The Wall

Ayama sat in her room watching the rain drops trickling down the window pane. It was an early spring day and the rains had come. The sky was dark and overcast, with pregnant clouds pressing down on the atmosphere with their bulk. The wind was high too. The trees in the garden were torn this way and that, being pulled and tugged by the invisible force. Ayame watched this ghostly display as the sun came up. She knew it was only a short time until he was going to have to go. It had been a short time since the plans had been set, and now they had come to fruition. It was likely she was never going to return to this place nor to any other in this world. But it was rather irrelevant. She was bound in more ways than one to carry this plan out. 

It was at times like this when Amaya was certain that she was not really wholly within her own body and felt slightly nauseous, as if the constrains of her existence, once noticed were too restraining for her comfort. This was something hat could be very disconcerting, however, if she concentrated, and remembered that she had no other place to go than to stay in her body, the world seemed to settle and she would feel somewhat better, though the lingering thought of escape remained. 

Leaning back against her wall, her mind ran over the well-known plan she and her cohorts had formed again, as if running her mental fingers of its form, tasting it, feeling the  outlines and, even, the slight imperfections. Amaya was slightly apprehensive about these, but there really was not overly much one could do about them. No plan was perfect, and even if there were no foreseen problems, un-foreseen ones always dropped in to say 'hello'. One simply had to learn how to think on one's feet. Those feet did not remain under one for long if one did not in this trade. However, even the most ardent, experienced, and skilled of their number cold be lost due to no other reason than Lady Luck having a bad day. It was part of the deal, this roll-of-the-dice fortune. It was a permanent feature of their missions; some of their number even coveted this aspect of their work. Amaya was not one of them, though she would have to admit, that she was getting rather addicted to it. After living a ruined life for so long, she wondered if she could ever settle should the opportunity arise. 

Probably not, she told herself with a wry smile at her thoughts, as visions of a perfect world flittered through her half-sleeping mind. 

There was a knock on the door and Amaya sighed, standing up from her half-sitting, half-lazing position with the luxurious stretch of someone who was accustomed to physical exercise. 

Opening the door slightly, as had been drilled into her by habit, even though she was fully dressed, she nodded at the gaunt man in a gray clock and hood revealed. 

"The scouts have been sent out," he said in the steady, deliberate monotone of someone whose lifestyle has drain him of all excitement. "We're waiting for confirmation now."

"Oh, good." Amaya replied, donning on her own cloak and pulling up her hood over her head. "Then we should here from them soon enough if all goes well."

The hooded man nodded, but did not say anything more. Amaya was used this is stoic and silent personality. Most of her team-mates had a similar disposition. It was a very useful one in their line of work. There was only one thing their work consisted of: protection. Even now their scouts would be running out beyond the walls of their cities, where no one knew what lay anymore, other than a brutal death at the hands of unknown, vicious, man-eating demons who had suddenly appeared during the course of the last generation. Humanity, however, could never be staved off of what it needed: the freedom to survive and to build. This was the one thing Ayama and her cohorts had sworn their lives to, and they were not going to let anyone get in their way of paving a road for the next generation, not even the loss of their own lives. Following the hooded man, they came to the courtyard where the horses were kept. Amaya swung herself up into the saddle of her own steed, already settling into the mental state she always adopted when heading out. 

As she steered her mount out onto the street, she knew that her squad was falling into formation behind her, likewise on their horses. There was no one on the streets in this weather, but Amaya saw some pale faces look out of the windows above them as they headed down the main road to the Northern Gate of the village. These gates, she knew full well would not last for long. The blockades that they had built against the monster giants

Exiting the Northern Gate, Amaya set their pace to a gallop and they all but flew with their squad's wings on their backs towards a pre-determined spot not too far out of the safe confines of the village. It was right up against the front-line of their defenses; that line where soldiers like herself where being sent by the hundreds day by day to keep the colossal enemy front getting anywhere near the towns while the Wall was being constructed. Amaya's keen green eyes narrowed against the wind and rain. Humanity had once had a population of over 7 billion, she knew. Now they were down to not even half that much, with their numbers to surely dwindle even further by the time the Wall was finished. But perhaps, she mused, this was the natural course of things. After all, whenever a population became overbearing, Mother Nature had always been quick to step in and balance things out. Regardless of what this new enemy might be, she knew, there was sense in this. However, Amaya still could not fathom just where such beings could have possibly had come from in such a short time. Nor could she simply sit back and watch her fellows be devoured before her. Mother Nature had equipped her and her cohorts with the sense of this being wrong and that they needs must strive for survival, an instinct that was as core as breathing. 

This was where their squad was to rendezvous with the scouting team. Amaya could see it now. There were explosions to be seen here as the titans attacked continuously at the baselines that had been constructed against them and those guarding it were firing all they could at them. Amaya felt her mind go into a sort of 'neutral green', as she thought of it, as she sunk into the mind-set she needed to do battle with this ferocious enemy. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, Amaya saw the other parties arrive on time. Each party had more than 100 000 troops on either horseback or on some vehicle or other. Humanity had assembled one last giant counter-attack to gain the necessary time to protect what would remain afterwards. Luckily, most of the soldiers were strengthened by the fact that they were many. Amaya was thankful for this. She could have had a mutiny on her hands otherwise. However, she knew full well the capabilities of the enemy and knew that this front-line was about to go under. All her superiors knew it. They were running out of people who could be sent to protect it and keep it under order. After this was gone, only the as yet unfinished Wall could possibly hold against the onslaught of the Titans. Amaya and her team, the scouts and all who would fall today were sent here as a final resort, the last thrust in playing for time so that the Wall could be finished. 

The sight she had seen the previous week came flooding back to her: that of her and her Lieutenant standing on the almost completed Wall Maria and gazing onto lands that were completely free of this plague of Humanity. The one place left in the world where people could live without fear of these wretched, despicable entities endangering them. The only place children could grow and continue Humanity's legacy.  

It was the one hope left: to retreat and rely on the ingenuity of Humanity to finally band together and defeat this ferocious new foe.