END GAME

Chapter 4: Watching The Tapes

Fingers dragged at his skin, pulling him backwards into the pit of darkness below. His own fingers scrabbled in the dirt at the edge of the pit, fighting for purchase on the loose gravel and dirt. Sharp stones dug into his fingers, drawing blood and making the rocks slicker than before. His foot caught on a ledge and he pushed himself up, inch by agonizing inch.

The hands gripping him strained to keep him in, strong despite their emaciated appearance, with every bone and vein visible beneath the pale and translucent skin. Dirt-crusted nails dug into his flesh, drawing blood and sending it trickling down his legs. The bony fingers pulled him downwards, and the voices raked his ears, hoarse and scratchy, like the owners of the voices had not used them in years. "Eren… Eren… don't leave us… Eren… stay with us… forever…"

Eren tried to let out a scream but nothing would leave his uncooperative throat. It constricted around his words, locking them in and forcing them back down. He threw his hand up, fighting for purchase further onto the slope. A hand grabbed his, the first time since this particular nightmare had begun to occur. He looked up, his face a mask of shock and fear.

His eyes met piercing gray ones, locking for what might several infinite eternities but could have easily only been mere seconds before he felt himself rising from the pit of darkness and despair. The bony hands still gripped his feet, but for the first time, he was standing on solid ground.

Eren's eyes opened agonizingly slow, the last remnants of the dream melting away as the light assaulted his eyes. He groaned and rolled away from the window, slamming his hand down on his alarm clock. Five more minutes, he thought, I need five more minutes… The alarm went off five minutes later and Eren hauled himself from his bed, longing for the warmth and serenity that resided between the sheets before he had completely extracted himself from the blissful cocoon he had enveloped himself with during the night. The hardwood floors were cool to the touch, but Eren paid no mind to the chill.

He pulled a towel from the haphazardly stacked pile in the closet and shut the door to the bathroom, turning the knob until steam began to rise above the stream of water. He stripped and stepped into the shower, standing under the hot rush of water. Eren stared blankly at the wall as the burning water washed over his skin, his forehead scrunched with concentration. There was a sense of unease and darkness lingering at the back of his mind, a corruption that festered on his mind like it was an open wound.

It dragged at his mind, a constant throughout the years despite the fact that so many things had changed so dramatically. He shivered despite the heat of the shower and shut his eyes, running his hands along his arms for a moment before crouching down and plucking the small, thin razor blade from behind the bottle of conditioner.

Wilkes' corpse was lying on the metal autopsy table, his torso exposed to show the black stiches stretching across the pale flesh. Eren was immensely glad that Zoe had cleaned the bullet wounds so that bits of bone, brain, and blood were not immediately visible. That didn't stop Levi from pulling on a pair of gloves and probing either of the wounds though, which caused a semi-clear liquid to ooze from the wounds. "Brain matter," Zoe said cheerily when she saw Eren blanch, "I guess I didn't manage to get everything out. Levi, here's the tray. They found the bullet lodged in the wall if you want it."

The bullet itself had been left as it, still bearing a coating of blood, bone, and white powder from its impact with the plaster walls. Levi glanced at the bullet for a moment before he turned back to Zoe. "When is the blood work due to come in?"

Zoe glanced at her wrist, a force of habit considering there was no watch on her wrist. "It's due to come in at about eleven thirty or so," Zoe said before she glanced up at the clock hanging on the white walls. "You guys still have fifteen minutes before they come in. Do you want to help me with an autopsy Eren?" Eren blanched to a ghostly color again.

"I'd rather not. Thank you though." Zoe leaned in close, her forehead mere inches from his.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to learn about the human body and the various ways through which a person dies? I have a very interesting new case that just came in this morning. A thirty-two year old male who was in perfect health suddenly dropped dead on the streets. I'm thinking he was poisoned but I can't be sure about which kind until the lab work comes back. But judging by the state of his organs, he had something nasty in him. You should have seen it; the stomach was riddled with holes and there was blood where blood normally should not be. Oh, and I had a case one time where-"

"Hanji, would you shut it?" Eren let out a sigh of relief when Levi came to the rescue from what he could tell would have turned into an extensive one-sided conversation. Eren leaned up against the wall, crossing his arms and putting one foot against the wall as they began to wait. Levi stood a few feet away, his arms crossed and rocking back and forth on his feet every now and then. Zoe disappeared into her office, where they could hear her humming idly as she shifted through papers, her indistinct blur of a form moving behind the frosted glass.

