END GAME

Chapter 15: First Strike

Warning: This chapter contains themes of violence and gore. Please read with caution.

Project Eoten/Eotena

Today's date is July 14th, 2013. I've found out something incredible, something terrifying. I never quite thought it would be quite like this. I found out what M is planning in the coming months and what those plans will lead to in the coming years. She's planning on abducting children, much like those she had taken back in 1989, but this time the numbers will be higher.

To explain everything fully, I'll need to start from the beginning, which was revealed to me over the course of the night after days of rigorous 'training.' That is their code for torturing us until we submit, until we swear that we will never utter a word, not on pain of death, but on pain of living. They've still got Xavier down in the cells and it's been ten years since he threatened to go to the police. They've been torturing for almost the entire time; I'm pretty sure he's gone insane by now.

M showed me the notebook, Meridew's notebook. The cover was made of cracked leather and it looked like about half of the pages had gotten damp and then dried till they were somewhat flat. I wish I could have scanned the contents but I was trapped in the dungeons and M never let the notebook leave her sights. Everything I'm recording is based off of what I remember. Some of it is believable, most of it is not.

Meridew was once an archaeologist before he turned to the medical practice, and in turn, to the Nazi party. He took nine colleagues of his out on an expedition to some cliffs by the sea in the northernmost part of Russia, although the exact location was scribbled out. They had just reached the cliffs when a blizzard set upon them. One of the men noticed a hole in the cliff face and they made their way too it. Two men were lost on the desperate trek to the cave in the cliff. By the time the remaining eight had crawled into the cave, the blizzard had overtaken them; there was no hope for the two lost men. Meridew led them further into the cave, taking them down into the dark abyss, illuminated only by the oil lamps that they carried with them.

After an undetermined amount of time they stumbled upon a cavern so massive that their lanterns would barely have penetrated the darkness, had it not been for two factors that dully illuminated the cavern. Apparently the cavern was warm, humid even, and covered with glowing green fungus and large pools, more like small lakes in some cases if the descriptions are accurate, that were filling with phosphorescent life forms ranging from plankton to large, indiscernible things. Of course, the fact that the cavern is even humid is practically impossible unless it is heated by geothermal vents beneath the earth, but apparently only the cavern was warm, not the adjoining cave(s).

One of the women of the group approached one of the pools and placed her hand in it. She turned back to comment when a large tentacle supposedly wrapped around her wrist and dragged her into the pool with only the slightest of sound. Apparently the water quickly became dark with blood and she never surfaced. Meridew appeared to have slipped from the track of sanity after this incident, having disappeared for a long time into the caves based on the notes of one of his colleagues. His next entry read something along the lines of; "They're gone now. I killed them, I had too. I had to protect them. I've searched so long for them and I've finally found them… the Eotenas."

He then went on a page-long rant about these creatures he had found, although he was very vague about them. The only solid description of them that I can cobble together would have to be "androgynous humanoid figures of about ten to fifteen feet." That is strange because not only have no skeletons like these described creatures been found, but it also raises the question of, if they are real and not a figment of an insane man's imagination, are they possibly ancestors of the human race?

Personally, I find this whole thing hard to believe. It would be impossible if not for the occurrences over the following years and even up until this day. The nine colleagues that went with him were never heard of again.

Meridew returned from the expedition three weeks later with some tale of everyone but him freezing in a blizzard. Soon after, he turned to the medical practice. The details got a bit shady around here, along with most of it having been scratched out, but I could still discern some parts. Apparently he spent the next ten years experimenting with blood types, seeing which was compatible with the blood he had extracted from the bodies. AB negative was the only match, although I personally have no idea why that blood type would be the only receptor that would not fight the alien DNA off, instead trying to merge with it.

After he found the matching blood type, Meridew began to experiment on people. Children appeared to be the most successful, with the survivors of the injections. More than half of the rest died while the rest remained unaffected. Meridew raised the three children, two boys and a girl. The girl, he groomed to be the next leader of the cult he was forming, the 'Titans.' That girl was M. The boys were L and J.

