how wide the world is

His head was all in a fog, like it'd been stuffed with clouds and cotton, brimming with nothing but fluff and brine. Like a soggy old teddy bear that had been washed up on the beach. It felt awful. He felt awful. The world was off kilter, off center, off its axis, and he was bound and gagged and hurling through the soul sucking vacuum of space.

Past the stars and the nebulae and the clusters of far off planets and the trailing comets and the vacuous eye of a supermassive black hole.

What would it feel like to hurl himself through the center and get dragged down into oblivion?

He'd find out soon enough.

Why did the world look so fucked up?

It was all bleary and bleeding, grays and yellows melting together into eerie blobs, leaving him dizzy and sickened. He drew in a breath, and it sent a fire of pain licking down his chest, stirring in his stomach and causing all his muscles to cramp up.

He shouted, but the sound didn't reach his ears. The sound didn't even leave his mouth.

It hit a wad of cloth stuffed between his jaws, resting on his tongue, and shot back into his throat. He nearly gagged.

What was this?

What was happening?

He couldn't move. His limbs were stuck, and he was growing panicked in the haze that had enveloped him. This was familiar. Stuck to a chair, his wrists bound, his head in a whirlwind of panic and shock. All his logic had found a home in the empty space above his head, leaking out his ears and eyes and mouth and leaving him with nothing but jarring terror.

When he thought back, all he could recall was the desperate need to find Eren.

Was that it? Was Eren in trouble?

Armin had to get out of here. Where was he? Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god...

He felt like he was completely removed from his senses, like there as a fog muffling his nerves and causing the reception to his brain to become all fuzzy. This was all so wrong. He knew there had to be a way out, right? There had to be. He just had to think! Think a way out! That was all he was good for, anyway, just thinking up solutions, so now was the time to use his head and get out of this goddamn mess!

But his head was filled with nothing but haze, and he couldn't think a way out of his own mind, let alone the bindings attached to his wrists and ankles.

"Wakey, wakey," a distant voice chuckled, rhythms bouncing through the clouds and landing on his brain like a fly flitting along the surface of a lake. "Mornin', sunshine. Enjoying the view?"

His mouth was dry, and the gag was digging into the corners of his lips as he squirmed in discomfort. He was having trouble distinguishing the voice, as though someone was shouting from across a great stretch of land and he was desperately trying to hear a voice that had been caught by the wind and sent sailing in the opposite direction.

"Mmmph…" His voice was muffled against the gag, and he tilted his head back uncertainly. The room smelled musty and dank. A basement, he realized numbly. He was in a basement!

"You must be so confused," the voice continued. A silhouette was floating in the haze of his vision, a black blot in the sea of gray and brown and yellow. "Can you understand me? Nod if yes."

The amount of effort it took to simply raise his head and drop it made his head spin. He was sick to death of this fear and confusion, this hazy world and these numb emotions. He had all this pent up tension inside him, so much that he needed to shout, but there was a gag fastened firmly to his lips, and he was too lethargic to care.

"Good, good." The silhouette was growing more concrete. It was a man. He was hovering over Armin, twirling something bright, something shiny that flickered in the dim yellow light. Armin was sick with a revelation.

That was a knife.

"Did you think you'd really get away with that little stunt, Armin?" Kenny asked, snatching Armin by the face. His nails dug painfully into the tender skin beneath Armin's cheekbones, and his eyes widened. The gag was loosened slightly. Armin tongued it until it slipped over his lips, and he gathered the spittle and phlegm from the back of his throat. He spat into Kenny's face.

"Fuck you," Armin rasped, his whole body rattling as the drugs fizzled out in the course of his veins. He was feeling nothing and rapidly feeling everything and it was so disorienting that he wanted to cry and scream and die.

Kenny's fist smashed into Armin's cheek, the force of the blow wailing in Armin's ears a pain broke through the wall of haze and smoke that filled up his brain. His chair was sent flying onto its side, and Armin was left painfully attached to it, his throbbing face sticking to the protective plastic that had been laid out beneath him. His hair gathered in his eyes, fluffy and light, and he coughed, pain bubbling up in the front of his head. He spat, and blood sprayed out, flecking his eyes and cheeks and hair and the plastic that covered the cement floor.

"You don't really learn, do you?" Kenny snatched him by the hair, the stress of his who body being lifted by it sending his scalp aflame. He cried out, blood pooling in his mouth and gathering on his lips. The chair was pushed upright, and Armin blinked the white stars from his cloudy vision, feeling that his head was in space while his body was in hell. "Let me just break it down for you."

Something popped. Multiple somethings, in a succession.

Armin watched a few buttons go flying. He realized that his shirt had been ripped open.

The tip of Kenny's knife was pointed at him, bouncing from left to right. "Eenie meenie miney mo…"

Armin's eyes widened. Oh, he thought as the knife came slashing down on his right shoulder, slashing a thick line into his flesh. The pain didn't register at first, so he merely listened to the wet sound of skin splitting. It made his whole body tense up, and he felt like his soul had been forced away, like he was watching this as a spectator.

When the pain came tumbling onto him, he didn't scream so much as he stuttered and gasped and then, with one great puff of air, shrieked shrilly. The sound seemed to be unreal, like a garbled voice beneath water. The acoustics in the basement were poor.

"You get it now?" Kenny's hands were gloved, Armin realized as they lifted his chin. Tears had gathered in his eyes, welling up and spilling out, expelling his pain as he shook and gasped and shook and gasped. "I don't need you. You're just a liability. So…" Kenny's knife bit into Armin's other shoulder, and this time a horrible scream fell from Armin's lips, beating at his lungs and rumbling inside his chest. He heard nothing but his own voice and felt nothing but the cold sawing of the knife, pain lacing through him, like spidery legs against his nerves. "I'm gonna just cut you up. Kay?"

Armin swallowed thickly, coughing huffs of breaths and spitting blood, tears gathering up inside his mouth. The taste was salty and metallic, and he couldn't think clearly with the clashing sensations of pain resonating all over his body.

"You should know," Kenny said, the flat of the knife dragging down Armin's bicep. "I'm not just killing you for no reason. You have to understand, you're basically all that's keeping Mikasa fighting."

Armin listened to his unbearably harsh screech as the knife found the crook of his elbow, and cut right into it.

"So, I guess it's your own fault. Being friends with her?" The knife slashed the other elbow, and all Armin smelled was the thick, acrid scent of blood, and all he felt was the agony that was threading his nerves. "It's a death sentence."

"S-stop," Armin sobbed, "please—"

"Please?"

The blood was seeping into the white cotton shirt. He saw it spreading, red, red, red, pooling underneath the cloth and staining the tiny fibers as it kept moving on and on, no time to stop, because more blood kept coming. He was sick. He was going to vomit.

"Is the pain too much?" Kenny's face wasn't even visible. He was just a blur. A blur in the great cluster of tears and stars that gathered inside Armin's eyes. "You want it to stop?"

Armin couldn't speak. He couldn't breathe.

This wasn't fair.

Mikasa… she was… she going to be devastated… she'd be so broken if he died… when he died…

It just wasn't fair to her!

Hadn't he promised he'd be back? Hadn't he?

