At least, Armin thinks as he looks up at kids surrounding him, at least they won't find my book.
As soon as he'd realised they were approaching he'd hidden it among the loose boards around the back of the bakery shed. Then he'd lost his nerve and bolted – perhaps this time, he'd told himself, he'll be fast enough to make it home, or he'll run into Mikasa and Eren around the corner, or they'll ignore him for better things.
He was wrong. They'd caught up, like they always did, and knocked him down with careless shoulders. Now he stands, shaking a little, the centre of their malevolent, leering circle. There is no one else around – or if there is, no one speaks up.
Six surround him, far more than normal: Natacha and Benedict, the two leaders, Yann, Sophia, Joseph and Ramón. Armin feels cold despite the balmy summer sun. His stomach twists up in fear as his eyes dart from face to face. Surrounded, stared at, expectation hangs heavy in the air and Armin doesn't know what to say even if he could say anything at all: his throat has seized up in fear. Instinctively, beyond any logic or reasoning, he knows he will not escape with just bruises this time.
"What'cha up to, heretic?" Natacha speaks first, and the moment of keen anticipation is broken. The others laugh, eyes alight with the pleasure of solidarity. "Still plotting to get out?"
"He wants to see a titan!" Joseph says, giggling like he's explaining some hilarious new joke.
"Go away," Armin hisses, but even that emerges small, already defeated. The group laugh as one and Armin would cower away from their boisterous loudness, if only he had anywhere to cower to. He doesn't, so he wraps his thin arms tight around himself.
At least they won't find the book.
"Go on then, tell us," Natacha says, mocking encouragement, and the others fall quiet to let her speak. "Why'd you wanna get out so bad?"
Armin grits his teeth; his heart is trembling with primal fear. Any other time he can hate them, or pity their shallow-mindedness. He can dismiss them as idiots who will never get far in life, who will trudge the same boring, pointless lives as their parents and grandparents did until they keel over and die a boring, pointless death. Never knowing any better.
That is any other time. Now, when he has to crane his neck just to look them in the face, and his body already hurts with the pain it knows it's about to receive, he is only frightened. Just a small, frightened boy.
"Hey!" Sophia rams her elbow into the side of his head – a sharp jab that drives Armin sprawling. "Don't ignore her, fucking brat!"
The others take that as their cue to join in. "Yeah, you shit! Answer the question!" they shout, pushing him over and kicking him where he falls. Armin curls into himself, ducking his head beneath the flimsy cover of his own bruising hands.
The burst of violence stop as quickly as it started. Benedict grabs the back of Armin's collar and hauls him to his feet. "Go on, here's your chance, say it," he sneers.
Armin snaps. "It's just a trap," he spits, and thinks very fleetingly of Eren. "These walls – they won't last forever and when something goes wrong we'll all die because there's nowhere else to go, and no one will know what to do–"
Benedict drives a fist into Armin's gut. "Only reason something'll go wrong is if freaks like you keep screwing around and mess things up," he says, with the arrogant certainty of children and fanatics.
"You're sick if you want to go outside," Yann chips in for the first time, quiet but totally assured. "Don't you know what titans do?"
"Bet he's too stupid," Natacha says. "But we can teach him, right?" She turns to the rest of the group as Armin shrinks down, feeling cold and sick and panicky.
"Hey Sophia, what we found this morning – go grab it." Natacha sounds triumphant. Sophia stands still for a long moment, and no one speaks. Then she peels away from the group to run off, oversized shoes slapping the paving.
While she's gone the others are quiet. Armin looks down at the ground and wants desperately to escape, to have the strength to fight them off. He thinks he might be able to surprise them if he runs now, so not needing strength, but his legs will not move except to shake, pathetic, in fear. His stomach and the places they kicked him ache sharply. He tries not to think about what Sophia is bringing, but it's too late as she's already returning.
There's a murmur from the others as she jogs up and folds back effortlessly into the circle, holding in both hands a rough wooden box. It's about the same size as his book, or perhaps two if he had them stacked flat, Armin thinks as he peeks from behind his tangled fringe. Dread and anticipation mingle in his gut and he has to stop himself from crouching down, hands over his head, as Natacha takes the box and turns to him.
It's only then that Armin notices the sound of frantic scratching, the unmistakable sound of a small animal.
"Hey!" Natacha calls. "Hold him down!"
Almost immediately Armin is knocked to the ground. Crying out from the shock of it he bleats in surprise as a hand is forced between his teeth, squashing his tongue and holding his mouth open. Another hand on his forehead grinds his skull into the floor. Then he sees the soft, wriggling body of the baby mouse Natacha is holding between thumb and forefinger, descending towards his face. It's pink-brown and struggling in her grip.
"You wanna know why no one likes titans?"
It's tastes like dust, but alive. The feet are tiny blunt needles dragging over his tongue, the tail a warm thin bone hitting the roof of his mouth. Its skin is fuzzy, like peach skin. It wriggles as it's forced into the back of his throat by Natacha's fingers, which leave the taste of dirt and sweat, and Armin gags. Then, on reflex, he swallows.
Natacha's hand withdraws and Armin retches, but nothing come up. He is still being held down bodily and his jerky movements are pathetic. He wants to throw up – he cannot quite believe what he just ate, warm and small and still alive. He is crying fat, wet tears of panic.
