Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The waves crashed against the seawall like a lullaby shushing Jean’s haywired thoughts. A flock of seagulls flew past them as his gaze stared distant into the dark vastness of the sea, the sky a tone of indigo like the way darkened clouds gather before the rain. The concrete felt cold underneath his palms. For some reason, he felt like this was all a calm before the storm.

“Jean,” Marco’s soft voice pulled him out of the whirlwind of thoughts. The what-ifs, the thousand possibilities he could ever make up in his head. “You’re not an asshole. You just made a mistake. Stop beating yourself up.”

Jean’s gaze drifted to his bruised knuckles, softening. His fist ached in the aftermath. “He deserved it.”

He described his step-father as hysterical. Too paranoid about what was happening to the world. Forest fires, war, the current plague.

A chainsmoker in their household who added noise to his own head. It became too much: it scared his mother who he cared so deeply. She was sick, despite pretending like she wasn’t on those calls where he checked up on her, she didn’t need any more stress.

“You’re better than this,” the dark-haired boy simply smiled ever so gently at him.

He knew his best friend all too well.

Jean didn’t act on emotions, it was unlike him. But he had his own reasons, always the type to think before he acts. This was an exception, it stirred more tension than it should, but violence was not the answer to a fistfight with a family. Even if they were pretentious.

“Listen to me,” Marco spoke. “When we get to the gates… promise me one thing.”

The silence washed over them like the waves.

“There’s three gates we have to get through. Shiganshina is still tougher than we thought. To deal with all that in three days… is more ambitious.” He continued.

“Isn’t that your plan?” Jean looked at him, uncertain. It did sound almost impossible. The average single person who would get there by foot would take two weeks and a half.

“Mina’s,” Marco’s lips pressed into a thin line, brows furrowing. “It’s that or nothing. Unless you have any suggestions?”

“I’ll think about it…”

“Seriously, promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Don’t look back.” He never wanted Jean to hesitate in any kind of circumstances. He was… too kind. Marco believed Jean understood things better than most people despite his brash nature which stuck to him as an armor.

Silence struck longer between them once more.

Marco knew it was all over the media.

The Spread, as they called it, is an enigma from many sources. It was already studied for so long. Many professionals—scientists, historians, epidemiologists, virologists, immunologists, bioengineers, forensic analysts, geneticists did their best to gather information. But as time passed, that enigma’s behavior became more unpredictable. 

To the masses, it was simply an “infection,” a nameless sickness that hollowed out the immune system before twisting the body into something unrecognizable as it hiked the death toll and infections on broadcasts.

The truth, however, was far uglier than any broadcast dared to admit. The infection didn’t just take over the body, it unraveled the mind. First came the confusion, subtle lapses in memory which was mistaken for fatigue then the erratic behavior began.

Unprovoked aggression, violent spasms, a desperate gnawing hunger that no over-the-counter drugs fixed. By the final stage, the infected were barely human. Driven only by instinct, unnatural motions as if their bodies were controlled by something that had forgotten how people were supposed to move. 

They attacked anything warm, anything breathing. Some called them “husks,” others “corpses.” But most settled on the word that fit best, even if no one wanted to speak it aloud.

Zombies.

Jean huffed at his own words, tilting his head; perplexity lingered in his features. “Huh, okay. Tell you what, we’ll get back to Trost, no matter whatever the hell happens.” He peered over his shoulder, looking back at the old yellow bungalow he calls a home. “That old fool can take care of himself. We’ll take his truck.”

-

The jostling on his shoulder grew more insistent, pulling Jean from a deep, restless sleep on the cot. His teeth chattered in the cold night air, a sharp reminder of where he was. Silence hung heavy around them, broken only by the distant chirp of crickets and the occasional crackle of a radio.

“Jean, wake up.” The whisper cut through the darkness, faint footsteps crunching softly over gravel as they approached, then receded.

Jean’s eyes snapped open, every sense on alert. The lights inside the house were already out.

It was time to move.

The old truck waited, and Jean slid into the driver’s seat with practiced ease. The night ahead was long and uncertain, but for now, getting moving was all that mattered. Every movement had to be deliberate, otherwise one mistake could draw unwanted attention.

Jean pulled the waterproof tarp off the back. “How many guns do we have?”

Marco leaned over, counting quickly. “One shotgun, two handguns, a few boxes of ammo… and some knives. Enough for emergencies, but we’re not overstocked.”

Jean nodded, checking the rearview mirror and the darkness around them. “All right. Keep your eyes open. Noise or movement, anything out of place, we react fast. No hero shit.”

Marco gave a small, grim smile. “Got it.”

Jean started the engine, the truck rumbling over the gravel as they pulled onto the road. The city was still hours away, and every mile was a reminder: they couldn’t afford mistakes, and luck wasn’t on their side in this grim reality.

