Levi lay facing the ceiling, the pale moonlight casting rectangles on the walls from the panes of glass. His eyes were wide, his face pale and dotted with small scuffs from earlier. The man could still not quite comprehend the situation he now found himself in. Eren was dead. Dead. He would never smile again. He would never open those audacious and enchanting green eyes ever again. Levi's stomach churned. He wanted to throw up. His hands lay draped over the sides of the bed, the oxygen slowly draining from his fingers. He sat up as his hands began to fizz. With a small growl, he shook them and stood up. He left his room silently, save he were to wake any of the other's up, and made his way to the storage cupboard downstairs. There, he retrieved a rusty oil lantern and refilled it with some paraffin. Upon lighting the lantern, Levi then made his way into Hanje's room, creeping round to her bedside and slowly opening one of the drawers. The drawer made a slight creak, disturbing the girl. Levi looked up and bit his lip as she groaned a little, shifting in her sleep. She settled back down again, to the man's relief, and Levi promptly searched around in the drawer, eventually finding purchase on the small gold key.
The basement was where all the newly dead bodies were held. It acted as a kind of post-mortem that Hanje often used to carry out all kinds of experiments with. This was also where the body of Eren Jaeger had been taken to. Levi fumbled with one hand to remove the key from his pocket, the other hand holding the lantern. The door swung slowly open, revealing expansive darkness beyond, only the immediate area being illuminated. Levi took a deep breath and entered the room. It didn't take long to find the boy's body. Levi stood in silence, looking on with a placid expression. Eren's face had turned almost white, the wounds all over his face glimmering in the soft orange light. His hair fell over his eyes, lying in messy clumps, mixed with dried up mud and blood. His lips had lost their warm colour and were dry, cracked grooves running all along them. His eyes were closed, still red from where he had been crying in his last moments. Levi looked at the boy with a steady eyes before his face crumpled and he dropped to his knees with a sharp sob. He doubled over, pieces of hair falling one by one over his face. Tears rolled down his cheeks, one after the other, catching the soft light of the lantern. He brought two trembling hands to his face to muffle his cries before resting his forehead on Eren's chest. "I-I...this is my fault...you're dead because I couldn't save you in time...you're dead because of my incapability to save myself!" he choked on his tears. "I should have died instead of you...I deserved to die more than you ever did..." he trailed off, no louder than a whisper. Levi gritted his teeth, his eyebrows wavering-but no matter how hard he tried to contain himself, the tears would not cease.
The next morning, Hanje awoke in confusion, upon finding no sign of Levi anywhere. Everyone else was still asleep and she didn't want to wake them to ask of his whereabouts. As a last resort, she headed down to the basement and was amazed to find it unlocked, the door wide open. At the back of the room, she could see the small silhouette of the man, hunched over one of the bodies, the dying light of the lantern flickering beside him. "Levi?" The man lifted his head slowly, huge purple rings under his red, swollen eyes. "H-how long have you...been down here..." She trailed off, standing before him. Levi shook his head, unable to even speak. He opened his mouth to speak. A small squeak died on his lips. "Hanje..." he whispered, his gaze not leaving Eren.
"Levi...what is it?" she said, bending down and resting a hand on the other's shoulder. Levi swallowed, his breath hitching and catching with every inhalation. He suddenly whipped his head up and looked to Hanje with wild and desperate eyes, his pupils shimmering with tears that streamed down his pale face.
"Hanje, you have to do something!" he cried in a faltered and alien voice. "Its my fault Eren's...d-dead! If I'd only manoeuvred the gear properly, I wouldn't have been in a situation for him to save me! I can't live with the weight of his death on my shoulders! I can't live with the guilt!" he screamed, slamming his palms to the cold stone floor.
"Levi! Calm down!" The girl cried, grabbing both his shoulders and looking him in the eye. Levi fell silent, looking back, his lip trembling. His shoulders rose and fell quickly. "Levi, listen. There is nothing we can do. Eren is...he's dead." she said with a grave shake of the head. "Nothing can be done-I'm sorry."
"Bring him back to life..."
"What...Levi that's not possible."
"Yes it is!" he snarled, baring his teeth, forcing more tears out of his eyes. "Reanimation of tissue! Using electrical sparks! Using another functioning and living heart! Hanje, it has been done! It can be done to Eren! PLEASE! I'm begging you...please try...please..." he sobbed, resting his head back on the floor. The girl let out a sigh and rubbed the back of her neck.
"Ok...I'll try. For you. But Levi, sometimes, things are best unchanged."
"I don't care!" he cried wildly, his face cast in darkness from the overhanging hair shading his face. "I want Eren alive dammit."
The girl nodded and stood up. "We'd better get to work then."
End of Chapter 2
A/N: And there you have chapter 2! I promise more will happen in the next chapter~so stay tuned!