a/n: a/n: Well, this was something completely different. A real challenge, but a lot of fun to write. Hopefully someone finds this entertaining. (Yes, this is Dorminchu. I finally posted something and it's awful, awful, fucked-up crackfic. But hey, it's, uh, something!)


Not sure how to kick things into motion? No problem! Just throw in a random flash-back —


as we cut again to the city of Trost, exactly one week prior to the events of the previous chapter. There are no Titans, no soldiers, no bloodstains or body-parts littering the streets. All the buildings are intact, people go about their daily routines. Everything seems relatively normal.

Despite the lack of visible devastation, there's tension in the air. It's the ineffable kind, that everyone feels innately but doesn't like to think about.

The why is not as complex as you might think, at least, not in the grand scheme of things. It's important to remember that Trost, like Shiganshina, is a bait-city, meant to attract Titans while the rest of the population can live out their sorry lives with peace of mind. But no-one living behind Maria or Rose ever thought the Walls would collapse, so Trost was caught off guard when things went to hell. There's been a shortage of food, money, and a surplus of people ever since Wall Maria fell and the government demanded a place for the unlucky to stay. Many of the original occupants were already damned at birth; they'll always be less-fortunate than the people that live on the other side of Wall Rose.

Surprisingly, more than a few people from Shiganshina have reached out to their Trost-ian neighbors, banding together despite the odds and a less-than-pleasant reception. Together, they've continued to subsist, providing whatever meager care the government had decided to withhold to whichever residents were in greatest need.

That's how it started, anyway. Then the sick kept coming and prices drove up. One merciless winter, and the crops were dying, too. The people from Shiganshina started turning others away and trying to save themselves. Soon the government started rounding up people to "take back the land stolen from them", but everyone knew they were running out of room for both the dead and the living. It was easier to gather up the weak, the old, the crippled, the political enemies, and let them starve or be eaten behind closed gates.

There was a pushback, of course. Protests. Then riots broke out. The Military Police had their hands full for weeks. After a lot of bloodshed and toil, the MPs overpowered the civilians and there was a "truce" of sorts. More like an understanding: break the peace, and you'll be sent to the fields to join the dead.

Things got quiet after that. Recently, people have started signing up for the military draft. Or signing their kids up in the hopes of giving them a better life. These kids are taken from the arms of parents. There's minimal inspection; a dying race cannot afford to be picky. Some are willing. Others are just scared, trying to get away from their own, hellish circumstances, hoping blindly to find salvation within an uncertain future. Some will be sent to work the fields. Most will not survive. Others remain beggars, whores, and thieves; every city has an underbelly.

Human nature remains a predictable constant. Even though the violence has died down, the rift remains between the occupants of these two cities, unspeakable but unmistakable.

Maria was lost years ago. Now, there are whispers that Trost could be next and it's not safe to stay put anymore. The luckiest among the few, those with means, they talk of pulling up their roots and moving away — moving where? There is no safe haven within the Walls, only the ever-present, encompassing sense that their time is running out.

But let us step away from all of this expository padding and consider a separate, smaller plight.

On the eastern side of Trost, there runs a ditch. It used to ferry people through the channel. That was a few years ago. During the aftermath of Maria's fall, it functioned as a source of refuge for the people coming in. Now the water's more or less dried up and no one seems to know why. Life is full of mysteries, many of which are not worth dwelling on.

More importantly, there's someone in the ditch. Lying on his side in the heart of the empty channel, with his limbs and ribs and nose bruised and/or broken, his face pressed against the ground, Armin Arlert opens the one eye that's not stuck shut with blood and mud. Looking at the sky, the soft rosy light of dawn. A few clouds inch across the unblemished expanse above him.

He's alone, as far as he can tell. His attackers must've gotten bored with beating him to death and left him to bleed out into the dirt. He supposes he's lucky that's all they did.

That aside, they didn't do a very good job of it. By it, of course, he means putting him out of his misery. Armin's sort of disappointed, on reflection. Not because being alive hurts like nothing he's ever known, nor because of the fact he is probably going to picked apart slowly by birds or rats or people, worst of all. It's just — completely unfair, like a lot of things in his life.

