Chapter 3

"Well-I-uh-you see, y-you, eh, uh..." Archie stuttered, not quite knowing what to say or how to word it. Mikasa cocker an eyebrow.

Erik, as if on cue, burst through the door and slammed into the room and wrapped an arm around Archie's shoulder with a cheesy grin.

"What my ever so intelligent," Erik's voice dripped with sarcasm, "friend is trying to say here is that in our world, you do not exist as you would exist in your own world. Here, you do exist, many people know about you, but you are not actual people." Erik worded this in a terribly confusing way.

Mikasa frowned dully. She thought that these two guys were joking with her, not really telling her the truth.

Archie elbowed Erik in the ribcage. Erik gasped and took a couple of steps back, allowing Archie to step in and clear up what Erik had meant to say.

"Thank you, Erik, but I think I'll take it from here. Okay, Mikasa, I'm sure that you've heard to stories before right?" Mikasa nodded. "Okay, that's good. This makes things a little bit easier. You see, in this world, you are nothing but a story to entertain people, but mostly young teens. Your story has been made famous all over this one world. They've turned your story in two different things. First, it was a manga, which is a sort of book that is told with pictures and dialogue.

"Secondly, it was turned into this thing called an anime, which is hard to explain to you without showing you one." Archie explained. Mikasa looked away and nodded. She didn't utter a word to Archie, which eased his nerves yet worried him at the same time.

Archie nervously reached into his back pocket and drew out a small, rectangular object. It was the manga. He carefully handed it to Mikasa who looked at it skeptically before turning the page. She skimmed through the book while Archie stood back from a distance, to stay out of the way.

Mikasa handed the manga back to Archie, still not saying a word.

"Now, it's my turn to ask a question. What was the last thing that you remember in your world, and what happened?" Archie asked her, genuinely curious.

Mikasa tilted her head back, as if trying to remember. After a moment, she spoke, "It was a week after the battle at Trost. And Eren, well, being the stubborn guy he is, wanted to go back to search the area to look for survivors. There was no changing his mind about it. If we tried to stop him, no, we couldn't stop him, not even if we tried to. I had to go with him." Archie pulled up a chair and sat down. "While we were searching through the ruins, this weird man came by. He was wearing a brown trench coat and a black fedora. Eren called him over, and he said something to him. The stranger said 'hm, you look just like that Johnson brat' the next thing I know, he has this strange shaped weapon at Eren. He pulled this trigger, but I got in the way. I jumped between it and I ended up here... General?"

Archie was no longer paying attention. He was up against the wall, rubbing his head.

"Does this mean anything to you? Who was that guy?" Mikasa asked.

Archie turned around, his eyes filled with hatred. "A man I thought was dead a long time ago!"