Once Meridew was executed for war crimes, they became the leaders of the Titans. I find this hard to believe considering M, L, and J all look like they are in their late twenties to early thirties, yet they all claim to be the original children. It makes me wonder just what this DNA does to a human. After M ascended to the head of the Titans, we apparently remained relatively secretive. During that time they worked to refine the virus and make it more compatible with those who were compatible.

In 1989 M began to give out orders to kidnap children again in order to continue Meridew's experiments. I was there for that; we captured just under twenty-four children. There were twenty-five subjects all together. I didn't find out about the last subject until recently. She survived the injections and the virus, as it had come to be called, had affected her like the four other survivors. I always knew Reiss was a crazy bastard, but this is a whole new level, even for him. Then again, the man has half a dozen wives and twice as many children, so I doubt he cares if a couple become cannon fodder for what he calls "the good of mankind."

He keeps asking G why he won't offer his son up. G doesn't do a lot of talking anymore, not since about sixteen years ago. He's changed, G has, and not for the better. Concerning M, her plan is to create a race of people who have had this virus injected into them. She wants to use them to crush and conquer a few countries. Her plans mean making an army, albeit a smaller one than traditional ones, but she keeps saying that they're superior to normal humans.

This is where G comes back in; one day he's agreeing with her, one day he's disagreeing, and one day, he's demanding that she go for world domination. He's really flipped the lid. At this rate, I fear for M's life… mine even if it comes down to it.

Eren raked his fingers through the mess of hair on his head, his green eyes locked on the last line of text in the document. He didn't blink and he didn't read, instead opting to stare straight ahead, seeing without actually seeing. He tore his eyes away after a few minutes and squeezed the bridge of his nose, a sigh escaping his lips. I don't know how much of this shit can be considered fact or the runaway imagination of a crazy man who probably had too much lead or something in his system at the time.

However, it was also the only explanation for why the children were being kidnapped and why some of them hadn't been found. The fact that there had actually been a fifth living test subject was startling, but the fact that her own father had let her be experimented on was shocking. Although who the Reiss man was, Eren couldn't say. It sounded like a name that Petra or Armin might know, but asking them face-to-face might be better. Eren clicked the file tab on the document and printed out the two pages worth of information, two copies; one for the file and one for Levi to review. The detective would certainly be pissed that almost all of the data had corrupted, but hopefully he would understand.

Conquering several countries… Eren dug his nails into his brow, trying to focus. Armies… Russia… cliffs… the kidnappings… experiments… There's too much to sort through for a clear answer. We certainly can't make an expedition to Russia based on this along, not to mention the fact that we need to keep close tabs on this case. We still don't know when the next murder is going to occur. Those damnable bastards just had to leave behind all of those clues and then change things up again.

Eren glanced at the clock on his computer; 8:23. Levi would probably still be awake. Eren leaned back and pulled his phone out of his pocket, not the easiest task even if he was stretched out. He unlocked the phone and scrolled down to Levi's number, hesitating momentarily before he punched the call button and raised the phone to his ear. The phone rang once, twice, three times. It rang for nearly two minutes before the voicemail came on. "You have reached the voicemail of Levi, please leave a message after the tone." "Levi, I've got some important news, which is both good and bad, concerning Masters' files. Call me when you get this."

The phone hit the couch with a muted thud and Eren sighed. Dammit… any other time he would answer his bloody phone. Eren pressed his palms to his temples, eyes clenched shut. He's so confusing. I don't understand him at all.

Eren entered the bookstore on Monday, his head spinning as it tried to keep wrapping around the information from the document. He hadn't gotten around to reading through the second document as he had instead focusing on seeing if the document had any grains of truth or whether it was just a hoax pulled on Masters.

He had managed to uncover that Meridew had indeed been an archaeologist in the early 1900's. He had been scheduled to go to the northern coasts of Russia, from the East Siberian Sea all the way to the Bering Strait. The nine companions he travelled with were never heard from again after the expedition, their deaths labeled as accidents in a blizzard. Meridew had stated that the blizzard had hit them around the time that they had reached a point on the coast more or less even with the bottom point of Wrangel Island, but the information was of doubtful credibility.

Afterwards, he had become entered the medical field and became a doctor. There were also scattered reports of several of his patients dying suddenly, whether they had merely been suffering from a cold or cancer before seeing him. Three of the patients even went missing; Ada Schmidt, Baden Wagner, and Ferdinand Koch, although Meridew was never suspected to have been involved with their kidnappings.

