Life or Death

Eren's POV

I had my hands on the back of my head walking towards the communication center of the camp. When we got there they forced us to our knees, handcuffed us then stood behind us.

A few minutes later Phantom was being led by a bunch of Russian soldiers and one of them was dragging someone's body.

Marksman looked up to see the body and his eyes grew wide

"Ghost?"

The soldier holding Ghost's body threw him to the ground near Marksman and the others threw Phantom onto the line.

"No this can't be happening." I mumbled

I heard footsteps approaching and there she was, Recon, with Commander Salazar and Captain Ivanov

"You fucking piece of shit, I'LL KILL YOU!" yelled Marksman who jolted forward towards Recon but was smacked with a butt of a gun. He fell and was forced back to the line.

"Well we got the most wanted war criminals in Russia." laughed Salazar, "Your leaders will be very proud of you."

Salazar looked at the soldiers behind us and said something Russian. Some of them began to remove the head gear of Ghost team. This is my first time seeing their faces but it wasn't like I was shocked to see who they were.

"Well, we shall take them into interrogation." said Salazar

"What? We're not going to kill them?" asked Ivanov

"No not yet, not till the leaders of Russia say so." replied Salazar

Salazar was just about to enter a helicopter but before he did Recon asked him

"What do we do with Ghost's body?"

"Leave it, he's dead anyway, or you can burn it up to you. Either way we are abandoning this camp so hurry up and clean up the mess.

"Yes sir"

The soldiers forced us to get up and led us to a truck. I turn around and see that Phantom was crying and trying to go to Ghost's body but the soldiers prevented her and held her down.

But Recon did something surprising, she told the soldiers to let her go and she ran to Ghost's body. In fact she let all of us pay our respects and let us see the body.

I slowly walked up to the body to see that there was multiple cut wounds and two bullet wounds in his chest.

Phantom was sobbing over his body and just kept apologizing to him.

"I'm sorry Ajax, I'm sorry..."

Marksman went to his other side and grabbed his dog tag and the other dog tags he had and put them in his pocket.

"I'm sorry..." whispered Marksman.

Ghost team got in one line and saluted to him, so I did the same thing and the others joined. We got re-handcuffed but just as I was about to enter the truck I heard a soft groan and I turned and saw Ghost moving.

"He's alive! Someone help him!" I yelled

Recon turned and saw that his body was moving, so she ordered her medic to treat him.

"Make sure he stays alive." ordered Recon

She turned and looked at Phantom who was glaring at her. They both looked at each other for a few seconds before Phantom was pushed into the truck.

I sat next to Annie and she immediately pushed herself against my shoulder, comforting me from everything that just happened.

"Please don't leave me." she whispered

"I won't I promise."

"Let's move out!" yelled a soldier

Ghost POV

"He's waking up." said a voice

"Good patch him up so that we can talk." said a female voice

I slowly opened up my eyes and noticed that I was in a truck. I tried getting up but I felt pain throughout my entire body and if forced me to lay back down.

"So you're awake." said the same female voice.

Recon came up and helped me sit down normally, after that, she sat down across from me.

"Why are you trying to save me?"

"I'm not saving you, you just got lucky that you were still alive."

I looked at her straight in the eye, I could tell that she was lying.

"You're lying."

"Why would I lie?"

I shrugged and look outside.

"You said it had to end. So why aren't you just killing me now?" I asked

She didn't respond so I looked at her and asked her a different question.

"What are you going to do to us?"

"I've been ordered to interrogate you."

"I'm not telling you anything."

"Not even when your comrade's life is on your hands?"

I glared at her at what she said but I saw one Russian soldier pointing his gun at me so I couldn't do anything, plus I'm way too weak

"Back then, how did you handle with Malvik?" I asked

"Aid?"

"Yea who else would I be talking about?" I asked "You could have turned him down easily but instead you decide to accept it."

"I already told you that he was my priority?"

"But you said I was your priority."

She stayed silent from my question for a few seconds but she still continued to look at me.

"You were, after you told me who your parents were."

"What do they have to do with this?"

She leaned forward, "Your parents killed my parents."

I sat there with my eyes just a bit bigger but one eye couldn't open that well.

'My parents killed her parents?'

"Why?" I asked

"Before your parents killed off my parents, your father said that it was both orders and personal reasons."

I looked at the ground and just shook my head.

"I-I'm sorry."

Recon got up and immediately pinned me against the truck and pointed her knife against my throat.

