A/N

Hey guys! This book hasn't been updated in about a month, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten about it. I think about this story a lot because I really enjoy writing about these characters! There's still going to be updates and probably more often now, but I was just busy with my other Attack On Titan fanfiction The Squad Behind Us, in case you want to check that out. I don't know, you don't have to, but I do work really hard on that one.

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"YOU!" Arnaldo Shadis yelled at someone two rows in front of me. "WHAT'S YOUR NAME AND WHY ARE YOU HERE!"

There was a scared looking, black haired boy with almost orange eyes. "I'm Harold Argus, sir! I'm here to join the Garrison and defend the wall, sir!"

"DEFEND THE WALL!? WHAT KIND OF COWARD ARE YOU!"

Harold looked confused as he continued sweating. I felt so bad for him. If Shadis started yelling at me, I knew I'd cry. I'd started preparing myself for the yelling though, now that I knew what was coming as I simultaneously thanked the wall for not being in the front row for once, since my last name was Alkaline. I put a determined look on my face and soon didn't care if he came up to me or not. I would really prefer him to not, but either way was fine, I just didn't show it.

I tried not to look as Shadis kneed Harold in the gut and watched him sit and suffer. I couldn't help, but wince though. I empathize a bit too much. Shadis moved on as I continued to look straight ahead. He'd moved passed the people in the front row and continued on to the second of many. I hadn't had time to count.

"LET THAT BE AN EXAMPLE TO YOU ALL!" Shadis shouted as he continued to walk. "I WILL NOT TOLERATE COWARDS! WE CAN ALWAYS JUST USE YOU FOR TITAN FOOD! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!"

"Yes, sir!" The majority of us yell including myself, except for somebody behind me. It made a big difference and you could tell, especially because I was so close to them, but so was Shadis. He all of a sudden cocked his head towards a person behind me. I tried to keep my face hard, because I knew he could notice everything I did even if he was staring at someone else. I tried my best not to gulp as he slowly walks over towards where I'm standing while glaring.

"What do you think you're doing, Cadet?" Shadis asks the person behind me.

"Standing, sir!" I tense up. It was a boy's voice who was obviously too confident for his own good.

"Excuse me?" Shadis said while not shouting, which made it even scarier.

"I know you're standing, boy, but why weren't you saluting? Are you not a young Cadet like all the other people here? You think you're somehow special?" There was a slap and a grunt. "WELL LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING! YOU ARE NOT A SPECIAL BUTTERFLY! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" There was no noise coming from the cadet that was still grunting in pain. "I SAID, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!"

"Yes, sir," the boy said weakly.

I'm guessing Shadis picked the boy up then, because there was the sound of hoisting someone up and a shuffle of clothes. "STAND UP HERE CADET AND TELL EVERYONE HERE WHAT YOUR NAME IS!"

"Keith..."

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

"Keith...," the boy said a tiny bit louder.

"HEY YOU!" He yelled to the very last line at some random person. "DO YOU HEAR SOMETHING? I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING!"

The person at the very end of the rows said, "I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING EITHER, SIR!" They were straining their voice so they could be heard from that far away.

"Now, I want you," he said, angrily whispering to the cadet behind me. "I want you, to yell SO LOUD, that even she can hear you!" He must've been referring to the person in the back row. "ARE WE CLEAR!"

"Yes, sir," Keith said with a little more confidence. He stood up, breathed and yelled, "I AM KEITH SHADIS!" I thought that was a bit interesting. He had the same last name as the instructor?

Shadis cut him off and said, "I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR LIFE STORY!"

Wait, what? I thought. Either the instructor was dense or was being really annoying on purpose. Probably the latter. Shadis slapped him on the arm one more time before moving on and all the people in my row seemed to be spared. I almost let out a small sigh of relief before I remembered that it might draw attention back to me. I searched around for my friends with my eyes, trying my best not to move. I thought I saw Eliza in front of me and Felix was somewhere in my row, but I didn't know where Aiden was. I hope he was doing okay. He doesn't seem like the kind of person to get intimidated so easily. Something I admired about him was his ability to do so. If the instructor had come over here and yelled at me, I am absolutely positive I would've ended up crying. That would've been the worst first impression every humanly possible and not to mention the embarrassment would be off the scale.

Come to think of it, I don't know much about Aiden. Having been friends with him for a while made me know a few things. I knew about his Mom, but I didn't know about his Dad. I knew his first name, but not his middle or last. I knew about his personality, but I wasn't to the point where I could act like him correctly like I could for Felix or Eliza (I hope I can anyways, but I'd have to have a full test run). The last name part really hit me hard. How the hell do I not know his last name?