He was so stupid. Why? Why had this all happened?

He should've been a better friend from the beginning.

The knife was dragging toward his wrists.

Blood was spilling out from his shoulders and elbows and the pain was reaching his head and filling him up. The clouds and the cotton and the haze were all electric now, sending pulses through his brain.

"Please…" he whispered, blood in his words and lacing his tongue and dribbling down the corner of his lips.

The knife drew back.

It kissed his throat, and sawed his neck right open.

Dead.

Dead, dead, dead, dead.

He was dead.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Armin whispered, holding his head in his hands. Frieda sighed. Mikasa and Historia were still in the basement. They were clinging to each other, fearing the other might wander off and disappear like Armin had.

"It's not an easy thing to accept, Armin," the girl said softly. She reminded him of Historia a bit, but the difference was clear. Historia had never drugged anyone out of spite before. Historia had never hurt anyone, in spite of all of her secrets and all of her lies. All Historia had ever done was let other people rule her life and control her, and that didn't make her a bad person. Just sad.

"You should have told me!" Armin covered his face with his hands. "I thought- I thought I was still alive! Oh my god. Oh my god, Mikasa can't know! She can't!"

"She's going to realize it, Armin," Frieda said gently. "This was Kenny's plan, after all."

Armin couldn't imagine that this was real. It didn't feel real. He didn't feel dead-dead, but in reality, he did not feel much at all. He straightened up, and he touched his throat. There was a rather obscenely large gash there. He resisted the urge to burst into tears.

"I don't want to be dead," Armin whispered. "I- I-!"

"Do you honestly think anyone likes being stuck like this?" Frieda snapped. "Just get over it! You died. You're a ghost. Though, not for long. You weren't part of the ritual, so you don't really belong here. You'll probably get your ticket to the afterlife soon."

"No," Armin gasped, shaking his head furiously. "No way! I can't leave yet! Mikasa-"

"She's pretty much dead in the water. No pun intended." Frieda hummed, glancing over at Mikasa and Historia, who'd taken to shuffling through shelves on the walls to look for clues on where Armin might be. I'm right here, he wanted to scream. But they wouldn't hear him. So what was the point?

"Don't say that," Armin whispered covering his mouth shakily. "Oh my god. No, no, no! We have to stop this!"

"Um, I've been trying?" Frieda rolled her eyes. "You wanna take a stab at trying to kill Historia? Just kidding, you're not even a low level poltergeist, you could never."

Armin gripped his hair, trying to think of a solution for this. Kenny. He had to make Kenny die!

"Can't you just possess Kenny?" Armin asked, whirling on Frieda. "Kill him instead! He's the problem, not Historia!"

"My haunting style doesn't really affect Kenny much," Frieda sighed. "It's more to drive people up the wall. Or, more accurately, drag them down the stairs. Possessing people isn't my strong suit."

"Fuck!" Armin stamped his feet. He realized that he was standing on a tarp. Beneath the stairs. He looked down at it. Then he looked at Frieda. "Please don't tell me I'm standing on my corpse."

She smiled weakly.

Armin screamed for real this time. He threw his head back, and he screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, and he realized he could scream forever because he had no need to stop for air, so he screamed until Frieda smacked him.

"God, will you shut up, you banshee?" She held her hands over her ears and scowled at him. "They actually might hear you. Which is a fucking riot, because you shouldn't be able to make contact at all with the living."

"I just died," Armin choked, shooting her a furious glare. "You want me to shut up? Go tell Mikasa it's a fucking trap!"

"Yeesh." Frieda rolled her eyes. "Fine, okay. Let me just get into character." Frieda took a deep breath. She tossed her hair over her face, and she began to sway from side to side. It was honestly funny to watch.

Armin watched as Historia snatched Mikasa's sleeve, yanking her back. Armin could see her breath as she exhaled, glancing around the basement rapidly.

"Something's here," she whispered.

Mikasa nodded hastily, shoving Historia back behind her, guarding her with one arm. Her eyes flashed wildly in the dark, flicking around the basement as Frieda lowered herself onto her hands, inching forward into a slow creep. Her long, stringy brown hair was swaying eerily, dragging against the dusty floor.

"Mikasa!" Historia gasped, spotting Frieda quickly. Even without her memories, she seemed to be attuned to exactly where her dead sister was, as though she could merely sense her presence.

"Stay behind me," Mikasa barked. "I'll deal with this."

"That's a ghost, Mikasa, you can't just fight it!" Historia frowned, and then she laughed weakly. "Can you?"

"Just stay back, okay?"

"But isn't that my sister?" Historia gasped, peeking over Mikasa's arm. "Shouldn't I try to… to talk her out of this?"

"This ghost it nuts, Historia." Mikasa sounded empty. Resigned. "There's no reasoning with it."

"Reason? No." Frieda's voice was suddenly rasping and guttural, as though she were choking on water clogging her throat. "If you had even a lick of sense you would know to go."

"What?" Historia blurted, ducking under Mikasa's arm and starting forward. Mikasa's face was, frankly, priceless. She looked exasperated and shocked. "What are you saying? Stop speaking in rhyme and tell us what you mean!"

"Historia, get behind me!" Mikasa snapped, snatching Historia by the arm before she could get any closer to Frieda.

"But she knows something!" Historia looked distant. Desperate and distant and dull. "Don't you see? She knows something we don't. Maybe she knows where Armin is!"

Frieda chuckled. It was a dark sound, something that bounced off the walls of the basement and shook Armin to his core.

"You should heed what I say," Frieda spat. "Or more than one will die today."

And with that she appeared back beside Armin, upright and yawning. "That's how you haunt, kiddo," she said, tossing her stringy hair over her shoulder and beaming down at him. "Not that you'll need to know, since you're just a random ass lost soul. Poor kiddo."

"What did she mean by that…?" Historia asked vacantly. She looked a little put out, her cheeks puffing and her eyebrows furrowing. She half turned around. "Mikasa?"

But Mikasa was frozen in place. Her eyes were wide and her face had drained of color. She looked suddenly sick, her whole body tensing as her mouth fell open.

"Mikasa…?" Historia tilted her head. There was a glimmer of concern in her voice, as though she was scared to fear for Mikasa, as though she didn't know if it was okay to even do such a thing. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Mikasa brushed off, shaking her hand off her arm and starting forward. She was moving at a lethargic pace, her limbs sort of dragging behind her as she moved. Right toward Armin.

"Oh no," Armin whispered, looking down at the tarp he was standing on. In? his feet had disappeared inside the covering. He didn't know. "Shit! Frieda, I didn't want this! I just wanted them to leave! Why couldn't you just scare them?"

"I did scare them," Frieda scoffed.

"Clearly not enough!" Armin smacked her over the head, and she yelped. "You almost tore my throat out once! What the fuck was that? That was so fucking weak, I honestly feel bad for you!"

"Okay, dude, will you like, cool it for a sec?" Frieda's forehead pinched, and she shook her head. "They'll figure out you're dead sooner or later. Why delay the inevitable?"

"Because she's going to be heartbroken!" Armin didn't want to see this. He didn't want to be here anymore.

And suddenly he wasn't.