"You're not sorry at all." she hissed "All I ever wanted was the death of your parents but they were finished off already. But when I heard that you were their child I just wanted to end your life right there. I even snuck into your dorm room while you were sleeping."

Recon backed up and retracted her knife.

"Why didn't you?"

"Like I said in Brooklyn, I couldn't."

We sat there for a few seconds in silence before I broke it.

"Tell me, did any of Ghost team 116 have any final words before you finished them off?"

She looked at me before responding

"Gunner looked at me in pure shock and just asked 'What happened to you'. Tech just asked 'why' and Exploder was just pleading for his life."

I looked down and closed my eyes, just thinking about them made me angry at her but at the same time not.

"What about Phantom?"

"She said... 'I trusted you'"

"Is that why you spared her life?" I asked

"No. I don't know why I spared her."

"Why didn't you aim to kill me or Marksman?"

"I did aim for Marksman but that was before the success of the armor. He could have killed me from far range and that would have led you or anyone coming to aid him."

"And Malvik?"

"What do you mean?" she asked confused

"You didn't you attack him when he was also your priority."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth."

"I think that's to be determined."

Recon sighed, "I loved him."

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I made it sound like I didn't love him during that transmission but I loved him, a lot." continued Recon. "Even when he died I went to his grave a couple of times and just stood there even though there's no body underground."

"And you still couldn't kill me?"

"No, cause I knew that was something that he would do. It's not like you killed him."

"Why can't you just come back to us?"

"I can't betray my country." she responded

I just nodded and looked outside.

"What are you going to do when this war ends?" I asked

"I don't know, but before this ends, one of us has to die." she said while tuning around to look at me.

"It doesn't have to end that way Recon."

"Do you not understand that we are going to keep fighting no matter what? We are going to continue this war if we continue, either one of us has to step down from all the action or one of us has to die."

"I'm going to be honest here but we are not the reason why. Hell we just discovered that Russia was doing experiments on human beings like us and yet you still want to side with them?" I asked

"We all make mistakes." she replied.

"Mistakes? Experimenting on humans for 20 years is a mistake?"

"Shut up." was all she said

"Ma'am were here." said a Russian soldier in Russian

"We'll talk more later." she said as she got ready to leave the truck.

Eren's POV

We arrived at the place and they pushed us off the trucks, I missed a footing and tripped, falling onto the ground with a loud thud. The Russians guarding us laughed as they forcefully picked me up and threw me back into line.

"Are you okay Eren?" asked Annie

"Hey you shut up bitch!" yelled a soldier

I was about to ram him but Mikasa got in my way and shook her head at me. I calmed down and relaxed my thoughts and continued down the road.

Captain Ghost was on a stretcher being taken in some other direction.

Annie elbowed me and signaled me to look at where she was looking. I look up to see a whole bunch of prisoners just in a whole swamp of mud, all dirty, it looks like they haven't showered in months.

There were all different types of people, kids, to old people, female and male, and some of them even look like they're Russian.

We walked down the road and the prisoners began to stop what they were doing and just look at us as it they've seen their only hope of survival, captured.

We were lead into a giant building that was most likely prison cells, as we entered I saw a bunch of people in their cells just rotting away and dying in there.

'Damn it stinks down here, why are they being treated so unfairly?'

"They are prisoners of war, they have rights, why aren't they being treated fairly?" asked Hacker

No one answered but Hacker received a shove by someone and yelling from him.

We entered an empty jail cell and they shoved me, Annie, Mikasa, Jean, Marco and Armin into the empty cell that only had one bed in it and a toilet right out in the open.

"What the fuck is this shit?" asked Jean

"Do we treat our prisoners like this?" asked Armin

"No...? How would we know, we never got a chance to actually go in a prison system back at home." said Annie

"Home..." sighed Marco

"We can't just sit ducks here. We need to do something." I implied

"Like what?" asked Marco

"I can transform when we go out there or something."

"No we can't allow these people to know who we are and that titans exist." said Armin

"Not only that the explosion would be quite catastrophic, if you do it might bring down the building on us." added Marco

I sighed in frustration and just sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall.

"Do you think they are going to kill us?" asked Jean

"Probably..." said Annie

"Damn it." I muttered

We sat there in silence as we listened to a bunch of screams down the hallway and footsteps of soldiers patrolling the hallways.

One patrol was dragging Bomber away.

"Bomber!" I yelled

"Don't tell them anything! You hear me! No matter what don't tell them anything!" yelled Bomber as he was being dragged away.

