up to grab a sweet roll when all of a sudden the wind stopped, like someone had flipped the switch on it.  A second later, the sound of a thousand firing cannons ripped through the window, accompanied by a blinding flash of yellow and white.  The ground shook, and I was thrown flat on my backside.  A chorus of surprised shouts rose from outside and I quickly pushed myself up and bolted out the door.  A group of people had gathered in the Market Square, staring at the wall that surrounded the city.  I too looked up, and even to this day I regret doing it.  The image was forever seared into my memories.

    A colossal had gripped the masonry so hard it began to crack.  Suddenly, a shadow passed over the sun, and I looked a little ways to the right to see a sight that drove fear right into the core of my very being.  It was a face; a huge, ugly face whose skinless muscles glistened with the essence of steam.  Its mouth was a whales, lipless yellowed teeth protruding from its face like tombstones.  I knew what it was in an instant.

    A Titan.

    But how?  The wall- the one that was supposed to keep those things out- was fifty meters tall, there was no Titan that could reach that high…  Was there?  The people around me began to panic, some of them bolting, but others- like me- were transfixed on the sight before us.  My mind was clear- as if Fear itself had reached right into my brain and plucked away every thought.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  There wasn’t supposed to be a Titan bigger than the wall.

    We were all doomed

    There was a sharp crack, and I was blown backwards by a jet of steam.  It burned my skin as I flew through the air, landing on my back with a whump.  Another crack, this one making the ground buckle beneath me.  I tried to get up, to run away, but something had ahold of my right leg.  I struggled, but whatever had me pinned me down wasn’t letting up.  Then the pain struck me.  A shriek tore its way out of my throat as I began jerking myself violently, trying anything to get away from the agony that gripped me like a bear trap.  I was so confused, my brain frantically flipping between fear, pain, fear, pain, fear, pain.

    Off in the distance, I could hear someone shouting.  “The wall has been breached!” they hollered, “The wall has been breached!  Get to the-“  Suddenly, their shout climaxed into a scream of terror that was quickly silenced, the sound of ripping flesh and the squelching of blood between sickening lips floating eerily through the steam.  I stopped struggling, fear making it feel as if I were submerged in water.  The Titans were coming.  Something had happened to the wall and now the Titans were inside, ready to finish the job they started so many centuries ago: to devour all of Humanity.

    I had to escape.  “Mom!”  I hollered, tears streaming down my face, “Dad, help me!”  “Jo?”  A familiar voice replied, “Where are you!? Jo!!”  “Mom!” I cried as I saw the form of my mother appear from the curtain of steam.  She saw me, tears forming in her eyes as she ran to her little girl.  She stopped short about halfway to me, her eyes widening in horror as she put her hands to her mouth and screamed, “Jo! Oh Jo, my poor baby!!”  I didn’t understand why she was freaking out until I looked down and saw my leg.  My heart stopped.  I opened my mouth, nothing but a choked cry finding its’ way out as I stared at the scene.

    My leg was crushed.

    Just below my knee was nothing but a chunk of grey stone- a piece of the wall that had been blown loose- the limb that had once been there flattened under a ton of rock.  I stared at it for what seemed like an eternity, the world fading around me.  I was going to die.  There was no way I was going to get out of the city.  I was going to spend the last waking moments of my life inside of a Titan, being boiled in its stomach until there was nothing left of me but pulp.  I was pulled back to reality when I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I turned to see my mother, her once beautiful face streaked with dirt and tears and twisted by panic.  Someone else had joined her; it was my father, his face pale and expressionless as he saw his broken daughter lying on the filthy ground. 

    They began to push on the debris, trying as hard as they could to roll it off of me.  It wouldn’t budge.  Even though there was no possible way of moving the section of wall, they persisted, screaming out as they strained their muscles on the stone.  The sound of footfalls in the distance was unnerving, and I knew it was only a matter of minutes before they would reach me, the source plucking me up and stuffing me into its ugly maw.

    A voice- so alien from the determined screams of my parents that it made me jump- sounded to my left.  “You need to get out of here!” said a man’s voice, “the Titans have breached the walls and are coming this way!”  I peered through the dissolving steam to see a figure standing there, the roses on his Garrison Regiment insignia the brightest thing on his crisp uniform.  He stopped, looking at me for a second before rushing over and bracing his back against the boulder.  The footfalls were increasing in volume, a slight rumble running through the earth with each step.