He was standing in the middle of the forest. Why was that? Why the forest? He watched the sun filter through the leaves on the trees, and the breeze shake the branches to and fro.

He couldn't feel the warmth of the sunlight as it slithered across the dirt.

He couldn't feel the chill of the breeze as it snaked through the trees.

He felt suddenly very lonely.

He lowered himself to the ground, and he pulled his knees up to his chest. It was very sunny and bright. The birds were chirping above him, and there were flowers peeking out around the tree roots, little forget-me-nots blooming under the patches of sunshine.

What a beautiful day to be dead.

"Armin?"

This was probably to be expected. Why else would Armin come here? Subconsciously, he'd merely substituted one for the other. He hated this. Mikasa had realized, and now he was hiding from the consequences. He didn't want to see her face when she pulled back the tarp. When she saw what Kenny had done.

Armin buried his face in his knees. He didn't want Eren to see what Kenny had done either.

He couldn't win.

"Why are you here?" Eren sounded groggy and confused. "Did the plan work?"

He recalled the overwhelming terror of the previous night, when he'd thought Eren had been in trouble. In the end it had just been Levi. Levi, trapped under Kenny's thumb. And where was he now? After all, he was partially responsible for Armin's death. Was he hiding out, simply too ashamed to show his face?

The worst part was that Armin didn't even hate Levi for what he'd done.

Had he ever been in control, really? Had Levi ever really had a choice, had a life to begin with? No. He was blameless in this crime. Just another tool in Kenny's belt, utilized at just the right moment, when Armin's logic was slipping, when his mind was in shambles due to panic and stress. And the devastating thing was that Armin knew this would hurt Eren far more than anything he supposed Frieda could've done.

"Hey." Eren was peering at him, suddenly at his side, his eyes big and bold and bright. "What's wrong?"

Armin didn't respond. How could he? After all, he was dead. And he feared Eren's inescapable wrath.

"Armin?" Eren's face was gleaming in its usual unearthly pallor, his jaw tightening as he squinted down at Armin's face. "I see your eyes, Armin. Come on, tell me what happened! Did something go wrong?"

Armin inhaled sharply.

"Yes," he whispered.

How terrible was this? Mikasa was probably having a panic attack over Armin's dead body, and all he could think about was getting far away from her, from Eren, from this terrible reality.

He wanted to stop existing all together.

Escaping seemed so easy. Like falling asleep.

He felt like he was falling backwards into a deep, velvety slumber. Away from all of the terror. All of the disgust and despair.

But without warning, he was dragged back, reality gripping him tightly by the biceps. Eren's fingernails were digging into Armin's bloody shirt, as though he could feel the pinching pain, as though that was something real. It almost felt real.

"Blood," Eren said faintly. "Armin... you're bleeding..."

Armin raised his face. It was tear-streaked and pallid. Gaunt with death, with the echo of his last scream etched into it forever. That must have looked so strange. So overwhelmingly strange. To be dead was so fucking strange! Like all his life had accumulated to this moment, this perpetual expression of distinct terror and agony. And Eren was here merely to bear witness.

And Eren looked, quite frankly, like he'd seen a ghost.

Armin's tears only fell faster, his mouth falling open and nothing coming out but a faint, rasping sigh. He wished this was different. He'd wished it had been different, hadn't he? That he was the dead one. Well, now his wish was granted. And what now?

Now they were both dead. Dead as can possibly be.

Eren saw that. With his two big, glistening green eyes, he gazed at the gash that had opened Armin's neck up and allowed him to step out of a life of perpetual turmoil, and into a death of perpetual numbness. He didn't think or feel, really. He was merely present, existing but not, on the same plane as Eren.

For once, they could really be together.

Eren tested this by thumbing the jagged flesh peeling back from Armin's throat.

"Your neck…" He seemed so distraught that he wasn't thinking straight, it seemed. "Hospital… you need to go to a hospital…"

"Eren…" Armin grasped Eren's hand, and found that though it didn't feel much like anything, it was almost warm. "I… I'm sorry, I—"

"Are we really touching?" Eren was staring at their clasped hands, looking paler and paler by the second.

Armin glanced down at Eren's fingers, slim but firm inside his own, and he nodded vacantly. He felt like he should've been happy about this. It was a rarity, an experience he hadn't truly felt in years, and yet he got no joy from it. He was stuck wishing for a solution, as though he could fix this, as though being dead was just another obstacle in his path. He could fix this. He could live again.

Couldn't he?

But of course he knew. He knew it was impossible, and he knew he was grasping at prayers that faded like wisps of smoke in the air.

He was dead now. That was something that needed to be accepted, needed to be understood. Death was new, and it was frightening, but regardless he had to persevere. There was still Mikasa. Still Historia. Still Jean, still Erwin, still Annie, still Hange. He had to push through this for them.

And then?

He dragged his thumb over the protrusions of Eren's knuckles. They didn't feel cold or warm. They didn't feel clammy or wet. They were soft, palms lying gingerly, fingers slack and trembling, as though they couldn't quite grasp what they were holding. As if they were waiting for Armin's fingertips to simply evaporate.

"I messed up," Armin choked, listening to his voice against the trees, echoing against the hollow sky and collapsing back on top of him with the weight of all his sorrows and all his fears and all his regrets. It piled atop his chest, and for a moment he thought it very hard to breathe. And then, with a heavy heart, he realized he had no reason to breathe at all.

Eren was still staring at his hand with the look of a prisoner starved of sunlight who had just caught a glimpse of the morning sky for the first time in decades.

"You're dead," Eren stated. His voice was monotonous, drawing from a sliver of breath and spat like something foul he'd found stuck to the back of his throat.

Armin knew he should be distraught. He should feel like he was going to break. Like the entire world had stopped. But he knew it hadn't. He knew that he was nothing in the grand scheme, and like Eren, like Levi before them, they were all just pieces lost to the tide, washed away, and unable to connect with the rush of time. They'd been stolen away and washed up, left to watch everyone they loved get swept back into the stream of time without them.

"I messed up," Armin repeated, finding his hands pressed to his forehead, his fingers laced in his hair. "I… I didn't think, Eren. I didn't know— in the end, I— I didn't know anything!"

Eren was watching with an empty expression. The blood caked to the side of his face was vivid today, glittering in the sunlight, illuminating his sallow face. His complexion was so cadaverous, clearly drained of color and life in this glimmering sunshine, that it was horrific to even really look at him directly.

"Armin," Eren said in a low, distant voice. "Shut the fuck up."

He felt as if he'd been struck with a whip. He jerked back, his chest seizing up, and he found himself wishing he could just disappear.

Eren looked at him with gauzy green eyes. And he looked right through him.

"Who did this?" he asked flatly. The air seemed to stand still. The wind had stopped. The sunlight did not seem to reach the forest floor.

Armin sat and stared.

"You know who did it," he replied softly.

Eren's expression changed. His empty gaze flashed with fire, flames sparking behind his cloudy eyes, his flesh twisting as his mouth peeled back into a snarl. He was alarmingly angry, his fury capturing all the air and all the light around him and concentrating it into his inner fire. Armin could only gape.

"Eren," Armin gasped, leaning forward and reaching out. "Eren, calm down—!"

