[Is this Hell, really?]

[Eren’s said so. (Aubrey cannot imagine Eren saying “my list of sins” with anything but bitter, worn dryness—a resignation in its own right, but not quite Reiner’s knowing exhaustion.) Bertholdt said so, too. (He thought so, at first. And he thought so just before realizing he could find, if only in illusion, a sort of peace.) Armin hasn’t disagreed with the idea.... (At least, not last Aubrey checked. But Armin also never said their world wasn’t worth saving, despite it all.)

[It feels as though they’ve all died at least once before. And now they’re all caged by invisible walls, for however long they may be conscious, with no clear way out.

[And yet… these cobblestone streets are Bertholdt’s home. Reiner’s, too, maybe. And had the ghost—the ghost! dead and defeated long before this—not decided to try for a glimpse of somewhere better, they might not be here at all.]

[They have a chance, in this purgatory.]

[Aubrey is silent for a long, long time.]

I don’t know.

[Finally, she looks back to Reiner. Such a beautiful, terrible place....]

I think that’s up to us.