"Levi? Levi, are you okay? Are you up?"

He recognized that voice. Hanji. They were standing outside his bedroom door yelling inside, trying to wake him and get his attention. What was Hanji doing here? They only ever came if something bad happened.

"Okay, Levi, if you don't open the door, I'm going to bust it down with my bare feet! I know how much you care about your precious house!"

He heard them begin counting down from ten, their voice ringing in his ears.

10 . . .

9 . . .

8 . . .

His eyes are closed, his mind shut off, and his body snuggled warmly beneath the covers. He doesn't want to wake up. He wants to sleep. The vestiges of a sweet voice singing his name to the tune of a long-lost lullaby is slipping farther and farther away, right through the cracks of his broken soul, past his fingers grasping to pull it closer towards him, and off into the lands of dreams and memories and happier times. And oh! what a sweet voice it was. An obscured and blurry image of a lover lost sits in the voice's stead. It remains there, its presence taunting and tickling the back of his skull, retaining its sweetness despite the sound being gone.

It's like a parasite—eating away at him until he succumbs to a slow and miserable death. He accepts the fact that he will die with that voice in his ears. He accepts the fact that he will die wrapped in her deceitful presence that promises safety.

It's a siren's call. Come closer, come closer! Oh, won't you lay with me, Levi?

But then he feels a new presence—a new sort of pressure on the bed—and they're right next to him, but are they real? Is he imagining this person, too? Do they hold the sort of deceit he's become so acquainted with?

"Levi. Wake up."

A quick intake of breath and the fluttering of his eyelids before he makes it known that he's been awake this whole time. That was Hanji's voice once again and he's quite happy to realize that his door hasn't been broken down.

"Do you feel like talking?" he hears them ask again, harshly. He admires this about Hanji—they don't treat him like he's some sort of invalid. He's sick of the people cooing over him: "Are you okay? Need anything? Oh, don't stand up! I can do it for you!" So many people spoke as if he couldn't just do it himself.

"Levi, stop ignoring me. I bet you're happy I didn't break down your door, ay?"

With his eyes closed, he uses his other sense to get intel on his surrounding environment. Hanji smells of the outdoors—those flowers planted in front of her house (Lilies? Roses? They've only ever told him they plant flowers.), the smell of soil after it's been rained upon, and fresh air.

There's only one reason to speak right then. "Hanji?" he croaks.

"Welcome to the world of the living."

A couple of second of delay, then he says: "What do you feel like today?"

Hanji smiles down on him and pets his head fondly, their hands cooled from the outside air and soft to the touch against his forehead. "I'm feeling a bit more feminine. Thanks for caring."

"No problem." Levi turns over on the bed, leaving only his back visible to her. "What day is it today?"

For some reason, there's a tension in the air. Wind whistles outside, rattling the windows and doors. Birds are chirping yet it sounds oddly melancholy and solemn as if it precedes some awful news—perhaps the death of a loved one, a friend, a significant other. He seems to think about that often, but maybe he shouldn't blame himself too much. After all, he's lost someone, too. Someone with orange hair and honey eyes. Someone with a bright smile and shining potential.

The wind stops. The birds stop. It is silent. Why is the world so silent?

The audience waits patiently for Hanji to talk.

"November twenty-third. The anniversary of Petra's death."

Ah, it is silent in mourning.

-=-=-=-=-=-

When Petra Ral was alive, she was a sight to behold. The nicest person in the world—so happy, so cheerful, so full of opportunity—and so undeserving of her early death.

On November twenty-third, 2015, Petra Ral's corpse was found floating in a neighbor's pool, a bloody smile carved into her face up to her ears, and a trash bag nearby containing her missing ten fingers.

It was the worst day of Levi's life.
They had been close. They were "boyfriend and girlfriend" but they always considered that such a juvenile term for their relationship. Levi felt it within himself. This girl was someone so special, that there's no possible way he'd ever allow someone else to have her. He held her up like the angel she was and if she left him, he'd be okay with it as long as she was happy, but he'd never let someone else defile or diminish her in any way. Admittedly, his actions seemed a tad over-protective, but Petra had never minded his ways, his thoughts, his feelings—him. Petra was all for acceptance, and she accepted Levi with everything she had.