His entire body seemed to be pulling itself apart, viciously flickering back and forth, to and fro, a thousand places at once, and nowhere at all.

"I'll kill him." Eren's voice rattled eerily all around them. Like a crack of thunder in the distance, rumbling closer and closer until it shook inside Armin's chest.

Armin didn't doubt that Eren should. It was if he could that concerned him.

Could Kenny even really be stopped at this point?

"Eren…"

Armin was left with an unbearable hollow sensation as Eren stared past him into whatever hell he'd entered the moment he had realized Armin had died.

Eren was gone in a strange whir, wind and water and a sucking breath whooshing through the air, and the whole forest was disoriented, trees and roots shaking in shock and fear, trembling from the earthquake that was Eren's indomitable wrath.

How long had Armin sat there, feeling the world turn, his existence throttling with the very sway of the breeze? He couldn't even try. He wasn't really there. He'd died, and he had to go soon, had to go away, fast as can be. Going away. Where? He couldn't really know that. He only knew, on pure instinct, that he was running on exhaust. That his entire existence was a technicality. An echo of the presence he'd built up in twenty one years alive.

Twenty one years. It seemed so short. So sad.

Twenty one years and he had nothing to show for it but a fleeting imprint of his visage on an ethereal plane, surviving solely on the last drops of his mind, thriving on the fervor of his memory that still resonated strongly with the few still living.

That was all.

It wasn't really enough to make a ghost, he realized.

He was not vengeful, and he was not strong, and he would not be missed so thoroughly that his soul would be dragged back again and again until he could call himself a haunting spirit. He had no place here.

Moving on was inevitable. He was nothing now. A wayward soul wavering among the leaves that shivered on the trees.

Standing up seemed foreign. It was as if he'd been standing the whole time. Had he? He had been? Had he?

This was too much.

The world was too much for someone who was now nothing but an amalgam of what he remembered of himself and what others remembered of him.

Who would remember him when he was gone for good?

Mikasa?

She was practically dead already.

"Mikasa…" He realized, quickly, his own mistake. How long had he been gone? How long had it been since he'd left Mikasa to discover his corpse, to break down, to die inside because of his mistake?

He felt like he was the worst person in the whole of creation.

How much time did he have left?

He was counting on his fingers the last breaths he could take. He didn't need to, but he could, and it was dizzying.

"What the hell are you doing?"

He was caught by the collar, throttled hard, his head bobbing as his vision swam.

What was he doing?

He didn't really know.

"Look at me."

He looked.

He should have felt angry. Vengeful.

He didn't feel anything but an overwhelming wave of sorrow.

"Hello, Levi," he murmured.

He was shoved back, his feet grazing the ground, but never really disturbing the leaves or dirt. He didn't have the sort of presence that Levi or Eren did. He was not a ghost. He was not going to be here forever. He'd be here for another cycle of emotions, perhaps, before all that was in him was drained.

And all that he was with it.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Levi's expression was twisted. Pained. "Aren't you pissed? I helped kill you!"

"You helped kill Eren too," Armin whispered. He didn't feel anything as he said it, but he sensed Levi was affected by his words. He'd flinched. "I don't care, Levi. I don't care anymore."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" Levi's brow furrowed. "No. You're not even a ghost. You're just waiting to get your ass booted out of existence." His fists clenched, and he scoffed. "Wow. You're a fucking joke."

He stood, his throat open wide, his mouth shut tight, and he smiled.

"I feel like everything was for nothing," he admitted. He looked down at his hands, expecting them to not even be there. But they were. So why did he feel so empty? So distant?

"That's because you've given up," Levi stated flatly. "You have no drive. You have nothing tying you to earth. You died, and you are drawn to a place beyond this world." He shook his head, glowering out into the distance. "Must be nice."

"I don't understand…" Armin hugged himself. "I don't want to leave."

"Deep down," Levi said coldly, "you really do."

Armin felt like he was shrinking away.

"Why does it feel so bad?" he whispered. "Why can't I feel? Anything? It so empty here."

"Welcome to being dead, kiddo."

That was not reassuring in the least.

"What do I do?" He looked down at his hands again. Yeah, they were still there. It surprised him, but they were still there.

"You suck it up," Levi told him firmly. "Mikasa is going to die because you fell for a stupid trick. That might've been on me, but Mikasa's death will be on you if you don't help me get her out of this!"

"She'll want to die," Armin recalled, a spark of regret igniting within him. "Oh. Oh god…"

"Yeah," Levi snapped. "Oh fucking god. She's gonna die. Just like you. Just like me."

"Okay!" Armin held his head, feeling whoozy, but feeling something nonetheless. "Okay, I get it! I'm… I'm okay now!"

"You don't have to lie," Levi sighed, closing his eyes. "I remember what it's like. Realizing you're dead. You don't want to think anymore, because what's the point? Nothing is going to happen, so you might as well give up." Levi shot Armin a sharp glance. "Don't be like me, Armin. I gave up too fast. I don't know where my will to fight went, but it sure as hell isn't here anymore."

Armin didn't want to say anything. He didn't want to agree, and he certainly didn't want to make the situation any worse, but he felt so compelled to scream at the top of his lungs that he felt that he might burst. Hadn't he already given up? He was certain that he was on the fast track to disappearing altogether. He didn't exist now. He wouldn't exist now.

That was just how it went. Dying. Death. It ended like this. Not with a great revelation on the nature of the universe, but with a slow acceptance of the lack of knowledge of what awaited when the last grain of sand fell through the glass and one plane was swapped for another once more.

Souls were very fickle, it seemed. One place was not enough. They had a certain wanderlust once they were released from their shells, and they could not be bound to one simple place, no, they would go here and there and anywhere, without really knowing why or how.

To heaven, to hell, to anywhere in between, Armin would be.

But first, he had to make something right.

"I have to save Mikasa," he realized. Levi stared at him.

"Yeah?" He folded his arms across his chest. "How?"

Armin took a deep breath. He raked his fingers through his hair, and he looked around. "I…" he sighed, "I can't be sure yet! Maybe…" He paused. He had to think. Remember. Where had he been before this?

Ah.

Ah, right.

Kenny's house.

He stared at his hands, at the way they seemed to really be there, before his eyes, shaking unsteadily, trembling from his fear for no reason other than the fact that he associated anxiety with shaky hands, and he recalled something he'd done in his last hours, last breaths.

"I have an idea," he whispered. He raised his eyes to Levi. "We need Frieda."

"Fuck," Levi exhaled, closing his eyes. "Who's that again?"

"Frieda!" Armin groaned. "Historia's sister? God. It's so weird that you didn't even know who she was, she was so hellbent on ruining your life."

"What?" Levi asked flatly.

"Frieda was the one who was supposed to be the key to this whole ritual," Armin explained. He wasn't sure if he had all the details right, but this is what he'd surmised. "She'd been raised to become a… a goddess, I guess. Through ritualistic human sacrifice. But as she grew older she just didn't want to deal with it, so she killed herself. Leaving Historia." Though Armin was pretty sure that was a technicality. Frieda had very much intended to kill Historia along with her. Armin wasn't sure why that plan had fallen through.

He wanted to be glad it had, because Historia was alive now, and he'd gotten to meet her, be his friend.