Deliverance is a cruel joke. His sense of self-loathing and existential despair follows him, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even during church, even when he sleeps. It weighs on him in a way that Eren and Mikasa can try to understand but never will. Hatred of his own ability to survive has become subconscious, and now, lying here in the mud, with the town above him, the sheer injustice of it all becomes personified, like an old, childhood enemy hanging around at his deathbed.

Distantly, he can hear the sound of the people going about their lives. Nobody passes by this way. No one will come for him. The ditch itself is rather damp, which surprises him a little. Mud cloys easily to his skin and shirt. Mud and piss and shite and God only knows what else the criminal element gets up to down here.

He feels awful cold. Blood smeared all over his skin where he retains the sense of things. He should have known better. He should have waited back at the post with Eren or Mikasa. They were the ones that explicitly told him not to go into Trost. He was the one that yammered on about how dangerous it was to go, but Jean didn't listen. Jean, Ymir, and an unwilling Marco dragged him along for the ride with the promise that they would protect him.

In hindsight, he figures Marco probably meant it. Ymir was likely in this for a chance to sneak some alcohol back with her; she couldn't care less what happened to any of them. And yes, Jean's an idiot (like Eren, God bless him) but Armin would have thought someone like Jean would to have enough sense not to drag him into the worst part of the city on the pretense of getting food. (Alcohol. What does it matter, anyway?)

Maybe Armin's being too generous. Eren's not a prat, not intentionally. Jean is. He really is. Everyone knows it. He's not even like Reiner or something, where the obnoxiousness is canceled out by genuine talent and expertise. Oh sure, he's talented, what does that matter. Armin's going to die alone, and he's happy to blame someone else for his current set of circumstances because even in the face of death, he's not happy.

Kirschtein, you stupid fucking prick, he thinks, I'm going to haunt your arse until the day you die and that's not even half of what you deserve.

If there truly is an afterlife, a just and loving God, maybe he'll find out. The thought brings him immense comfort, and he relaxes against the grimy riverbed.

Armin waits, his breath rattling and thin, ready for the inevitable. Then he waits some more. He's still alive by the time a few more people and a carriage pass by the ditch. The sounds fall away from his ears.

It's around this point that Armin decides God isn't merciful at all. He's still dying, not dead. Like when you lie down on your bed and try to go to sleep, but your brain is still whizzing about of its own accord and you lie there for minutes, maybe hours, wishing for something that should come easily. Maybe he's the arrogant prick and God is rubbing that in his face by withholding the sweet release of death. Fuck the Titans, fuck whatever is over the Walls that he'll never get to see because of his own incompetence, just fuck everything, actually. What kind of brilliant young mind lets himself be tricked into such an obviously dangerous situation? (Armin wonders if this is what Tantalus felt like. Well, maybe Pelops would be a better example, except, Armin muses, he's not about to be cannibalised. He really, really hopes he's dead before then.)

Things can't get much worse for him. At least, that's the conclusion he's come to, until he's hauled up, off the ground, in a sitting position. There is a man holding him, his clothes smudged with grime. He must have clambered down here, God-knows-why.

"Your name," says the man, the strangely familiar man with long dark hair and glasses, "what's your name, cadet?"

Armin hears the words but can't respond coherently. He's not cognisant enough to focus on why this mysterious figure cares that he is a cadet and not a street rat. Everything seems a little colder.

"Cadet?"

The voice carries a familiarity, buried somewhere in his conscious. Armin smiles, blood dripping from his mouth. He doesn't even care what happens next as long as he doesn't have to wake up again.


A scourge of beasts, II

or; when life triumphs through adversity


Snap back to the present. More specifically, we're in the forest from the end of chapter one, far from the safety of Wall Rose, in Titan territory. If this story were a wee bit more ostentatious, there would be a paragraph or two dedicated to some more mythological imagery, perhaps indicating Eren's symbolic rebirth from his Titan to a human form. Or we could talk more about the Goo [tm] and how it's actually symbolic for some other, poorly-realized metaphor involving life, or the creation of.

But it's not, and we won't, because I'm not nearly pretentious enough, and it'll just make our protagonist suffer longer than is necessary. So I'll cut the poor guy some slack this time and say that Eren is still curled up on the ground, covered in slime from the Titan transformation.

He hasn't bothered to try and take the dead soldier's clothes, but he's contemplating the notion. He knows that he'll have to move eventually. He won't get any warmer if he stays here, cradling the dead. He stares right into the face in the hope of feeling something.