The sound of a fax machine running altered them first. Zoe emerged from her office a few moments later, clutching the papers, her eyes scanning over the contents quickly. She wordlessly handed the papers to Levi, who glanced at them for a moment. "How long will it be till they expand the search to a nationwide examination?"

"They've already started," Zoe said, "The results of the expanded search should be in within about five hours. That includes the prints and blood work, as nothing local raised a flag."

Levi sighed and tapped his elbow impatiently, his usual frown deepening on his face. "Typical…" he muttered, irritation crossing his face. He pulled the gloves from his hands and threw them in the disposal bin. "Hanji, you know what to do. Call me as soon as you get any word. Till then Eren and I will go through the tapes of the scene. Maybe something will turn up."

The viewing of the tapes began with Levi and Eren only. Before they had even gotten through the first ten minutes of the tape, Petra, Oluo, Erd, and Gunther all situated themselves around the television screen, crowding the already cramped room. It was a tight fit; they were all knee-to-knee, hip-to-hip, with Eren crammed between Levi and Petra. Eren was thankful that Jean was unwilling to come within five feet of him most of the time and that there was no room for anyone else. He doubted he could have stood being in the same room as that horse-faced bastard, especially in this room at the current time.

They sat in the dark room, cramped and hot, their eyes trained on the screen and the black and white video of disgusting quality that it showed. "Tch," Oluo said, "Why don't you just have the brat look at them by himself? I'm sure even a complete novice like him could come up with something."

"Shut up Oluo," Petra snapped, "No one asked for your opinion you moronic wannabe! Honestly, and you still question why nobody likes you." Oluo huffed in response and opened his mouth to argue, but a glare from Levi shut the both of them up.

"No one asked for commentary from either of you," he said, his voice deceptively calm, like the ocean often is before a monstrous storm. "If anyone else makes a comment not pertaining to the video you can get your sorry ass out of here." The room fell silent once more as they focused back in on the video feed.

The time stamp on the video is six fifty PM… the body wasn't found until nine o'clock the next morning. Zoe put the time of death around six in the morning, when all of his neighbors had already left for their shifts. Eren flipped the file open once again, glancing at the information of Wilkes' schedule. Levi elbowed him when the edge of the folder and Eren crossly adjusted it. Midnight, he returned home from his shift at Club Ecstasy… It could have been a neighbor, but they all have relatively solid alibis for the approximate time of death.

He sighed and picked at the fresh red lines on the inside of his left wrist as he mulled over the possibilities. Levi sped the tape up another notch. The people on screen were darting around on the screen now, going about their business. As the hours on the time stamp ticked by the people occasionally filtering in began to dissipate until only one or two people came in every hour or so.

Levi slowed the tape down again near three o'clock and they watched the screen, scanning for any shadows that might be a person. No one appeared on camera till the time stamp read nearly five twenty-five. Three people left the elevator; two boarded. One of the boarding people, a man, hid his face so that the only things they could clearly see consisted of the blue Dodgers cap and what appeared to be a black bomber jacket, his hands rammed into the pockets.

"Get the tapes labeled 'Elevator 3' and '3rd Floor,'" Levi demanded. He held out one hand for the tapes, using the other to stop the video and eject the tape from the player. Erd extracted the tapes from the small container of tapes that the landlord had given them, passing the two tapes down till they rested in Levi's outstretched palm. Levi set the previous tape onto the counter next to the television and inserted the one of the elevator. They waited in silence as Levi fast-forwarded the video feed to five twenty-five.

Their eyes were glued to the screen as the man boarded the elevator alongside the woman; they pressed different buttons. The man kept his head down, carefully avoiding the eye of the camera. Levi fast-forwarded it once more. The man left the elevator before the woman. He returned to the elevator at six thirty AM. Levi removed the second tape and inserted the third. "Why bother?" Oluo said with a smug look on his face, "It's obviously him."

"There's always a point to the things I do," Levi said, his voice soft. "Would you rather arrest the wrong man and allow the perpetrator more time to escape or would you rather catch the right man the first time around? You decide." Oluo flushed with embarrassment, darkening when he saw Petra's satisfied smirk. Eren smirked at Oluo's discomfort before he allowed his eyes to return to the video. To say that they were actually on the video was not quite correct though. He eyes tended to stray over towards Levi, watching the other man's eyes dart around as he analyzed the video. Eren tore his eyes away once more and focused them onto the video feed.