But if Frieda had killed Historia along with herself, then none of this would have happened.

I understand now, he realized, why Frieda wanted Historia to die so badly.

Even her treatment of Levi begun to make sense. She'd made his life miserable from the sidelines, purposefully adding more and more baggage to push him closer to the noose.

If Levi had killed himself before the ritual, that probably would have halted any progression.

"I don't understand," Levi said. "What the fuck does that have to do with me? I didn't know her."

"No, but she knew you." Armin stared into Levi's eyes. He felt dizzy. Like he was peering through a foggy window, but the window was his eyes, and the fog was an echo of his thoughts. "She knew all about you. She wanted you to kill yourself to end the ritual, like she did. Like she's been trying to get Historia to do."

"That's bullshit," Levi said. "I would have known."

"You didn't." Armin watched him, and he sighed. "She was friends with Erwin. A really bad friend, but they hung out. Listen, she fucked you up. I won't sugarcoat that, because you deserve to know. She manipulated you when you were a teenager because she wanted you to die early, die faster. In her own twisted way, she thought…" Armin was whoozy, his thoughts misting along the walls of his brain, glazing over his senses. "That she was saving you…"

Levi's face had gone stony. His jaw had tightened, and his eyes had narrowed, and he looked like he'd turned himself to steel, his eyes hard and cool, so sharp that they could slice through flesh with a glance.

"What did she do to me?" he asked quietly.

Armin knew Levi deserved to know, but he also knew that he needed Frieda. He was scared that Levi might react badly to this. So… morality or logic?

"She…" Armin had thrown his logic to the wind for the sake of his morality, for the sake of his emotional ties, for his guilt and fear. Logic told him this was a bad idea. That he shouldn't have brought any of this up in the first place. But his morals, which pleaded with him to fade into obscurity until he found himself in a better place, feeling more and feeling happy, would not budge.

So he let logic die.

He buried it in his own grave. It died with him, and that was that.

"She drugged you and Erwin," Armin said distantly, trying to recollect the memories he'd been shown. "Erwin didn't know about it. Maybe he'd feel better about what happened with you if he did. He… has it in his head that whatever happened was his fault. I don't know for sure."

Levi stared at him. Armin felt as though everything had frozen, that Levi had made everything frozen, because as he digested Armin's words, his eyes were widening with the horror and disgust and furor that was appropriate for this type of situation.

"That fucking bitch," he spat, his entire body curling back in a defensive hunch. "That… wait, I was drugged twice that night?" Levi smacked his forehead in disbelief. "If I wasn't already dead, I'd want to die. And take her with me."

"She's also already dead," Armin said weakly. "And I need her for the plan."

"Fuck her, man!" Levi glowered at Armin. "Let her rot in hell! We'll do this by ourselves. Whatever you needed her for, get Eren to do it."

"Eren's…" Armin wasn't sure where Eren had gone. He had a bad feeling about it though. "I'm not really sure. I don't want to move on without him, though. Is it possible for me to wait?"

"I don't fucking know?" Levi grimaced. "If I fucking knew I'd be gone, kid!"

"Yeah, yeah," Armin sighed. "Okay. Maybe we can do it with two people. The only problem is we need to distract Kenny. Can you do that?"

Levi stared at him. Perhaps he wasn't entirely sure. His expression softened a bit, and he looked suddenly confused.

"Maybe," he admitted, sounding unsure. "He'll probably catch on, though."

"We need Frieda," Armin said. "Let me talk to her. For now, we'll go back to Kenny's house. Do you know if Kenny caught Mikasa and Historia?"

"Well, yeah." Levi rolled his eyes. "That's kind of why you died, dumbass."

Armin didn't feel bitter or sad. Perhaps that was because we was just an echo of who he used to be. Maybe most of him had moved on already. Maybe this was just who he was, who he'd always been. He didn't know.

"Do you know if they're there now?"

"Kenny is a professional killer," Levi said calmly. "He's not going to burn a girl alive in his basement. If it had been my sacrifice, then yeah, he would've done it there, but since it's burning he'll probably be somewhere remote."

"You figure out where," Armin said. "I'll talk to Frieda while you do that."

"You getting the hang of the whole non-corporeal thing?" Levi cocked his head. "Huh. Maybe you're a ghost after all."

Armin didn't respond. He was already feeling himself rushing in a different direction, his thoughts aligning with his presence, and his presence landing in the cold, dark pit where his nightmares and horrors had been played before him and laid to rest.

He touched his throat pensively as he glanced around the basement. He couldn't even feel the way the jagged skin fell upon his neck. It was strange.

"You've returned," a haughty voice chirped from beneath the stairs. When Armin looked, he saw Frieda's pallid face, her stringy hair plastered to her neck as she tilted her head. She smirked. "Done with your tantrum?"

"Tantrum?" Armin repeated dully. "I found out I fucking died, Frieda. Excuse me for not being more positive."

"You missed the big reveal though," Frieda gasped, lifting up the object that had been resting in her lap.

Armin's own pasty face stared back at him, mouth parted, blood pooling from his cracked, busted, discolored lips, and his eyes wide open. Death clouded them, fogging his irises and making him seem so very blinded. And he was. He had been, and he would be. His hair was waxy, blood turning flaxen strands pink, flecking his bruised nose with red freckles, and smearing across his jaw. His neck was completely drenched, blood rising like a high collar to his chin.

Frieda held Armin's severed head in both hands, his bloody hair curling between her fingers.

"Oh," Armin said distantly. "I didn't know he dismembered me…"

That, he thought numbly, explains why I feel so disconnected.

"What a boring reaction," Frieda scoffed, resting her chin in Armin's dirty hair. She pouted. "I wanted to know, I guess. Are you just boring in general?"

"I didn't want to see my friends find out I was dead," Armin snapped.

"Well, let me give you the DL," Frieda said brightly, dropping his head behind her. Armin winced. "Neither of them really made a sound at first. I was expecting them to scream, but they didn't. Historia started breathing real heavy. Panicking. She doesn't have her memories, of course, but she knows she knows you, and that she cares about you, and internally her emotions can't match her thoughts. She's pretty devastated."

Armin felt guilty for that. Devastating his friend. Was that why he was still here, and hadn't immediately left this plane of existence?

"Mikasa just shut down," Frieda sighed, looking less enthusiastic. "She held your head for a while until Kenny came. Neither of them really spoke. They just went with him."

"And you didn't…" Armin's voice was shaky, "try to stop it…?"

"I've been trying to stop this for over a decade," Frieda told him coldly, her eyes sliding tiredly toward his face. "Give me a break, kid. I've been haunting this town since before you could even walk straight."

"Did you see Eren, at least?" Armin asked desperately.

"I'm not his keeper, buddy," Frieda said. "I couldn't tell you. He responds to you more than anyone else though, right? Because you killed him, right?" She paused to think about it. "Or maybe it's because he loves you? Or both? Hell if I know."

"Okay, well," Armin sighed, "do me a favor. Use my blood to write a message on the wall. Okay?"

Frieda watched him with a mild expression. She smiled fondly.

"You're such a strange kid," she said softly. "What do you want me to write, exactly?"

