#darkestdesire

Darkest Desire

“Annie!”

She had just passed the dark alley when the half-whispered voice hit her like a brick.

“Annie! You gotta help me!”

Annie took a few steps back to get a better view of the voice’s owner. It was a boy her age whose face she recognized but name she never bothered to memorize. Feeling socially unfamiliar with the caller, silence was her only response.

The boy, reading Annie’s vague frown as a demand for a reason, looked over his shoulder in utter worry before staring back at the petite girl to tell her what she needed to hear. “I don’t have time for this, you gotta help me!” Seeing Annie making no reaction, he finally picked the French bread that lied right next to him and showed it to her. “This bread is all I have for dinner. I stole it from the bakery at the other end of this alley and now, the owner is after me. I ran as fast as I could, but then I tripped myself off and my left leg hurts so badly I can’t even stand by myself. I think I managed to lose that fat woman to buy some time, though, but if you don’t hurry, she might catch up. So please! Help me! We can share the bread once we escape, I promise!”

Just when Annie tried to process the boy’s long, rushed explanation, a loud yelling came from behind one of the walls of the building in the marketplace. “I swear I’m gonna make you piss in your sleep tonight, you shitty brat!”

The boy panicked and even attempted to drag his leg to get himself closer to Annie. “It’s her! It’s her! Argh!” he gritted his teeth as he endured his pain. “Please, Annie... I know you’re a good girl. And I know this bread will suffice to keep us warm tonight. Help me...”

Despite the raising chaos around her, the flaxen-haired remained stoic and eventually made her way toward the hurting kid. She then bowed to grab the bread and brushed the sticking dust off, but instead of giving him a hand, she turned around and started walking away. “Thank you for your hard work, I’m not gonna let its fruit left unappreciated.”

When she heard the bakery’s owner’s voice finally blended with the poor boy’s desperate cry, Annie quickened her pace. Her shoulders made contact with the hips of several adults on her way home, her tears threatened to burst behind her eyes, yet her tight clutch onto her only dinner never ceased.

Tonight, she and her father would survive. Tonight, she made herself proud. Tonight, she proved that she was capable of betraying her conscience in order to ensure her own safety along with her beloved one's.

Snk rp family Darkest Desire contest entry

      Unlike the rest of the special ops squad, Petra didn’t mind cleaning duty. She didn’t veiw it as a chore. It gave her an oppurtunity to be alone with her thoughts, something she typically would not be able to do under the scrutnizing gaze of Levi or the constant annoyance of Auroro. It was just nice to have some quiet time.

        Today Petra was assigned an easy task- to clean a small room in the northern tower of HQ. The room was roughly 20 paces by 30, and it was bare, save for a few random shelves with old books strewn haphazardly on them.

       “Allright dust!” Petra stood in the doorway, hands grasping a bucket of cleaning supplies. “Prepare to die!” A childish grin played across her face. And thus our hero set to work. Alas, due to her small size, our hero had difficulty reaching the shelves. Thus she did what any sensible (not) person would do. Balancing unsteadily on a rickety old stool, Petra set to work dusting the high places.        

All was going well, until the last shelf. The stool decided to rock back a little, causing Petra to loose her balance. In anattempt to prevent from crashing to the hard flagstone floor, she reached out and grasped the corner of the bookshelf. Big mistake. Old furniture isn’t particually sturdy, and instead of re balancing herself, Petra pulled the shelf down with her.

         Books, limbs, and wood all landed with a painfully large thud on the floor, a cloud of dust settling over the freshly cleaned surfaces.

        “Poop.” Petra thought, pulling herself from the pile of debree. Eyebrows furrowed in annoyance and frustration, the girl tried to stand. Excrushiating pain shot through her right ankle as soon as any weight was put on it, making the brunette crash to the floor yet again.

"This stinks." Petra moaned.            "Oh well, with a crash like that, someone was bound to have heard it." She painfully dragged her body toward the wall, numerous small brusies and scratches screaming painfully as she did so.

         Petra pulled her boot off the afflicted ankle. It was already starting to swell, making it exremely painful to get the boot off. Despite the pain, the ankle was thankfully just sprained. A broken ankle would have been much worse. The brunette leaned back against the wall, hoping someone would come soon.

      Minutes turned into an hour as the shadows in the room grew longer. Petra grew impaitent- how much longer was it going to take before someone noticed she was missing? It was getting boring just staring at the wall. Suddenly the girl noticed something by her foot. An old book was laying haphazardly in the floor. With much difficulty, Petra grabbed the book.

