Eren walked through the hospital hallways with his heart beating out of his chest.
It reminded him of the first time he entered the Palatine of Wisdom. He was a wee bit of a kid back then. Still angry, still naive, but hopeful. He clung on to the slightest bit of chance that he would find the cure to his own crippledness in the so-called Immortal Library of Ræzoň.
He’d been warned of Athan at the moment he entered their gates. Don’t humor the drunken old fool. Never believe his bileful words. Do not get caught up in the shadows that have long gone past.
If he’d heeded their words, he would have lived a different second life. More peaceful, more uneventful. He’d be living as a lowly scholar, transcribing Martial Manuals for others to use.
But he didn’t. He naively believed that the infamous Heaven’s Breaker, the Singular Keeper of Oblivion, Fate’s Traitor himself–could help him shatter the chains of his crippled body.
Looking back now, he knew deep down he was being fooled. He was fooling himself. Athan just let him.
The intercom echoing through the hospital hallways grounded his feet back to reality. Hospital staff were being summoned for their monthly assembly.
Because of that, the hospital looked lonelier than before. No chattering of nurses, no hurried footfalls of doctors, just the silent beeping of medical machinery. Perfect for the gambit he was to play.
And before he knew it, he arrived at his destination. The psychiatric ward. He exited out of the elevator and looked around the floor.
There were only two bodyguards this time around. Half of their security detail had been pulled away to attend the general assembly.
And they weren’t Awakeners too, just normal, mortal humans—albeit with guns.
One of them approached him. "Hospital personnel only."
Eren kept his feet steady on the floor. He looked beyond the bodyguard, towards the pure white hallway containing the rooms of the psychiatric patients. The crazies. The unpredictable mess of humans who had troubled nurses and doctors alike that they had to be restrained in solitary confinement.
The banging of doors echoed through the entire floor. One of the patients was slamming their heads on the solid metal walls trying to get out.
"It’s him again," said the bodyguard. "Check him, will you?"
The other bodyguard got out of his station and peered through the small window pane on the door.
His expression furrowed before the solid metal door crashed towards him and knocked him out cold.
The door creaked as it buried the unconscious bodyguard underneath. It was broken off of its hinges, with a large dent in the middle despite it being made out of pure solid steel.
"What the?!"
With dust and debris floating in the air, a man in a straight jacket walked out of the now doorless solitary room. He looked terribly ill. The entirety of his face was greyish in color, with red veins spreading from his neck all the way to the top of his temple.
"You fucking crazy—don’t step forward!" the bodyguard warned. He cocked his gun and immediately fired it at the patient.
The bullet shattered upon hitting the man’s forehead. It barely bumped his head backwards.
"Shit," the bodyguard cursed. He punched the emergency button next to the elevator, causing sirens to blare all around the hospital.
The bright lights above turned bloody red, blinking to the timing of the horns.
"Go away! Now—" The bodyguard’s cautionary words to Eren were choked before it finished.
The psychiatric patient appeared behind the bodyguard, headbutting him in the skull. The grimacing sounds of broken bones chilled Eren’s blood.
"Am.. I ... am I crazy yet?" the psychiatric patient asked, struggling to break out of the straight jacket that bound his arms.
Eren steeled his entire body. "No—"
His entire body folded forwards as the psychiatric patient kicked him squarely in the stomach. He crashed on the elevator doors, with the force enough to pry it inwards.
Pain was all he could experience. Numbing, excruciating pain. He didn’t even know how many bones in his ribs cracked. Probably far too many. The void was threatening to take over his consciousness.
A slurry of this morning’s breakfast buffet hurled out of his mouth, staining his hospital gown.
Heishtå, he cursed.
Truly, learning about combat and suffering it personally was a totally different experience.
The agony of pain, he could take. The fear was something else entirely. It took hold of his body, much more than the aching screams of his organs.
It was different when Geister punched him. No, this guy won’t stop till he’s dead. And that fucking scared him.
"Tell me... I’m insane," the crazed Awakener said.
Eren coughed blood. He opened his mouth and hesitated. Taunting the psychiatric patient more would unleash an even more gruesome backlash on him.
The fear of it all choked the air out of his words. He’d like to think it was the blood bubbling in his mouth. But no. It was the anticipation of pain.
Pain. Pain. Pain. Death.
Was his Master right all along? Would he have lived a better life unable to cultivate? Should he have been thankful he was a cripple?
Should he have lived out the rest of his life in Immoræ?
Should he have not ended his own life?
Eren laughed. The thought of his master telling him ’I told you so,’ was enough for him to think his pain was silly.
"You’re... not even a little bit crazy," he said to the psychiatric patient. It was his trigger. And Eren knew it.
It was at this moment Eren anticipated the pain. He didn’t cower. He accepted it fully. He wished for the pain to come, because that would have been the only reason why he killed himself.
He felt it then. That tingling sensation. Not from Ræzoň. No, this was a magnetic force. He felt as if something was about to attach to his body.
He moved his right leg just as the psychiatric patient’s foot crushed the floor. Concrete and tile shattered into rubble underneath this massively tremendous force. But no blood nor bone from Eren’s foot.
The crazed patient tilted his head, as if unable to understand how his attack had missed.