Eren hoisted up a stack of books and started putting them away, moving aimlessly amongst the shelves, too wrapped up in his thoughts to pay any more attention than necessary. I'll bet anything that those three children that were taken are the original M, L, and J, although the latter two probably aren't in that order. I doubt that they didn't age; they'd either have to have some kind of disease or that virus is real. Or they've been replaced by people who take up their names. The virus… the caves… none of that could possibly be real! If it was real, surely scientists would have discovered these things before now. Eren slid two copies of Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion into place and moved on.

But training an army? God, these people must be delusional. They have five people from 1989 and the two to four children from the current case. Besides, even if they do manage to create this army of theirs, what could possibly differentiate these children from the rest? Eren slid the final books into place and meandered back to the front desk.

Marco raised his head, a smile on his face. "Hey Eren, finished already? You're a lifesaver!" A grin lit up Marco's face but Eren couldn't find the heart to smile back at the freckled man. "What is it Eren? You look like something's troubling you."

Eren shrugged and leaned up on the counter, a grimace flashing across his face. "It's this case I've been on for the last few weeks… It just keeps going in circles! One moment we think we've got the pattern nailed down and the next they change it up again. Based on the pattern of the last three cases of double homicides, they occurred on the same days, but the one we were expecting to occur last night never occurred. It's confusing as hell. I don't know if they made a mistake trying to murder the latest people or if they're changing patterns again. It's just too random."

Marco nodded, a sympathetic look entering his eyes. "That happens sometimes. Not every criminal is going to be your run-of-the-mill idiot. Admittedly, from what Jean has told me, your case is a bit… abnormal to say the least, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give up. Maybe they're leaving abstract hints about what days the murders will occur on based on words. For example, some people say Thursday was derived from the Norse god Thor, so maybe things like that within the poems could be clues for when the next murders will occur."

Eren looked at Marco, tendrils of hope leaking into his eyes. "Maybe…" he murmured, "I'll have to check after the shift has finished." Marco smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I know how much this case means to you, but just remember that if any emergencies come up, just tell me and you can go." Eren nodded, "Thanks Marco. You're the coolest boss ever. No wonder people all you Freckled Jesus."

Marco's normally pale face flushed, his cheeks going bright red and making it hard to see the freckles his nickname had been partially coined from. No Eren, not you too," Marco moaned. He covered his face with both hands and began to feign sobbing into them before he pulled them away, his face more or less back to the same color as usual, "Seriously though, no Freckled Jesus."

Eren sighed and rolled his eyes in a mocking manner, "Fine, fine, whatever you say… Freckled Jesus..." Marco glared at him half-heartedly before a smile rolled out onto his face. The freckled man shook his head, a wry smile on his face.

"Oh whatever," he grumbled good-naturedly, the smile still on his face as he spun the chair around so that his back was facing Eren. "Go count grains of sand or something," Marco said, his shoulders shaking with laughter as he lifted a book from the counter and flipped it open to where he had lodged a bookmark.

"I would but we don't have any sand here," Eren pointed out. His leg began to vibrate mere seconds later. No, that wasn't his leg, just his phone. Eren straightened up and extracted the phone. "Hello?"

"Eren, get your ass down to the station now. We've got a problem so hurry the hell up."

Eren shut his gaping mouth after a moment. "Levi? What's going on? Did you get my message?" Marco twisted in his chair to look back at Eren, a mask of concern and confusion on his face.

"Eren just shut up and get down here right now. You can ask questions later but right now you really need to get down to the station."

"Alright, alright, I'll be there in ten minutes." Levi ended the call before he could add any more. Eren looked up at Marco, an apologetic look on his face. "I'm sorry, something's going on at the station."

Marco waved his hand, "Go on, go on, I understand. Don't worry about getting paid, you're covered this time."

Eren leaned over the counted and pulled his bag over, "Thank you Marco, you're an absolute saint!" Marco merely smiled and waved his hand as Eren darted out the door and dashed down the street. Eren sprinted through the streets, dodging around people and waiting impatiently at crosswalks when he was unable to dart across when the risks weren't quite so high.