The man with the Dodgers cap exited the elevator and strode down the hall, stopping at the fifth door on the right; apartment 16B, the victim's apartment. Eren watched as the man fumbled with the handle and lock for a moment, his head still down and his movements hidden blocked from the camera but still obvious. He pushed the door inwards and shut it. The door did not open again till a little after six twenty, when most of the people in the apartment complex would have left in order to arrive at their shifts on time. The man slipped up momentarily on his way out, but it was enough; he glanced up at the cameras for little more than a second.

Levi stopped the tape for the final time and looked at Eren, a bored expression spread across his face. "That's our perp. Do you agree or do you believe that he is not?" Eren nodded, "That's him. Once we get the prints and lab work back, we can attach a name to the face and start searching for him." Levi nodded and turned the television off. "Now," he said, "Everyone get the hell out of here and go do something useful."

Levi leaned against the brick wall in front of the police station, a cigarette between his fingers and his phone in his hand, debating whether or not to call Hanji, Irvin, or neither of the two. There were times when he could deal with them and times when he flat out refused to. He raised the cigarette to his lips, breathing in and watching as the end smoldered down a little further, inching its way towards his fingers.

His eyes roamed over the streets and the brownstone building lining them. People walked along the sidewalks, oblivious to everything except for when their attention was least desired. Morons, Levi thought, useless, the lot of them. He sighed and leaned his head up against the bricks as he took another drag of the cigarette, the taste of lemongrass filling his mouth. The sky above was gray, ribbed with darker streaks of gray. Whether it would rain or not, Levi wasn't sure. He hadn't even bothered to glance at the weather that morning.

He tapped the screen of the phone impatiently, waiting for Hanji to call about the lab work. How long can it possibly take to get the lab work? The phone began to buzz in his hands and he tapped the accept button. "Anything turn up Hanji?"

"Yeah, I just got the reports in a few minutes ago. I can fax them to you and talk while they print. The man's name is Charlie Marion, born June sixteenth, nineteen-eighty-four. He was reported missing when he was twelve, but has been seen periodically throughout the states. He's been arrested twice on accounts of assault. I'm including the last picture of him that was captured so that way you can see if you recognize him from the footage."

"Good," Levi said. He dropped the cigarette onto the ground and smothered it with his foot. "I'll go in and look at the papers now."

"You're welcome, Levi." He could practically hear the smirk that he knew would be all across Hanji's face at the moment. She hung up and Levi pocketed the phone and pushed the door to the station in.

He pulled the papers from the fax machine and glanced at the textual information before skipping straight back to the image of the man. Levi glanced around. Where the hell is Eren? There, he could see the other man talking to Petra, both of them laughing about something. Levi felt his eye twitch with irritation, which had become relatively common since meeting Eren. "Eren, get over here."

The call was not a request, more of a demand. Eren looked up and said something to Petra before he made his way over to Levi. Levi handed Eren the papers, "Tell me, does this look like our perp?" Eren looked at the mug shot that Hanji had managed to find, one from an arrest in 05, nearly eight years ago.

"I'd have to see a screenshot of the video again to be sure, but I think this is him." He shuffled through the papers, examining the rest of the information. "It had better be him; otherwise we've screwed the case up. Now we just have to find the idiot."

The searches began once they had confirmed the suspect's identity. For a solid week they searched through the numerous districts of Eden, airing the two images of Marion on the news channels and even carrying out a manhunt for the perpetrator. Nothing had turned up. All of the tips that had come in had merely been false hopes of finding Marion, who seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth as easily as he had disappeared the first time.

"Damn," Eren groaned, slumping on one of Armin's chairs in the blonde boy's kitchen, his eyes rolling around in boredom and agitation. "Another failure of a case… This fucking sucks." Armin shrugged with an encouraging smile on his lips.

"Don't worry Eren, everyone had problems. I'm sure that even Levi doesn't have a perfect record when it comes to catching the criminals." Armin looked back down at the metal in his hand, running his fingers along the smooth surface. "Even I don't have a flawless idea of this. Everyone expects me too, but I still can't figure out how to get the gears working in order to allow the cables to leave the bars and return just as far without something else breaking. It's just a matter of time. I'm sure everything will work out."