“The route's clear so far,” Marco murmured, voice low, scanning the empty street. “But… we’ll have to stick to back roads once we hit the outskirts. You know how they move after dark.”

Jean gave a curt nod, eyes darting to the rearview mirror as the city skyline emerged faintly against the horizon. Broken streetlights flickered in the distance, a reminder that the world they knew had ended. “Five hours, huh? Let’s hope the damned highways aren’t swarming with them. The last thing I want is to get boxed in with a horde.”

Marco’s lips pressed into a thin line. “We’ll manage. We always do. Just… keep your head clear. We can’t afford mistakes tonight, ‘cause we’ll meet Mina and her friends at the border.”

Jean’s gaze hardened. He thought of his childhood home, the little yellow bungalow now shrinking behind them in the rearview. He could still feel the weight of his father’s wrench in his hands, the smell of motor oil in the garage. Memories that seemed a lifetime away.

But there was no time for nostalgia when survival demanded focus.

The hours passed in near silence save for the low rumble of the truck’s engine and the occasional clink of their looted supplies shifting. Jean’s hands gripped the wheel, his knuckles white and his eyes flicking constantly to the road ahead and the mirrors. The highways had long since emptied abandoned cars lined sides.

Some overturned, some burnt-out shells. Every shadow seemed alive, every movement a potential threat.

The radio crackled to life, static scratching through the speakers. A weary voice came through, almost drowned by interference.

“Infection rates continue to rise… over thirty percent of the population in the outer districts… authorities urge extreme caution… quarantined zones expanding… do not approach infected areas… citizens advised to travel only in small, fortified groups…”

Jean tightened his grip on the wheel, jaw clenched. Marco leaned forward, turning the volume down slightly. “Still climbing,” he muttered. “And that’s just the reported cases. The rest… we don’t even know.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed, scanning the shadows along the road. “Figures on paper mean nothing if the things are already on top of you.”

A sudden rustle from the overgrown roadside made him jerk his head. Something moved in the darkness, too fast and jerky to be an animal.

His heart thudded, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Faint, wet scratching sounds echoed from the roadside, as if dozens of unseen hands were dragging themselves across the gravel.

“Did you hear that?” Marco whispered, voice tight.

Jean swallowed hard, gripping the wheel tighter. “Keep your eyes on the road.”

For a long moment, the only sounds were the truck’s engine and the distant, irregular scratching. Every shadow seemed to shift, flicker and loom closer, making the darkness feel alive. Sweat prickled Jean’s brow despite the cold. The infected weren’t just numbers.

They were out there, waiting, impatient, and hungry.

After hours of careful driving along cracked asphalt and overgrown roads, they spotted the gas station. Its sign swung loosely in the wind, lights long dead.

The pumps were rusted, the lot littered with debris and empty shells of tires. They pulled in slowly, tires crunching over broken gravel.

Jean killed the engine and held his breath. The lot was silent except for the creak of the swinging sign and the whisper of wind.

He grabbed the shotgun, then the flashlight and swept it across the cracked pumps, his hand trembling slightly, but steadier than Marco’s, who crouched behind the truck, gripping a crowbar like it was a lifeline.

A crash from inside the gas station made them both jump. Groaning figures stumbled out of the shadows, pale and jerky, moving in ways that didn’t seem natural.

Jean reacted before he could think. The shotgun felt heavier than it should, the cold metal biting into his palms. He fired and one of the creatures dropped with a sickening thud. His mind drifted back to an old memory of teenage Jean in the woods, the mist curling around the trees, his stepfather beside him, voice low and steady.

“Steady your grip. Don’t rush. Aim where it counts.”

The smell of pine, the snap of the rifle, the tense silence before the deer fell… he hadn’t thought about it in years.

Another creature lunged at Marco, and he froze, the crowbar jerking awkwardly in his hands. Panic flashed in his wide eyes, and Jean felt a spike of fear for him but his body moved before his mind could catch up. 

Rusty muscle memory, buried under a decade of ordinary life, took over: breathe, line up the shot, squeeze. He shoved Marco out of the way and fired again, the recoil biting into his shoulder but oddly familiar, like a memory waking from a long sleep.

It had been ten years since he’d held a gun in the woods. He was twenty-five now and yet, somehow, his hands remembered.

The fight was messy, panicked, and clumsy. Jean’s movements weren’t graceful, they weren't perfect. But they were deliberate enough to keep them alive.

He ducked low behind the truck, leaned against the rusted pumps, and aimed with a focus that felt both foreign and comforting.

Marco scrambled beside him, hands shaking, missing shots, nearly tripping over debris. Jean’s chest ached.

The ghosts of the woods whispered in his mind, urging patience, calm, precision. He could feel his teenage self, tense in the cold morning light, repeating the same lessons. Steady, breathe, and then aim. That memory, fragile and faded, was enough to hold him steady now, amidst the groans and shuffles and the sickening stench of what the world had become.

