no time for sickness
When Armin had met Mikasa, she'd been timid and small, her eyes too big and her knees a little wobbly. She hadn't really interacted with him or Eren, and instead had stood by her parents with a patient gaze and a docile demeanor. Armin couldn't remember, but he was positive that she had just been visiting for a funeral, or something equally as unfortunate. She had glanced at them when her parents had spoken to Eren's father, but otherwise she'd merely looked bored with them.
Her parents had died far away from Shiganshina, and she'd had the misfortune of being dragged to the small town to live with her only remaining living relative. She'd gone to Dr. Jaeger for inevitable PTSD, and ended up befriending Eren that way. Eren had somewhat taken her under his wing, more or less declaring her part of his family regardless of where she was obligated to live. Eren refused to acknowledge where she'd lived as her home, and ignored mentions of her actual blood relatives. He wouldn't take any of it.
Armin had never tried to dissuade this way of thinking, but at first he'd thought if very strange. Until one day, a muggy August afternoon, when they'd gone wading at the banks of the river, Armin had noticed something about Mikasa.
With her skirt hiked up, and her shirt tied off, and her sleeves rolled up to her shoulders, Armin could see more of the girl's skin than he'd ever seen of any girl's skin in his entire life. And to his childish gaze, every blemish was intensified. Every angry black bruise was a heavy welt that scorched itself into his brain. He'd stopped dead in his tracks, his feet caked with mud and his eyes wide and horrified, and he watched his friend dance from one slippery rock to another, dodging Eren's pail of murky river water.
Armin had not needed an adult to tell him what the bruises meant.
So, with a heavy heart, he'd told them.
He'd gone to Eren's house a week later, purposefully avoiding his best friend by appearing while he was at a piano lesson. He'd knocked on the door, nervous and fearful of what his words might ignite, but he could not bear to keep this terrible truth a secret any longer. When Carla Jaeger opened the door, she looked down at Armin with large eyes, and a sweet smile.
"Oh," she gasped, resting her hands on her knees and leaning toward him, "Armin! Eren's actually not here—"
"I know," he'd interrupted, scratching his knuckles anxiously. "May I come in?"
Carla had looked at him with such blatant alarm that it was clear she sensed something wrong. She'd stepped aside, allowing him into the house, and he'd stood awkwardly in the hall until she led him toward the kitchen.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked him, looking eager to busy herself as she opened a cabinet and grabbed a glass without bothering to let him answer. "Lemonade? Oh, I have cookies—"
"That's not necessary," Armin blurted. He'd rubbed his sweaty palms on his shorts, and taken a deep breath as Eren's mother had stared at him with large, expectant eyes. "I noticed something recently, and… I think Eren's known for a long time. Did he ever say anything about Mikasa's bruises?"
Just like that, Armin saw Carla Jaeger's entire being seem to crumple all at once, her eyes dimming momentarily.
"Bruises?"
"On her arms," Armin explained, pointing to fingers to his bicep, "and on her stomach…" He gesticulated, just above his hip. "On her back… and thighs… and calves…"
"Armin," Carla said, her voice clipped and her eyes suddenly burning. "How long has this been going on?"
"I-I—" he gasped, taking a step back. He'd nearly tripped over his own feet, and his shame was creeping upon him. He'd scratched his knuckles so hard that they became raw, and he felt tears burning his eyes. Tears for Mikasa, tears for himself. "I don't really know, I only just noticed. Some bruises were yellowish, though, and some blue, and some black, so I don't know. I don't know why she never said anything…"
Carla was usually levelheaded, but Armin saw in her face the very fire that flickered inside Eren's bouts of rage that shook the earth whenever something did not conform to his fierce world views. This woman was about to wage war, and it'd be all Armin's fault for saying anything. Perhaps there had been a reason why Eren had never spoken up. Or, perhaps, Mikasa had talked him out of it. Either way, Armin felt a little betrayed.
As Carla paced about the kitchen, Armin felt as though he needed to flee. The Jaegers were such immensely kind people, but holy shit, were they frightening when they were angry.
She whirled to face him. "You said," she stated fiercely, "that Eren knew about this?"
Armin had felt his heart drop into his stomach as he realized his folly.
There had to be a reason.
"Oh," he gasped, waving his hands hurriedly. "I don't know that for sure! I just… thought that maybe he might. Because he's with Mikasa more than I am." He glanced away, feeling dirty for lying. Liar, liar, a voice in his head sang, and he felt sick and grotesque, so he scratched at the white skin of his knuckles and smiled weakly at Eren's disbelieving mother.
"Are you lying, Armin?" Carla Jaeger asked, a stern warning seeping into her tone. He felt it lash upon his cheek, and tears poured from his eyes.
"Yes," he mumbled, his eyes dropping to his feet. He couldn't even see his sneakers, his vision was in such a haze from the tears. "I'm sorry…"
"Oh," Carla sighed, her tone suddenly much more sympathetic. "Oh, no, Armin, don't cry."
He couldn't help it. He'd only just imagined the thought of Eren being angry with him, and that had utterly broken him. How could Armin possibly explain himself?
"Please," Armin begged, rubbing at his cheeks furiously. His voice croaked from his throat, shaking in midair. "Please make sure Mikasa's okay, I— I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if she wasn't…"
Carla knelt before Armin, and she nodded firmly, wiping his tears with the pad of her thumb. She smiled warmly. "I will," she swore.
"Don't tell anyone it was me who snitched, either," he gasped, shaking his head furiously. "Pretend like you saw it! No, better yet, make sure they're actually there first!"
"I can take it from here Armin," Carla said gently, "don't you worry."
He'd nodded. He'd nodded.
He'd scratched his knuckled until they bled, but he'd nodded all the same.
Armin woke up to a shrill, unfamiliar alarm, which sung in a steady rhythm with ever breath he took. His body felt stiff and unyielding, and that made him a little confused, because that must mean that he'd been asleep for a while. Armin didn't really sleep. He noted that he could not move either, which was a frightening prospect, if not for the fact that Armin felt emptied of all emotions. When he tried to pry his eyes open, a shock of pure pain jolted through his skull, bouncing and colliding with the sides of his brain, and he groaned softly, feeling as though his head had just collapsed onto itself.
"Armin?"
The voice was sweet and soft and muffled beyond recognition. Something was brushing his hand, but it could be anything, from a blanket to a stray cat, he did not know.
