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Next day…
Dawn over the refugee camp was a pale, anemic thing, literally bleached of color and hope. It revealed a landscape of dust and despair, where the only things that grew were rumors and the stubborn, bitter weeds of survival. The air, already thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and woodsmoke, now carried a new, electric current: fear, seasoned with a heavy dose of cynical disbelief.
Eren's back ached, a dull, persistent throb that had become as much a part of him as his own heartbeat. The wooden handle of the hoe was slick with his sweat, each thrust of the tool into the hard, unyielding earth was a small act of defiance against the futility of it all. This field, like all the others, was a liar. It promised sustenance but yielded little more than exhaustion.
Nearby, a group of men were taking a water break, their conversation a low, grumbling murmur that cut through the morning quiet.
"…heard it from my cousin's wife, who serves in a manor house in Sina," one man was saying, his voice a conspiratorial rasp. "A demon, she said. Big as a horse, with fur blacker than a starless night and eyes that burned like hellfire. Tore a man to pieces, it did. Ate some prized sheep and just… vanished into thin air."
A younger man scoffed, wiping his brow with a ragged sleeve. "Oh, come off it. 'Vanished into thin air'? You'll believe anything. Probably just a rabid dog. Or some noble's exotic pet that got loose. They get bored, those Sina pigs. Invent monsters to feel important."
"It's not just talk!" the other man (At this point I am lazy to come up with names) insisted, his voice rising slightly. "There was a cannon fired! On the Wall itself! You think the Garrison fires cannons for a stray dog?"
"I think," interjected an older woman, her face a roadmap of wrinkles and resentment, "that you should all focus on your work. Unless you want the MPs to decide your rations are 'vanishing into thin air' for slacking off. Monsters in Sina…" She spat into the dirt. "Let them have their fantasies. We have real problems."
Eren kept his head down, his jaw clenched. He focused on the rhythm of his work: thrust, pull, turn. But his mind was racing. A demon dog?...Phasing? It sounded… familiar. A cold knot tightened in his stomach. It couldn't be. Zs'Skayr was gone. Vaporized. This was something else. It had to be.
He glanced at Mikasa, who was working a few rows over. Her movements were fluid and efficient, a study in focused grace even in this miserable labor. Her eyes, however, flickered towards him, a silent question in their grey depths. She'd heard the rumors too.
A few hundred yards away, in the section of the camp dedicated to repairing working tools and other salvaged materials, Grandpa Arlet worked with a quiet, grim focus. His hands, gnarled and strong, moved with practiced ease as he cleaned the grit from a set of corroded gas canisters. The work was mindless, giving his thoughts too much room to breathe.
He had promised Armin. No more secrets.
…He had lied…Again.
The weight of that lie was a physical presence in his chest, a cold stone of guilt. Some things just aren't meant to be told… yet. The boy was brilliant, but he was still a child. The full, horrifying truth of the Xerxathi; its true nature as a planetary-scale genetic time bomb, a failsafe for a species long since extinct or evolved; was a burden that would crush him. And the other truths…those were secrets he would carry to his grave. For all their sakes.
The murmurs from the field reached his ears, cutting through his grim reflections.
…scaled the wall…
…eyes like blue fire…
…phased right through a cannonball…
At first, he dismissed it as the same hysterical gossip that always sprouted in places like this. But the details were… specific. Too specific. A canine form. Phasing. Glowing markings.
His hands stilled. The cleaning rag hung limp in his grip.
Hold on…
No.
The word was a silent bullet in his mind.
It couldn't be. Dog like, big as a wolf…A Vulpimancer? On this world? It made no sense. They were subterranean pack hunters from Vulpin, not solitary phantoms. Their "vision" was sonic, not… glowing eyes. But the description… a creature that could become intangible…
A cold dread, different from the guilt but just as potent, began to seep into his veins. It was the dread of a soldier who recognizes the opening moves of a battle he thought was long over. If it was a Vulpimancer, it wasn't a natural occurrence. It was a release. An intrusion. And if one alien specimen had found its way here, what's to say there isn't more?
He looked up, his old eyes scanning the horizon beyond the camp, towards the distant, unseen spires of Wall Sina. The peaceful, weary old man was gone, replaced for a moment by the wary, calculating Wrecker. The game had just changed, and the board was far larger than anyone in this camp could possibly imagine.
Back in the fields, the sun climbed higher, its heat becoming a physical weight. The trio had been assigned to clear a new, rocky patch of land, the three of them working in a strained but functional silence. The easy peace of the creek was a distant memory, shattered by the re-emergence of the world's harshness.
It was then that they saw him.
Bran.
He was hauling a sack of seed, his head down, his shoulders slumped. The once-proud, cruel bully was a ghost of his former self. His movements were listless, his face pale and drawn. The greyish tint to his skin had faded, but it had left behind a sickly pallor, and his eyes… his eyes held a hollow, haunted look, as if he were constantly seeing something just over your shoulder.
He wasn't looking where he was going, his mind clearly elsewhere, trapped in some private nightmare. He stumbled, the sack tilting, and he bumped hard into Armin, who was carefully arranging stones at the edge of the plot.
"Hey!" Eren started, his protective instincts flaring, his own frustrations finding a ready target.
But before Eren could say anything more, Bran flinched back as if burned. His head snapped up, and the look in his eyes wasn't anger or defiance, but pure, unadulterated terror.
"I'm sorry!" The words burst from Bran, high-pitched and frantic. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! Please, I'm sorry!" He was trembling, his hands coming up in a placating gesture, his gaze darting between Armin and Eren like a trapped animal.
Eren, taken aback by the sheer panic, scowled. "Watch where you're going, you—"
He never finished the insult.