After what felt like an eternity but was only minutes, the immediate threat was gone. Jean lowered the flashlight, chest heaving, and looked at Marco.

“Hey,” he said softly, crouching beside him. Marco’s hands were scraped, and his breathing was ragged. “You okay?”

Marco nodded shakily, eyes still darting to the shadows. Jean clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re alive. That’s what matters. Don’t let it shake you too much. Just… stay close, alright?”

Marco swallowed and nodded again, his hands tightening on the crowbar. Jean gave him a brief, steadying glance before standing and surveying the lot. The infected were gone for now, but the morning was far from safe. They had survived, barely, and Jean knew the rest of the journey would demand every ounce of focus and nerve they had left.

Jean’s jaw tightened. The wall: Wall Maria, stood somewhere ahead. A silent reminder of civilization and its failures. 

Beyond it, they hoped, might be answers, or at least shelter. But first, they had to survive the first sunrise out of that old damned small town.

Chapter Text

As sunrise came, neither Jean nor Marco had really slept. They've only gone in and out in slumber. Their ears were alert all the time, listening for footsteps that never came.

Jean woke with his fingers still curled around the shotgun, the memory of the night clawing at his nerves and Marco looked pale, but he was still determined.

They packed in silence as they moved onwards. The air was heavy with what had almost happened in that gasoline station. Jean checked the truck twice, then a third time, because apparently, mistakes now meant death. 

The road ahead wound toward the first border checkpoint, but rumors said the military had abandoned those posts weeks ago. 

They continued to drive, nevertheless. The sunrise revealed more fear than it erased. As light stretched across the cracked highway, the world around them appeared in broken pieces. There lies abandoned farms, overturned cars, belongings scattered like remnants of lives cut short.

The radio spat static while Jean drove with both hands tight on the wheel, weary eyes scanning every silhouette. Marco kept watch with his binoculars, although his hands trembled from the exhaustion and anxiety he felt every time he lifted them. 

The closer they got to the outer gate, the more signs they found of other survivors painted warnings on concrete walls. Some of them looked already faded, some were recent.

TURN BACK. NO SAFE ZONE.

TRUST NO ONE.

THEY DON’T STAY DEAD.

MILITARY LIED.

BORDER BREACHED.

GATE MARIA = LOST.

A fresh one stopped Jean cold for a moment. Red spray paint, still bright against the grey concrete.

BANDITS AHEAD. KILLERS. AVOID ROUTE 11

Jean’s jaw tightened at the text. Someone had taken the time to warn strangers. People… who might not still be alive.

A mile later, the truck slowed. The road funneled into a narrow stretch between a collapsed overpass and a drained riverbed. Tents were scattered on the side of the road, torn open, flapping weakly in the wind. Some belongings were still inside as they inspected further. Clothes, backpacks, a pair of running shoes lying neatly together, untouched. As if someone had taken a rest here just the night before.

Marco swallowed hard. “Jean… I don’t think this was the infected.”

Jean nodded slowly, lips pressed into a thin line. “Shit.”

Bullet holes marked the asphalt, tire tracks looped in wild, frantic arcs on the concrete ground. He noticed a dried smear of blood stretched toward the ditch.

It seemed that whoever had been here before them hadn’t stood a chance.

Jean tightened his grip on the wheel, feeling a cold weight settle in his chest. “Keep your eyes open,” he muttered. “People are getting desperate.”

It was just the same thing he remembered months ago, people were buying in panic until it turned into a mania. Most of them broke into stores and stole things instead. They drove on, the morning growing brighter but never warmer. The wall was still somewhere ahead. 

A promise, a threat, or maybe just another ruin waiting to disappoint them. But they kept moving, because stopping meant dying, and neither of them was ready for that yet. All this just happened in a span of a month.

They spotted the checkpoint just past noon.

… Or what was left of it.

Jean slowed the truck without realizing his foot had eased off the gas. His throat tightened as the guard post came into view. The small makeshift guard post was tipped on its side like a kicked toy, the windows smashed inward. The barrier arm hung twisted, barely held up by a single warped hinge. Tarps flapped weakly, stained with something far too dark to be mud. Something did happen here, but he couldn't clearly discern whether it was from a horde attack or from people.

He swallowed hard. His palms were sweating against the wheel as Marco leaned forward. “What happened here?”

Jean didn’t answer. His stomach had already knotted at the thoughts anxiously resurfacing in his head.

He parked the truck a few meters away, the engine was idling. The stillness outside felt wrong. It felt heavy. As if something was waiting.

“Stay behind me,” Jean muttered. His voice came out hoarse. He wasn’t trying to be brave, he just needed something to focus on besides the pounding in his chest.

They stepped out.

The smell hit the first sweet rot layered over metal, thick enough to taste. Jean gagged instantly, clamping a hand over his mouth. The air felt warm, wet. Wrong.