"Armin, wake up…"
The voice was louder, and it was easier to pick up who the voice belonged to. It was a struggle to crack an eye open, and when he did so he was blinded. He groaned louder, and he lifted his arm to cover his eyes, and felt his hand snag on something. He forced his eyelids back, squinting through the flare of light that swooped across his vision, and he saw with some vague alarm that there was a tube stuck in his arm.
"Wha…" His mouth was dry and his throat was sore. "What…?"
"Armin…"
He glanced up, and he blinked rapidly as Mikasa's face hovered over his. She was holding his hand tightly, her dark eyes foggy with concern, and he was distraught as he tried to piece together exactly what had happened, his mind in shambles as it picked up the pieces and tried to assemble them into a concrete reason for why he was hospitalized.
"Mikasa…" he said, his voice a meager little croak, and tears filled his eyes. He felt nothing, and yet everything hurt. He saw the bandages on his fingers, winding around and around and around, and he felt compelled to rip them all off. "What happened…? What am I… doing…?"
"Shh." She smoothed his hair back, kneeling beside his bed. He noted Jean in the corner, sleeping in a chair. "You're here because hit your head." She rubbed his head, and he actually winced, a spike of pain driving through the front of his head and spearing through the back. "Sorry…"
"How'd I hit…?" Armin's voice trailed away, drowned out by the sound of rushing water and creaky decay and Eren's disbelieving voice and the crash of a trap door slamming shut from up above. "Oh."
"You don't have to explain anything to me," Mikasa whispered, staring into his eyes. "I trust you."
He was so heartbroken by her words, because the entire reason for all of this was because of the very fact that he did not trust her as much as he wanted to.
"Oh," he said faintly. What else could he say?
He thought about Eren. His voice was swimming wildly inside Armin's head, shivering and quaking and floating like music, a stab of percussion notes ringing in his brain.
Had he imagined that? Had Eren really been there?
"What happened?" he whispered, sickened by the thought of being so close to having Eren back. "Did… did Jean find me…?"
"Yes." Mikasa shot a glance at the man who slumbered in the corner, his breathing heavy enough that it was clear he'd been snoozing for a while. "Jean and Annie did. They said you accidentally fell through the floor, by the way."
Accidentally? Armin thought of the careful lock picking he'd done in order to get into that little underground cavern, and he wondered if it would've been so easy as falling. Falls. Bait. He chewed the inside of his cheek, and everything felt fuzzy.
"It didn't happen like that," he breathed.
"I didn't think so," she replied. She sat down on his hospital bed, her eyes lowering to her hands. "Though what happened doesn't explain your fingers and toes."
"Oh." Armin raised his shaky fingers to his eyes, and he wiggled them. "Right. I did some amateur rock climbing."
She picked up his left hand, holding his bandaged fingers in hers as she examined them closely. "You shouldn't have done that," she said.
"No," Armin agreed, "I really shouldn't have."
Mikasa sighed. She stared into his eyes, her brow furrowing a little, and she shook her head. "It's been one day, Armin," she said. "I know you want to find Eren— I get it, I know exactly how you feel, but please take it easy. It's not safe to just run around like the world is yours, like what we did when we were children." She closed her eyes, grasping his hand firmly, and he stared at her in awe.
"Is it more dangerous now, somehow?" he asked her weakly.
"No…" She did not look at him. "It's just… you should know better."
Oh.
Well, now he felt like a child.
He stared vacantly into his lap, and his thoughts ran back to Eren, and those thoughts were Eren's voice saying his name in a slow succession. Armin? Armin? Armin?
Had that been all a feverish dream?
"I'm sorry," he whispered to her. "I didn't think anything bad would happen…"
She nodded, though he felt as though she had something more to say. He watched as she brought the bandaged tips of his fingers to her lips and kissed them.
"Feel better," she whispered, rising to her feet. She looked exhausted. "I have to get back to work."
"Okay…"
She tilted her head at him. And then, faintly, she smiled at him.
"Don't go into the woods," she told him plainly. Her voice was strange and gentle, the sound of a mother comforting a child, the sound of wind whistling through leaves, the sound of Eren calling out in the dark, there or not there, alive or not alive. "Don't put yourself through this kind of pain again."
"I can't promise that," he told her just the same, his voice harsher and more resolute. And her smile widened, then fell. And she nodded. She left him with that.
A nurse came in and explained to him his condition, detailing stuff about his head and his fingers, and most importantly his body temperature, which had rapidly decreased upon falling in the cellar. After being left there for about half an hour, he'd been found and immediately taken to the hospital, which of course was where he was now.
"Can I have a mirror?" he asked Jean when the nurse left. He was sitting, watching Armin with a weak gaze.
"You sure?" he asked tentatively.
Armin sat, resisting the urge to touch his face. What on earth could he possible look like?
"I'm sure," he said firmly.
Jean stood, walking slowly to Armin's cot and offering out his phone. Armin peered at himself through the camera, and he froze. His eyes were gauzy and hollow, his lips wane and purplish, chapped dry like desert ridges, and bloodied up around the corners. There were angry lines running jagged down his right cheek, likely from the cement he'd fallen upon, but also mauve bruises crawling along his jaw and temple beneath the heavy bandages wrapped around his head.
It could've been worse, but he felt as though someone had bashed his face in several times with a hammer. He looked absolutely terrible.
"Gross," he said, sinking into his bed.
"Kinda," Jean admitted.
"You're not supposed to agree," Armin mumbled.
"Sorry, man, you look like shit."
Armin turned the camera away, feeling very empty of feeling, and trying to make sense of the strangeness that had been heaped onto him in the past day or so. The sound of Eren's voice was still bleeding in his head, and it made him feel sick even through the numbness and the foggy mist of morphine dragging through his veins.
"I feel like shit," he whispered.
Jean stared at him. Armin heard his breath, heard him stop breathing, and he watched as his friend look wildly about the room.
"Well," he said, straightening up, "I mean, you could have probably died, so think about it, you actually could've had it way worse."
"You really don't know how to make people feel better," Armin sighed, shaking his head.
"Yeah, I know, I'm awful." Jean stood at the foot of Armin's bed, studying him with a furrowed brow. "God, I… Like, what the fuck, man? What were you thinking?"
I was thinking of Eren, Armin thought, sinking further into his cot, further into his hazy mind, further into the drum of Eren's voice in the darkness that crept along the rising catacombs of his mind.
Armin bowed his head, ashamed and disoriented.