He burst into the station out of breath and warm from the sprint from the bookstore to the station. Heads poked up around the station, somber and teary-eyed, which was highly unusual. Eren made his way back to Levi's desk, shedding his thick green parka as he went. Levi was standing by the board when he walked up, glaring at the map. "What's going on?" Eren demanded, tossing his coat and bag onto the chair he usually occupied. Levi spun to face him, his face grim.

"Several things have happened. Two more children went missing this morning. We've found one of the bodies from the previous kidnapping. It's being examined now. Also, there's been another double homicide. They changed things… again." Levi murmured, his hands clenching into tight balls, his knuckles going white. "I was waiting for you to show before I went to the scene. They've already called in the identity of the bodies… They're not civilians this time."

"Who are they?" Eren demanded, desperate for the answer. It must not have been good based on the expressions of those around him. "It's two of the officers, Mina Carolina and Nac Tius."

No… that's impossible. I just talked to them yesterday… they can't be.

The wind was colder and harsher without the protection of buildings on all sides when they stepped out onto the flat roof of the apartment complex, loose bits of stone crunching occasionally beneath their feet as they strode across the beige concrete liberally littered with cigarette butts and glass bottles. They were on Sun Street, apartment complex 41A-50A, a building right next to Jackson's Music Shop, once of their anticipated scenes for the next set of double homicides.

The words to the poem filtered through Eren's head, the realization setting in as certain parts jumped out at him. 'Do you hear now, the people's sound? Above the street, the Stars wait to be found.' On a street linked to a star, next to a music shop, on top of a building. It was pure chance that the resident of 46A came up that morning for a smoke and found the bodies and pools of blood.

Eren pressed his fingers to his temples as he stared at the concrete that his feet passed over. They had timed it too early. They had missed a clue. Or maybe the Titans had simply changed their pattern again. Eren saw the pool of blood first, the bodies themselves mostly hidden behind a transformer that had been painted a sickly green with rust creeping along the edges. He could see an ankle, slim and feminine, between the navy blue pants and black shoe. Petra stood in front of the transformer, her back to the bodies that lay beyond. Eren walked around the transformer and stared down at the bodies, his stomach churning and eyes swimming.

Mina lay closest to the transformer, her head thrown back, frost coating her eyelashes, her mouth gaping open in a silent scream, and her limbs literally flung about. Both of her arms and her legs had been roighly sawed away from her body and thrown a few feet away, lying in their own little puddles of blood, leaving jagged stumps with broken numbs of bones protruding from the stiff muscles and flesh. Several of her fingers lay about, a mixture of frozen ramrod straight and curled upwards like blood-smeared claws.

Her fingers were discolored from frostbite, ranging from pale white to purple and blue at the edges beneath the smears of blood. The stumps were crusted with frozen blood that was a mixture of black and red; the temperature had dropped below freezing last night and it wasn't warm enough for the blood to have thawed out yet. It was doubtful that they would be able to pry the limbs from where they had frozen to the blood and concrete until they could acquire the equipment to remove the bodies.

Eren dragged his gaze on towards the next body, that of Nac Tius. There was an ugly, gaping slash at the base of Nac's neck, split clear across the front of his throat. A waterfall of blood had frozen on him, his pale and frost bitten skin on his neck and lower jaw coated with a glaze of crimson, his navy blue police uniform darkened with blood. His left eye gazed up sightlessly, a milky look having already entered it. The right eye was missing, leaving a black and red socket in its place where his eyelids, eye, and skin had been ripped away, revealing the pink and red muscle beneath.

A large knife, more of a dagger really, had been buried in his skull, centered on his forehead. A spider web of blood trails led away from the blade, which had been jammed in up to the base of the blade, the light brown wooden hilt stained crimson where it met with the blade. The force that would have been needed to break through the skull and go so deep with a single blow must have been great; Nac's attacker had been strong, much stronger than Nac himself.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, firm yet gentle. "Eren, stop crying. It won't bring them back. The only thing we can do now is ensure they didn't die needlessly." Eren looked down at Levi who stared up at him with unreadable blue-gray eyes. "I'm not crying," Eren protested. Levi mimed wiping at his face and Eren mimicked him, wiping at his own. His gloved fingers came away damp. He hadn't felt the tears making their way down his face despite the frigid air that made the trails they left sting now that he had noticed them. Eren wiped his face and only when he was sure that he had gotten all of the stray tears did Levi remove his hand from Eren's shoulder.

