-the woods-

The woods are a scary place after dark. Even to Mikasa, who knows them better than anybody. No amount of knowledge or confidence can stifle the feeling that something is watching you, something hidden where you'll never find it.

Her steps were light and swift, soundlessly leaving their tracks in the soft earth below. She kept her hood pulled low over her face, an odd chill brushing the hairs of her arms. Goosebumps grew, despite the rather warm air. Mikasa ignored them and kept a steady stride, her lips pursed and her grip tight on her basket.

Something snapped behind her.

She stiffened, whirling around, muscles so tense they shook.

Nothing.

She turned to the left, her eyes digging between the trees. Nothing.

She turned to the right and scanned the forest floor. Nothing.

With near-panicked hesitation, she turned back around and forced her legs to move, beginning to ease herself back into the rhythm she'd been keeping.

Plenty of things live in the woods, she reminded herself sternly. Squirrels. Rabbits. Foxes. Deer.

Bears, too, I suppose, but when's the last time I've seen one? Never. I have never in my life seen a bear closer than a few miles away. And none have after taken after me. I am fine. I will be safe. It is a short trip to Armin's. Eren's waiting for me there. Eren will be there.

Something rustled. Her heart stopped. Her legs stopped.

Eren is waiting.

Her legs moved.

Eren is waiting for me there.

They moved faster.

I'll see him there. I'll feel his arms around me.

She began to jog.

I'll see his smile.

She began to sprint.

The inky night sky dripped over the girl in the red riding hood, the trees towered and whispered, things snapped, things rustled, she could've sworn she heard footsteps other than her own, but they were too quiet, drowned out by her heart slamming in her chest, her thoughts roaring in her ears, Eren's name clouding her hearing, Eren's smile blinding her so she couldn't see how the world loomed over her, hungry and sinister.

And then, before she knew it, the toes of her boots were lined up at Armin's door.

It was awfully quiet. No light shone from the windows.

"Of course it's dark," Mikasa murmured to herself, turning the knob. "Someone's dying inside."

-hollow-

A few clumsy stumbles after closing the door behind her, Mikasa found a lone candle flickering in the next room. She rushed to grab it, and then lit all other candles she could find nearby.

"Eren!" she called, hoping she wasn't waking anyone from their sleep. "Armin? Mr. Arlert! Is anyone home?"

Her voice sank into the wood of the walls. It was as though she'd shouted into a hollow box. Her skin began to crawl again.

"I..." she faltered. "I brought...pastries..."

Someone grabbed her hand.

Their arm barred Mikasa's shoulders.

A knife was pressed to her throat.

"How sweet," they said. "But it's all for naught. The old man's dead."

Mikasa's heavy breathing hitched.

"Wh...why," she choked out. "Ro...bber...?"

"Think again, Princess. You're talking to your good ol' Uncle Kenny."

-breaking-

A rather pathetic, mangled yelp of terror escaped Mikasa's lips. The knife pressed further against her skin.

Kenny laughed, and the sound was ugly and ragged, like someone had ripped up his vocal chords. "I'm sure my dear nephew's told you some stories. It's an honor to meet you in the flesh."

He drew a line against her neck with the blade, pressing just hard enough to draw some blood. Mikasa whimpered.

"You're the spitting image of your mother, you know that? I feel like I'm seeing her for the second time. But funny thing is, you still look like an Ackerman. Like my sister. Like her son. It almost makes me want to spare you."

To Mikasa's confusion, he paused. She could've sworn she felt the blade shaking, just a little bit, against her neck.

But it stopped soon enough. Kenny's voice returned, harsh and resolute as his hot breath filled her ear.

"But I won't. I've got a job to do, and that Rod Reiss- he's a son of a bitch if I ever saw one. The prick would pull out my fingernails if I let you go free, and then kill you himself, in the slowest, most painful way he could think up. He's a sick bastard like that."

Another beat of silence passed. The blade did not tremble, but its pressure softened. Kenny took a deep breath.

"Y'know, Mikasa, I was there when you were born. I held you when you were less than a day old."

More silence. Mikasa's vision was blackening at the ends.

"Your father and I were close. I puked my guts out when I killed him. Cried myself a river."

The darkness began to burn her eyes.

"I spared Levi," Kenny continued. "Couldn't do it to him. Practically my goddamn son. Would've gone mad. Reiss thinks he's dead. I killed some other poor motherfucker instead, gave Reiss his corpse. Did little for my conscience, but at least it wasn't him."

"L...et...go...please..." Mikasa gasped, unable to stand it any longer.

Silence.

Her words curled in her throat, rang in her ears, in Kenny's. It was pathetic. Small. A plea.

Please.

Please, please, please. Please!

Kenny let go abruptly. Mikasa dropped to the floor, wheezing.

Ragged breaths wrung her lungs, barely escaped the tight passage of her throat. Reflexively, she brought a hand up to her neck.

Blood.

Wet, warm, slippery. The color of her hood. The color of life. Oozing. Staining. Red.

"I tried," Kenny exhaled angrily. "I had the whole fuckin' act down. The sick bastard who gets a kick out of killing his own family. I was this goddamn close!"

His hand slammed down on a nearby table. Various dirty dishes clattered. She jumped.

For a moment, her eyes scoured the stain on her hand, seeking the clean hints of pale skin that peeked through the crimson. Was this what her parents saw before they died? Was this what she would see before it was her turn?

Was this it?

Years of never tempting fate, of being careful.

And this was what it all came down to?

Kenny pointed a bony, blood-crusted finger at his niece. His face crumpled.