The standing was getting to me. I hated standing. If you saw me on a normal day, I would not be standing. I would either be, running, walking, or sitting (most likely in a tree). I started shifting my weight from one leg to the other. Standing sucked. Shadis continued to walk around and yell at random cadets. I couldn't really see the point of this "entrance ceremony." It's not as if it was accomplishing anything besides embarrassment and being annoyed.

Keith behind me grumbled something underneath his breath, and for a scary moment, Shadis stopped talking and everything was silent. The tense silence was unnerving and I wanted it to stop. Shadis walked over to Keith again slowly, as if to intimidate him, but Keith wasn't easily intimidated. Once Shadis reached Keith, he punched Keith across the face. It made me wince slightly to here him get punched, but I had to stay calm and still in order to not be noticed, for fear of the same punishment.

"THE NEXT TIME I HEAR YOU BACK-TALKING ME," Shadis yelled at the weakened Keith, "I WILL PERSONALLY HANG YOU UP BY YOUR THUMBS AND BEAT YOU LIKE A PINATA! NOW I WANNA HEAR A YES SIR OUT OF YOUR MOUTH! Can you do that?! Can you say yes sir?!"

"Yes, Sir," Keith replies weakly. His voice was laced with pain and it was scratchy. My face grew angrier each time that Shadis picked on Keith. Why was Keith the only one? No one else was being beaten down like he was, and it made me a bit less vulnerable to have a crying attack.

After another half an hour of the agonizing standing and yelling and random cadets' crying, we were finally dismissed. It was lunch time for us so I looked around for Aiden, Felix, and Eliza. However, I couldn't find them in the hoard of what I almost thought were wild animals instead of well-mannered cadets. Though, who said anything about being well-mannered? I was now at the back of the hoard and not really in it. I heard a grunt of pain from behind me. When I turned around to see who it was, I saw none other than Keith Shadis laying on the ground with his face still in the dirt.

I felt so bad for him. While he was being beaten I was filled with the urge to run up and kick Shadis where it hurts, but also to stay put. The urge to stay subordinate won eventually though, and I didn't get beaten along with him. I stopped walking towards the hall and turned around. He was gradually starting to get up, but he it didn't look like he could. I almost thought I heard him let out a whimper of sorts.

I walked over to him and stood there. "Can you stand?" I asked him. I was going to ask if he was okay, but I realized that it was a stupid question; of course he wasn't okay.

Keith replied with something other than the answer to my question. He said, "Leave me alone."

"But you're not okay!" I insisted. I didn't want to leave him there, but I also didn't want him mad at me. I wanted to be friends with Keith and if not those then at least on good terms.

"I said, leave, me, alone." He sounded so angry with a vile tone, but underneath his anger and rudeness, hurt and pain could be heard. "I don't need your help!"

I narrowed my eyes. Of course he needed help! He was just being stupid to refuse it. "You'll end up dead if you don't ever accept help," I said coldly. I wrapped my arms around his weak form and said, "That's why I'm not going to listen to you." I lifted him up, but he was so heavy. "Hey, do you think you can at least try to stand up on your own?" As soon as I said that, a huge weight was taken off and he started to stand up. I put his arm around my shoulder and helped him towards the Mess Hall. As I stood up, I could see that Shadis was watching Keith and I. What was his problem? I didn't know if they were related yet, but even if they weren't, Keith didn't deserve to be treated the way he had. I found it quite annoying that a person like him was my instructor. As soon as we made it into the Hall, we were greeted by Aiden, Felix, and Eliza.

Eliza said, "Hey! Where were you?" I smiled at her and cocked my head towards the tall person that was on my shoulders.

"I could ask the same thing! If I go missing, would you guys just wait for me to turn up?"

She gave a disapproving glance and said, "You know I'd go looking for you. Who's he?"

"He's-"

"Keith Shadis," Keith interrupted me. "She was kind enough to help me. Unlike some... other people. Hey," he said to me, "what's your name?"

"I'm Rose Alkaline. From within Wall Maria. I didn't really live in a district. Are you feeling like you can stand by yourself?"

"Yeah, I'll just have to sit down for a few minutes."

"We've already got a table to sit at," Aiden said as he eyed Keith. What was that all about? As far as I knew, Aiden hadn't seen or met Keith before. Then again, there was so much that I didn't know about Aiden. "He can sit with us if he doesn't have anywhere else."

"Thanks," Keith said. "I can stand by myself now, Rose," he said to me. "Thanks again for helping." He slipped off of my shoulders and followed after Aiden and Eliza to the table. I noticed he was limping and felt a tad bit more sympathetic. I knew having a limp wasn't very enjoyable. I followed after them after a few minutes of just standing there.

I sat down next to Felix across from Aiden and Eliza. I noticed that Aiden glanced yet again at Keith who was sitting on the other side of me. He quickly looked away though.