Levi knelt down beside Mina's body and flipped the pocket over her heart up, revealing the plastic baggie that had been pushed inside. Levi pulled it out with two fingers clutching one of the corners; a yellow note lay folded inside. "Eren, walk around the edge of the roof and see if there are any ladders or handholds that would allow them to leave once they had finished dropping the bodies." Eren nodded and turned away from the bodies, from the people he had once called friends.

The top of the building was edged by a waist-high concrete wall dotted with dark gray smears with cigarette butts resting in against the bottom of the walls. Eren leaned over the wall he was closest to, peering carefully over the edge, his hands clenched on the edge of the wall. Windows were scattered aimlessly about the apartment complex on the three floors that were visible on the five-story apartment. None of them were close enough for any handholds to be reached in order to make a path to the top of the building below.

Eren glanced at the front of the building; the windows were close enough but the ledges were far too small for a person to stand, much less maneuver stealthily about as they descended. The side next to the music shop was next, on the ride side of the building if a person looked at it from the street. Three floors of windows were visible, their ledges just as narrow as the ones on the front. The roof of the music shop was clear of debris where chunks of mortar and brick could have been removed.

The back side of the building contained something slightly more promising; a fire escape going from the fifth floor all the way down to the second floor, where a ladder was hoisted up, ready to be dropped at a moment's notice. The stairs didn't extend all the way up to the room, but there was only about five or six feet between the thin metal railing, painted light gray to stand out against the red bricks of the building, and the lip of the roof, where there was enough space for one to hook their fingers and lower themselves down.

Eren leaned over further and peered down at the staircase, looking for any marks, scrapes, or smears on the metal. There was something on the bar below, a smear of black-red liquid that had frozen to the worn gray metal. A smudge of black on the gray platform, a place where a footprint could have been left and smeared as the foot had lifted. His feet were barely touching the concrete when a hand clamped down on his shoulder and wrenched him back.

"I said look over the side, not to actually go over it." Levi looked over the edge, "What are you feeling, l'appel du vide…? An approximate translation would be 'the call of the void' for those of you who don't know French." The last comment had a sideways glance towards Eren thrown in. "That occurs sometimes when a person is high above the ground – they wonder what would happen if they fell and then they do."

Levi tapped the wall thoughtfully as he examined the fire escape. "They probably went down this way to avoid being seen. Hell, they might have even come up this way. All they needed was for someone to come up onto the roof to help them haul the bodies up and then go back down. Someone would need to be… around five feet tall to reach the lip of the roof and then they would need to be very strong in order to haul not only themselves up, but the bodies that were being passed up. There were at least two people involved but I'm betting more on three. It's amazing that they managed not to wake any of the residents doing this…"

Levi moved back and held up the note. "It's going to take them a while to remove the bodies. We should get started on this. Maybe we can figure out their new pattern before they attack again."

The police station had a somber air to it when they returned. Anyone who hadn't known about it certainly knew now. They didn't show it on their faces, they couldn't, but a person could feel it in the air the moment they walked it. It was a thick blanket of sorrow and confusion, with one question evident on everyone's face; why? Eren would have loved to answer, he would have loved to be able to tell them something, anything, but he couldn't. He didn't know enough to tell them anything that would reassure them, anything that might make the deaths a little easier to bear.

Eren and Levi sat behind Levi's desk, concealed from most of the questioning faces. Eren watched wordlessly as Levi pulled the note from the bag and unfolded it, his stoic blue-gray eyes sliding over the small slip of yellow paper. Eren watched Levi lean over the note, his thoughts slipping away to something that had been nagging him for some time now.

There was something I was going to tell him…. What was it? The thought had been incessantly prodding him on the way over but he couldn't quite place it. He had forgotten something during the rush and in the aftermath of finding the bodies but it continued to elude him. Fuck… what if I never remember it? What if it was something important, something we couldn't afford to lose? Dammit… I really should have written myself a reminder about what it was.

