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smashconTitle: Damn the hero
Author: Luna
Rating: PG
Prompt: “Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” - George S. Patton
Fandom/Series: Attack on Titan
Word Count: 615
Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).
Summary:
Only in his last minutes would he give Eren the satisfaction of admitting he was right all along. He’s seen hell, and it’s blood red.
Damn the hero
Damn the hero who dies smiling.
Damn him.
In his final moments Jean sees hell, and its blood red. He sees the men of the Recon Corps lifted like toys into grinning gums, and severed limbs which lie uselessly scattered amongst green cloaks and silver sheaths. The earth is scarred by gore, disfigured by corpses and cloth.
His comrades, his friends, are seized by the hair on their heads or dangled by leg or boot into the mouths of giants. They thrash like maniacs, reduced to begging and animal brutality before they are silenced between stretched lips that never speak.
It isn’t the sight of blood running down their mouths, splitting like veins against chin and neck, it is the swallow. The ease in which his comrades disappear from his life can be summed up by a simple bobbing of the throat of monsters. They are weak, even in their strength, as helpless as cattle sent to slaughter.
His leg is broken from the fall, he knows the pain intimately from his training days. It’s different somehow, it’s dull. His injury is forgotten beneath fear and anger which throb more fiercely than his leg. And he stands with his blades as his crutch, no trees, no comrades and no hope. He’d heard some son of a bitch once say that ‘this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper’, and he was right. This is his end and it’s not glorious, it’s tragic and lonely. Just a whimper.
Finally, maybe, he understands what Jaeger meant when he would spout that crap about fighting. “Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” He said these things so often that most people took to rolling their eyes; Levi called it verbal diarrhea. Jean had basically given up his rights to argue against that point when he joined the Recon Corps instead of the Military Police. It didn’t mean that Eren was any less stupid.
Still, only in his last minutes would he give Eren the satisfaction of admitting he was right all along.
Once as a child his mother had explained the nature of the world to him in front of the fire which warmed his home. “Do you know why people light fires Jean? Some do it for the warmth and others to cook their supper. But some just like to watch the world burn.” The thought had possessed him, the idea that anyone could be so cruel. He watched the slithering flames, tracing lines of light and shadow. The hungry flames reached like a starved man for wood that had remained untouched through the burning. And when its glowing fingers claimed it, the fire devoured it, licking along the edges until it too was slowly consumed by heat and stained black. Some of the wood cracked under the weight of the flames and fell, collapsing into hundreds of dusty pieces. The smoke darkened and rose higher in victory before the broken pieces of wood were attacked once more without mercy. Every piece was devoured and all that was left was a grave of ash and embers.
“But some just like to watch the world burn.”
The horses of war trample down the fallen, snapping blades under their hooves like broken bones. Dust floats up in soft plumes from beneath their skinny legs but Jean only sees carnage and his final blades which have already been dulled by the slice. The metal winks up at him as a titan smiles down, its funhouse face is like a nightmare.
His heart beats like the drums of war.
And everywhere the dying groan and cry for salvation.
And Jean smiles.
Damn him.
***
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Please take the time to comment on the fanfic. Thanks.
Author: Luna
Rating: PG
Prompt: “Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” - George S. Patton
Fandom/Series: Attack on Titan
Word Count: 615
Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).
Summary:
Only in his last minutes would he give Eren the satisfaction of admitting he was right all along. He’s seen hell, and it’s blood red.
Damn the hero
Damn the hero who dies smiling.
Damn him.
In his final moments Jean sees hell, and its blood red. He sees the men of the Recon Corps lifted like toys into grinning gums, and severed limbs which lie uselessly scattered amongst green cloaks and silver sheaths. The earth is scarred by gore, disfigured by corpses and cloth.
His comrades, his friends, are seized by the hair on their heads or dangled by leg or boot into the mouths of giants. They thrash like maniacs, reduced to begging and animal brutality before they are silenced between stretched lips that never speak.
It isn’t the sight of blood running down their mouths, splitting like veins against chin and neck, it is the swallow. The ease in which his comrades disappear from his life can be summed up by a simple bobbing of the throat of monsters. They are weak, even in their strength, as helpless as cattle sent to slaughter.
His leg is broken from the fall, he knows the pain intimately from his training days. It’s different somehow, it’s dull. His injury is forgotten beneath fear and anger which throb more fiercely than his leg. And he stands with his blades as his crutch, no trees, no comrades and no hope. He’d heard some son of a bitch once say that ‘this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper’, and he was right. This is his end and it’s not glorious, it’s tragic and lonely. Just a whimper.
Finally, maybe, he understands what Jaeger meant when he would spout that crap about fighting. “Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” He said these things so often that most people took to rolling their eyes; Levi called it verbal diarrhea. Jean had basically given up his rights to argue against that point when he joined the Recon Corps instead of the Military Police. It didn’t mean that Eren was any less stupid.
Still, only in his last minutes would he give Eren the satisfaction of admitting he was right all along.
Once as a child his mother had explained the nature of the world to him in front of the fire which warmed his home. “Do you know why people light fires Jean? Some do it for the warmth and others to cook their supper. But some just like to watch the world burn.” The thought had possessed him, the idea that anyone could be so cruel. He watched the slithering flames, tracing lines of light and shadow. The hungry flames reached like a starved man for wood that had remained untouched through the burning. And when its glowing fingers claimed it, the fire devoured it, licking along the edges until it too was slowly consumed by heat and stained black. Some of the wood cracked under the weight of the flames and fell, collapsing into hundreds of dusty pieces. The smoke darkened and rose higher in victory before the broken pieces of wood were attacked once more without mercy. Every piece was devoured and all that was left was a grave of ash and embers.
“But some just like to watch the world burn.”
The horses of war trample down the fallen, snapping blades under their hooves like broken bones. Dust floats up in soft plumes from beneath their skinny legs but Jean only sees carnage and his final blades which have already been dulled by the slice. The metal winks up at him as a titan smiles down, its funhouse face is like a nightmare.
His heart beats like the drums of war.
And everywhere the dying groan and cry for salvation.
And Jean smiles.
Damn him.
***
Voting has closed.
Please take the time to comment on the fanfic. Thanks.
