It was raining. Large heavy drops of water falling from the skies as if heaven itself were crying, and perhaps it was.

Humanity has won. The titans had been wiped clean from the earth leaving only the dusty ashes of their remains. Smoke trails burning across the sky and shrouding the clouds in ominous black. They had won, and all it had cost was everything.

Levi could hear no sounds. Not the rain that fell from the blackness above nor the hollers of happiness from those who were lucky enough to live through the terrors. He felt no victory, no sense of relief that he had thought he would feel.

Because they were dead.

A few months ago, Levi would have skewered anyone who dared walk up to him and tell him that there were people out there that he called friends and whose lives meant more to him then victory itself.

But that was then and this is now. And those people he called friends were dead and gone.

He remembered feeling the heavy loss of pain that clenched his heart when he had heard the dreaded news. Erwin had gone on a suicidal mission. It was to be expected, but it had still hurt. That damn bastard and his honor.

But the weight of loss only continued when Hanji also disappeared on a scouting mission, body left to rot in the open fields.

Levi was left alone, yet, despite his protests, Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Jean had insisted to pry him out of his shell and had continued to silently support him through their laughter and smiles, and then the fates took them away as well.

Oh how Levi despised them. If they wanted to be his friend, the least they could do was not die. He was a fool to attempt to make more friends. It just figured that he would be the one left behind.

But it was Eren's death that had hurt the corporal the most. Days before a mission, Eren had dragged himself out of bed in the middle of the night to grasp the bars of his cell, and when Levi walked in to see what was wrong, he had immediately grabbed Levi's shoulders like a madman. His eyes frantically looking around in fear the way a dying man would look after knowing the exact second he would die all the while speaking in a quite raspy tone that caused Levi to strain his ears just to catch the slightest sound.

"Promise me! Promise me that you'll kill me when I lose control! You have to promise me!" he shouted.

Levi did not flinch away from the touch as he could feel Eren's fingers trembling. The boy's eyes brimming with unshed tears and his breathing raspy. He did not yell or even glare at Eren for daring to touch him with his filthy hands nor did he correct Eren in the fact that it was 'if' and not 'when' because no matter how many times Levi tried to convince himself otherwise, he could see it in Eren's eyes that they both knew he would die.

True to Eren's premonition, the rogue titan went berserk. It's large hands grabbing at everything it could as if it knew that they would one day slaughter him when the titans all disappeared and his usefulness had run dry.

Levi couldn't blame him, but it still didn't change the fact that Levi had a job and a promise to fulfill.

With a large sweep of his sword, Levi sliced the titan's legs clean in half before leaping atop the large creatures head and shouting at Eren to listen to him. The titan merely continued to use its arms to drag itself on top of the buildings and swipe at anything within arms length.

It had then grabbed Levi and had held him like a limp doll in front of its large face. Mouth open to let out a ferocious roar.

It's just a titan. Another monster without a brain. A mindless creature, so why was he hesitating? Levi had frowned at his own stupidity for wavering at such a time of importance before lifting his sword to end the pathetic beast's life.

But then, Levi saw his eyes. The same eyes that had looked at him only days before. Begging him to end his life, and that's when Levi saw Eren. The same boy that wanted to see the ocean, taste the sweetness of freedom, and who, despite his abilities, is one hundred percent human.

But Levi had a job, and he had a promise to fulfill.

So that was why Levi was now standing in the pouring rain, alone. Eyes staring intently at the graves he had dug with his own hands. Black mud mixing with the blood on his hands. Something that he would have cringed from before was now something he welcomed.

The stones he had used as a marker was mere rubble from the brick houses. A grave for each of his closest friends, even the ones whose bodies could not be found, and for once, Levi could feel what it must have been like for Annie. To live in solitude with people that simply did not understand, did not know the pain he felt. People that would never understand what he had went through because he was, and always would be, alone.

Suddenly he was angry, his breath coming out in ragged wheezes as he fought the urge to cry.

"Why!" he shouted angrily although it came out more like a wheezed cry. "Why do I always have to be left alone?"

Levi then sighed partly in frustration and anger as he attempted to calm himself because he was not here to yell at his fallen comrades no matter how angry he has become. He glanced once more at the graves before kneeling down and speaking in a hushed tone as if too afraid to disturb those that rested there.

"I had a dream. A dream where we lived happy lives in a world without titans. Erwin was our father, a foolish one at that, and we were all siblings, even Annie. I don't know if this dream will ever come true, but if it does, I'll meet you there."

AN - Finally! Finished with my first ever multi-chapter fic. Thank you so much to everyone who has patiently supported me throughout the whole thing, and thank you for all of the reviews. Now, in case there was any confusion, this chapter is supposed to be in the past where Levi has dreams of the future, and it basically is interlinked with the first chapter. Hopefully that explains everything.