AUTHOR'S NOTE: So... I finished reading 'A Choice With No Regrets' the other night... I KNEW what happened (Obviously, because Farlan and Isabel are not in the main storyline...) BUT I WAS NOT READY FOR THAT HEARTBREAK!

So, I threw this together. If you haven't finished reading 'A Choice With No Regrets'... umm... spoilers. Lots and lots of spoilers.

Also, I don't own SnK... if I did, there'd be no need for this fanfic because Farlan and Isabel would live long, happy lives.

Have you ever pulled your best friend's corpse from the gullet of a giant beast?

I can tell you, first hand… you don't ever want to.

I half expected to save him, I guess. But when his hand emerged from the laceration in the Titan's throat, and I gripped it and pulled with every last bit of strength I had…. What appeared out of the cut wasn't at all what I wanted to see.

His lower half was missing. I'd seen his foot fall from the giant's mouth, cleaved off by a set of colossal teeth, but this was proof that the Titans chewed their food. Everything from the waist down was…gone. I thought I could save him… I tried to save him. It was all in vain. He was very much dead.

The expression on his face almost peaceful as I lay him down in the mud. He just looked like he was sleeping… I accidentally reminded myself of times where he would pass out after a hard day of training. He looked just like that now. I could almost hear his faint snoring…

The only thing missing was life.

I didn't know how to feel. A whole cocktail of emotions ran through me at that point, but, above all was rage. A blindingly white-hot rage that filled every pore, every fiber of my being. The rain pelting at my face must've been rising up in steam from the heat that overtook my body. They'd die… they'd all die. Every single Titan… not only those standing before me now, but every Titan in existence. I'd kill every single one I came across and wouldn't rest. Not until I knew they'd been added to the extinct species list.

The next few minutes were a blur, but I remember taking down all four of the Titans in a flurry of blades. The bloodlust inside me was building up, and I made sure the monster that had killed Farlan suffered before I cut out the nape of its neck.

When I came back to earth, the bodies of the slain giants falling around me in a gust of white mist, was when I saw her. Or… what was left of her, at least.

I knew she'd died as well. I saw her crushed between two Titans, two of the very same I had just killed. One of them had had her blood smeared all across its face… But seeing her decapitated head laying in the mud next to wear I landed, her eyes still widened in the horror she must have felt before the giant teeth came down upon her, something inside me snapped.

I fell to my knees, instinctively reaching out to her. I could hear her sing-song voice ringing in my ears, calling me 'Big Bro', though we shared no blood ties. She'd always looked up to me… always admired me and depended on me to be there for her… to guide and protect her.

I choked as my hand fell upon her cold skin, gently pulling her eyes closed with my fingers as they traveled lower. I stopped just short of where I'd run out of Isabel to touch… just above the bloody, frayed stump of a neck. My hand shook. My eyes burned with the harsh tears that I knew for sure must be spilling freely, though I couldn't tell with the rain still pelting at every inch of my body. The rations I had managed to swallow before we'd left on the mission this morning were quickly making their way back up and out of my body, but I swallowed it down. I'd always tried my hardest to be strong for them. That meant no crying, throwing up or showing any kind of weakness. They were younger than me, after all. I almost had to be strong for their sakes, especially with the harsh environment we'd all lived in together for the past several years.

I remembered when I found Isabel on the streets of the Underground city. She was half-starved and all sense of life had been drained from her eyes. I'd felt pity for her. I took her under my wing and she soon became my protégé. I became her 'Big Bro'.

I remembered when we met Farlan, just a few short months later. He'd been the leader of a small group of thugs, and a victim of mutiny. I didn't want him to join us at first, much to Isabel's disdain. I told myself that she was more than enough trouble for me and that I 'wasn't a babysitter'. Heh, little did I realize that Farlan was far from needing someone to watch over him. In the end, I'm glad he went against my wishes and decided to follow us back to our hideout.

Then I reminded myself that they were gone… what little bits and pieces that remained of the two people I'd ever trusted lay around me. I didn't need to be strong anymore. I had no one else to live for anymore… only myself.

If I hadn't gone off on my own… maybe they'd still be here, alive and smiling down at me as I knelt in the mud, recovering from the rush of adrenaline that came with Titan-killing. If I had at least taken them with me when I'd gone off to hunt down Erwin, maybe we'd all be far away from this place by now. Maybe Erwin's head or torso would be the one lying in the mud, and we'd finally have the documents we'd been searching for ever since joining this God-forsaken Military.

Maybe I'd never have had to see the pure, unadulterated terror in Isabel's eyes before the Titan came crashing into her.

Maybe I'd never have had to receive that defeated wave, the sad smile and the mouthing of the words 'See you later', before Farlan disappeared into the mouth of the horrid beast.

Maybe…. Just maybe… I'd never know now. I'd made the decision to go off alone, and send them to find the other two members of our squad. Now they were dead. There was nothing in this world that could bring them back...

I hear the pounding of hooves coming up in the distance, and a voice…. The last voice I want to hear right now…. Calling through the rain.

"Hey! Are there any survivors?!"

Erwin...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I nearly cried while writing this, in all honesty. And this is all I had planned, but if you'd like to see more added to it, I could certainly try and turn it into a multi-chapter. Let me know with a review, and thanks for reading!