Marco whispered, “Oh my god…”

Jean forced himself forward. One step. Another.

Then he saw the bodies.

A soldier slumped against a barricade, chest armor cracked open, head gone. Another lay by the booth, arms stretched toward a shattered radio.

A third—if it was a third—had been dragged across the pavement, leaving a long, dark smear that led into the drainage culvert. Flies buzzed in tense, lazy circles.

Jean’s vision tunneled. Something in his brain folded in on itself.

“Fuck.” His breath hitched short, panicked. His throat burned as he turned away and dropped to his knees when it buckled, vomiting into the dirt.

His whole body shook, not from fear exactly but from the shock of reality hitting too fast, too hard. His eyes watered; bile stung his tongue. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, breath ragged.

Marco knelt beside him, terrified. “Jean, we should go, we shouldn’t be here.”

“Just… give me a second,” Jean gasped, trying to pull air into his lungs. “I’m fine.”

He clearly wasn’t, but he forced himself to stand. Because if he didn’t move now, he never would. Wiping his eyes with his sleeve, he steadied the shotgun against his shoulder, his hands still trembling.

He heard it before he saw anything. This uneven shuffling sounded wet. Like someone was dragging a sack of meat across concrete.

Jean’s heart dropped into his stomach.

It came from the overturned military truck.

Marco stiffened. “No… no, please—”

Jean raised the shotgun, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. He felt that familiar wave—the same one from the gas station—terror turning to white noise.

“Back up, Marco,” he whispered urgently.

From the darkness inside the truck, a hand slid out. Skin grey, veins thick and black. The wrist bent at the wrong angle, hanging loosely as if the bones had melted. Jean felt the bile rise again but he forced it down.Another hand followed. Then a head, neck snapped sideways, jaw hanging loose before clacking back into place with a sharp, sick click.

Jean took aim as his whole body trembled. But then footsteps echoed behind them. Not one, not two, but many.

Marco whispered, voice cracking, “They’re… they’re coming from the culvert too.”

He grabbed Marco’s jacket. “Go. Get in.”

Marco stumbled back toward the truck. Jean fired once, poorly aimed, panicked, but enough to knock the closest infected off balance. More crawled out of the truck. Even more spilled from the culvert, heads lolling, limbs dragging behind them like heavy ropes.

Jean didn’t remember running to the driver’s side, his adrenaline rushed in a flurry movement. He just slammed the weight of the door, Marco screaming something unintelligible, raw panic, and his own shaking hands slamming the gear shift into drive. The truck lurched forward as the tires rolled over something soft that gave way like rotten fruit.

Jean didn’t look back. He couldn’t.

His stomach heaved again, climbing up his throat in a hot, bitter wave. He tasted acid. Sharp, metallic, burning, but he forced it down, forced everything down, and kept his eyes locked on the smeared gray ribbon of road unspooling in the headlights.

Beside him, Marco’s breaths came in fast, suffocating gasps, as if the air had turned too thick to swallow. Behind them, the checkpoint shrank, dissolving into the distance like a bad dream retreating just out of reach. But it clung to them. 

The smell, the sounds, the way the bodies had looked under the noon sun stuck to their clothes, their skin, their minds. 

Jean wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, dragging away the sour sting of bile.

He felt hollowed out, carved thin, as if the world had scooped something vital out of him and left the shell rattling.

His hands shook on the wheel, tremors he couldn’t stop, tiny earthquakes running from fingertip to shoulder.

He had grown up hearing stories—government briefings, news warnings, rumors whispered between neighbors in the market lines. They were supposed to prepare people. They were supposed to soften the shock.

The stories hadn’t been exaggerations.

If anything… the world was worse. More grotesque.

More abandoned.

And more true than anyone had been willing to believe.

Jean squinted through the windshield, the faded sign looming ahead as he remembered one of the warning signs from earlier.

BANDITS AHEAD. KILLERS. AVOID ROUTE 11

The ash-blonde haired man swallowed hard and his jaw tightened. The words should have been enough to make them turn back, enough to warn any sane person that this road was death waiting in plain sight.

But there was no choice. The fuel gauge ticked closer to empty with every mile, a thin line between them and being stranded in the open.

The last gas station had been picked clean, and the highway beyond was littered with abandoned vehicles, their owners long gone… or worse…

Jean forced the truck forward, tires crunching over gravel and cracked asphalt. The road narrowed as trees pressed closer on either side, shadows reaching like grasping hands. 

The warning signs hung in his mind, but so did the pounding in his stomach along with the acid burning his throat, and the silent promise that turning back now would mean certain death.

Route 11 stretched ahead, broken and treacherous. Every mile was a gamble, every shadow a threat, but the wall… and whatever safety it still promised, lay somewhere beyond the fog. The truck hummed, engine struggling, tires hissing over gravel and old blood. 