"Eren… hey, idiot, get your head out of the clouds." Eren flinched at the sound of the voice as it ripped him from his thoughts. Levi was looking up at him, his face impassive except for his eyes, which were fixed with a startling intensity on Eren's face. He felt his face darken with embarrassment,

"Sorry. I was thinking of something." One of Levi's eyebrows arched up but he didn't question, instead straightening the note out before he began to read from it.

"'The first strike we have taken.
Two pawns you have forsaken.
Your move is up; make it smart,
or listen to the sound of a bitter heart.
The days are short; the nights are long
listen now for Death's song.'"

Eren rubbed his jaw as he mulled over the riddle, running the lines through his head. "There's also a strange irregularity," Levi said after a moment, interrupting Eren's thoughts. "They spelled 'nights' with a capitalized K, as in knights from the Renaissance time period. That's definitely a hint for the next location. However, there are several problems concerning that." Eren stared at Levi, his thoughts coming up with a blank as to why there would be a problem aside from the fact that it was relatively vague. "The Renaissance festival is scheduled to start this Wednesday and end on the next," he sighed. "I'm sure you can see where I'm getting with that. There is also the problem about roads, streets, and various other things containing the word 'Knight.' There are at least three of those in Shiganshina alone."

"Fuck…" Eren muttered, rubbing his eyes in agitation. "Levi… they could have intentionally done that to make us think that they were specifying 'knight with a 'K' instead of 'night' with an 'N.'" Eren tacked on thoughtfully, "They're giving us so many places and just with that one freaking word."

"Yes, but did you see the letter etched on the hilt of the knife?" Levi countered, "They had carved a 'K' into the blade and had underlined it, like the 'C' left on the bat with the Harpers. That can also hold two meanings – perhaps it's just another meaningless letter meant to confuse us or maybe it's pointing us in the right direction."

"We can't rule out all possibilities yet," Eren shrugged. "I'll get a new map from Oluo in as soon as we've got the rest worked out so that we can begin mapping out possible places." He leaned forwards, brown hair falling into his face. "Could you read me the last four lines again?"

"'Your move is up; make it smart or listen to the sound of a bitter heart. The days are short; the nights are long. Listen now for Death's song.'" Levi glanced up from the note, scratching his cheek thoughtfully. "They also mentioned pawns in the second line… Either they are considering this a chess game or that's another clue." His features twisted into disgust at the mention of it being a game before it became an impassive mask once more.

"Bitter heart… that makes no sense," Eren muttered, tapping aimlessly at his knee. "Are they referring to a particular person, a place, or an event? It could be referring someone related to either these last two victims or the next two they have already selected. Are there any conventions or events that could be related?"

Levi rolled his eyes, "You act like I should know that off the top of my head. I don't know but I can look around and see what I can find. There's the last line to consider. What do you think that could mean by 'Death's song'?"

Eren shrugged, "It sounds familiar… I've heard something along the lines of that before but I can't place it… I might have seen something akin to it on the Internet or maybe in a file." A file… the files! "Dammit!" Eren slammed his hand onto the table, eliciting a jolt from Levi. "What is it you idiot?" Levi said testily as he fixed a glare on Eren. "Have you had some sort of epiphany? Or do you just need to take a shit?"

"Levi, be serious!" Eren groaned desperately. "No, it's neither of those. I remembered something I was going to tell you last night but you never answered your phone. When I tried to tell you this morning you interrupted me, although that was understandable."

Levi's brow furrowed in confusion and he stretched out, fingers digging into the pocket of his jeans to extract his phone. Eren turned his head away, trying to keep his eyes from Levi's form. Levi pulled his phone out and slid it open, his thumb darting across the screen. "Oh… I see you did. Sorry, I habitually keep my phone on silent or vibrate. I think I assumed you were Hanji… What were you going to tell me?"

"Master's files," Eren grimaced as the words passed his lips, unsure of Levi's reaction to the coming news. "I opened them up yesterday to check on the encryption. Most of the files were destroyed when either a virus or a large-spread corruption was discovered. Only two of the files are left, both of which had finished unencrypting. I've read through the first one." Eren twisted in his seat to snatch his bag from the floor, keeping his eyes away from Levi's face, nervous about his reaction. He could see the raven haired man out of the corner of his eye as he dug into his bag; Levi remained silent and unmoving, a perfect statute that had been set into a chair never to be moved again.