"I suppose," he admitted, "I wasn't thinking at all."
"Yeah, that's not like you." Jean's eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward, his jaw tightening. "Something happened down there, didn't it?"
Armin didn't want to say that he'd heard Eren's voice, seen his face, because he didn't know if that had been real or some twist of his mind, a trick of the light and acoustics of the damp, earthy cellar. But at the same time, there was something inside him that was breaking apart and begging, begging so desperately, for some validation of the frantic thoughts and bare feelings and messy, worthless actions.
"You were on the phone," Armin whispered, "weren't you?"
"Uh, yeah…" Jean leaned back, looking uncertain. "It was fucking scary."
"Yeah!" Armin leaned forward eagerly. "Yeah, it was! Did you hear it?"
"Hear what?"
"The…" Armin had to choose carefully. The truth or the alteration. What would Jean want to hear? "I thought I heard I voice. I dropped my phone."
Jean squinted at him. Armin wondered if he'd misjudged Jean's thirst for adventure, for answers, for glory.
"I honestly did not hear a voice," he said slowly, his brow furrowing further. "But, like, I heard the door slam. The trap door. And I heard you scream."
"I didn't scream," Armin blurted.
Jean looked puzzled. "No," he said firmly, "no, I definitely heard you screaming."
"I passed out before I made a sound," Armin insisted.
"You screamed," Jean argued. "Dude. Don't even joke. You screamed, and then you started shouting, and then the line went dead."
Armin sat, trying to process that, but he simply could not fathom it. No, he had definitely passed out before even hitting the ground. How could he have screamed?
"Are you sure it was me?" Armin whispered.
Jean was staring with fierce eyes, his jaw unhinging.
"Dude…" he said, shaking his head slowly. "This isn't funny."
"I'm not joking."
"Who else…?" Jean's eyes widened, and he took a step back. "Wait, wait! How did the trap door slam?"
Armin had no real answer to that.
"The wind?" he offered. He knew that to be untrue, but it would be so easy to believe it. Jean shot him a look.
"There's something you're not telling me…" Jean leaned over Armin's footboard, and he scowled. "Cough up. What really happened?"
"I honestly don't know." Armin stared into Jean's eyes, letting his face crumple and his voice quiver, and he was satisfied when Jean frowned, looking disappointed. "I just… I don't know. I can't… explain it, okay?"
"Okay…" Jean looked apprehensive, but he let it slide. For now. Armin sensed he'd be hearing more about this later. "I have the file, by the way."
Armin perked up. At least one good thing came out of the terrible day.
He was eventually permitted to go home, which allowed him to focus on some important things. Like, say, the bullshit he'd went through that morning. The hook, he found, was still in his bag, as was his camera. The note from Eren had unfortunately disintegrated in the pocket of his jeans when he'd jumped into Titan's Maw. He was pissed at himself for that. He hadn't even taken a picture of it.
Mikasa fretted over him, as Mikasa tended to when he was hurt, by silently hovering around him, making sure there was hardly a single discomfort for him. He hated it, but he was glad that she cared, even if it felt a little stifling.
"Okay," Jean said that night while the three of them were sitting in the living room. Armin was thinking about Eren's voice again, feeling as though there were a gaping hole within the structure of the room. "Let's look at this file."
Mikasa raised an eyebrow. "File?" she asked.
Jean stared at her. He shot a glance at Armin, who took it in a stride. "I asked Annie to get me Eren's case file," he explained to her. He glanced at her worriedly. "You aren't mad, are you?"
She was quiet. She pulled her feet up onto the couch, and she shook her head. Armin wasn't sure if he believed her.
"I didn't think you'd get Annie involved," Mikasa said cautiously.
"She's already involved," Armin said. He opened up the manila folder, staring vacantly at the immediate photograph of Eren Jaeger at age fourteen, an old school photo that had been recycled for this purpose. "She obviously knows you lied about not being there that night."
Once again Mikasa was silent. He'd struck a nerve, he thought perhaps, but he didn't know where that would lead.
"She doesn't strike me as the police officer type," Jean admitted. "So what happened there?"
"I don't know," Mikasa said.
Armin wondered if that was the truth.
When had he started doubting every little thing that passed through Mikasa's lips, anyway?
"She definitely acted pretty criminally back in the day." Armin leaned forward, examining the thin file, and noting it was merely the basics. Eren's name, date of birth, age— fifteen at the time of his disappearance—, the date he'd disappeared, gender, race, a list of illnesses he'd had, the treatment he'd received. Armin would have to pick it apart by himself at a later date. "She used to shop lift, you know."
"And now she's a cop," Jean muttered. "Nice."
"We actually all were really bad kids," Armin admitted sheepishly. Mikasa nodded in agreement while Jean stared.
"No wait," he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Okay, seriously?"
"Yes?" Mikasa frowned at him. "I raced illegally. I still race illegally." She jerked a thumb at Armin. "He was an information broker."
"That's overstating it," he muttered, flushing.
"He was an information broker." Mikasa shrugged. "He stopped that awhile ago, though."
"Eren flew on the right side of the law for the most part, though," Armin recalled. "Though he got into a lot of fights."
"He got in trouble for graffiti too," Mikasa sighed, closing her eyes. She was smiling, Armin noted, the corners of his own lips twitching. "Though it was mostly when he was trying to paint over graffiti he thought offensive. He had a bad habit of getting in trouble for things that had nothing to do with him."
"He did, didn't he?" Armin leaned over, turning the page of the file. "There's not even an official statement regarding his disappearance. Who was handling this case?"
"Beats me," Jean scoffed. "I don't live here."
"Probably Pixis," Mikasa said. Armin watched her sink into her chair. "He retired, though."
"Yeah. Annie said." He wondered about that. He'd met Pixis, and he'd been determined to find out what had happened to Eren. But suddenly he'd just retired? Without even bothering to close the case? That didn't seem right. "Something's not right here."
"Sounds like you've got some corrupt cops," Jean said.
"Well, if Annie joined…" Mikasa murmured.
"She's not that bad…" Armin tried to argue. Mikasa glanced at him, and he stared back at her desperately. She merely shook her head, looking defeated.
"I'm going to go to bed," she declared. She stood up, moving toward him, and for a moment he was puzzled, but then she leaned down and brushed her lips to his hair.
Sometimes Armin felt like he was being closed off from the world, locked up in a little airless box and forced to inhale his own hot breath. But somehow, Mikasa, and in the past, Eren, had always found a way to drag him out, to feed him fresh air.