"Um." He glanced down at the pile of limbs discarded in a trash bag beneath the stairs. It seemed like Kenny had been in the middle of disposing them when he'd gone to take Historia and Mikasa wherever. "The location Kenny decided to take my friends?"

"I'm not psychic, honey," Frieda sighed.

"Yeah, I've got someone on that." Armin glanced around the basement. This would do. It was pretty clean, all things considering, but Armin's body was beginning to decay, and the rot left a distinct stench. "Did Eren really not come here?"

"No." Frieda peered at him curiously. "What are you planning?"

Armin pressed his hands to his mouth. What was he planning? Would this even work? His logic had left him. Gone and died without warning. Discarded like trash.

So could this even possibly work?

Who knew?

All he knew for sure was that he was going to fucking try.

Even if it fucking killed him.

Again?

Yeah. Again.

Without warning, Levi was standing next him, looking properly pissed off. His face was pale in the dim light, his expression somber, his eyes flashing wildly.

"They're on their way to the Strip," he said quietly.

"Where on the Strip?" Armin asked, his heart sinking. "The Strip us huge!"

"Yeah, and it's also very level." Levi shot him a strange look. "If there's a fire out there, it'd be seen from Shiganshina to Trost, I'll tell you that."

"Cool." Frieda dipped two fingers into the bag that held Armin's dismembered limbs. When she withdrew them, they were dark red and glistening. "Why am I doing this again? Besides for the fun of it."

"Trust me." Armin watched as she began to draw her finger down one wall, his own blood gleaming against the yellowish light. "Sign my name at the end."

"Ooh, this is spooky," Frieda whispered, sounding giddy. "I love it."

"Shut the fuck up," Levi hissed, "and get this done."

"Chill, Levi." Frieda shot him a vague glance. She smiled thinly. "Armin told you, huh? Thought that might happen."

"Seriously." Levi flickered violently. "Shut the fuck up."

"Fine!" Frieda pried one of Armin's limbs—a bicep— from the bag, and swiped her fingers against the stump. She continued on with her writing. Yeah, she was definitely the right ghost for this job, that was for sure.

"Levi, I want you to stay here," Armin said thoughtfully. "Don't get involved with Kenny any more than I've already made you."

Levi looked at him, and for once he seemed genuinely shocked. And maybe even a little touched. His eyes softened, his lips parting as though to speak, but he seemed to awkward and confused to say whatever he meant. So he nodded.

"Frieda," Armin said, watching as the old ghost worked, looking all too pleased as she used his disembodied arm as a paint palette and drew letters like they were some renaissance masterpiece, a magnum opus only someone as twisted and sad as Frieda Reiss could create. "When you're done with that, I'll need you to help me distract Kenny. Since I'm not exactly haunting material."

"Oh my gosh, little dude," Frieda gasped, beaming back at him. "I'd love to haunt with you! I could be like a cool role model!"

"Why are you the way you are…?" Levi murmured, closing his eyes. "Fuckin'…"

"Listen, I wanted to die." Frieda offered a meager little shrug, and she smirked. "That gives you a lot of perspective as a ghost, y'know? Anyways, whoever you think is gonna see this, Armin, they might die of fright themselves."

"She won't," Armin said firmly. "I told you. Trust me."

"No offense, but you've been slacking on the good judgment aspect of your shitty ass personality," Levi told him coolly. "Will this work?"

"Honestly…?" Armin shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. But it's the only thing I've got left. I've run out of logic. I'm running on fumes right now."

"That sounds shitty," Frieda said, her fingers moving expertly across the wall, writing words like phantasms, letting the letters burn into the cement until they glowed with their own supernatural light, supernatural warmth, miniature suns reflecting off Armin's blood.

"It is."

He thought about Eren. How he had been when he'd left.

It scared him.

To scare the dead was a truly magnificent feat.

There were other things, other people he had to take into account for this to work. Jean, for instance, was still around somewhere. He didn't know that Armin was dead yet. Perhaps he was with Erwin. Hange was another person he'd nearly forgotten about. They were important. They knew the issues at hand, and could actually do something about it. Unlike Armin.

"Done," Frieda called, appearing beside him with bright eyes and reddened hands. His blood glistened on her slender, bony fingers. "What now?"

"You help me distract Kenny before he kills Mikasa," Armin said simply. This was all he could really do. Put off the inevitable.

Frieda smiled down at him, her eyes narrowing a little bit. "I can try," she said, "but I can't guarantee anything."

"That's okay." Armin was lying. He was terrified of what could become of this. Saving Mikasa was all that was tying him to earth, and he felt the pressure of her imminent demise. She wanted to die now, because he'd been careless, because he'd let himself fall into a trap. But she'd done the same, hadn't she? Hadn't they all?

"And I just stay here and fucking wait?" Levi looked bitter.

"I'm sick of Kenny controlling you," Armin snapped. "I died because we didn't get the body parts Kenny harvested from you when we could have! Just stay here, Levi."

Levi's jaw tightened, his eyes flashing furiously. But he didn't object. Because he knew Armin was right, and that probably hurt.

Frieda whistled lowly. "Wow," she said, smirking back at Levi. "You fucked up pretty bad, huh?"

"Not as bad as you," Levi told her coolly.

She seemed to be legitimately taken aback by that, and she leaned away, blinking wildly.

Armin knew very little about Frieda Reiss. Her life had been a mess of strings, of duties and fates that clashed with her inner voice, her emotions muted by drugs and her thoughts whirring due to whatever manic disorder she'd found herself afflicted with. So her life had been a life and now in death she simply continued to fall into the same old routine, laughing away whatever qualms she had with feeling things.

He pitied her. She was such a sad, empty reflection of a life that hadn't been lived.

She and Levi were on opposite ends of the same extreme. One knowing nothing and the other knowing all.

Armin had to focus this time, feeling that he wasn't connected to the world enough to really take hold of where he might find Mikasa. Focusing wasn't really easy, not when he felt so distanced from everything around him, but he knew he had to try. When he wanted to leave Mikasa, it had been so easy. He'd just left, like zoning out and letting himself be swept up in a tide. This was more like trying to keep the sand beneath his feet from being sucked up by the waves as they crashed into his calves and retracted.

The basement was sucked away like the sweeping ocean, and he found himself standing among sand and dust, sunlight beating and sending heavy heat rays billowing through the air. He felt like he was standing in a desert, nothing around him but heat and sand, and the spires of civilization grazing the horizon in the distance.

To plummet to death in a forest, in a waterfall, to be tortured in a cold, dark basement until a knife opened up a throat, to be dragged from a sleek looking car and led to a pyre of modern making and burned to death amongst the heat haze and the sands of some long dead society.

This was how the world ended.

Mikasa was shoved harshly, her feet moving heavily across the ground. It was strange to think she would die in this place. She'd almost died her once, not so long ago, because of Levi, because of Kenny's influence. It was funny how things went.

"We'll make this easy," Kenny said, leading her toward a dusty, beaten up Camaro that had been parked among the swirling dust. "You'll drive this until you die. It'll be quick. A nice, quick death, and then you can see your friends again. Fair enough?"

Mikasa said nothing. Armin could not see her face, but her body was slack, like she wasn't controlling it, like she was a limp doll being jerked to and fro by steel chords.