But now he thinks that maybe he didn't protect her enough. He thinks that it's his fault someone was able to get to her in the way that they did—and it is, in reality. If he'd been near her that night, if he'd even tried to call her that night, then maybe things would've been different. Maybe he could've saved her.

No one knows the future, but you can certainly change it. You are in control. Petra's death was never a fixed point in the universe—never had been and never will be—so it was in Levi's control that night to save her. Oh, what he would do to have a second chance! What he would do to save the one person he loved in his life with all his beating, passionate heart!

But it's not possible. It never will be possible. He's stuck with the circumstances as is. And maybe he would've left, maybe he would've joined her in the afterlife sooner, had it not been for the days up until her death. They dreamt of something, the both of them together. A future. A home where they both belonged. A place in which they were both happy. They said it was possible; they said they'd make it possible. They told each other to never give up, no matter what happened.

Petra's death was just another thing that "happened" and Levi can't give up now and break their promise. What would she say to him if they met again before their time? She would be unhappy and she would frown at him. Oh, how she'd be sad. She'd say bittersweet things like, "I wanted to see you grow up. I wanted to see you do all the things I couldn't. I wanted to see you have a family of your own—happy and living." But Levi feels like telling her that having a family and living happily just isn't possible without her, yet she's too far away and he knows his messages will never travel as far into the heavens that they'd have to go to reach her.

He'll have to wait so long to see his Petra's smiling face and rosy cheeks again. It'll be almost unbearable, but he'll bear it for her. He'll do it. He promised.

These thoughts of bittersweet happiness fill him with such regret as he sits there, on the cold ground, in front of the monotone gray of her tombstone. I'm sorry.

The birds are chirping again but their beauty falls on deaf ears. There's him, the ground beneath him, his girlfriend's rotting corpse beneath that, and the sorrow that fills in the cracks everywhere else.

Red petals look black in his colorless view of the world and they look even blacker set to the background of a gray tombstone.

Petra Ral
December 6, 1998 - November 23, 2015
Beloved Daughter

She was only sixteen when she died—neither of them had had their birthdays yet.

Beloved Girlfriend should be on their, too, Levi thinks. Even Beloved Friend could've worked like so many other honoring titles, but the way that those words are carved into the stone like that, as if she were nothing more than a memory or the thought of a person or simply just a daughter . . . was unfair. It was unfair for the people still mourning her and it was certainly unfair to the victim herself. She was much more than that.

Petra means stone. How coincidental that she be buried beneath one so soon.

"Levi, it's cold. Don't you want to get back inside? Your fingers are turning red and you forgot your gloves."

"You don't need to look after me, Hanji. What's with you taking extra care all of a sudden?" The annoyance in his voice surprise them both. The one thing he liked Hange for and now it was disappearing? He doesn't need another person to go and vanish out of his life as Hange with her personality would be a dead Hanji.

"Why do you get so upset at people for caring about you?"

Because I don't deserve to be cared about, he thinks. Because I've never been kind enough to earn such a privilege.

In the end, it's an open-ended question, and Levi never answers.

Their breath hangs in the November air like the puffs of smoke from a cartoon train. The cold has certainly gotten to his frozen digits, but he pays them no mind. Levi's focus is entirely on the tombstone, on the flowers just below the engraved, black letters that compact her existence into a few, cold words. It's funny; he's so upset about this yet he's sure he would've heard all about her life if he'd just picked up the courage to go to her funeral. Besides, there wasn't anything special about funerals. They're all the same—people with long faces walking a black parade, shrouded in a mist of death and despair. He never could drag himself out his bed, out of his hole of self-pity, enough to say goodbye to her one last time.

"If I die before you, you can bet your ass that I'll be haunting you!"

That's what she'd said, and Levi had figured there'd be other moments for goodbyes. Neither of them liked goodbyes anyways. They always said, "See you later!" or, "See you tomorrow!" or, "I love you!" but never goodbye. Never something so final. Because to them, the world seemed to hold an infinite number of opportunities and they thought they were invincible; they never would end; they had all the time in the world.