He was lost without them.
What had he done for the past four years without Mikasa by his side? The past seven years without Eren?
Armin wanted to cry, but he couldn't find the tears.
He brought the file to bed with him, pouring over it as he plucked the fish hooks from the wall. He tossed them onto the desk, and while he scanned the papers into his computer he compared the green tackled hook to the rest of them. They seemed to be just about the same in construct, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure.
His entire body was achy by the time he'd read through the file for the third time, and he realized it was because his medication had probably worn off, so he could feel every muscle in him locking up, and he stared at the bandages on his fingers, and felt for the bandage on his head, and he wondered.
Had he dreamed it?
Had he truly just conjured up Eren's face, Eren's voice, Eren's very presence in the dark?
Could that be true?
Armin fell asleep at his desk, thinking hard and coming up with no conclusions. Eren was missing. Eren was still gone.
Eren was gone.
Eren was gone…
Armin woke up in his bed.
Confused, utterly berated with a great hammering pain all throughout his body, and a little bewildered, he awoke with the covers of his bed half thrown over his body, and he blinked rapidly, groaning into his pillow. His headache was viciously chiseling at the right side of his brain.
Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb dumb.
He came to the conclusion that in a sleep deprived state, he'd stumbled back to his bed. So, here he was.
His entire being hurt.
It took him a good hour to muster up the strength to actually get out of bed, which was saying a lot. When he finally rolled out of bed, he ended up taking his blanket with him, because the air was tinged with frost and fright, and he was delirious and in severe pain, so he wandered from his room bundled in a great big blanket, waddling to the kitchen and peeking through the doorway. He sniffled. He realized, with a heavy heart, that he had a cold from jumping into the river like the big fat idiot that he was.
Jean immediately turned his camera upon him.
"Hey, doof," Jean chuckled. Armin pulled his blanket over his head, and promptly flipped him off.
"You look tired," Mikasa observed.
"Mm…" He plopped down at the kitchen table, dragging his blanket further over his head, and he decided he'd be okay just staying like this forever. He'd bring his blanket everywhere, and just drown them out with the fluffy warmness of it whenever they annoyed him. Seemed fair. Yes. Yes, he liked this plan.
Armin?
He lowered his head, his bandaged forehead hitting the surface of the table.
Armin?
He felt sick. Sick. Sick. Sickened and sad and slipping from reality with a frigid breath crawling down his neck.
Armin?
Why couldn't he get that damn voice out of his head?
"Armin?"
He jumped as Mikasa picked his head up with both hands, pushing back his blanket and rubbing her knuckles against his skin. He blinked up at her, feeling startled and stunted, feeling caught in a trap and unable to untangle himself.
"You've got a fever," she said. Her fingers drew upward, and she sighed, shaking her head. "You also haven't changed your bandage."
"I just got up," he mumbled.
"Come on, I'll do it."
Because of Armin's splitting headache and hazy state of being, nothing got done that day. Or the day after. Armin lived in a bleary haze, wandering around the apartment, speaking to Jean, speaking to Mikasa, and never really noticing the things around him. He never questioned the fact that he didn't recall going to sleep, but miraculously ended up in his bed every morning anyway. He didn't think twice about the cold, the shift in the ambience, or the soft whispers that seemed to breathe from his very walls.
He realized, as his head healed, and he still wandered around the house in a blanket and his pajamas, that something was terribly wrong.
"Armin," Jean said one afternoon. "I think you're depressed."
Armin glanced up from the book he'd… appropriated… from Mikasa about Sina, who had been some lady who'd fancied herself a bit of a sorceress of sorts. She mostly just told stories about magic being good and bad, and sometimes the bad was necessary to bring out the good. He was too unfocused to even understand half the stories, which was a testament to how scrambled his brain was from the fall.
"That's very insightful," Armin replied, returning his gaze to a parable about "The Practical Girl". "Although, if you don't have a PhD in psychology, I'm disinclined to believe you."
"I took psychology!" Jean objected.
"As an elective," Armin reminded, "first year. You're not even remotely qualified. Also, I'm not depressed, Jean. Just concussed."
"Okay, whatever." Jean pointed at him. "You're fucking wrecked. Like, bad."
"Bad."
"Yeah!"
Armin closed his book, and he looked up at Jean with tired eyes. "I don't think I'm depressed," he said distantly. "But if I am, it's not your job to tell me so. You're here to help me find Eren."
"I'm here because I'm your friend," Jean argued.
"And as my friend," Armin said, rising to his feet and brushing past him, "you'll help me find out what happened to Eren, and why no one in this town has a clue where he went or why."
Jean opened his mouth to object, but before he could there was a very loud crashing sound from down below, and Armin felt his hair stand on end. They glanced at each other, and simultaneously they jumped to their feet. Armin discarded his book, rushing across the living room and to the front door, his bare feet skidding across the floor as he latched onto the doorknob, flinging the door open. Jean went first, hurrying down the steps two at a time while Armin's injured toes forced him to go slower.
When Armin got to the bottom of the steps, the first thing he noticed was the motorcycle parked outside the garage. He stood, wondering if his heart had suddenly punched out of his chest, or if the hollows of his chest rung with an old ache where his heart should've been.
No, he thought wildly, standing with white knuckles against the railing, his breath caught inside his throat as he let these new developments sink in. No, no, no.
Armin was little— a skinny boy with little height to him, a slender frame and a girlish face— and he knew he'd never be intimidating in a traditional sense. But in that moment he wished very dearly to be the size of Reiner— to be someone bulky and fearsome, someone who looked like they could kill you with a glance.
It wouldn't help to wish for things like that, but he hadn't a clue how to mend this situation.
Another crash sounded from within the garage, and with resignation Armin started toward it. His feet dragged heavily across the wet pavement. The air was warm, and the day was muggy. The sky was gray and the humidity stewed around him.
He stopped behind Jean, watching with wide eyes as Mikasa slid across the concrete floor of the garage, her body curled up on impact to minimize the damage done to her. She looked disheveled, her hair out of its messy ponytail and slick against her cheeks, like wild feathers molting against her skin. She looked up at them, her dark eyes furious— one was swelling up already, he saw, for the inside was lined with red and the outside was turning faintly mauve.
"What the fuck?" Jean snarled, dropping to his knee beside Mikasa. Armin said nothing, and he merely shrunk under the steely gaze of the man who had appeared inside the garage. He was running his hands over the open hood of an old convertible, his lips thin and his demeanor chilly. There was a painfully large dent in the door of the car, and a plethora of tools littering the concrete.