The sky above them darkened into a bruised purple, as if even the light didn’t want to be here anymore. Trees leaned over the road like witnesses who had already given up on testifying.

Marco pressed a hand over his mouth, trembling. “Jean,” he whispered, barely audible. “I… I didn’t think it would look like that.”

Jean swallowed hard. His voice scraped out raw, almost breaking. “Yeah. Me neither.”

The city behind them was silent now, swallowed by smoke, fire, and rot. Empty streets stretched like tombs, buildings half-collapsed, windows staring like dead eyes.

Jean’s hands tightened on the wheel. “We shouldn’t even be here. This… this whole road,” he gestured vaguely toward the foggy stretch ahead, “it’s a death trap. Maybe we should turn back, find another way.”

Marco shook his head, voice firm despite the trembling in his hands. “There’s no other way. Not if we want to reach the wall before nightfall. Not with the city behind us dead. You saw it— everything’s gone. We can’t go back.”

Jean’s jaw clenched, anger bubbling through the fear. “Dead or alive, I’m not throwing us into some bandit’s trap because we’re too stubborn to admit we’re walking into hell!”

Marco’s face set, his eyes hard on the road ahead of them. “I know it’s hell, Jean! You think I want this? You think I’m happy driving into the unknown with a half-empty tank, and a road full of ghosts? But we don’t get to choose safely. We choose survival or we die, and survival means moving forward. Right now, we keep going.”

Jean’s hands trembled on the wheel. He wanted to argue, to yell, to make Marco see the truth in fear but he knew his friend was right. The city behind them was already a grave. Turning back wasn’t survival. Not anymore.

He exhaled slowly, jaw tight. “Fine.”

The truck rattled along Route 11, every crack in the asphalt jolting Jean’s ribs and stomach. Fog rolled in thick blankets, muffling the world and turning every shadow into a threat. Trees leaned over the road, scraping against the truck roof. Nausea churned in his gut, but he forced his focus.

There was no turning back. Not with fuel low at this point where they were able to get farther. Not with the wall still miles away. Route 11 stretched ahead like a wound carved into the earth.

It was once a wide, well-paved access road connecting the outer districts to the border gates, patrolled and maintained.

Now it was just broken, cracked, and overgrown. Rusted signs rattled in the wind, barely legible.

ROUTE 11

Jean squinted through the thick fog, glancing again at the faded sign. His eyes flicked down to the fuel gauge. It was almost empty at this point and they didn’t have a choice.

The highway ahead was lined with abandoned cars, burnt out patches of asphalt, and the remnants of people who had tried to survive and failed. The silence pressed in around them, broken only by the hum of the truck’s engine.

Every mile forward was a risk. Route 11 was cracked and overgrown, its edges eaten away by weeds and roots. Trees leaned close, their branches scratching at the truck like reaching hands. 

Jean tightened his grip on the wheel. His stomach churned. His ribs ached from the bumps in the road. Every shadow made him jump. But the wall still waited somewhere ahead, they were able to see its figure when they drove in the middle of the long road.

The truck rattled along, tires crunching over gravel, branches scraping the sides. Fog pooled low, hiding the cracked guardrails and the remnants of barricades meant to slow intruders. 

Jean’s stomach twisted, the memory of the last checkpoint burning at the back of his mind. He glanced at Marco, who was white-faced, gripping his binoculars like they were a shield.

Then the shadows moved.

Three figures emerged from the mist, moving with a precision that made Jean freeze but only for a fraction of a second. He barely had time to register the shapes before the broad-shouldered one lunged from the fog, closing the distance with terrifying speed.

Jean barely had a moment to raise his shotgun, and then a heavy hand slammed against his shoulder, jerking him off balance. The towering figure’s grip was iron, each movement deliberate and crushing.

The tallest of the three flanked Marco, pinning his legs with inhuman strength. A dark bandana covered the lower half of his face, leaving only sharp, calculating eyes visible. He didn’t move unnecessarily, he just held Marco in place, silent, watchful, unyielding.

Jean’s breath caught in his throat. His hands shook on the shotgun, useless against the sudden, overwhelming force pressing against him. Every instinct screamed to fight, but his body refused to respond the way he wanted. Muscle memory faltered. 

The broad-shouldered figure twisted, shoving him down to his knees, and Jean hit the gravel hard. Pain exploded through his shoulder, ribs jarring.

“Marco!” he gasped, voice raw, but the taller, bandana-covered figure had already hoisted Marco to his feet. 

The friend he’d fought to protect was slipping away, screaming, thrashing, useless against the sheer strength of their captors.

The fog closed in around him, obscuring the path, muffling sound. The broad-shouldered figure stepped closer, looming like a wall. Jean’s mind raced as his chest heaved, nausea once again climbed in the pit of his stomach. He hated this sickening feeling so much at this point.