Eren pulled the papers from his bag and finally looked up at Levi. The raven-haired man stared at him, mouth slightly parted and eyes wide. "You have got to be kidding me." Horrified disbelief filled every plane, every angle, of Levi's face and his words were the epitome of skepticism. Eren held the papers he had printed out towards Levi, who took them with gradual and mechanical movements. "You aren't, are you?" Eren shook his head in response. "Dammit!" Levi's free hand clenched into a tight fist, his eyes narrowing as he glared down at the papers as if they had somehow grievously offended him. "Do you have any backups? Do we have any backups?"

"As far as I can remember, I don't think we do." Levi shut his eyes and set the papers on his legs so that he could slowly clench and unclench both of his hands. Eren could sense the frustration that flowed from every pore. He waited for Levi to reopen his eyes before he spoke. "Wait... didn't you hold on to a flash drive from the case? I gave it back to you after I copied the files."

Levi's head shot up and he stared at Eren for a moment before he twisted in his chair and pulled one of the desk drawers open. Eren watched as he rummaged around through the drawer before he leaned back, shaking his head. "I remember putting a flash drive in there but if I left it in there it's gone now. Well now, this is fucking great." Levi sighed in irritation and slammed the drawer shut with his foot. "We should start marking down possible streets and start eliminating places. This is going to take a while so we'll need as much of a jump as we can get, especially since we don't know when they'll strike again."

Eren stood and stretched his limbs, his joints cracking and creaking. "I'll go get another map of the city and then one of the individual districts. Anything else you think we'll need?" Levi shook his head slowly, "That's all we will need at the moment." Eren nodded and darted off in search of the supplies.

Levi followed Eren to his apartment, keeping pace with Eren despite the swift and long strides that the brown haired man took. Both set the maps they were carrying down on the coffee table, crowding the space that wasn't taken up by the laptop. Levi unrolled the ones of the districts in the Rose Division, which had contained the most locations that could possibly be related to the case and the location of the next murder. They sat on the couch, so close that their knees kept knocking if either of them moved too much.

Together they marked out streets, circled and highlighted blocks and buildings, and flagged other possible related locations. Numerous streets could be linked to various points in the poem. The entirety of the park where the Renaissance festival was being held, the Rose Division Park, had been outlined and shaded in for good measure. They had even gone so far as to flag a hospital, two funeral homes, and the offices of people involved in Renaissance history, all in the hope that these locations might be connected to the case.

The Karanese District was the one they had their eyes on, as it contained four streets had been marked; Knight Avenue, Knight Street, Night Boulevard, and Night Parkway. The Rose Division Park stretched across nearly half of Karanese District. There were at least a dozen buildings they had flagged. Coupled with all of the locations on the rest of the maps, it was like trying to find an invisible needle in a haystack-like arrangement made of silver slivers.

Levi dragged the edge of his red marker along the edge of the Rose Division Park, red blossoming in the wake of the felt tip of the marker. "These caves that Meridew and Masters had spoken of… are you certain no absolute locations were mentioned?" Eren nodded as he flicked through a stack of papers.

"He even stated that the location had been scratched out from the journal. He had no leads and we have none. All we have is a bunch of dead bodies, missing children, and fucked up poems that tell us nothing other than the vaguest of clues to ever exist." Eren threw his hands into the air, frustration evident on his face. "It's astounding how well these bastards have managed to cover their tracks. This is about the time that having a larger police force would be excellent, especially with all of this ground to cover over a time span of God knows how long because we don't know when they'll strike again."

Levi capped the marker and leaned back on the couch, twisting his torso so he could look at Eren. "There's no point in complaining. We've got to work with what we've got and this is it. I don't think I've ever had any less to work on a case with, but we'll make this work out in the end. In the meantime, if you're done complaining, why don't you look through the files and see if you can find anything that might give us a general time of when the next attack might occur, whether it's another kidnapping or another double homicide."