"You've gotten slow," the man drawled.
Mikasa raised her head. She shrugged off Jean's hand, spitting a gooey glob of phlegm and blood onto the floor. He could see the unparalleled rage inside her stormy eyes, the tremulous fury that seemed to shake her to the very core.
"Mikasa," Armin said.
She did not hear him.
"Get out!" she spat, lurching to her feet and diving at him. Armin buckled when she was caught by the arm and swung into the wall, in spite of the fact that she had dodged the first attack that had headed her way. Armin listened to it, the soft snap of her body as it collapsed in a pile of tires. She blinked one eye rapidly, her breathing heavy and her limbs awkward and twisted.
Once, when Armin had been younger, he'd had the misfortune of catching Kenny Ackerman in a bad mood.
"You've never been beaten a day in your life," the man had sneered.
Back then, just as he was now, his legs had locked and his body had frozen up and his breath had caught in his throat, and he hadn't a clue what to say or do. He felt so weak.
Armin could feel something trickling down his spine. It was such a faint feeling, but it felt too heavy to be his imagination, and he thought for a moment it was blood, thick and hot, but the sensation was icy and it sent shocks of shivers shuddering through him.
Everything in him was electrified.
Everything in him was bursting apart.
A voice was trickling inside his brain.
Kill him. Rip him to shreds. Destroy that bastard.
Armin felt something pressing to his back, and a rhythm was playing in his heart, skin splitting apart and water rushing through his ears and screams playing like a skipping record.
"You haven't been answering my calls," Kenny said, standing over Mikasa's twisted body, looking impassive and bored. "Thought I'd check up on you. Make sure you didn't kill yourself."
"Thank you," she snapped, blood wetting her lips and caking her words, "for your concern."
"Well if I'd known you were just fucking around," Kenny said, waving offhandedly at both Armin and Jean, "maybe I wouldn't have bothered."
"Get out!" Mikasa cried once more, jumping to her feet, not even wobbling as she backhanded him. He actually stumbled, and Armin felt the tension, felt the cold air freeze upon his skin, and felt something dig into his spine. Like bits of broken glass, or cold, jagged nails.
Mikasa kicked Kenny backwards into the convertible, and before she could attack again, he had her by the arm.
"No!" Armin gasped, stumbling forward as Mikasa was twisted around, her elbow in Kenny's grasp. Both pairs of gray eyes moved to Armin's face. Kenny's were void of any sort of emotion, while Mikasa's were frantic and pained and desperately fearful. Armin knew it was not because she was being beaten to shit, but because he'd taken all of Kenny Ackerman's attention and placed it on himself.
Cut him. Beat him. Make him feel it all.
Armin's fingers twitched. He could not win against Kenny Ackerman— he could not even entertain the thought. He was scared, and he was close to tears, but he stood and stared the man down, feeling his muscles lock up once more as his lips trembled and his skin crawled.
"Armin," Mikasa hissed. "Stay out of this."
No way!
Armin buckled once more as his legs moved hopelessly forward.
"No way!" He was shaking very badly. But he felt a sudden, inexplicable boldness creep upon him, and suddenly swallow him whole. He lifted his chin to Kenny, and he snarled, "You bastard— you think you have any right to even speak to Mikasa? You're lucky Dr. Jaeger never reported you! Back the fuck off!"
Mikasa looked alarmed, and Armin didn't even want to look at Jean to see what he looked like. He was thriving on adrenaline, his breath short and his body shaking, but he knew, he knew, he knew he was right, and he'd scream these words over and over and over until they split the ground and filled the river and sank into the earth, rocking it until it quaked.
Kenny Ackerman laughed.
He threw his head back, and he fucking laughed.
Armin flushed, but he stood his ground. He could not back down, and he wasn't certain if it was his own determination or if it was something hostile crawling inside him, a need to prove himself, a terrible, desperate, clinging need.
"Looks like someone grew a spine," Kenny said coldly, shooting Armin a quick look. He glanced him once over, and Armin felt his muscles freeze up once more, and his skin prickled with discomfort. "Or maybe you just borrowed one."
Make him pay, a guttural little voice slithered through Armin's brain, bleeding through the cracks and crags in his throbbing skull.
"Oh, don't get me wrong," Armin said, his words merely faint punctuated breaths, "I'm still terrified of you. But I'm not a gutless little kid who you can smack aside. I'll make you regret hurting Mikasa. I'll make you pay for it."
Make him fucking pay.
While Kenny Ackerman was preoccupied with what could only be thoughts of ripping up the flesh that covered Armin's spine, Mikasa slammed her boot into his gut and then snapped her leg up, her heel colliding with his jaw. She tore her arm from his grasp as he was thrown backwards, and she scooped a random tool from the floor, some wrench or another that she used to whack Kenny across the face.
It left a long, angry red line across the man's sunken cheek.
"Leave," Mikasa snarled. She lowered the wrench, and then pressed it to the man's throat, her one eye swollen shut and her other eye ablaze with all her fury and all her disgust.
Blood trickled down Kenny's pasty cheek, and he shot her a lopsided grin.
"You're just like him," he chuckled, a short, pained sound. To Armin's immense discomfort, he managed to pat Mikasa's cheek before ducking another swing, and sauntering like a fucking fool out of the garage, past Armin and Jean and into the muggy daylight.
Jean ran to watch the motorcycle leave, and Armin listened to it rev up. The moment the sound of it was drowned out into the distance, he witnessed Mikasa crumple. For the first time in a very long time, Mikasa folded in on herself, and she dropped to her knees, her wrench clattering from her hands.
She was breathing very loudly.
"Mikasa…?"
Armin drifted to her side, dropping down and rubbing reassuring circles into her back. She was not crying, not yet, but he saw the tears glistening in her eyes, and he heard her sobbing in spite of the absence of them. He closed his eyes, and he leaned his face into her hair, hugging her tight as she took deep gulps of breaths, staving off what Armin could only imagine was a panic attack.
He was surprised he wasn't reacting the same, but perhaps it was better this way.
Mikasa didn't often succumb to her absolute and undeniable fear of Kenny Ackerman, but when she did, she had difficulty reawakening from her slump of terror and despair. The last time this had happened, Eren had still been around. Now, though, Armin was all alone, and she was shaking so badly, and so was he, and he was so scared too, so how could either of them be anything but blubbery messes?
