[AU] Where Death Doesn’t Matter || charismatic-commander
   When Levi last touched a cold hand to fold it over a stiff body, he was certain that would be the last time he’d look into the face of a person he’d not only trusted unconditionally but also admired beyond anyone else. He was certain none of this would happen to him again. Orders, Erwin’s voice, his doubts displayed with vulnerability that was strangely contagious.
   And then the nightmares began. Shallow at first. Nothing more than a brief figment of a scene that wouldn’t make sense to Levi for such a long time. Faces flashing in front of him, vicious speed and wind whipping into his face as he felt his muscles tense for something. The scene would repeat over and over again. Night for night Levi would wake up drenched in sweat, distressed without a reason.
   They grew, those dreams. Blurred faces became friends and acquaintances. Faint noises became the known screams of dying soldiers. One night Levi woke up and knew that he hadn’t managed to escape that life. For some reason he had been reborn and doomed to remember everything that had happened in his previous life.
  At first it was fairly easy to convince himself that this all was just a simple coincidence. That he believed this was part of his being because his mind made him with eerily crisp memories and particular moments he couldn’t relate to anything else. Levi would wake up, breathing heavily, shaking and torn by what he had to live through the lens of a tortured sub-consciousness. After a while he’d find himself denying any truth and forcing himself to close his eyes again.
  But then he saw him sitting next to his bed. Clothes torn by battle, stained by the evaporating blood of titans and that leaving his own body. He’d simply sit there staring at Levi as if he was about to give his next order. Silently judging the situation around him, bleeding.
  Erwin.
  After the third night, Levi couldn’t find sleep anymore. He found himself snapping more often, losing his concentration and dreading those visions.
  “They aren’t real,” he tried to convince himself, but Erwin wouldn’t grant him such peace.
  Soon enough he found himself in a mental hospital. A consideration he never had dared to make until the visions became something too close to reality. At times he found himself hearing people calling out for him. People he was supposed to know but could only “remember” as faint shadows. Fleeting but always there. The only clear figure had been Erwin. They’d seep into his daily life and confuse him. Make him answer even though no one was there.
  “Your new psychiatrist will meet you in about five minutes,” a nurse said. The other hadn’t managed to bring any closure into Levi’s case. Medication didn’t help much either with the visions he kept seeing; the voices he kept hearing. It was as if something had doomed him to live in pain.
  His room had proven to be surprisingly clean. What else had he expected from a hospital, though? The bed was decent to sleep in; a simple table had been placed right across from it for use whenever he desired. Levi had thought about writing down what he saw in his dreams and the moment he’d wake up and see Erwin sitting there in his full attire.
  There was no reason as to why he remembered his name. No one had mentioned it in his dream. No one had told him anything and yet he knew. He knew this was a past life.
  But he wouldn’t accept it.