Historia was nowhere to be seen. Armin wondered if she'd gotten away somehow.

"This looks pretty grim," Frieda admitted. She looked out of place in this stark, dry setting, her skin glistening from the water that had swallowed her up, her hair and dress damp and sticking to her pallid flesh.

"Well instead of just letting it happen," Armin hissed, glaring at her vehemently, "help me fix this."

"I can try, but…" Frieda glanced around her, biting her lower lip. "This isn't really my element. I manifest myself in cold, dark settings! This is the complete opposite of cold and dark!"

"Frieda," Armin exhaled, feeling mildly furious. "You let me die. I was in a basement, where you could have easily intervened, but you didn't. I don't give a fuck about how you usually do things! Just help me do this now!"

"It's not that simple…" she uttered, looking shocked, and perhaps remorseful. Maybe she just hadn't thought to save him. Or maybe she just wasn't that nice.

"I don't care if you use all your fucking energy to do this," Armin told her sharply, feeling his body shaking, and realizing he was becoming unstable, his visage tearing like a piece of paper. "Disappear if you have to, Frieda. We're finishing this today, whether you're here or not!"

Frieda's eyes flashed so wide, big and glassy and horrified. Because he was implying that she cease to exist just to help him.

Eren would have done it if Armin had asked.

But Frieda wasn't Eren.

"I want to help, Armin," she told him in a small, shaky voice. "I really do…"

"Then do it!" Armin watched Historia slip out of the sleek looking car, looking dizzy and uncertain. She squinted through the sunlight, using her hand as a visor.

"I don't want to do this," she declared.

Kenny glanced back at her. He rolled his eyes, and he snatched a knife from his belt. Mikasa was jerked around, her back slamming against the door of the Camaro, her hair slipping against her cheeks, shielding her face from view. Kenny grabbed her wrist and sliced her hand open with a flick. It took a few seconds for the blood to pool, and Armin watched in horror as rivulets slid down her fingers, gathering up and dripping in quick successions onto the earth. The sand drank up her blood greedily, leaving not even a puddle in the dust.

Mikasa was released, left to hunch over defensively, her shoulders shaking. Probably in rage. Kenny marched up to Historia, who looked at him, her eyes flashing wide as Kenny snatched her by her hair, jerking her head back violently. Historia shrieked in pain. Armin saw that her neck was still raw and red from when Levi had tried to strangle her.

"Let me go!" Historia snapped, her tiny arms attempting to beat Kenny back. While her mouth was open, Kenny dangled the bloody knife over her face until a bead of blood dropped into her lips. She immediately began to coughed, clamping her hands over her mouth and hacking violently. Kenny threw her into the dust, kicking her back and causing her to cry out in an alarming shriek of pain. She curled up in the sand, rasping and gasping and shivering, her whole body quaking in pain and revulsion.

"What…" Historia coughed, her voice small and shaky. "What was that? I don't— I don't understand! Why are you doing this? Why— why…?" She continued to cough, curling further into herself, and Armin wished he could comfort her. But he barely existed. He was merely a spectator here.

Frieda lowered herself onto all fours, as she had earlier in the day, and she began to crawl. She was crawling toward Historia. Armin watched, realizing fearfully what she was doing.

"Frieda, no!" he snapped, appearing beside her as she tore the knife from Kenny's fingers.

Frieda had already flipped Historia around, raising the knife above her head to bring it down upon Historia's chest. She raised her eyes, glancing up at the terrifying ghost of her older sister, dripping wet and gripping her arm as she moved to stab her in the heart.

Historia screamed at the top of her lungs, a blood curdling scream that could reach the heavens and shake all of hell.

Armin tackled her, dragging her back as Historia shrieked again in pain. The knife had slashed against her ribs as Frieda had been yanked away.

"What the fuck?" Kenny spat, glancing at Historia as she grasped her bleeding side, practically hyperventilating. Armin was wrestling with Frieda, pinning her legs to the ground and attempting to wrench the knife from her fist.

"This isn't what I meant!" he snapped at her.

"This is the only way, you idiot!" Frieda elbowed him, but it didn't even hurt. It didn't faze him. He was no longer a prisoner to pain. So he continued to beat Frieda down, dragging her through the dust and squeezing her hand, praying she'd just drop the fucking knife. "You know that now! She has to die!"

"No she doesn't!" Armin let out a little breath of relief as the knife plopped into the sand. Frieda wriggled, her bony fingers gleaming in the flashes of liquid sunlight as she reached for it. Armin slammed her fist into the side of her face, beating her head back into the dust and watching her jerk away. "Kenny is the problem! It's never been about Historia, Frieda! You just make it all about her because you wish you'd killed her when you'd had the chance!"

"Shut up," Frieda murmured.

"No!" Armin snatched her by the front of her wet white dress, dragging her shoulders upright. "Listen to me. You shouldn't have died! You shouldn't have been driven to that point, and you know it! Nobody should have died, Frieda, it's just ridiculous. This should have been stopped a decade and a half ago."

She exhaled sharply, her gauzy eyes flickering away from his face. She looked uncertain, like his words were falling inside her head and hitting sharp ledges, smearing across her brain as they descended into a bottomless pit.

"Looks like we've got some company, eh, baby doll?" Kenny marched up to Mikasa, who'd raised her head only to stare vacantly at Historia's writhing little body. Her eyes were hollow, her face drained of color and her lips parted. "Time to head out."

"Will you do something?" Armin snapped at Frieda. "You said you could do something, so just do it! Anything!"

"I…" Frieda's expression seemed to fizzle, her emotions drying up as she closed herself behind a wall of vacancy, her limbs folding up in the dust. Armin released her, watching as she fell back and disappeared into the sand, leaving nothing but a cough of air and a wet spot drying fast in the dirt.

Armin wanted to sink into the dust too. To disappear altogether.

But that wasn't an option right now.

He stood shakily, his fury the only thing keeping him there, his love and loss dried up like the sands around him. He couldn't think or feel, connect or touch, so he simply left himself in this unbearable rut of rage.

What could he do? He was powerless.

"Eren…" Armin whispered, watching as Mikasa was buckled into the front seat of the Camaro. Kenny was whispering something to her, his head bent low, his long fingers dragging over her chin. He smiled, and he slammed the door shut.

Armin appeared beside the car, his fingers flashing through the faded paint that chipped away around the door handle. "Mikasa," he gasped, his hands fumbling through and through and through again, brushing through the car like it was made of air. "Mikasa, I'm here! I'm right next to you! Please listen to me, okay, don't do this!"

Through the window, he saw her stare at the keys in her hands.

Her fingers were trembling like a violent wind as she led them toward the ignition.

Armin couldn't deal with this.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, no—!"

He watched as the car revved, and dust spit beneath its tires. This wasn't the racetrack. This was just an empty strip of land. The Camaro went with a great burst of speed, a bullet made to ricochet and burst apart.

"Mikasa…!"

I didn't want this, he thought numbly. I wanted all of us to be together, but not like this! Not in death!

The more he thought about it, the more upset he became.

He was a wisp now. His rage was fading, and he couldn't feel anything but regret, watching the car that had been designated as Mikasa's tomb zip away.