Eren sighed but complied, picking up several more sheets to scan through. Levi picked up a small stack of papers and scanned the first page; details from the autopsy reports. Mina Carolina's and Nac Tius' would not be in for a while yet as they had only managed to completely free the bodies from the concrete roof two hours ago. Hanji would probably have a mostly complete autopsy to finish and the second to perform tomorrow since her office closed at five and it was fifteen till five.

"What do you think…?" Whatever Eren had been saying was interrupted by a massive yawn. His jaws snapped shut after an extended period of time before he tried to speak again. "What do you think happened to those three children that are still missing? We still haven't found them yet."

Perhaps it's best that we haven't found them… Finding them would mean that they are dead. As of right now, they are both alive and dead, much like Schrodinger's cat. Although I dread to think of what might be happening to them if they are still alive. "Who knows?" Levi murmured, flipping through more pages. Eren's only response to Levi's comment was to yawn again and shift his papers a bit.

They fell back into silence, a common occurrence between them. The periods of silence had long since ceased to be awkward, instead becoming oddly comfortable and a time that Levi enjoyed in a strange way. Perhaps it was just because there was no one talking his head off or nagging him about going to one bar or another with them or perhaps it was simply the fact that he could get both his precious silence and a human companion sharing the peaceful space with him.

Levi looked up some time later and stared at the wooden floor of the apartment, watching the final bars of sunlight slowly inch their way across the floor, the light tricking in from between the cracks of the blinds growing fainter as night prepared to clench them within its grasp. It was nearly six thirty; darkness would be on them soon. Gray eyes slowed wandered across the room, dancing over objects and papers until they landed on Eren's face.

The other man's face was slack, his eyes shut and his lips parted slightly. Eren's chest moved up and down slowly and rhythmically; he had fallen asleep at some point. His body swayed gently from side to side, jerking back upright when he leaned too far to one side and remaining upright for a few moments before he swayed the other way. Levi sighed and shook his head but an unconscious smile spread across his face, small and amused.

Pale fingers stretched out towards the irritating man that had wormed his way into Levi's life, moving almost of their own accord. His hand rested on Eren's shoulder for a moment before he gently tugged Eren down and closer till the other man's head was nestled on top of his leg. Eren shifted slightly but his eyes remained clamped shut, his face pressed against Levi's thigh and his arms curled up against his chest. Levi's smile broadened, a smile of genuine affection crossing his face momentarily as he gazed down at Eren.

Levi raised the papers in his other hand and refocused on the notes. He missed the murmur the first time, nearly inaudible despite the silence. Light gray eyes flicked down again and he watched as Eren's lips moved again, the sound more audible this time. "Thanks… Levi." Hm, so it seems that he was awake, although he probably wouldn't be for much longer.

Pale fingers threaded their way through Eren's hair before Levi had quite realized that they had done so and by the time he noticed he couldn't really find the heart to remove them. Instead he let his fingers roam through the silky chestnut locks over and over again, his movements slow and absent. The soft silence drifted back between them for several minutes before soft snores, almost inaudible, began to emanate from Eren's sleeping form. "Anytime Eren…"

Chapter 15: End

First off let me apologize for the delay in this chapter; I was trying to take care of schoolwork and softball so I ended up putting this chapter off for a few days, and coupled with some minor writer's block, I was having one hell of a time trying to write this. But I've finally finished~ Many thanks to Calley, who aided me with a couple of the scenes in here~ I must also notify you that from this point on updates will become more spaced out but I will try 1-2 a week. Be on the lookout for the new AoT story, Speak! which will appear in a few days.

calleyrose: Excellent, I love riots~
Anon (Hanji): Haha calm down, I'll continue so no worries!
ichiruzuka: I'd respond to the first two questions but... although I do recall one of them saying in the previous chapter that there was a possibility that the pattern had changed yet again, so no, the poem wasn't wrong. As for the second half; thanks for pointing that out! Microsoft might save my ass on a lot of error but it can't catch everything unfortunately.
TheOtaku2: Cliffhangers are the best~ Except for in Game of Thrones, those can be terrifying.
layer14: Haha if you think that's mean you'll think I'm pure evil with Speak!
Cupcake Snowflake: Thank you o/o
blackirishawk: Depending on what you want him to figure out it might take him a while...