Natacha is holding up a second mouse – another baby. Its tail windmills, hitting Armin's lips and the inside of his mouth as it's squashed down his throat just the same as the first. A third: Armin breaks away to shake his head wildly, but all that does is catch his teeth on the mouse's fragile body, tearing it. Blood washes his throat, sticky and thick. It mixes with phlegm to turn into glue.
The fourth mouse pisses on his tongue before it's forced down, bitter and sharp to fold into the stagnant sweetness of the blood.
Armin loses track after the fifth. He cannot stop crying, or the uncontrollable shaking that has taken over his body. He presses his eyes tight shut but he can still hear laughter, jeering.
"Heretic!" They shout, and their voices join together to form one hateful sound.
It is the sound of screaming that opens Armin's eyes – not human, but the metallic squeal of an animal. Natacha has a new mouse tight in her fingers, an adult this time, holding it by the neck and head as it bares its teeth and writhes. Its tail is broken, bent like a snapped twig. It's the mother, Armin realises distantly.
He freezes in blank horror as it's forced, scratching and clawing the soft skin of his tongue, into his bloodied and filthy mouth. The shrieks seems to echo up inside his skull – then it stops screaming and bites the tender flesh at the back of his mouth, sudden and surprising pain. Natacha's whole hand seems to be stretching his jaw wide, until it feels like he'll snap open. She shoves the mouse down his throat like stuffing a chicken, blood greasing its writhing passage.
They let him go after that, retreating back the bare feet to stand in their self-satisfied circle. Armin clings to the ground and gags, spitting up blood and thick saliva that spools from his lips to puddle on the paving slabs, frothy and streaked in pink. He thinks of the bodies now in his clutching stomach, the mouse mother and her suffocated children, dead and broken and floating inside of him.
Armin retches again and again. His throat is alight with agony as he gasps for desperate breath. His arms can barely hold himself up and he shakes violently. He cannot stop crying.
"Still like titans, eh, heretic?" Benedict kicks Armin over onto his back as he speaks. Armin splutters through his sobs as the blood drips down his throat to his lungs.
"Gross," Sophia says. "What a freak. Look at him."
"Hey, titans don't wear clothes, do they?"
"Nah, they're fucking naked. How'd they get clothes that big anyway? Stupid."
Hands grab him and Armin twists away, an instinctual flinch that achieves nothing. They tear his threadbare shirt as it's pulled over his head, and Armin shouts incoherently as his shoes are pulled off, then his trousers and underwear tugged down and thrown away. Their grinning taunts return and they kick his bony, pale body, placing muddy footprints among the bruises.
"Still wanna get out? Still wanna see your fucking titans?" The jeers surround him and Armin crumbles under their weight. "Heretic! Look at the stupid heretic!"
At some point Armin gets up and they let him fight his way out, shouting and laughing at his retreating figure. He doesn't look back as he runs, or pause to pick up his discarded clothes. Shame and raw terror burn within him and he wants the ground to swallow him whole, hide him from sight as people turn to stare at the naked boy with the bruises, wet eyes and bloody mouth. Someone shouts something but he doesn't hear what. The rough ground hurts his bare feet.
There is a run down shed not far from the river, home to rats and dust only, and it's in this little refuge Armin curls up. It is bare inside, so when he finally throws up the sticky, viscous content of his stomach, ten sad bundles of limp flesh, he can only scrape up the thinnest layer of dirt and rotting wood to cover them with.
His throat still bleeds, and Armin cannot decide which is worse: spitting out the blood to soil the small amount of floor space left, or choking it down. He swallows it with difficulty, crouching with his back in the corner and crying messy tears in the remnants of shock and utter humiliation. How many people had seen him? What will they tell his parents? What will Eren and Mikasa think?
He feels sick. Revulsion settles deep in his bones. He can't go home like this.
The sun is halfway through setting behind the wall when two silhouettes appear in the doorway. Armin tenses but only for a second, because these are silhouettes he'd know anywhere.
"What the hell," Eren starts, but is cut off as Mikasa elbows him aside. She crouches by Armin, who cannot yet bring himself to uncurl. Head tucked into his knees he shivers.
"Who the fuck – it was Natacha, wasn't it? That piece of shit," Eren spits. Childish fury colours his voice. "When I find her, I'll–"
"Eren," Mikasa says, firmly. She hasn't moved, keeping a small distance between herself and Armin. Armin, coughing weakly as he dribbles bloody spit down his chin, is torn between gladness and the shivering desire to cling to her and not let go.
"What?" Eren snaps.
"Go get some clothes." Mikasa's tone brooks no argument, and Eren gives her none. Without another word he turns and leaves. She's angry, Armin realises with a jolt, and though he waits for it she doesn't say or do anything more. They crouch there, not speaking, and his breath calms. The taste in his mouth is still foul, coating every fold, but he's stopped bleeding.
Eren returns, holding out a wadded bundle of clothing. They're his own, and damp – he must have grabbed them from the washing line, Armin thinks abstractedly, as he takes them and dresses painstakingly. He's gone stiff all over.
There is no way that Eren and Mikasa could have missed the mess he's left in the corner, raw bodies in a pool of stinking vomit. Neither say anything, not even looking at it. Armin does, just before Eren grips his hand tightly and leads him out onto the street. In the growing shadows it's barely visible – just a few slick lumps on the floor. Then he turns, swallowing down the revulsion and lingering fear, and leaves it for the rats to clean up.