Every breath burned in his chest as he forced himself up, shaking hands gripping the jagged piece of concrete he’d picked up earlier. He could only watch as Marco was dragged away, disappearing into the mist, and his vision tunneled to the ironclad grip holding him down.

He needed to do something.

Jean tried to rise, tried to swing, but the broad-shouldered figure twisted him down, pressing him to the ground with a weight that stole his breath. 

The fog wrapped around them, muffling shouts and hiding the path behind, making every second feel stretched and infinite. He could feel the gravel scraping his palms as he twisted, trying to leverage himself free.

A gloved hand clamped over his mouth, stifling his scream. Another pinned his arms behind his back, fingers biting into skin through cloth.

Panic surged, hot, blinding, but every muscle he tried to move refused to obey. The broad-shouldered figure leaned close, almost casual, the faintest smirk visible in the dim fog. Jean’s stomach clenched, bile rising, but he swallowed it down. 

The world narrowed to the pressure of hands on his wrists, the grunt of exertion from the stranger, the muffled shouts of his name from Marco.

-

Darkness pressed down like a wet blanket as Jean’s head throbbed, his vision was swimming in blurs of gray and shadow. Jean’s eyes fluttered open first, the fog of unconsciousness still thick in his head. Every nerve screamed, every joint ached. The ropes dug into his wrists and ankles, biting with every small movement.

He blinked, trying to make sense of the shapes around him, but every movement sent sharp jolts through his aching ribs and bruised shoulder. His wrists burned tied behind him, ropes bit into his skin as he tried to move.

He saw them: three figures rifling through their belongings. Panic clawed at his chest, but Jean forced it down. He had to wake Marco.

“Marco… Marco,” he whispered, voice trembling. Low enough that it wouldn’t draw attention, but loud enough to carry. “Wake up… come on…”

Marco stirred beside him, groaning, eyes half-closed, face pale and sweat-slicked. His lips quivered. “Jean…?”

“It’s me. Open your eyes,” Jean urged, keeping his own breathing shallow. “We’re… they’re here. Look.”

Marco’s eyes finally focused, and they widened at the sight of the three figures moving through the scattered supplies, tossing boxes, rifling through the bags with effortless authority. His hands clenched at the ropes, knuckles white.

“They… they’re the ones,” Marco whispered, voice cracking. “The signs… Route 11…”

Jean swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. “I know. I saw. Stay still. Breathe. We’re alive. That’s all that matters right now.”

“You’re awake,” the man said finally, voice low, calm, almost bored. Jean flinched at the sound. There was no warmth in it, no hint of mercy. “Good.”

Jean’s mind raced. Who is this? What does he want?

The stranger tilted his head slightly, letting the firelight catch the edge of his face from their makeshift bonfire to stay as warm as possible in these damned wet streets. A smirk flickered across his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. 

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t completely fucked in the head,” he added casually, as if testing them for some mundane quality instead of sizing up human prey.

Jean froze, bile rising in his throat. “What the fuck do you mean?” He rasped.

“You’ve been out there, right?” the man continued, pacing slowly around the truck. “Where the infection runs rampant. Or worse… the ones who survived but lost everything that made them human. Needed to know you weren’t one of them.”

Jean’s heart hammered. His stomach twisted. He could barely make himself meet the stranger’s eyes, but he tried. “We’re… human,” he whispered, voice raw, almost pleading.

The smirk widened, slow and deliberate. “For now,” the stranger said, stepping back just enough to let the ropes cut into Jean and Marco, a subtle reminder of how little control they had. “Good. I like that.”

Jean’s muscles tensed, mind racing. He’s dangerous. He’s calm. He’s… everything we aren’t. 

Beside him, Marco was trembling. White-faced, barely breathing. Even in the fog and the cold, tied and helpless, Jean understood one thing clearly. Survival now meant watching, memorizing, and waiting for any chance to turn the tables.

The freckled man shivered beside Jean, whispering, “Jesus… they’ve seen it all.”

Jean’s hands flexed against the ropes, trying to steady himself. His mind raced, imagining the horrors this stranger had probably survived, imagining the creatures that had left him this calm, this dangerous. 

The bandana-masked one and the lithe figure exchanged quick, subtle glances, silent and coordinated. Everything about them screamed control, precision, and danger. Jean felt the weight of it pressing in from every side. 

They weren’t just captured, they were being studied, measured, tested.

“Why… why didn’t you just leave us?” Jean asked, voice low but deliberate, tired yet controlled. “Like the others. Like everyone else on this road.”

The broad-shouldered stranger paused and circled them slowly, heavy boots crunching against gravel. His eyes glinted in the dim light, sharp and calculating.

“Because you have potential,” he said calmly. “Most people out here… no vehicle, no food, no supplies—don’t make it. You? You might.”

Jean pressed his jaw tight. “So… you’re using us.”

“Not using,” The blonde man replied, his tone even. “We’re bringing you to camp. That truck makes it possible. Most people have to walk by foot. You can help us reach the wall faster.”