Armin didn't even scream when the car exploded.

He just watched and listened, the earth shaking like an unsteady camera lens, the whole earth rattling in response to the blooming flames and the raining of smoking metal scraps.

That sound was coupled only by the wail of sirens in the distance. From somewhere. From nowhere.

He was everywhere now.

And then he heard it. The soft, muffled sobs that came from the great smoking husk of the old Camaro. Several yards away from the crash site, Mikasa was curled in the sand, her head resting in a lap, her fingers clutching at a man's sleeve.

Levi held onto her, his expression somber and his grip tight. He met Armin's eye, and he gave a curt nod.

"What are you doing here?" Armin whispered. He heard his voice like it was the whistle of a breeze between leaves.

Levi closed his eyes. He rested his hand against Mikasa's head.

"She's the only good thing left," he said quietly. "I guess… fuck, I don't know. Maybe saving her is worth losing myself over."

Armin was shaky. His relief drew over him, and he felt tears bubble up in his eyes, falling fat and heavy.

"Thank you…" He smiled tremulously. "Thank you… so much…"

"Don't thank me just yet," Levi muttered. He jerked his chin, and Armin glanced behind him. Kenny had decidedly marched toward Mikasa, probably noting she wasn't burning like she was supposed to be.

"God," he sighed, "you dumb little bitch. Who the fuck saved you this time? Was it that goddamn Jaeger brat again?"

Mikasa didn't respond. She curled into Levi's embrace. Armin sensed she really wished she was dead right now.

"This was supposed to be an easy out for you!" Kenny looked furious. "Why didn't you just take it? You can't live, you idiot!"

"Leave her alone," Levi snapped.

Kenny's eyes dragged toward Levi's face. He seemed to search the air, like he had trouble focusing. He grimaced.

"Ah," he said. "So it was you."

"Levi, what the fuck are you doing?" Armin hissed.

Levi shot him a glare that suggested Armin knew exactly what Levi was doing.

"Are you surprised?" Levi's voice was raw and scratchy. "I'm here. I'm here, and I'm fucking tired. Let me go. Stop using my soul for your fucking dirty work!"

"Will you quit begging on your knees like a little whore?" Kenny sneered. "You've been nothing all your life, so be grateful you get to be something in your death."

"Grateful?" Levi snapped. "You tortured and murdered me and buried my corpse under a shed in the woods. Now you use my unwilling fucking soul to lure kids to their deaths! And I'm supposed to be fucking grateful?"

The sirens were getting louder now.

"Keep going," Armin gasped, turning his attention toward the horizon. "This… this might work!"

"Why do you always take everything so personally?" Kenny sighed, closing his eyes. "Damn it. Your souls will just be eaten up anyway. Why do you insist on clutching to these washed up old feelings like guilt and sadness and fear, anyway? You're already dead!"

"I care because I didn't get to feel anything when I was alive," Levi said coldly. "You made sure of that."

Armin saw Annie's squad car pulling closer, and he wanted to cry from disbelief. She was here. She'd gone to Kenny's house like she'd promised, seen his message, seen his corpse.

And now she was here.

It was over.

Armin had won.

The sound of a knife sheathing into flesh, and a gasp of pain made his attention snap back to the matter at hand. Kenny. Mikasa. Levi.

Historia.

The knife Frieda had dropped.

Historia tore the knife from Kenny's back, and she stabbed him again in the shoulder. She ripped it out, her palm bright red and slick, her expression twisted in undying hatred and rage, and she buried the knife in his spine. Again. She yanked her arm back, and let the ribbed steel slice through his kidneys, his lower intestine, his lung, his other lung, until blood began to spur out and splash hotly against her cheeks, flecking her spun gold hair.

She bared her teeth.

"Welcome to the land of the dead, motherfucker," she snarled.

Her voice was demonic, a sweetened lilt of her own soprano voice mixed with the heavy drum of Eren's unrepentant fury.

The knife kept going. Kenny fell onto his side, and Historia merely kicked him, raising the knife and poking holes wherever she could find empty spaces.

"Die," she sang brightly, darkly, her eyes a mix of death and life, of ignorance and disgust. "Die, you goddamn monster, and let us all fucking rest in peace already!"

And then, without warning, she dropped the knife.

She looked down at her hands vacantly, blood painting her flesh up to her elbows, freckling her pale cheeks.

Eren stood beside her, looked faded and thin, his face hollow and eyes empty pits.

Historia stared at her hands, her mouth parting.

For a fraction of a second, her lips quirked into a smile.

And then she screamed.

And Eren screamed too.

He threw his head back, and he screamed into the heavens, because he had nothing left to really scream about.

Except perhaps that life wasn't fair when you were alive, so it makes sense that it doesn't get any easier after you die.

Armin wanted to scream too.

But instead he just moved to Eren's side. He took his hand, which was so strangely soft and so strangely there. Eren fought against him, tearing his hand away and stumbling back, his face falling into his hands. He kept screaming, screaming, screaming. The police officers were swarming them, rushing but all slow, slow, slow, and Armin realized that none of them mattered. It was like none of this was real anymore.

Beyond Eren's anguished scream, there was absolutely nothing.

Armin felt like he could drown in this revelation.

The world was dust, and so was he.

"Eren..." Armin reached out. He tried to get a grasp on Eren's hands. Eren beat them off. So Armin stood and stared, the world washing over him, and oh, it was such a dulling sensation. To know that you did not belong. "Eren... please..." When Armin reached, he felt like he was grappling at the dark. "Where... are you...? Where... did you go...?"

He was falling away. And maybe that was better, better, better.

What could keep him from moving on now?

His fingers were caught by the tips, and he found that the deep veil of sleep that had dragged over his eyes had fallen away. He felt like he was being dragged up from beneath an ocean wave, and he gasped, plodding and plummeting into some wayward version of reality.

Eren's eyes were swimming with tears. They were the only thing in the whole wide world. The only thing that could be in focus.

"You can't leave me," he whispered, gripping Armin's hands. "You can't leave me alone. I won't let you go."

"Eren..." Armin wanted to laugh. He fell dizzily against Eren's shoulder, and clung to the foreign edge of his skin. It was like trying to hold on to a frayed rope. "I don't know if I can promise... that I won't move on."

"If you loved me," Eren told him in a voice like water pattering, "you'd stay until I'm ready to go."

Armin was struck by how unbearably selfish that sounded. But he clung to Eren anyway. He didn't know if he was a ghost, or if where he was was real, or if there was a sky or a ground or air to breathe. All he knew was that there was Eren. And that was enough, perhaps, to keep a soul clinging.

"Then," Armin said faintly, looping his fingers through Eren's and leaning against him heavily, "I think I'll stay."

"Forever?"

Armin was staring. There was no Strip, there was no day, there was no real world beyond Eren's hand in Armin's.

"If that's how long it takes," Armin said, "for Mikasa to live out her life, then yes, forever and ever. But, Eren, you have to keep me here. I'm not strong like you."

"Sit with me," Eren said suddenly. When Armin looked around, he found that they were in the forest again. "Don't let go of my hand. We can wait forever. Just like this."

Armin felt, perhaps for the first time, a sense of peace.

"Just like this."