           It’s cover was faded and dull, and it’s spine made an awufull crack when she picked it up, but reading was sure as heck better than just staring at the wall. Her slender fingers traced the worn gold leaf of the title.  ‘Cinderella’ was printed on the front in shiny gold script. Petra recignized the story- her mother used to read it to her before she died. Underneath the title, a beautiful girl in a blue dress was smiling at a brown-haired man (Who Petra also found quite handsome.) They were holding hands, and looking at each other in a lovey-dovey way. Although she hated to admit it, Petra had used to dream of her life ending up like one of these fairytales. Meeting a handsome prince, falling in love, and living happily ever after in the most magical way. It was stupid she knew.Despite that fact, she couldn’t help but envy the perfect people with perfect lives who existed in the book. As a member of the survey corps, an elite soilder, Petra shouldn’t be thinking of those things. But yet her mind would wander to her childhood dream sometimes.

          She slipped the book open, it’s bindings making a crunchy noise in protest. The pages were yellowed and brittle, the book could have very well been from before the walls.

          “Once opon a time” Petra read “There lived a girl.”

…………………………………………

          “And they all lived happily ever after.” She finished. The girl found herself almost jealous of Cinderella, after reading the story yet again. The princess’s life was her own. She had two feet firmly planted on the ground, her life a promise of hapiness and prosperity. Petra, on the other hand didn’t even own her own life. She was expected to sacrfice herself for the sake of others- sonething she had come to terms with long ago. She was walking on a thread over the valley of death most days. One wrong move and it would be over. The brunette sighed, her brown eyes staring longingly at the cover of the book.

             “If only…” Petra wanted, just for one moment, to own her tommorows. To be able to have a handsome prince come in and sweep her off her feet. It was insane to be jealous of a fictional cahrecter. The girl felt her eyes beginning to grow heavy.

Ever since Hanji heard and confirmed that the rumors were true, she herself wanted to become a titan, the power of a 17 meter tall man eating giant, pouring endless hours of sleepless nights, she looked for an answer, she almost died from exhaustion, staying up for 9 days in a row, only to be ordered by her superiors to sleep so she wouldn't die from lack of sleep.

Everyone was getting concerned for her, Hanji was becoming depressed at the thought of being unable to to turn into a titan after hearing and seeing someone go from a 170cm human to a man eating giant that had become humanity's anger, sadness and hopelessness in one huge package.

Then one day, Hanji met the one that she was jealous, no jealousy wouldn't even compare to what she was feeling towards the individual 'Eren Jeagar', overwhelmed, Hanji began to ask Eren constantly what it was like to be a titan, only after he told her had her desire became stronger.

Hanji came up with a theory that if she injected Eren's blood into her body she would be able to gain his abilities, on several occasions she asked Eren for his blood for an experiment, he declined every time she asked.

Until one night she got a syringe and while Eren slept she crept into the basement to see Eren sleeping soundly like a baby, this was her chance, to get a small sample of his blood, just to test, just this once. 

Maybe even with positive results she could turn mankind into 17 meter tall titans and fight back, after she had become one herself obviously. Hanji tiptoed up to Eren quietly. One of Eren's arms dangled helplessly, it was right in plain sight, her goal, all these weeks, finally the dark bags under her eyes wouldn't have grown there for nothing.

The mad scientist was a mess, her hair was all out of place and messy, she smelt of sweat and her eyes were bloodshot from all the sleep she had lost, uttering a small, dark and crazy chuckle she lifted Eren's arm and tried to find a vein, a blood vessel anything, she was even going to try Eren's jugular if she had to.

The needle's sharp point was zeroing in on the purple line in Eren's arm, the tip touched his skin, "Yes..." Hanji spoke to herself taking in the moment.

Hanji was suddenly yanked from Eren's bedside and thrown against the ground, a knife was put to her throat as she looked up to see Levi, "L-Levi? What're you doing here?"

" Under orders I'm making sure Eren doesn't go haywire. Dammit Shitty Glasses, what the hell were you thinking?" "I-I just wanted a sample of Eren's blood f-for experimental purposes..." "Fuck off, go to bed and don't try this again or I'll tell Erwin if you're lucky." Levi got off of Hanji and chased her out, "Damn it Hanji you'll be the death of us..." Hanji went back to her room and cried herself to sleep that night.

Levi didn't stop her though, next night she sneaked into Eren's room when Levi was taking a toilet break, Hanji sneaked in again and tried taking some of Eren's blood, this time was different though, no one was around apart from sleeping Eren.

Hanji was suddenly lifted up, her foot was caught in a noose, "Dammit Levi!" Hanji dropped the syringe out of shock and it broke as it hit the ground.