Eren sighed and sat up, tapping the kitchen table carefully. Nuts, bolts, gears, wrenches, and God knows what else were strewn about on the smooth wooden surface. "That's because you're practically a genius Armin, not a mechanic. You could barely fix your bike last year when the chain popped out on your way to my place."

Armin winced at the mention of that incident. "Yet, but since then I've been studying and practicing! I'm getting better, I swear! Soon the 3-D Maneuvering Gear will be a success, I swear! Now pass me that wrench by your elbow." Eren smiled and rolled his eyes but passed the wrench to Armin all the same.

He returned to staring at the wall, still feeling irritated despite Armin's assurances that things would get better. Sometimes, he found it hard to believe that anything would get better. When was the last time things had actually seemed to be looking up for the long term? How long had it been since there had been any peace in his mind, since he had started to hide the turmoil of his mind? A rhetorical question, Eren thought to himself. Do I really want it answered? No, probably not. Who would want an answer to something as depressing as that? Still… I can't help but wonder sometimes when I'll ever figure out what the hell ever happened to change things so much. Maybe it was Mom… maybe it was Dad…

There was something moving in front of his face, distinctly flesh-colored rather than the white of the wall. "Earth to Eren," Armin called, "Don't tell me you went to the moon. Honestly Eren, where is your attention today?" Eren shrugged as both a non-committal gesture and one to himself, one to shrug away the creeping sense of darkness that preyed on his mind like vultures on a carcass.

Lovely imagery, he thought sarcastically. "I don't know. I'm just tired I suppose. I didn't sleep well last night." The latter of the two sentences was true at least; dark nightmares, muddy and confusing in morning, had been plaguing him as of late. Should I tell him…? No… better not. He's got enough on his mind as is. He doesn't need my troubles weighing on him too.

"I was asking when Mikasa was supposed to get here so that way I knew when to start cleaning the table off unless you guys don't care about where we sit." Armin gestured to the array of objects that littered the kitchen table.

Eren glanced at the clock on the stove; 6:45 PM. "She'll be here in about ten minutes. We all know that you'll just go straight back to the maneuvering gear once we leave so there's no point in you packing up. You're too obsessed with your work sometimes."

Armin fell silent, his hands falling still until he was simply rolling a screwdriver between the tips of his index fingers and thumbs. "Actually…" Armin said, "I was going to go to The Coffee Bean to meet up with Annie at eight…"

Eren looked at his friend, a smile spreading across his face. "Why the hell didn't you tell us earlier? Honestly Armin, you act like we're going to hate you forever for ditching us to meet up with a girl."

Armin smiled, the smile being hesitant and nervous. "It's not like it's a date… We're just going to talk really. Nothing more so far as I know." Eren smirked and leaned back in the chair, tipping it back onto two legs and rocking back and forth idly.

"Sure, sure… well, since Mikasa is already on her way and I'm already here, there's no helping it now. Seriously though, next time just tell us." Armin nodded as three soft knocks came from Armin's door. "I've got it," Eren said, letting the chair fall forwards with a thump before he rose.

Mikasa was waiting on the other side of the door, a bag in each hand. The scent of the Chinese food that Mikasa had with her filtered through the air, with the scents of curry mixing with that of the sesame chicken and the egg rolls. "Mikasa, you are my savior." Mikasa gave a small smile; her hands were too full to allow her to pull her scarf up to hide it, leaving it visible to the world. Eren took the bag with the drinks from her and deposited them on the coffee table in the living room. Armin joined them a moment later, a pencil still behind his ear.

"Mikasa, you read my mind," he breathed as he threw himself down on the couch beside of the black-haired girl. Eren sat down on the other side of Mikasa and they all sat back to relax and talk about anything and everything as they dug in.

It's times like these that I love… Eren thought as he watched Armin and Mikasa laugh and smile about something respectively. Its times like these that make me think that everything is alright.

Chapter 4: End

Hello darlings~ I come bearing gifts in the form of another chapter for you all. I apologize that it took me a little longer than initially planned, but due to time constraints, I was unable to finish the chapter until a few moments ago. Chapter 5 is already in the works but don't expect to see it for a few days. Until then, I thank you profusely for reading and hope you continue to enjoy END GAME!