"We have to go."

He knows she's right, but the thought of leaving so soon hurts. He didn't want his precious Petra to feel lonely!
But he must because the dead are dead and they're never coming back.

He stands up slowly, weary of his aching joints, but stares at the grave. It's been well-tended; Petra's father comes out to clear it of weeds often. It makes him smile—something he hasn't done in a while. It feels odd on his face, like it shouldn't be there.

If the dead is dead, then what is he waiting for? He had a promise to her, but can he really keep it? Surely she'd understand . . . surely she would . . . the world is devoid of color, wiped of opportunities for something better, wiped of any dream he could ever hope to possess, and—most importantly—wiped of the love he once felt. So how could she expect him to live through it? They had plans! They were going to travel the world together and Levi had once joked about acting like a stereotypical Italian as they rode down the streets of Venice in a gondola.

"Could I implore you to taste some of my bread and pasta, miss? Or maybe some of my fancy Italian wine that's much too expensive so I know you'll never be able to afford it?"

She'd laughed. It sounded like the jingle bells on a sleigh as it sped across icy plains. Who else could have such a beautiful laugh? Who else could possibly possess such a beautiful smile? No one. She was the light of his life and maybe he should consider himself lucky that he'd made it even this far. It was thanks to her presence; the thought of her kept him going.

But he misses her. Oh, how he misses her. It's only been a year but the loneliness is unbearable. I just wish you'd come back.

Her killer proved too elusive for the police. Whether this was due to true police incompetence or that the killer really was too smart for them, well, Levi had his own suspicions. That person—whoever they may be—had taken the joy from his life and that's all that mattered. They deserved some form of punishment, but he sleeps soundly at night knowing the killer's soul will rot in Hell. Even if Hell and God does not exist, he thinks the guilt of doing such a heinous crime must weigh on someone's conscience.

Hers was a pointless death. Levi hates pointless deaths.

Hanji and Levi stand there under the watchful eyes of the dead for several minutes until she finally grabs his arm, and gently pulls him away. Back to her car. Time to go home. No, no, that place had ceased to be a home. Time to go back to the house. His home was destroyed when Petra died.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Scenery passes by in waves through the glass of the car window. Questions, questions, so many unanswered questions. What was he living for now? The people in his life—his uncle, Hanji—what were they living for? Why were they even around him? He's quiet and has never spoken much. He speaks when it's necessary, but other than that he considers it a waste of breath. He's never offered any kind of companionship. He's never so much as acted like a friend to Hanji since the death of the woman closest to him. How could she possibly manage to be around him?

One of those questions could be answered right then.

Their car speeds down the road; Hanji's always been somewhat of a crazy driver. It's a miracle they haven't been pulled over yet.

"Hanji?"

"Hm?" Cheerful. How does she sound so happy?

"Why are you friends with me?" He meant to sound plain and monotonous, but was that hope he heard mixed in there? Did he hold hope for a comprehensible answer? One that might set his mind off the dark path it was going down?

Hanji gave it some thought for a moment. Then she said, "Because you're accepting and I feel comfortable around you."

He starts. "I don't make you feel . . . sad?"

"You make me feel hopeful. I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not around you, and if there's at least one person who'll do it, then in the future they'll be lots of you. It's just like in science! Natural selection! If someone's doing something that won't help them survive, then that animal will die off and won't pass it on. You're doing something good and science shows that good things come out alright in the end."

She sounds so hopeful, so happy, so cheerful. Could Levi have possibly given that hope to her? How could that be possible when he was so hopeless himself?

"Okay," is all he says before turning back to look at the gray world outside. The world is honestly nothing to behold, he thinks. It's the same trees, same cars, same sky, same clouds, same monotonous routine every morning. Maybe he doesn't want to go through this routine again. Maybe he's tired and just wants to . . . fall asleep forever.

Yes, the idea sounds better to him now; he'll fall asleep forever, encased in Petra's arms. They'll both rest peacefully. She's probably not even at rest yet without him there—she's waiting so they can go together.
That's when he decides, almost exactly one year after her death, that they'll be together very soon.