It's a young man. His skin is pale, but that could be due to exposure. He's got reddish-blonde hair, and one grey eye that is not festering. He can't have been dead for long, but he's already rotten. The flesh is discoloured where it has not been eaten away, revealing the grey of bone, muscle. Flies and other insects burrowing within.

The stench is so overwhelming that Eren swears he can taste it. He gags. Rolling away, but he feels very sick. Heaving as he sprawls out, on hands and knees. He starts to crawl away, retching weakly. Nudity leaves him hyperaware of the earth below, the leather strap connecting him to the canteen, which feels a lot heavier against his skin than it ought to. Nauseous as he tries to stand, stumbling back down to a crouch. He sets his eyes back upon the source of his distress.

The body. The body is torn from the abdomen across the right leg, which is missing. But the clothes, the jacket. He needs those. It's not going to be easy. He feels the bile rise in the back of his throat, grits his teeth.

He reminds himself that death is no stranger.


The clothes Eren took from the dead soldier don't really fit him well. He's a little too small for them, and the fabric is sticky with gore where rot and mud have seeped in. But it's something. Anything is better than nothing.

It's getting dark as he stumbles on his own through the trees. Eren knows he will have to find food and shelter. He has no maneuver gear. No water. No rations. He could climb a tree, but what is the point when some of the Titans are just as tall? Might as well call him a dead man walking.

He reckons maybe he ought to feel worse about his situation, all things considered. But he doesn't feel anything. Tired, mostly. Abruptly, he feels a warm wetness come from his nostrils and down his face, tastes copper.

"Shit," he seethes, wiping his face. The flow doesn't stop. He clamps a hand over his nose, hoping it will eventually clot over. He won't be able to transform again. Not until he's healed. And he has no way of telling when that will happen. It doesn't matter much, in the grand scheme of things.

Blood trickles from the confines of his hand and he gives up, snuffling thickly through the flow. A visceral shudder overtakes him; he can't quite compose himself. Maybe he just doesn't want to understand. He flexes his hands, just for something to do. His right hand, in particular, feels oddly tacky, down to the wrist. Sore, because he keeps drawing a fist, and his fingers come away sticky. He'll draw blood, the way he keeps digging his nails into flesh. He needs to stop doing that but it reminds him that he is alive.

He remembers clawing his way from the Titan, and the transformation that brought him here. Nothing much beyond this. The sky's darkening, but the sun has not set; shouldn't there be Titans lurking around?

Best not to question it.

His pace slows. Soon it will be too dark to see. He takes refuge in the shape of a nearby tree, watches the blood drip onto his clothed leg. There's something very important he still has to do. But it's difficult to keep his eyes open, despite the cold seeping into his bones.

Eren inhales, exhales, too tired to feel much of anything, anymore. What will closing his eyes hurt? He's probably gonna die anyway.

Not out here, though. He's sure of that, in a fragile sense.

He doesn't remember closing his eyes, but —


— some things are out of your control —


— in the instant before the next, where he is aware something is horribly wrong, then —


Everything is quiet. Open my eyes and I feel at peace and empty all at once, if that makes any sense.

I'm not in the forest anymore. I'm in a room I don't recognise, on the floor. Hardwood. Rolling over, I can see a bed above on the right, and when I look over to my left there is a window. It's ajar. No breeze. The sun's out. Midday, I think. The room is nice, if small. Maybe someone lives here and took me in.

Body aches. Maybe from the fall that woke me. Tangled up in sheets and then I realise they're soaked through. It's hot. Almost steamy, I guess. I try to think but it's like my mind is working half-the-speed it normally does. I'm being stifled, and I want to get up but my body feels like lead. I'm all sweaty, too. I can still taste blood in my mouth. Ugh.

Faintly annoyed as I try to free myself, try to sit up, naked. Smeared with blood . Panic as I start to realise it's not mine. Bits of muscle, skin. Skin?

I should be sick, I guess. I should be hysterical. I feel nothing but a gnawing sense of comprehension. How did I get here? There's an answer, right in front of me, somewhere in this room but I can't bring myself to face it. Don't go to the window to cry for help. Something in my gut tells me I have to be very quiet.