Mikasa was there in an instant. She didn't say a word. She didn't have to. Her silver eyes, fixed on Eren, were like shards of ice. The message in them was clear, sharp, and absolute:
He has been through enough. Stop.
Eren's mouth snapped shut. He looked from Mikasa's stern face to Bran's terrified one, and the fight drained out of him, replaced by a confused, uncomfortable shame. He mumbled, his voice low, "…Sorry."
But the apology wasn't for bumping into Armin. It was for the thoughtless cruelty that had almost spilled out, for forgetting, even for a second, the shared horror that bound them all, even a bastard like Bran.
Bran didn't seem to hear. He just kept muttering "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as he hefted his sack and scurried away, his form shrinking into the dusty landscape, a boy broken not by fists, but by a violation so profound it had scraped the person he was right out of him.
Armin, who had remained silent through the entire exchange, finally spoke, his voice quiet. "He's not the same."
"No," Mikasa agreed, her gaze still on the spot where Bran had vanished. "He isn't."
The three of them stood there for a moment, the unspoken truth hanging heavily in the air between them. The ghost of Zs'Skayr was gone, but his touch had left scars on everything; on the land, on their friendships, and on the souls of even their enemies. And now, from the gilded cage of Wall Sina, whispers of a new, different kind of monster were beginning to drift in on the wind, a fresh nightmare waiting to be born. The walls, it seemed, were no longer enough to keep the darkness out.
Survey corps headquarters…
The tension in the interrogation room was thick enough to slice the air. It was a small, windowless chamber deep within the Scout Regiment headquarters, a world away from the chaotic violence of the previous night. The only light came from a single oil lamp on a plain wooden table, its flame casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to flinch away from the room's occupants.
Gerth, the stablehand from the supply wagon, sat on a hard-backed chair, his face pale and slick with a nervous sweat. He wrung his cap in his hands, his eyes darting between the imposing figures surrounding him.
"I'm tellin' you, I don't know nothin'!" he pleaded, his voice cracking. "One minute I'm thinkin' about gettin' a warm meal, the next, your soldiers are blockin' the gate, draggin' me back here! For the love of the Walls, I just drive the wagon!"
Commander Erwin Smith stood opposite him, his presence a calm, formidable anchor in the tense room. His right hand was a heavily bandaged club resting on the table, a stark white reminder of the previous night's encounter. His face was pale, etched with pain and fatigue, but his steel blue eye was as sharp and analytical as ever.
"Your wagon was the point of entry, Gerth," Erwin said, his voice low and even. "A creature infiltrated this headquarters through your cargo. We need to know everything."
From the doorway, Levi watched, his arms crossed. He leaned against the doorframe, a picture of coiled tension. A faint bruise was forming on his jawline. He finally pushed off the doorframe, his movements silent and deliberate. He walked around the table until he was standing directly behind Gerth, not touching him, but his presence was a cold weight on the man's back.
"The Commander is being polite," Levi said, his voice a soft, dangerous whisper right by Gerth's ear. The stablehand flinched violently.
"I'm not. You said you checked the canvas in Trost. So either you're a liar, or you're blind. Which is it?"
"I-I did! I swear!"
"Then explain the six-foot tear in it," Levi hissed. "Explain how you didn't notice the weight of a several-hundred- fucking pound monster climbing aboard. Or the smell."
He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a venomous murmur. "My colleague here," he gestured with his chin towards Mike, "can smell the terror on you right now. Imagine what I can do if I decide you're not being… sufficiently helpful."
Gerth began to tremble uncontrollably, his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. "Please… I… I didn't see anything! I just drive the route! I pick up from the depots, I drop off at the bases! That's it!"
Hange paced the far corner of the room like a caged animal, let out a sound of pure frustration. "Useless! My office is in ruins and he 'didn't see anything'!"
Erwin remained calm, his gaze fixed on Gerth. "The route. Which bases? Specifically."
"The… the Cadet Corps sites, mostly," Gerth stammered, desperate to be helpful under Levi's terrifying gaze. "There are a few in the southern region of Wall Rose. I… I don't always know the numbers, sir! The 103rd 1st squadron? The second? The paperwork just has the locations! I just follow the orders!"
Levi's eyes narrowed. "Great. So it could be at any one of several compounds full of idiot children."
Mike who was standing near Hange, took a slow, deliberate breath releasing all pensive exhaustion within him. "He's telling the truth now," Mike rumbled. "Panic, but no lies. The creature's scent isn't on him. It was only on the wagon."
The confirmation was chilling. The 'Demon Dog' was real, and its path traced back to the cadets, but they had no clear target.
"We need to dispatch investigation teams to every Cadet Corps site in the southern region," Erwin declared, his voice gaining the steel of command. "Immediately. We'll coordinate with the Garrison. Every cadet and instructor needs to be questioned. We are looking for any unusual incidents, livestock deaths, or strange sightings. People's lives are at stake."
The order sent a ripple of grim purpose through the room. The mystery had exploded in scale.
As Erwin began outlining the deployment with Mike and Hange, the door opened slightly and a scout; a man named Duran with a forgettable face and nervous eyes; leaned in. "Commander, the preliminary scout teams are ready for your final briefing before dispatch."
"Very well. Assemble them in the courtyard. We'll be there shortly," Erwin said.
Duran nodded, his eyes flicking around the tense room before he withdrew. He had heard enough: the confirmation of the monster, its abilities, its possible location among the cadet corps. As he hurried down the corridor towards the courtyard, his mind raced a bit. He blended in with the other scouts gathering in the courtyard, his face a mask of dutiful concern, but his heart was pounding with a single, selfish thought: how to ensure he was assigned to the most closest, and therefore fastest investigation route.
But for what reason?
Chapter 24-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.