"And you! You ruined it all, with a single goddamn word!"

Mikasa shuddered, weakly trying to scramble backward. Kenny's eyes blazed.

And then they fell.

And he fell, too, to his knees, staring at the rug beneath him.

"All you had to do was say 'please', and I broke. I can't kill you, kid. Not another one. I can't do it. I can't slit another throat. Not for Reiss and his obsession with us. Not even to save my own skin."

There was another silence.

Mikasa staggered to her feet.

Shakily, she stumbled over to him.

Picked up the knife he'd dropped.

Grabbed his shoulder, possessed with terror, anger, bitterness, and shoved the knife into his stomach.

Her next words, hoarse and slow as they were, were dripping with malice.

"Too bad...you didn't break...when my parents...said so."

Her uncle twitched, gurgled. Blood bubbled from his mouth, bathed his lips. He grimaced. The oozing choker on her neck matched the fabric of her cloak, the spit he coughed up to her face.

Blood on her cheek.

Red on snow.

Rage, rage. She trembled with it. Burned.

And she collapsed beside her dying uncle, in the house of a dead man, blood soaking her cloak, her skin, her hands.

She cried until darkness enveloped everything she might possibly see.

Until, for the second time in her life, the world was pitch-black.

-asleep-

When Eren and Armin returned from their walk, they found two dead men and a sleeping girl.

Armin, who'd just been coerced into a near-stable state of mind, was thrown out of any sort of stability he'd managed to scavenge. He screeched and held his grandfather's head against his shoulder, rocking back and forth, sobbing.

Eren scooped up the girl in the red riding hood and shook her, noting the cut on her throat and the bloodstains in the floor and the strange man beside her with a knife in his gut.

He held her head to his chest, fingers brushing against her face, searching desperately for any signs of life. His stomach lurched.

"Wake up, Red Riding Hood," he whispered. His eyes began to well up. His voice became thick. "Wake up, Mikasa. Please. For me."

She did not stir.

Tears began to fall. "Mikasa, wake up, for god's sake!" he shouted. He shook her. "You can't do this to me, Mikasa, you-"

A sob seized his voice. It bounced in his diaphragm, endless and consuming. It crumpled him from the waist up. He broke down over her, his Little Red Riding Hood, the girl he'd kissed in the creek, the girl he'd dreamed of marrying someday.

"Please don't be dead," he begged, and he was so quiet. "Please just be sleeping."

-light-

"Eren."

He opened his eyes. Looked at her.

"Mikasa?"

"Eren's waiting for me," she murmured, her eyes still closed. He could hardly hear her.

"You're- you're alive! Oh, my god!"

"He'll wrap his arms around me."

He grabbed her hand. "I will!"

"I'll see his smile."

"And I'll see yours!"

"And he'll make it all go away."

He stopped.

Her lips turned upward in the slightest of smiles.

"The sun...he makes all the darkness go away. He's so warm...I don't know what cold is."

"Mikasa."

"He makes me want to laugh."

"Mikasa."

"He makes me want to smile."

"Mikasa."

"He makes me feel like I'm alive again...like darkness doesn't exist..."

Eren pulled her into the warmest, most secure hug he could muster.

Her eyes fluttered open.

"...Eren?"

"I love you, Little Red Riding Hood," he whispered.

She sank into him. "And I love you, woodsman," she mumbled. Her eyelashes dampened. "I have for a while, haven't I?"

Her eyes caught his smile, his blinding, relieved smile. The only thing in the world that was real.

Eren pulled her to his chest, cradling her head, holding her so, so close to him. Her lids flickered, heavy with sleep.

It was all a dream, her heart told her. It was all just a bad dream.

-dark-

But it wasn't.

"I killed him," she whispered. Nausea began to creep into her gut.

"I don't care," Eren said.

"He spared me, and I killed him."

Her words were tiny. Shaky. Her mouth felt dry.

"You had every right to."

She pulled away from him, shaking her head furiously, and was unable to pull her eyes away from her hands.

Crusty. Stained.

She matched her uncle.

"Oh, god."

Her words wavered. She began to tremble all over.

Eren reached for her, grabbing her hand, hoping to calm her down, but she snatched it away from him. Looked him in the eyes.

They searched her face for answers, as they had that day at the creek. Answers he couldn't find himself. Answers he wanted so desperately.

Answers she never had, and never would.

There was blood on his chin, blood on his hand as it reached for her. From when he'd held her.

And that's what did it.

That's what sent her legs flying, sprinting out the door and into the night she'd been so terrified of moments before.

Away from Eren, away from the light of the house, away from her basket and fallen pastries and her grieving friend and their dead relatives.

All she had now was the darkness. And her cloak.

Her bloody, stained, flittering red riding hood.

Eren clambered after her, shouting her name, but soon enough, his foot caught on the root of a tree, twisting at a painful angle, and he fell to the ground.

Armin, who'd managed to collect himself once he'd realized his house was empty, soon found him. Breathless, injured. He helped him back inside, despite his adamant protests.

After that, neither of them saw Mikasa Ackerman for a long, long time.

-end part 2-

AN: Part two of five, for sure this time. This story turned out to be much longer than I'd anticipated.

Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews! I appreciate you guys's feedback so much! To that one guest reviewer who couldn't speak much English, don't worry. I'm very glad you told me you liked it, regardless of the length of your message, and I look forward to hearing from you again!

Again, a billion thanks to Nat for betaing this. As an added note, if you like Eremika and mind-blowing writing, I'd check out her fics here with the username natiwati. I'm sure you'll enjoy them.

Please review! And a belated happy new year!