"Shit they're going to kill him!" I yelled

"Eren calm down, interrogation comes first, then the execution." said Armin

But before I could finish a bunch of Russians came to our cell and unlocked it. They entered with their guns pointing at us and shouting at us. We all backed up but they grabbed me and pulled me out.

"Eren!" yelled Mikasa and Annie

"I'll be fine don't worry." I responded

Two soldiers grabbed one side of my arm and led me through a bunch of hallways and staircases until we got to room with a table and two chairs on the opposite of each other. Inside the room, there was a camera on every corner and a mirror in front of me. The soldiers forced me to sit on the chair facing the mirror and left, closing the door.

I sat there in complete silence, just a bunch of buzzing in the room as I sat there for who knows how long just staring at my reflection.

At some point the door finally opened and in came Recon with a random soldier. The soldier stood behind me while Recon sat in front of me.

"How are you?" was the first thing she asked me

"Are you seriously asking me that?"

She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Ghost told me to show you some sympathy."

"Oh, uhhhhh I'm not doing good." I replied

"Well, according to what I have here, you were born in Shiganshina district, killed 2 men as a kid, lost both of your parents during the fall, and signed up to become a soldier."

"Yea, that's about right."

She closed the folder and leaned on the table.

"Tell me about your perspective on Ghost."

That question threw me off guard for a few seconds, and I had to think about it.

"Well, he does have a tough past." I said "He's probably the best commander I've seen. He takes everything seriously, literally, everything. He doesn't joke around at all even when we are chilling with the team drinking and eating. Captain Ghost is pretty lenient when the atmosphere is light and there's really nothing to do. When we don't have practice we just like to relax with the team. But when he's scary, he's fucking scary. It's like a whole demon inside of him."

"So you do have some old Ghost in you." whispered Recon

"Huh?"

"Nothing. That'll be all." she got up and the soldier behind me took my arm and later I'm back at my cell. When I came back in they took Jean for the same interrogation.

"Eren did they hurt you? Are you okay? Did they do any type of experiments on you?" asked Mikasa as she was checking me

"Mikasa stop I'm fine, Recon just asked me a couple of questions and boom, we were done." I replied

"You were in a room with that bitch?" asked Annie

"Yea, but she didn't like hurt me or anything, she was like a different person." I replied

"And since when did you care?" snapped Mikasa at Annie.

Annie raised an eyebrow and I remember that I didn't tell anyone that we were official yet.

"Oh wait Mikasa, I think there's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?" she asked as she turned around to look at me

"Well uhhhh me and Annie are uhhhhh dating."

After saying that the entire room just looked at me and Annie as their eyes grew wider.

"WHAT?!" yelled Marco

"Y-y-you're d-d-dating HER?!" yelled Armin

Mikasa was just standing there shocked by the fact of what I just said. She just turned around and walked onto the bed and sat in the corner like a ball.

"How long?" asked Marco

"2 months" I replied

"Damn." said Marco

After a couple of minutes Jean came back in and they then took Annie to be interrogated.

"Jean why do you have a bruise on you cheek?" asked Armin

"Damn Recon hit me after I tried tired answering my question as hard I as could so that she doesn't understand."

"That's what you get for acting like a smart ass." I replied

"Shut up suicidal bastard." snapped Jean

"You fuck off Horse Face." I growled

"Hey pipe it down." yelled a Russian patrolmen who hit the bars of the cell door.

Jean sat next to Armin and Marco. I sat next to Mikasa who was still crawled up into a ball.

"Mikasa are you okay?"

She just shook her head.

"Look I'm sorry for not telling you about you know me and Annie. But you being all sad isn't going to make me happy. So please just accept our relationship and just be happy for me. Okay?"

She slowly looked up and just nodded in response.

"Thank you." I replied

"Oh yea Jean, Annie and Eren are dating." said Marco

Jean just sat there with his surprised horse face and I tried not to laugh at him.

"Jaegar has a girlfriend?!" yelled Jean

"I said shut up brats!" yelled the same patrolmen

Jean just sat there for the next 2 minutes in utter shock and confusion.

"What's taking Annie so long to be interrogated?" asked Marco

"Beats me." shrugged Armin

After another couple of minutes, I saw a bunch of soldiers just running down the hall. A couple of minutes later a couple of soldiers began to drag Bomber's body.

"Oh shit Bomber! Bomber are are you okay?!" yelled Marco

Bomber's combat uniform was drenched in blood, his face was all bruised and part of his shirt was ripped.

Bomber looked up at us and just smiled weakly as he was being dragged away.