After classes were over, Eren made a quick stop at his apartment to change into some clean clothes before meeting Annie. He was excited, but nervous at the same time and it took all of his willpower to calm his quaking heartbeat. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror; the tips of his hair were still damp from the shower.

He took a deep breath, "Let's do this…" Honestly there was a nagging feeling in his gut, but he brushed it off as mere nerves. He locked the door of his apartment and made his way to the arcade stationed a few blocks away. He didn't even have to wait for very long in front of the building before Annie showed up. Eren smiled at her, that badgering feeling still raging in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself to ignore it.

"Hey, how was your day?" Eren asked.

Annie shrugged her shoulders, "It went okay. Work was tiring but I somehow made it through."

Eren nudged her shoulder, "I didn't know you had a job. Where do you work?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Annie said teasingly with a slight smile.

Eren laughed, though somewhat confused at the reply. He let it go though and took Annie's hand in his. His cheeks were lobster red and you could tell by the look on his face he was quite nervous.

"Hey, relax," Annie squeezed his hand and winked, "I promise I won't bite."

He nodded and let out a shaky breath, "so, where do you want to start?" he asked, looking around the arcade area. To their left was the entrance to the laser tag room and to their right was where all the arcade games were.

Annie led him to their left, to laser tag of course.

Eren grinned and followed her in, the black-light making the Death Star on his Star Wars T-shirt glow bright. For a moment there he second guessed his choice of clothing but it was too late now and seeing the back of Annie's shirt made him breathe a sigh of relief. On the back of hers in glowing white letters read:

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

Eren smiled, believing that his luck had finally changed for the better.

After many hours of laser tag, basketball, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, and one huge giant, red dinosaur stuffed animal later, Annie and Eren walked hand-in-hand out of the arcade. At this point, it was about 9 o'clock at night and the sun had long since set below the horizon. The city was lit with life as the many restaurants, late-night karaoke bars, and shopping malls were bustling with the thousands of people who lived in the city.

The only downside was the blistering cold, which was evident from the puffs of steam emanating from the Eren and Annie's mouths as they talked.

"I had a lot of fun tonight," Eren said with a blush as they crossed one of the many busy streets. "Do you think we could… uhhh… Do it again sometime?"

Annie turned her head towards Eren and nodded, "Maybe next time we could go see that new video game store that just opened."

Eren grinned, "Totally." He then paused in front of a small convenience store, where, normally, they would part ways to go home since they live on opposite sides of the city. Eren thought of Mylius though, the boy who was just found murdered, and without thinking he asked, "Want me to walk you home?"

"You would do that?" She asked him.

Eren nodded at her and smiled, "Of course I would. The streets have been dangerous lately and I want to make sure you get home okay. Besides," he leaned down to kiss the top of her hand, "If I didn't, what kind of gentleman would I be?"

She chuckled softly and kissed his cheek. "Thank you. What about you though?."

Eren laughed, "Me? I'll be okay. I'm strong."

Annie laughed and playfully punched his shoulder, in which Eren accidentally muttered the word "ow."

"Sure you are." she replied with the smile.

They walked for a little while longer, making small talk here and there, as Annie led Eren into one of the central neighborhoods. They passed through an alley, where a man was busily making a phone call. It was dark so neither Annie nor Eren could see him very well and he was talking in a rather hushed tone. Although it was a little weird, they barely paid him much attention to him and continued on.

Annie directed Eren up to one of the smaller houses lining the street and both of them went up the steps onto the porch. Annie pulled out her keys and unlocked the front door, "would you like to come inside? I could make you some coffee if you want."

Eren hesitated, the nagging feeling hit him with full force once again, "I probably shouldn't. My sister is probably waiting for me to get home."

She turned back toward him, "Are you sure?" Annie leaned in close to him and smirked, "I make one mean cup of coffee." She clutched the front of his collar, "Besides, if it gets too late you could always just spend the night."

Eren scratched the back of his head, blushing like crazy, "What the hell. Why not?" Annie dragged him into the house and Eren took a seat at the kitchen table, a bit edgy. What was up with him today?

He glanced around the tidy living space. There wasn't much along the walls, no personal photos or paintings and it was sparsely furnished, but it was cozy. He practically chided himself for being so worried.

"How do you like your coffee?" Annie asked as she slowly poured hot water over a filter full of coffee beans.

"Black, please," Eren replied, "I've never liked any cream or sugar in my coffee."

Annie set the freshly-made cup of coffee in front of him and then poured another one for herself. "Good," she said with a slight smirk while sitting down at the table across from Eren, "Neither have I."

"Oh really?" Eren inquired, laughing a bit. "I guess that's one thing we have in common. It's strange though, you seem like the type of girl who likes sweets."

Annie took a sip of her coffee and laughed, "Not at all. What makes you think that?"

Eren shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, just a feeling I guess, but looks like I'm wrong this time." He gulped down the last of his drink. Damn she could make a good cup of coffee.

After Annie finished hers, she took both of their cups to the sink, "So what do you think?"

Eren was confused for a moment, his cheeks going bright red, "about what?"

She flung a bit of water at him, noting his reaction and laughing, "The coffee, you jerk. My mother taught me how to make it when I was a little kid."

"Oh!" Eren stood up a bit embarrassed. "It was really good. Hell, I wish I could make coffee that good. Maybe you could teach me sometime."

Annie strode close to Eren, barely an inch between their bodies. It was the closest they had been all night, "Maybe..."