Armin missed Eren.
Eren would know what to do.
Instinctively, Armin grasped Mikasa's cheeks. One was badly bruised, her cheekbone reddened and bloated.
"Hey," he whispered to her, tears thickening his voice. He was smiling through them, and that seemed to surprise her. "Close up for today… okay?"
She stared at him, her one visible eye searching his face frantically, glassily. And then, vacantly, she nodded. Her gaze had landed, her mouth parted and her body relaxing in his arms.
"Okay," she croaked.
She was staring behind him.
Armin felt a great pressure release him, relief washing over him as he realized that they were free of Kenny Ackerman, at least for a bit. He smiled into Mikasa's fluffy black hair, and in response she rubbed his head.
"I love you," she whispered.
"Yeah," he whispered back, sniffling and smiling, "I love you too."
She wrapped her arms around him tighter. She hugged him, and his bones hurt, his very skeleton bending beneath her grasp.
"No matter what happens," she mumbled, her lips very close to his ear, her breath hot against his neck, "no matter what, I need you to promise me something."
"Of course." He wanted to pull back, to look her in the face, but she was trembling too badly, and he felt her tears against his throat. Her cheek was resting on his shoulder, her eyelashes catching in his hair.
She was very quiet, and he wondered if she was having trouble speaking. He wondered what she was thinking. Then without warning she pulled back, and she wiped at her cheeks hastily.
"Promise me," she said in a weary voice, "that you'll never change."
How on earth can I promise that?
He sat on the concrete floor, warmth somewhat returning to his achy muscles. He stared into her face, swollen and discolored, bruised and battered, and he nodded firmly.
"Okay," he said. "I'll try my best."
She did not smile, nor did her expression really change, but he sensed her contentment in the way that her body seemed to slump into his, and she hugged him as though her life would slip from between his stubby, bandaged fingers. He closed his eyes, and he listed to her breathing.
After that, Armin became alert again. He wasn't sure what had happened to him previous to the encounter with Kenny Ackerman, but it was as though something had snapped him back into place, and he felt rejuvenated, liked someone had poured ice cold water over his head. Perhaps he'd jumped into Titan's Maw again without even realizing it.
That's what it felt like, at least.
Jean was watching him very closely, and Armin realized he was doing that thing where he monitored Armin's every movement to be sure he was, like, functioning normally. He was such an unbearable asshole, but he was a caring unbearable asshole. Also, Armin couldn't pretend like he wouldn't do the same if the situations were swapped.
First thing he did as a reawakened adult was give the file back to Annie.
"You look okay," she noted when she met him at that café he'd meant to meet her at a week prior.
"Just okay?" he asked, his eyebrows rising. "Oh…"
"You look good, I guess," she blurted, her brow furrowing in bemusement. He wanted to laugh, but he felt like it might be too cruel.
He smiled at her. "I was just teasing you," he said, holding out the file. "I look like shit."
"No," she said, taking the folder. "You've looked a lot worse."
"You're just really building up my self esteem here, Annie."
She drummed her fingers against the folder, looking as bored as she normally did. Armin sometimes wondered if her what appeared to be disinterest was really just a dull sadness that was perpetually rooted in her features. He wondered, and he wished. He wished they were both different types of people. That they weren't both so painfully shy, and so painfully, obviously terrible. Especially to each other.
"Can I ask," Annie said slowly, "what you've found out?"
Found out?
Well, honestly…
"Nothing," Armin said, rubbing his forehead and feeling beneath his bangs the rough bump and the scab that had formed over it. "Not yet, anyway. I'm still looking into it, but my… injury… that just threw me way off. I don't even know where to begin again."
"Try his parents," Annie said.
"I don't think they'd be happy to see me," he sighed. "Last time…"
"Yeah, I remember." Annie eyed him, her piercing gaze enough to make any sane man squirm. Armin wondered why he liked her so much. "What if I came with you?"
Armin actually did have to consider that. The last time he'd seen the Jaegers, it had been… an awkward situation at best. He didn't particularly want to reopen old wounds, and he couldn't imagine the Jaegers knew anything he didn't already know. But then again, it'd be wrong to rule them out completely.
"Maybe we can do that," Armin said. He hadn't intended on fully initiating Annie into his investigation, but considering she'd risked her job for him, he felt obligated. "I want to gather more evidence first. I just…" He sighed. "I don't understand how he could've just disappeared. Out of nowhere."
She stared at him. And she shrugged.
"Sometimes people just…" She glanced up at the ceiling, and he could see the circles under her eyes, the lines and lines that indicated she slept just as little as Armin did. "Sometimes people just leave and don't come back. It's part of life, Armin."
"Not without a trace," he said. "And not Eren. Never Eren."
Jean followed Armin with a camera when he left the apartment sometimes, and more often than not filmed him pouring over the file Annie had given him. What Armin had figured out is that Eren had left his house at around eleven the night he'd disappeared, and considering he'd appeared at Armin's window at around three, it gave Armin a good timeframe. It had to have been between three and sunrise, so three and about six in the morning.
Three and six in the morning. Literally anything could have happened.
"This is frustrating," Armin mumbling one night when Jean brought him tea. Armin was sitting at the living room table, gnawing restlessly at the cap of his highlighter, and wriggling it between his teeth when Jean set up his camera and sat down. "Stop filming me."
"Look, it's interesting okay?" Jean smirked. "Don't even worry about it, I'm gonna chop most of the cram stuff. I just need to make sure I get everything on camera."
Armin was going through the list of witnesses. He was at the top, unfortunately. One of the reasons why the Jaegers really didn't want to talk to him anymore. No matter their kindness, they held a certain resentment toward him for being the last person to actually see Eren. Mikasa was also on the list, and, strangely enough, Christa Lenz. Less commonly known by her real name, Historia Reiss.
Armin had actually spoken to Historia about this way back when the disappearance had first happened. She'd been working a late shift at the local antique store, and had been about to close up when Eren had come in for something. Armin didn't really remember the rest, but her alibi held up because she'd slept at Ymir's that night, and Ymir's the security cameras at Ymir's building confirmed that.
Not that Historia Reiss had the physical attributes to actually harm Eren Jaeger, but still. It was apparent that the cops had at least begun to dig deeper into the possibility of a crime.
Clearly they had not gotten very far.
He highlighted Historia's name to remind himself to go talk to her about Eren.
