“The story about the puppet?” Annie asked a bit confused.
Hange nodded, and wild glint in her eyes.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Hange laughed and rubbed her hands together. “We are about to find out.”
Annie suddenly became aware that she felt…odd. Her face felt hot, her nose was tingly. Maybe it had been a mistake to drink whatever this mad woman gave her.
“So Annie I am going to ask you….are you the female titan?”
Annie almost laughed but managed to keep a straight face. “You’ve already asked me this, I mean you already know that I am.”
Both Annie and Moblit exchanged a look of confusion.
“Excuse me squad leader, but we know that Annie is the female titan why ask her now?”
Hange just let out a maniacal laugh. “Oh Moblit, don’t you know that every good science experiment has a control. A variable that doesn’t change.”
Annie felt a twitch in her nose.
“Now Moblit, time for the experiment!” Hange whispered excitedly into her vice captain’s ear.
She turned back towards Annie.
“Are you working alone?”
Annie felt her breath catch in her throat. She had deduced that whatever Hange had given her was to prevent her from lying, but she couldn’t just give up Bertholdt and Reiner that easily. Not after all that they have been through.
She swallowed hard, deciding to take the gamble.
“Yes, there is no one else.” Annie said, quickly bracing for whatever was going to come next from her lie.
Nothing happened.
Hange’s face fell. She reached out touching various parts of Annie’s face.
“Can you not do that please.” Annie said curtly.
“I don’t know what went wrong…I-“
Hange’s glasses clattered to the floor. Hange stepped back rubbing her eye.
“Squad leader are you-“
Moblit stopped short as he looked towards Annie.
“What are you staring at?” Annie asked bluntly.
Hange picked her glasses up off the floor, cleaning them on her shirt.
“Can I just go back to my cell now?” Annie asked. She felt that strange tickle in her nose again. She went to scratch her nose and fell out of her chair.
Her nose wasn’t where it usually was. She began to panic, running her hands over her face. One of her fingers finally hooked into one of her nostrils. But the nostril was not where it normally should be.
“Hange!!! What…What the hell is wrong with my nose?!?!”
Hange ignored Annie’s question, as she stared at her in awe.
“It worked!! It actually worked!”
“What worked!?!”
“Oh Annie!! Tell me another lie!” Hange said excitedly reaching for her pen and notepad.
“Absolutely not!” Annie said getting on to her feet. She needed to get to a mirror. She spun around in Hange’s lab settling for a dirty window.
Annie almost jumped out that window.
To her horror, and Hange’s delight, Annie’s nose hand grown about four inches. She let out a scream of disgust and anger, spinning on her heals.
“What did you do to me!?! Why is my nose like this?” Annie shouted at Hange, not caring about the attention it might draw.
“To put it simply, I turned you into Pinocchio.” Hange said.
“You what?!?”
“You know how the story goes. Every time you lie, your nose gets a bit longer. Just like Pinocchio…or more like Annienocchio.” Hange said with a laugh, looking at her note pad.
A blind rage overtook Annie at hear Hange call her that, and she charged at the scientist.
“SQUAD LEADER!!!” Moblit cried out trying to stop Annie.
Hange looked up just in time to see Annie coming at her with a wild look in her eyes. She dropped her notepad and pen ready to go on the defense. But just as Annie was about to go for Hange’s throat, a blur flew past Hange, tackling Annie to the ground.
Within minutes Annie was pinned down, Levi pushing a knee into her back.
“I told you to be careful Four-Eyes”. He said sharply.
Hange reached down for her notepad as a several scouts came in the room and secured Annie in chains.
“You seem to forget that you are at the mercy of the Survey Corps.” Levi said harshly.
“F*ck off…look at what that titan freak did to me!” Annie spat.
Levi studied Annie for a second. “Congratulations Four-Eyes, one of your crazy experiments finally worked.”
The Scout forced her back into the chair.
“Now, I am going to ask you again…Are you working alone?”
Without thinking Annie said no, hoping if she was vaguely honest her nose would go back to normal.
It didn’t.
“Who are you working with then?” Levi asked.
Annie remained silent. If she didn’t speak, her nose couldn’t grow.
“Have they infiltrated any of the military branches?”
They were met with a growl from Annie, and to her shock her nose grew a bit more.
“What the hell?!?”
Hange got that wild glint in her eyes again. “Fascinating…even a sound that isn’t the truth will cause the nose to grow. I’ve truly out done myself this time.”
Annie was fuming. “I’m not tell you a d*mn thing! Now put my nose back to normal!!”
Levi glared at her. “You’re not really in the position to be making demands.”
“You don’t scare me.” Annie said.
Her nose grew a bit more, causing Levi to let out a cold laugh.
Hange tried a few more questions, but Annie remained stubbornly silent.
****************************************
By the time Annie got back to her cell, her nose was over ten inches long now. She was exhausted and drained. She was grateful that there were no mirrors in her cell.
Annie waited until the guard walked away before curling up in her bed, the childhood taunts echoing through her head. She cried silently into her pillow until she fell into a fitful sleep.
Comments (1)
THE RETURN