Chapter #225 MT - Chapter 1 - Fall of Shiganshina by: Centurion   Chapter 0-4
24 Hours Earlier
Paradise Island
Fall of Shiganshina District (Wall Maria)
Fear, as powerful as it was raw hung over the human district of Shiganshina, southern most outpost of the kingdom that existed within the three walls.
Every street, alleyway and public space that was crammed into the modest outlier city was silent, the very human stench of terror chocking the throats of every single citizen who resided within that tiny pocket of humanity. All eyes were raised to the fifty metre high wall and the skinless yet very human like head that soared above it, a dark and unnatural shadow protruding across the centre of the district as the titan; colossal beyond all reckoning looked down upon the little humans with hunger.
Alex stared up at the giant’s head, his lips parted and mouth dry in the summer heat of the afternoon, the boy’s tongue stubbornly still and unmoving inside his mouth.
“Oh God…”
“It’s…it’s a titan” Sara whispered from behind him, the hand of his adopted sister clasped around his, her nails digging into his palm.
Movement flickered at the corner of his eye, and instinctively Alex knew that one of their two younger siblings was beside them.
Was it Billy, or Jessica?
Alex could not turn his head to see, so thawed with fear the young boy was.
Scarcely a minute before, the four young siblings had all been happy and laughing, the children enjoying the afternoon sunshine which had seen them relaxing in the central plaza of Shiganshina district.
They were homeless street orphans all of them, related neither by blood, marriage or money, but instead by the need of young children to find solace and comfort in a society that had all but abandoned them. Alex was the oldest of them at twelve years of age, with Sara the older ‘sister’ of the group at ten. Billy was eight, and Jessica six. They looked out for each other, protected each other, and together the four siblings formed a close knit family that survived together in the poorest region of the kingdom behind the walls.
That momentary happiness between the hunger, the freezing nights spent upon cold city streets and hiding from corrupt soldiers of the city garrison seemed a distant dream in Alex’s past now as the huge face of the titan looked down upon them.
“That’s…not possible…” Billy stammered, “…that wall is over fifty metres tall. That titan’s got to be…”
“Over Two Hundred feet high” Alex finished.
“Is that a titan?” Jessica asked, her voice as innocently naïve as it always was.
“We have to get out of…”
Before Alex could finish a thunderous crash shook the district, Wall Maria seeming to groan with the sound of cracking rock as the ground shook beneath the four children’s feet, and then the centre of the Curtain wall was smashed outwards in a churning explosion of dust and debris.
Alex was suddenly snapped from his stupor. Grasping his siblings by their arms he dragged them towards the nearest building as chucks of the broken wall peppered the city. Slabs of stone and mortar smashed through buildings, flattened houses and peppered streets, cutting down and crushing anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in their path.
Blood splashed across the asphalt of the streets and walls as the first screams echoed across the district, fear giving way to panic as the full realization of what had just happened dawned upon the little city’s inhabitants.
“They’re though the walls!” someone screamed.
As he was helping Billy to his feet, Alex turned towards wall, his gut twisting like a knife inside his stomach. Wall Maria still stood, the Colossal Titan suddenly gone as quickly as it had appeared, but from the gaping hole it had smashed through the lower segment of the wall, lanky and pale humanoid forms many times taller than a man were emerging, gapping wide toothed mouths open atop bobbing listing heads, their swollen human like eyes searching hungrily for flesh.
Titans!
“We’ve got to get to the gate” Alex shouted, grasping Jessica’s arm as he did so, “Sara, take Billy’s hand. Don’t let go.”
“We’ve got no papers” Sara cried, “They won’t let us through.”
“We’ve got to try. Come On!”
Together, the four orphans sprinted across the open plaza, a large crowd already forming across the mouth of the Aquila thoroughfare, the most direct route to the only remaining gate out of Shiganshina District, and deeper into the Kingdom behind the Walls.
As they approached the avenue, just how hopeless their situation was becoming apparent to Alex very quickly. Shiganshina District contained over eighty thousand permanently resident men, women and children, and it seemed that every single one of them today was gathered into a single swelling crowd that blocked the main intersection of the thoroughfare, their numbers growing with every passing second.
A thin line of city guardsmen from the Royal Garrison were clustered around the baying mob, their distinctive khaki uniforms and body-armour marking them out amongst the crowd. Futilely they tried to bring some semblance of order to chaotic crowd, the soldiers burnishing their assault rifles into the air.
It was just as Alex and his three siblings reached the edge of the crowd that the sound of crumbling brick and masonry echoed across the open plaza. Panting for breath Alex turned, his three siblings pausing to follow his gaze towards the other end of the square, just in time to see a titan clambering over a triple storied house.
The titan was perhaps five or six metres tall, its giant form lurching drunkenly forward as it tried to navigate its way over the house, one long leg coming down upon the buildings balcony. The was a grinding off broken tiles and then suddenly the titan was plunging through the second storey roof, its arms flailing uselessly as it tried to dig its way free, and then the second titan appeared.
It was at least twice as tall of the first, and unlike its companion it emerged from the closest street, a third titan stumbling forth in its wake. More titans suddenly appeared, their slow unwieldy forms rising from behind the row of houses and shops that lined the plaza and adjacent roads, roofs and walls, an overhanging bridge collapsing as one smashed its way into the plaza, the tallest amongst them standing over fourteen metres high.
“There in the square!” someone shouted.
“Guardsman” shouted a thick voice, “Form Up. Deploy the tanks!”
A line of infantrymen detached themselves from the crowd, running past Alex, Sara, Billy and Jessica as they stormed into the square. A dozen slope armoured battle tanks grinded their way into the square, the guardsmen forming a line several hundred strong as they levelled their assault rifles towards the approaching titans, the tanks heavy turrets following in their wake. A thickly build man in a officers uniform emerged from their ranks. The man sported a curling moustache, and burnished a sword which he now swept through the air.
“Fire!” the officer screamed.
Alex clasped his hands over his ears, shouting at his siblings to do the same as the first volley fired, the whistling crack crack crack of hundreds of assault rifles suddenly followed by explosive boom as the tanks lets loose with their cannons, their heavy tracks lurching backwards with the force of the blast.
The shots slammed into the oncoming titans, peppering their wiry misshapen bodies with automatic gunfire as the cannon shells shots ripped through limbs, human like blood splashing across the plaza floor. Alex saw a titan stumble and fall, its nightmarish face reduced to a bloody stump where one of the tank’s shell’s had caught its head and ripped it clean off, but to his horror Alex could see its body already fighting to regain its footing, a twisting mass of flesh atop its neck already reforming as it head began to grow back.
No more than two of the titans had been felled by the solders first volley, and at least a dozen more were already shambling forwards, the closest halfway across the square already.
“Reload” the sergeant shouted, “Protect the civilians at all costs.”
The soldiers fired again, and the lead titan was cut down, but then another was shambling forwards in its place, its ten metre high form towering above the thin line of soldiers who were still reloading.
“What do we do!” Sara screamed from behind Alex, “We’re trapped.”
Alex turned back to the crowd, his heart sinking. Without the guardsmen there to police the evacuation, the crowd that still blocked the intersection had descended into an even more chaotic mass as people punched, kicked and clawed at each other, the press of so many human bodies preventing all but a handful from moving forward. Already Alex could see more titans worming their way around the plazas edge, and instinctively he knew they intended to flank the soldiers. The dumb brute’s tiny animal like minds had deduced the quickest possible path to the crowd.
That intersection would soon become a bloodbath.
“Alex!” Sara screamed, Jessica and Billy crying behind her “What do we do?”  | |
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