On my feet, I search the room first. A doorway on the wall farthest from me leads out into a street, but I don't hear anyone coming. Looking around, I see more signs of a struggle. The room has been torn apart. There is a heavy looking dresser tipped on its side, a bed beside me, no sheets. Look up at the ceiling; the sky's exposed, a massive, jagged hole where a roof should be. Turn to the window and find it shattered.

I don't remember any of this…

Become conscious of the fact that I am the only one here that is unharmed. All around outside, there is debris. There's an arm, I think…? No. Still attached to the body or what's left of it. Smell is getting to me. I shuffle to the door when I hear something move behind me.

Whirl around, on the defensive. Eyes drawn to the bed. There is a body sprawled out upon the mattress. Intact, untouched. It raises its head, looks at me like nothing is wrong.

"Where are you going?"

Don't know how to answer. Starting to relax as familiarity overtakes better judgement. I go to her. Her hands are warm when she cups my face, fingers in my hair. Become aware of my own bloodiness, and try to brush her away but she doesn't seem to mind. Don't know why I'm so calm. I just know she's alive. This used to be someone's house and everything else around me is dead. She is safe.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress beside her, I guess that means I'm safe, too. I close her in. Try to smile for the both of us.

Up close, I notice that her eyes are glazed. She's breathing heavily, but her grip is steady as she guides me, palm over her cheek, the side of her throat and I let my thumb rest against the pulse there for a second before continuing down.

The flesh is warm. Has a bit of give to it, like the body of the recently deceased. Stop thinking like that and try to concentrate on how she feels. The smell of her. I draw her up a sitting position, leg between hers. She ruts against me and I can already feel how wet she is. Pull her up and against me and she gasps a little. Then her mouth is at my throat and she's grabbing my hand, leading me down.

Jesus.

She chuckles, low and hoarse. Take her by the shoulder and push so she's braced against the wall. She's smiling when I look at her. I'm never going to get used to seeing her like that. I never want to get used to it.

Opening her up is easy. Cupping her groin in my palm and she presses back onto me. Stop, up to the knuckle inside her.

"What?" she asks hoarsely. Perfectly normal. Her cunt flutters and I — I don't know what's happening to me. I don't want to stop. Bring my fingers together, press in quick and she contracts around me, groaning. Draw my hand out so my thumb teases the edge of her cunt and I lean in, nose-to-nose.

You're so wet.

Her eyes are glassy. Kiss her again, start to thrust. She hums. Pull back and — there's this sensation of cold prickling all over my skin and in my chest — blink, and she's breathing thickly, like she's congested near the point of suffocation. Dry-drowning.

Reach out and cup her face, trembling viciously. Try to speak. Mouth opens and nothing comes out.

A-Annie?

She doesn't move. Air leaves her chest in a slow, rattle of a sigh. Still looking at me.

I think she's trying to smile but her jaw is loose.

Oh.

Oh Jesus Christ.

Disconnecting from the present — there is a sudden, irreversible urge to flee. Propel myself away as though she's burned me.

Don't look down. Don't fucking look. Somehow able to manage this.

Jesus fucking christ she's, she's dead and I think (stop) why don't I remember —

— in an instant a change of scene split wide open from belly to sternum, blood oozing from the mouth and — no

nononono

don't

don't think about

the blood (her blood?) all over my skin

and her insides spilling out of what's left of her all this raw soggy meat insides

jesus fuck

i can taste it i thi —

the very scene shifts with my ability to accept what is happening

double over going to be sick on the bloodied sheets her blood it's her fucking blood it's her

how long has she been dead like this

stumbling away from her

from this room

need to get outside

please

let me wake up

let me be sick

i don't want this

i don't


there's a sign at the window

that he struck you

a crescendo, annie

— it's symbolic, you see, like a popular song that doesn't exist in this world, and in reality still wouldn't exist for several decades, or centuries, depending on which fan theories you subscribe to —


out into the street

too many dead to bury

and I turn and turn upon myself but find no one

struck suddenly in the chest by something heavy and blunt, bringing me to the ground

there is a man above in uniform his rifle raised and pointed at me because I am a murderer

and he opens his mouth and says —


"What the hell are you doing out this far in Titan territory?"


a/n: What a tweest! - Dorminchu, 11/24/17