I asked, "Aiden," he looked up, "why do you keep looking at Keith?"

"Oh, um...," he stuttered for a second. "I keep looking, because he reminds me of a childhood friend of mine." Aiden quickly looked down again at the table. "Anyways," he said quickly afterwards to brush off the earlier question, "anyone hungry?"

"I am," I said quickly. "We got here early this morning and we still haven't eaten anything from before the wolf incident. What are we having?"

Aiden looked around at what everybody else was eating. He sighed and said, "Sadly, it looks like it's stale bread and water."

I groaned. "You've got to be kidding me..."

Eliza sighed too, "Nope."

"You'd think that they'd give us better food considering how much money we pay in taxes," Keith said, evidently annoyed.

"I agree with you on that," I said. How was I going to survive here off of stale bread and water? "I'm gonna get up to get food. You guys want me to get you some too?"

A round of yesses came from Aiden, Felix, and Eliza, but Keith said, "I don't need you to get it for me. I'll get it."

"Okay then," is all I said in response. I mean really, what was I supposed to say to that? I did find it a bit annoying and I thought about his statement as we got up and stood in the line that had formed. I added a trait to Keith's new personality list which was this: he doesn't like getting help from people. He's gonna have to learn to cooperate if he wants to get anywhere in the army.

I took this as an opportunity to study my fellow classmates. Luckily, I wasn't behind Keith so I could study the person in front of me. She had semi-long, dark, frizzy hair that went to about her shoulders. She was a bit bigger than me in both size and height. We all had our jackets and uniforms on, all with varying sizes because they hadn't gone around to do final checks to see if they fit. I tried to think up an excuse to talk to the person in front of me, because I thought this would be a good opportunity to get to know new people. I finally made up some stupid excuse.

Even though I doubted that Aiden was lying, I asked her, "Um excuse me," I tapped her soldier and continued when she turned around, "but do you know what we're having for lunch?"

She had warm brown eyes and still somewhat babyish face. She had dark skin that was the same color as Keith's, something quite interesting to me. Her hair was puffy, but it also looked as if it had just been taken out. I quickly glanced at the red ribbon tied around her wrist. It must've tied up her hair earlier.

She said in a friendly voice as she smiled at me with perfect white teeth, "Oh you're fine! It looks like we're having. . ." she paused for a moment as she craned her neck forward to get a better view of the food and other people's the trays. "I see a bunch of bread and water." She half frowned at this along with me. I actually had to eat stale bread and water for lunch as the first meal for me to have eaten in a day. "Doesn't sound extremely appetizing. Nothing like my Mother's cooking, that's for sure. Hopefully the food gets better, you know?" She gave me another friendly smile.

I smiled back at her. I liked this person; she seemed nice and caring. "Thanks," I said back. "What's your name? I'm Rose."

"I'm Inessa. Nice to meet you," she held out her hand for me to shake. I took it gladly and shook it gently whilst smiling.

Keith rudely said behind us, "Inessa, move up already."

The smile fell from her face as she turned back around to face front and moved up about a yard (a little bit less than one meter). We each got our wooden trays and grabbed our bread and cup of water, but me and Keith split the three trays that were for Eliza, Felix, and Aiden. Me and Keith walked back over to our table with slight difficulty as Inessa walked quickly to somewhere else, probably to go sit with some of her own friends. She seemed nice, so of course she already had some.

We placed the trays down at the table and they all said thanks to me like the nice people they were. I looked around the mess hall we were in and saw a few people sitting by themselves. I pitied them in a way and as I looked up at Eliza eating stuff I was suddenly reminded by all of our greatest memories. That's when I really started to appreciate my friends. I never realized how lucky I was.

Randomly I said, "Thank you guys for existing." They all looked up at me from nibbling at their bread with pleasantly surprised faces.

"Um, okay," Eliza said to me. "Well you're welcome then."

Aiden said, "You should thank my parents for getting it on." We all chuckled a bit while I slapped him playfully and scolded him for saying such things at the table.

"I think I'm going to die from starvation," I exaggerated as I plopped down on the table after I'd finished my bread and water.

Felix poked me. "You better not starve otherwise you'll have a lot of angry people haunting you in the afterlife."

I looked up at him and said, "But that makes no sense. I would be the ghost so I should be haunting you."

All he said was, "Exactly."

I glared at him and said as I laid my head back down on the table, "You confuse me sometimes."

"Well, I learned from the best."

"Hey!" I yelled.

Aiden jabbed Felix and me and with his finger and said, "Stop bickering. We've got to get back to work. Look, people are already leaving," he pointed at everyone else and at the door where a crowd has gathered and was slowly dispersing.

I groaned out loud as I heard my stomach rumble again. The military was going to be harder than I thought.