"Who's Christa Lenz?" Jean asked, leaning over his shoulder.
"Oh." Armin sometimes forgot that Jean wasn't totally familiar with the group of friends Armin had had in high school. "A friend of mine. She also saw Eren the night he disappeared."
"You, Mikasa, this Christa girl…" Jean peered at the papers, and he snorted. "Don't you have any reliable witnesses?"
"Am I not reliable?" Armin asked, taking mock offense by pressing his hand to his chest.
Jean rolled his eyes. "You're like," Jean said, indicating with his thumb and forefinger, "marginally reliable on some particular things. Okay?"
"Well if that's so," Armin said, snapping his highlighter shut, "then you're not even remotely reliable. Not at all, really."
"Now you're just being mean."
"You started it."
Jean opened his mouth to retort, when he paused. Armin took a sip of his tea, noting that Jean could not make tea to save his life, but it had been a kind gesture, so Armin drank it anyway. There was too much cream and not enough honey, giving the tea a flavorless, but still very bitter taste. Icky.
Armin perked up.
"You heard it too," Jean whispered.
Armin glanced at him.
For a moment— just a little moment, a flicker of a second— Armin had thought he'd heard the soft, muffled cacophony of distant wailing.
Not a siren, not a whistle.
A child sobbing.
A child.
But he did not hear that any longer, and it was unlikely it had really been anything. He rubbed his head, and he shrugged.
"Maybe Mikasa's watching something on her computer," he offered.
"Maybe…" Jean didn't look so sure.
Armin took a great gulp of his tea, and it scalded the roof of his mouth. It tasted foul, but he needed it desperately, and his eyes were burning a bit from exhaustion. He'd never say it, though.
"It seems like," he said, chewing his bottom lip, "Christa saw Eren first… probably at about eleven or eleven thirty— the antique shop she works for closes at eleven, but she probably let him in later because she knew him. Then it's pretty up in the air what he did, but between… probably about midnight and three, he visited Mikasa."
"Where's the antique shop?" Jean asked. He whispered it, truly, and Armin had to wonder why.
"Center of town," he replied. "By the bridge, but farther down, like… away from the river."
"So Eren presumably walked there…" Jean leaned back in his seat, frowning at the ceiling. "Then here… then to your house, wherever that was… but that couldn't take the amount of time he was gone for, right?"
"No." Armin glanced over the list of witnesses. Carla and Grisha Jaeger. Historia. Him. Mikasa. No one else was on this list, and that was immensely disconcerting. There had to be some other people who'd seen Eren that night, considering the time frame. "The problem is that we still have no idea what Eren wanted me to see in the woods. Not even Mikasa knows, and she was there."
"Yeah…" Jean's voice was barely over a whisper. "About that…"
Armin had expected this. Jean didn't know Mikasa like Armin did, and so it was natural that he suspected her, even in spite of how clearly he was attracted to her. Even Armin had his doubts about how much of the truth Mikasa was telling. He couldn't imagine she knew what had happened to Eren, because of all people she'd be the one to tell, but he sensed she was leaving out key details. Perhaps to shelter him.
"I'm working on it," Armin sighed, gathering up his papers. "I know what it sounds like, but I definitely don't think Mikasa is totally lying when she says she doesn't know what happened. The woods are hard to navigate even in the daytime— they're downright dangerous at night. Titan's Maw literally drops off from a cliff at the outskirts of the woods. Honestly, anything could've happened."
"True," Jean murmured, raising his eyes to Armin's. They were somber. "Anything could've."
Armin's jaw tightened, and he shook his head furiously. "Stop that," he hissed. "I'm not going to suspect Mikasa of anything until I've got more facts."
"The fact that she lied to the police is suspicious enough."
"Of course she lied," he said stiffly, "who wouldn't lie? She was scared, and who knows what happened that night— you know you'd have lied too if say, Marco had gone missing, and you'd blacked out in the woods, and had to explain to the police that you'd just gone with him to keep an eye on him. Like, come on, Jean."
"Okay," Jean sighed, holding up his hands. "Okay, okay. Yeah, I guess I get what you're saying but still, you're awfully calm about the fact that she lied to you."
"I lie to her too," he said simply, blinking up at Jean. "It's really no big deal."
Jean looked at him rather strangely, and Armin wondered if he was the only one that felt that way.
"I think I'm gonna go to bed," Jean said slowly. He leaned over, clapping Armin's folder shut, leaving him feeling a little startled and disoriented. "You should too."
"I'm not tired," Armin objected.
"You're perpetually tired," Jean argued.
"I've never said that, not ever."
"Just go to sleep, man!"
And so Armin, without much of a choice, headed to his room. When he got there, he took note of the walls. Bare, thankfully, of fishhooks, but the damn painting was still up because Armin could not bring himself to take it down. He didn't have that kind of courage, and his curiosity was burning to tear it from the wall, but he understood the repercussions if he did decide to do so. Was he ready for that?
He considered going to his desk and continuing on well into the morning with his research, but he felt as though he'd analyzed every piece of evidence he had several times over. So he actually sat down on his bed, listening to the springs creak, and thinking about Eren, and how different his life would have been if Eren had not disappeared.
He lied down, imagining college years with Eren at his side, imagining the utter bullshit they could've gotten into, the wild ride from start to finish. Armin wondered if he would've pursued investigative journalism if Eren hadn't vanished from the face of the earth without a trace, and he wondered what field Eren would have gone into. Armin felt confident in the idea that he would have gone into a science.
Just as Armin was dozing off, he heard a soft little hiss in the darkness, the faint trailing of something sharp along the smooth surface of the wall beside Armin's ear. His eyes snapped open, but all he saw pale paint and darkness. The sound continued on in a steady pitch and a steady pace, something writhing against the other side of the wall and scratching furiously.
Armin shoved his pillow over his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and began to count down from one thousand in order to keep himself at least somewhat sane.
But the scratching continued.
Scritch scratch scritch.
Scritch. Scratch.
On and on for hours.
Armin was forced into trying to sleep with his headphones in just to drown out the frantic sound.
When morning broke, and sun pooled through his wind, splashing across his face while the twiddling little melody of piano strings being struck furious by tiny hammers, the sound of his thoughts shuddering in the dark with every scritch and scratch that smothered the air.
Percussion was strangling him.
He kicked the wall furiously as he leapt out of bed, dragging his hands down his face, shadow and dust swirling around him.