    The man in the uniform gave an exasperated grunt, standing up and looking into the distance.  His eyes grew wide as he turned to my parents.  “You need to get out of here.” He said, trying to sound brave but failing miserably, “Don’t worry about your daughter, I’ll take care of her.  Head straight to the boats and don’t stop for anything, understand?”  “But what about…“ My dad began to protest, but was interrupted by the man.

    “I said, do you understand!?”

    My parents looked at him, their mouths open but nothing coming out.  It was my father who was the one who decided to take action, dragging my kicking and screaming mother away from us.  I held out my hand, sobbing as they disappeared behind a corner.  The sharp sound of metal against metal scraped my eardrum and I looked to my side to see that the uniformed man had unsheathed one of his swords.  He wedged it underneath the chunk of wall and pushed down, grunting with the effort.

    It was to no avail; the blade was just too flexible.  He pushed harder, his efforts answered by a sharp crack as the sword broke in two.  He yelled in frustration, turning around and clutching handfuls of his brown hair.  He looked over his shoulder, then to me.  I could see in his deep green eyes that he was deciding whether to leave me or not.  “Please…” I croaked, my voice impossibly small against the ever growing rumble of the footsteps.  He closed his eyes and let out a shaky sigh.  He slowly bent down and picked up his broken sword, his face pale at the thought of what he was about to do.  He lifted it above his head, looking down on me with so much shame I could feel it.  “I’m sorry.” He said, his voice cracking.

    Then he swung.

    I screamed.  He was going to kill me.  He knew there was no way for me to escape, so he was going to end my misery right here instead of leaving me at the hands of the Titans. 

    I felt the impossibly sharp blade pierce my skin; felt the spray of blood against my face as the world began to fade.  There was no more pain, no more fear- no more anything.  But I felt something.  Strong arms around my waist, and the sensation of being lifted into the air.  If I were dead, how was I still able to feel?  Reality snapped itself back together and I found myself looking down as the cobblestone walkways of the city blurred passed me.  I looked up and saw a large chunk of rock slowly moving away from us.  That was the rock, the one I was trapped under.  How was that possible?  It was right before we turned the corner when I understood why.  There, sitting under the section of wall, was my severed leg.

    He had cut off my leg.

    He had cut off my right leg and slung me over his shoulder and was taking me away.  The reality of it was so absurd that I almost didn’t believe it.  My leg isn’t gone, I remember thinking, It can’t be… that was someone else’s leg, not mine.  No matter how hard I willed myself to believe it, the absence below my knee kept bringing me back.  It was gone.  I had only one leg now.  Something blotted out the sun.  My eyes drifted upwards.  Though the lack of blood was making my eyesight blurry, I could recognize it. 

    It was a figure; one that towered above the rooftops, whose dimwitted smile, hunched posture, and grotesque physique only pointed to one thing: a Titan.  It had to be at least fifteen houses away from us, but even from that distance it scared the life out of me.  It scanned the roads slowly, looking for an unfortunate straggler to plop into its cavernous mouth.

    Its gaze fell on us, rancid glee sparking in its eyes as it practically stepped over the houses to reach us, spanning six meters in less than a step.  “Titan…” I whispered, tapping the uniformed man on the back, fear causing my mind to blank, “Titan, Titan, Titan…”  He looked back, never breaking his stride.  The Titan was now ten houses away.  He cursed in between ragged gasps, forcing himself to run faster, his boots pounding us over the cobblestones.  The beast was closing in on us, drool spiraling from its sick smile as it stepped over another house.

    Six houses.

    The uniformed man kept running, skidding around corners in an attempt to lose the creature.  It stayed on our trail, those ugly pale eyes never leaving us.

    Three houses.

    I looked around, trying to get an idea of where we were.  We were reaching the end of the Market Place; about halfway to the boats.  We weren’t going to make it.  I watched as the Titan stepped over the last house, its oversized foot sending pieces of road spinning in all directions as it hit the ground.  I screamed, the shrill sound of it seeming only to egg the monstrosity on.  I felt the man carrying me shift, loosening his grip on my waist as he reached for his swords.  There was a click, and the sound of metal cables zipping frantically out of his 3D Maneuvering Device sliced the air.  The Titan was reaching for us, its fingers so close that I could have reached out and touched it.