Marco swallowed hard, shaking his head. “What if we don’t want to? What if we just—”

“Not much of a choice,” he cut in smoothly, though there was no harshness in his voice. “You’ll see. Surviving this way isn’t impossible.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed. “And the wall?”

Reiner’s smirk widened faintly. “The wall… that’s where the real chances start. Supplies, protection, answers.”

Jean glanced at Marco, whose wide eyes reflected equal parts dread and reluctant hope. He let out a short, tired laugh, shaking his head. “Figures. We survive the checkpoints, the dead, the road… and now strangers who tie us up and act like it’s all fine.”

“Yeah,” Marco muttered, voice low. “Seems like surviving’s never simple.”

Jean forced a calm, steadying breath. “We’re alive. That’s all that matters right now,” he said, almost to himself, almost a mantra. “Everything else… we’ll figure out.”

The man tilted his head, watching them carefully. The shorter blond woman who moved with precision and quiet grace, sighed softly, as if amused at their tension.  Jean’s gaze flicked from face to face, memorizing every line, every movement. These people are organized. Dangerous. Calm in ways we aren’t. 

The captors exchanged a brief glance, a silent conversation carried in a tilt of the head, a shift of weight. Jean’s heart raced, but he forced it down. Fear was useless if it paralyzed him. They started cutting the binds from their wrists.

“Move,” his voice clipped. Jean forced his body to respond, muscles aching from exhaustion and the rope cuts. 

The fog hung low over Route 11, curling around the rusted vehicle and their captors like a living thing. Jean’s muscles ached, but his mind remained alert, scanning for any small advantage or change in the strangers’ behavior.

“Names,” he said simply, as if it were the most obvious question in the world.

Jean hesitated as tension coiled in his stomach. “Jean… Jean Kirschtein,” he finally responded after a flicker of reluctance, his voice surprisingly steady despite the exhaustion. He glanced at Marco, who shook slightly. “And this is Marco,” he added.

Reiner nodded slowly, almost like he was filing away data in a mental catalog. “Annie,” she said, voice soft, almost casual. “And… you’re lucky we’re not idiots.”

Jean blinked, surprised at the tone. Not warm, not friendly, just matter-of-fact. “Lucky… huh?” He muttered.

The tallest one with the bandana half-covering his face, stepped closer, silent but observant. “Bertholdt,” he spoke slow and deliberate.

He sounded even gentler than he looked. As if he was just forced to do this, but the man had mad skills and he was capable of most things related to survival. “We’ve been watching this route for a while. You survived checkpoints, abandoned roads… you’ve got guts. That counts for something.”

Marco swallowed, voice trembling. “And… you? What about him?” He nodded toward Reiner, who simply smirked, broad shoulders casting a shadow over both of them.

“I’m Reiner,” he said. “We… do what we have to survive. You’ll learn soon enough. Don’t waste your energy guessing. Observe instead.”

Jean felt a tight knot form in his stomach. “And the wall?” he asked quietly, trying to understand their purpose. “You’re heading there too?”

Reiner’s smirk didn’t waver, emphasizing each punctuated word with the wave of his hands.. “Yes. Wall. Supplies. Shelter. Protection. Answers. You might actually make it with us. If you pay attention.”

Jean let out a short, tired laugh, tension seeping out in a strange, bitter way. “So… we’re part of your plan now,” he said, more statement than question.

Annie’s eyes flicked to him, sharp and calculating. “For now,” she said, voice flat. “Move quietly. Don’t make a scene. And don’t die before you’re useful.”

Jean glanced at Marco, who nodded silently, wide-eyed. They were captives, but what mattered was they were able to make it out alive from the ambush.

Even the smallest things such as that were already enough. As they were loaded into the truck, Jean’s mind churned, memorizing every detail. The weight of Reiner’s arms, the quick precision of Annie, the quiet watchfulness of Bertholdt. 

For now, survival meant cooperation. Jean and Marco fell into the rhythm of the group, tense but careful, moving at the same pace as their captors. The road was long, broken, and lined with shadows, but they all shared a goal: to reach the wall. He knew there were supplies there enough to cover a week-long hunger. People were dying beyond the walls.

Marco was surprisingly adept with the maps they had salvaged, and took point in navigation. He traced the routes familiar to him with a trembling finger, reading every notation and broken highway marker.

It was his plan with Mina from the start. Reiner and Bertholdt exchanged glances as Jean followed.

"You think they know what they’re doing?” Marco muttered quietly, voice low so only Jean could hear.

Jean shook his head. “Maybe. But we have to play along.”

The strangers, Reiner, Annie, Bertholdt, tested them subtly.

Annie drifted ahead on the broken asphalt, light on her feet despite the gear slung over her shoulder. Without warning she’d stop, dead still, forcing Jean to react.