Being as short as she was, Annie had to stand on the tip of her toes to be able to reach Eren's lips.

Eren was caught by surprise by the sudden kiss. His thoughts were racing and his entire body felt hot. He couldn't move, he was frozen as they kissed. It was then a sharp pain on his lips dragged him out of his daze. He and Annie separated and he breathed heavily as he tried to wrap his mind around what happened. He brought his fingers to his lips, there was blood.

"You bit me…" it barely came out as a whisper. He looked at Annie as she licked her lips.

"Now this is a surprise," she said mostly to herself, "I guess I do like the taste of a sweet meal." Annie paused for a moment. She thought his scent was off but she had ignored it and now she could taste it clearly in his blood. She grabbed the collar of Eren's shirt and smashed him against the wall, trapping him there intensely enough to leave a fair sized crack in the plaster, "Who the hell are you?" Her voice cut at Eren like a finely sharpened knife.

"I-I don't know… what you're talking about!", Eren's head had been hit pretty hard against the wall and he could feel the warmth of blood trailing down his neck. He was completely at a loss. One moment they were kissing and now he was almost at the point of passing out from how hard Annie shoved him against the wall. What the hell was going on?!

She leaned in real close to him, revealing her kakugan, the ghoul's eyes. The entirety of both of her eyes were black, except for the iris, which was a deep shade of blood red, "You're starting to piss me off. Quit feigning ignorance," She pierced him right through the stomach with her hand like a hot knife through butter, "you're not human, your scent is wrong."

Eren cried out and he could taste blood in his mouth. He was dizzy and he was losing a lot of blood. A ghoul?! How in bloody hell was this happening?!

Annie brought her blood soaked hand to her mouth and tasted his blood again. "You taste neither like a ghoul nor a human but some sick combination of both."

Eren looked at Annie through extremely terrified eyes, blood dripping out of his stomach and mouth, "You… are a ghoul…?" The words passed through his lips, barely a whisper.

Annie smirked, but the emotion didn't reach her red and black eyes. She leaned in close to him again, enunciating every word, "I'm surprised it took you this long to figure it out." At that moment, Annie began to release her kagune, an ukaku type that sprouted from her shoulder blades, "Do you know what the tastiest part of the human body is?" She slowly moved her kagune, which looked like thin, crystalized spider legs, barely a centimeter away from Eren's right eye.

Eren wanted to close his eyes but his gaze was locked on Annie. He couldn't scream, pain wracked his entire body and all he could do was wait for her to pluck out his own two eyes.

It was then he heard a ringtone from a cell.

Annie let go of Eren and he fell to the floor, "Damn it…What do you want now…?" Annie flipped open her cell to see the caller ID, "Tch…" she answered it without saying hello. "Reiner, I'm a little busy at the moment, what do you want?"

"I don't give a shit what you are doing right now, we have to leave. It's the Doves. I think they've caught onto our trail."

Annie's face darkened, she remembered seeing someone as her and Eren were walking towards the house. She didn't give it much thought before but now she wished she had, "Shit. Did they spot you? Where are you and Bertholdt now?"

"No, I don't think they've spotted us and we're a few blocks away. Annie, get your mask on and get out of there now. You know where to meet us." After that, Reiner immediately hung up the phone.

There was a loud rasp on the door, but Annie did not make a move to answer it. Instead she gazed at Eren, "Looks like you won't be my snack today after all" She slipped on her mask, which she had hanging on the wall close by. "By the looks of it you're already dead. Bye-bye, Jeager." It was the last thing she said before she disappeared through the back door.

Eren was abandoned there, bloody and broken, with his back against the wall and his insides all but hanging out of him. In retrospect he should have been dead by now, with the amount of blood that he had lost, but he wasn't, which made the pain he was feeling that much more penetrating. He gathered the strength to stand to his feet to try to get help but his knees were shaking beneath him and he had to use the wall for balance.

He heard someone ramming against the locked door, trying to bust it open, but it hardly registered within his brain.

Eren took a step forward, blood spilling out of his abdomen. The throbbing pain was too much though and after a moment he lost his balance. Someone caught him though, and when Eren looked up to see who it was, he saw the last person he expected to see, his mother. She was there holding him up in the flesh, smiling with her beautiful smile and her auburn hair pulled into a side pony tail. His mother sat down with Eren and laid him in her lap, cupping his cheek with the palm of her hand. He could feel her hand like she was truly there in front of him, solid, warm, and alive. Eren looked into her eyes and what he saw was not sea-green colour that he was used to seeing from the photos of her. Her eyes were black and the irises a dark, deep red; the eyes of a ghoul. It didn't frighten him though, because with those eyes she gazed at with all the love a mother could muster. She dropped her head down to him and whispered into his ear:

It's time for you to wake up, my son.

His vision went dark, and he felt a hot surge through his body. It wasn't painfully hot though, it almost felt…nice… almost peaceful. He open his eyes again to see his mother's smile once again. She said something to him, but he couldn't hear her voice.

Suddenly, his mother's image vanished and someone else took her place. He could barely make out the face of the stranger but he remembered those eyes, from somewhere, though he couldn't quite remember. They were a beautiful shade of blue-grey that had Eren captivated. Oh yeah… It's the guy from the coffee shop. Why is he here…? He then realized he was shouting something at Eren. He couldn't make out what it was though; everything around him had gone completely silent. He noticed though, that the stranger's eyes were filled with anger, worry, and most noticeably, fear. Eren didn't have the strength to respond him and he let his eyelids droop shut, this time for good.