#sephishitting

The air was heavy and static, crackling through the tree's dry leaves and outstretched limbs. Eren inhaled and it settled in his stomach, ripe with the promise of rain. He remembered storms, but not for the wreckage it left behind. He could see still see it, the tall, proud, oak tree his father tended before the outbreak, uprooted and fallen on his lawn, not unlike the king chess piece he had gleefully tipped over after he had won a game against his father.

The scraggly, wind-worn branches looked to him like hands reaching for the sky. It had been such an odd sight, something once so great and proud--on the ground and dead. The storm hadn't spared it. Just like that.

He remembered the storms by their smell, something sweeter and more tangible than blood. The air was old and fresh all the same, and he wondered how something so chained to the sky could be so free. He envied it. Eren inhaled sharply again, and he could see himself, age nine. He had been sitting on the porch with worn stuffed toy (its name had been Keith, and he could see the white stuffing in poor Keith's blue, spotted arm). He didn't remember his mother yelling at him to come inside, or himself turning back to shout back at her with all the grace of a pouty nine year old. He remembered the storm, alive in all of its wild glory, cold on his cheek, yet gentle in the way it blew his bangs from his face and ruffled his thin shirt. It was an enigma to him, the air hot and tangent and thick, but that didn't stop it from running its cool fingers up and down his spine.