The little sound of nails dragging along the inside of his skull was making his skin crawl.
He felt as though he hadn't slept at all.
Scritch scratch scritch scratch.
He squeezed his eyes, taking a deep breath and rationalizing.
There were probably numerous explanations for the sound— a small animal trapped within the crawlspace, or a tree branch rubbing against the roof. But even so, Armin's arms were covered with raised goose bumps, his pale hair starkly on end. The echoing of scritches and scratches were thudding like little fluttering notes inside his muddled brain.
Armin found himself staring at the painting again. What a terrible piece of artwork. Why this painting, anyway?
He pushed his hair from his eyes, whirling around this room a few times. It was definitely the biggest bedroom in the apartment. Is this Kenny's old room? Armin thought, sickened. He inhaled sharply through his nose, strode to the closet. He was going to find out.
Mikasa's father had been Jewish, so it would make sense if Kenny was as well. But somehow Armin doubted it. The man had never struck Armin as particularly pious. Armin saw the closet was something over an organized clutter— large coats and stacked boxes, too many for such a small space. Armin could tell Mikasa had done her best, but what she should have done was thrown all of it away.
Armin pulled out the first box, his muscles cramping, shuddering in protest as he set it down on the floor. He ripped it open.
Inside, Armin was a little surprised to find a stack of books.
He picked one up, examining the cover closely. It was an old book, the leather bound cover peeling away. Armin ran his fingers over the gold inscription that was branded into its face. A Cult of Walls, the cover said. Armin flipped through the yellowed pages, and he saw that there was frantic, messy handwriting scrawled all across the margins and over the printed words, paint splashed over numerous pages, completely smeared over a few, and finally Armin came to the last page, which was carefully painted over in white.
Armin's fingers were shaky as he thumbed the final page, trying to make sense of the hasty script.
Find me in blood
In soil so soaked
In the waves and the palisades
In the shadow and the light
Find me
Below
A shudder ran through him, his heart clenching as he read these lines. Not because they were inherently scary. But because there was a distinct sound, coming from just behind him, of something rolling across hard wood.
Firstly, he was reminded of a marble drawing across a tabletop, slow and distinct. When he turned his head, he was able to see a wooden ball— about the size of Armin's fist— rolling, rolling, rolling, until finally it hit the dresser with a loud thump and was forced to halt.
"What the…?" Armin whispered, shutting the book and setting it aside. Where had this ball come from?
He retraced the path of it with his eyes, and realized, with a terrible twist of his gut, that it had come from beneath his bed.
Nope, he thought, jumping to his feet in blind terror. Nope!
He took a deep breath, glancing at the window, watching the sun creep in and flutter through the dimness. His initial instinct was to get the fuck out of this room as soon as possible. The air was thick and chilled, ice chips clogging his ears and eyes and throat. But he was so curious, and so confused— there was always an explanation, right?
Armin wandered to the little wooden ball, and he plucked it up. How could it have rolled from beneath the bed by itself?
Didn't Sasha say this place was cursed?
He considered it as he rolled the ball in his palm. It was old and faded, once painted red but now a splotchy brown, with deep gouges marring its sad, once smooth surface.
Armin had seen his fair share of horror movies.
In his case, he was fucked sideways in terms of his life expectancy rate. At this point, he'd already been locked in a dark, damp cellar in the middle of the woods alone, simply because he was curious. That alone should've been a red flag as to how hopeless he'd be in a horror narrative.
However, he hadn't been brutally murdered, so that was good.
Also, he was as virginal as he could get, so as long as there weren't like, virgin sacrifices or anything, he had a good chance there.
Of course, Armin had a mind for logic, so he didn't really want to believe in any of this spooky shit. He'd need some stone cold evidence.
It occurred to him that it could've been The Captain.
Armin knelt down, and he whistled lowly.
"Captain," he called tentatively.
If it was The Captain, that'd explain the scratching for sure. Armin whistled again, crawling closer to the bed, his nervousness pushed aside. He whistled softly, his whistle thin and tremulous, a cumbersome sound on the ridges of his lips. He rolled the ball back beneath his bed.
After about a minute of waiting, the ball did not return.
"Captain…?" Armin was at his wit's end with this one. He didn't dare look under the bed.
He shook his head furiously, deciding that if it was the dog, then whatever. If it wasn't, that'd be really weird and awkward, but it was actually really too early to deal with this bullshit.
Armin left the room, leaving the door open behind him just in case it really was the dog. He wandered into the hall, which was still very dark, and he walked forward with careful footing, squinting through the shadows and the pale shafts of sunlight pooling in from the living room.
In the silence, through Armin's open door, he heard the soft sliding of a wooden ball rolling across a wooden floor.
He walked faster.
When he saw The Captain snoozing on the living room couch, he merely stared at the dog for a good thirty seconds before pivoting back to his room.
He picked up the ball from the floor, and shot a glare at his bed.
"Okay," he said.
Okay.
He sat down with his back pressing to his dresser, and he rolled the ball back under his bed. Sunlight was glittering brightly now, filling the room and turning it a burning white.
The ball was rolled back to him. Without fail, it came slowly fumbling back to Armin's hand, pushed by some unknown force from beneath Armin's bed.
He felt terrified, to be sure.
Thrice more he rolled the ball, and thrice more it returned.
Finally Armin was too curious, too bewildered to even entertain his fear any longer. He crawled to his bed, stopping merely to tilt his head and peer under the space between the mattress and the floor. It was hardly much of a space at all, just a few centimeters that would make it snug for anyone of normal size. His cheek rested against the dusty floor, and he squinted into the darkness below his bed, his breath caught in his throat.
He didn't see anything.
Marginally terrified, but mostly frustrated, Armin decided to make sure he wasn't totally going insane. By reaching under the bed, the ball held tight in his fist.
He was waiting for something to rip his arm off, honestly.
The waiting was agonizing.
He jumped, a shriek spilling from his lips as he felt tiny, stubby nails dragging across his palm as the ball was snatched away. He skittered away from the bed, his breathing heavy and his heart hammering against his ribs in a frantic rhythm, percussion booming and blasting, a rise and fall of notes thudding in time with his pumping blood.
He looked down at his hand, holding his wrist tightly in his fist, but when he stared at his palm, there were no scratches, no markings, not even a splinter to suggest the ball had really been there, and it had really been taken by some tiny creature living beneath his bed.
This place is haunted, Armin realized with heavy breaths and a short, horrified laugh.
So much for logic.