Kenny had always told him that to dream was to play the game of fools, and Levi would do well not to gamble with stakes as poor as his.
With survival being his number one priority, they were easy words to live by, focused as he was on living to see the next day. Hope sure as hell wasn’t going to get him there. Dreams were a luxury afforded by those who woke to sunlight through their windows and coins heavy in their pockets.
But along came Erwin Smith, a factor that no one, not even Kenny, could have predicted. He was a card that should have never been on the table.
Though Levi tried to resist, reminding himself that nothing was worth such risks, it was inevitable that the man’s dreams became his own; Erwin’s conviction was like something he’d never seen, and like the taste of all things forbidden, it was a sweetness in which he couldn’t help but indulge.
Years passed and without realising, Levi had given in to desires of his own, delicate flames flickering to life in his chest. They were small, simple, but in this world even the most modest dreams hung from thin threads which frayed more and more each day. And when Erwin took his last breath, those tatters snapped, sending the small amount of hope Levi had risked allowing for himself plummeting into endless depths.
He’d seen rock bottom. Born beneath it, he’d had to claw his way out. No one grew up in the underground without being knocked to the ground more than a few times. That was why he thought Erwin worth the risk; Levi was sure he could beats the odds. But all too late he came to realise he hadn’t been playing the game at all. Nothing more than a pawn, he’d been trying to take charge of a game of which he didn’t know the rules.
And Levi was forced all at once to learn just what it meant to lose.