    My stomach did a flip, and before I knew it, we were flying through the air, the Titans hand closing around the spot we once were.  We landed on a nearby rooftop, causing some of the clay tiles to slip off.  A second later I heard the zipping of the cables and we were off again, leapfrogging from roof to roof and leaving the dumbfounded beast far behind us.  I watched as the city flew by below us, seeing the streets where I once played engulfed in death and fire.  I lifted my gaze to the rest of the district, watching as Shiganshina was invaded by monsters that grabbed up everyone in their path and devoured them.  I felt more tears run down my face as I saw my home- my family, my friends, all of the memories that were once stored here- burn.

    The view then changed and we were back on the streets, running towards the boats.  Although I couldn’t see it, I could tell by the frantic screams that there was a mob there, each one of them pushing and shoving in a hysterical attempt to board the vessels.  “Stand back!”  I heard a woman yell, her voice drowned out by the noise of the crowd, “The boat is at its full capacity, I can’t let anyone else on!”  The mass became more frantic as they lifted the boarding plank away from the dock, cutting them off from their only escape.

    “Oh no…” I heard the man carrying me whisper as he began running forward.  He found his voice and began yelling, “Stop!  This girl needs to get on!”  The crowd was like a solid wall, the people so tightly packed together that not even a mouse could have pushed itself through.  The man did his best to plow through the mob, shoving people out of the way as he swam his way through an angry sea of bodies.  We were finally spat out on the edge of the crowd.  I heard splashes from down below as people threw themselves into the river in an urgent attempt to escape.  Why were they trying so hard to get away?  The sound of screeching gears scraped the air and the boat lurched forward, slowly making its way down the river.  “Stop!”  The man said, beginning to run alongside the craft, “Wait!”

    “Jo!!”

    The sound of my name woke me from my confusion.  In an awkward scrabble, I looked behind me.  I scanned the crowd that was packed onto the little boat.  Their faces were blurred like those in an old photograph, but one stood out from the rest.  I squinted, doing my best to see through the tears that still poured from my eyes.  It was my mother, her arms outstretched as she leaned as far as she could out of the boat.  Suddenly, I felt the man shift.  He stopped, grabbed me from under my armpits, and with a yell that carried the rest of his strength, threw me across the water.  A double-helix of blood spurted from the nub of my severed leg as I flew through the air, the twist of crimson spinning slowly as I arched across the sky.  The people on the boat screamed, scattering out of the way as I slammed onto the deck.  The force of the impact knocked the wind out of me, leaving me gasping on the floor like some sort of beached fish.  My parents ran to my side, cradling me in their loving arms as I sobbed. 

    I then remembered the man who had saved me.  I fought my parent’s relentless grip, leaving a trail of red as I crawled my way across the deck and heaved myself above the railing.  We were almost out of the city by now, just a few more seconds and we would be passing through the wall.  I looked for the man in the uniform, spotting him on the edge of the platform.  He was watching the boat as it floated downriver, and even though my vision was distorted from blood loss, I swear I could see him smiling.  He had completed his job.  He had saved me.

    Suddenly, a chorus of screams rose up from the mass on the dock as a shadow crept over the pavement.  A Titan was stumbling its way down the street towards them.  The crowd panicked, the whole mass of them surging forward to the edge of the dock.  But to their unfortunate surprise, there were no more boats to carry them to safety.  They began jumping into the water, trying desperately to swim away from the beast.  There was one man though, who didn’t run.  It was the one who saved me; the one in the uniform.  He stood facing the Titan, his body tense and his blades at the ready.  He shot his wires outward, and with a yell of defiance, flew towards the monster.

    That was the last thing I remember before I passed out.

    I never saw that man again.

    I would always tell myself that he escaped- that he got out alive- but there was no covering up the truth: he was dead.  He had given up his life to save me, and I didn’t even know his name.  That day changed my life forever.  I devoted the next year and a half to learning how to cope with one leg.  I had to relearn everything: how to walk, to run, to skip and jump…  But I pulled through.  I never forgot about the man in the uniform though, not for a second.  His valor inspired me, and I eventually made a promise to him.  I was going to finish his work.  I was going to carry on his legacy and protect Humanity.

    I was going to join the Garrison.

    I didn’t care what they’d say about my leg, didn’t care about the hard time they would give me or the names they would call me; I was going to see through with my promise, even if it meant fighting through five years of training.

and this is where i ended |D