He hated how quickly his hands snapped toward his weapon, how instinctively his breath locked in his throat. Annie would only blink, expression unreadable, before moving on.

Reiner was different. His tests were blunt, physical. He’d plant himself in the middle of the path, a wall of muscle and silence, just to see whether Marco flinched, hesitated, or pushed through. 

Marco didn’t flinch… but his fingers would tighten on the map, knuckles pale, as he murmured a polite excuse and slipped around the obstruction. Reiner always gave a tiny nod, as if filing the result away.

Bertholdt stayed quiet, almost ghostlike. He’d lean close while they checked the truck or reviewed the route, watching the way Jean and Marco reacted to pressure, to uncertainty, to each other. 

He never commented, just observed, tall and uneasy, yet attentive in a way that made Jean feel dissected.

Jean noticed it all. 

Of course he did.

His mind worked the way it always had in tight corners. Every gesture, every glance between the three strangers, every pattern in their movements. If things went sideways.

Well... things always went sideways, information could mean survival. It could mean leverage. It could mean winning a fight they didn’t want but might not escape.

The three bandits noticed that he noticed.

Despite the tension, a small rhythm began to form. Marco’s quiet competence with the maps, Jean’s steady awareness and reactions, and their captors’ tests created a strange sort of mutual understanding. They were all heading to the same place, all aiming for survival, and for now, that meant keeping each other alive.

They didn’t speak about it, not aloud. But when they regrouped that evening, when the fire crackled low and the horizon bruised purple, Reiner met Annie’s eyes, and Annie met Bertholdt’s, and the verdict settled between them like smoke.

They knew those two guys had potential.

It wasn’t trust, it wasn’t friendship. Not yet. But it was enough to move forward as they were able to refuel the truck with the stuff Annie had salvaged from the previous survivors.

All five of them began to head to the outermost wall and its checkpoint as they drove past the open highway.

Chapter Text

The memory always began with heat. Thick and unforgiving, the kind that soaked into the pavement and clung to skin. 

Reiner stood at the edge of the school field, sweat dripping down his brow as laughter erupted around him. His college friends crowded him close, jostling him with playful shoves after another easy victory.

They shouted his name like he was invincible, a golden boy destined for everything and denied nothing.

Someone tossed him a cold bottle of soda. Someone else clapped him on the back so hard he almost dropped it. Reiner grinned wide, simply thoughtless and bright.

It was a simple world then, full of summer heat, loud voices, and futures so wide they didn’t even feel real.

Home felt even brighter. His mother’s voice would carry through the doorway the moment he stepped inside, bragging too loudly about her son. His father wasn’t much for words, but he showed pride in quieter ways. 

Early morning rides, repaired cleats, a hand on Reiner’s shoulder after a long practice. Those were days when he moved through life with an easy certainty, believing the world was stable, unshakeable.

Believing he would grow up, succeed, make his family proud. He had no idea how fragile all of it really was.

The memory dissolved like steam, replaced by the chill inside his chest whenever he thought of the others. Zeke, calm and calculating; Porco, sharp-edged and restless; Pieck, tired-eyed but endlessly clever. They had been his friends, his anchors, the people he trusted when the world first began to rot at the edges. 

He yearned for them in a quiet, buried way, like missing a limb he had forgotten until he tried to move.

Sometimes he could still hear Porco’s irritated muttering, or see Pieck’s soft smile when she solved a problem no one else could. Sometimes he felt Zeke’s steady presence behind him, a guiding shadow. They had shared a direction.

The Capital behind Wall Sheena...

That had always been the goal.

Their path, their purpose, the point where everything was supposed to change. Reiner still clung to the idea even now, as if reaching it might stitch all the broken pieces of him back together. 

As if Zeke and the others might somehow be waiting there, or at least the ghost of a future they once imagined. But that was all before the ruin.

Now he stood in the husk of an abandoned hospital, stepping carefully over scattered glass. The corridors smelled of antiseptic and dust, sunlight slicing through broken windows in thin, tired beams. 

Annie moved ahead with her flashlight, its beam skimming over overturned gurneys and rusting needles. 

Bertholdt lingered behind them, methodical as ever, collecting gauze and half-intact vials with quiet precision.

Reiner pushed deeper into the hallway, boots echoing in the hollow space. He had taken charge without thinking, old habits were resurfacing. The instinct to lead ingrained into his bones. 

But the weight on his shoulders was heavier now. He wasn’t the golden boy anymore, just a survivor trying to keep his group alive long enough to reach a distant wall that might not even be standing.

He paused beside an abandoned trolley, fingers brushing a cracked medicine bottle. His reflection stared back at him in the shard of a mirror. 

A man shaped by loss and held together by a single, fraying purpose. Behind him, Annie’s voice broke the quiet. “Find anything?”

“Not yet,” he answered, though hope pricked at him with every opened drawer. “Keep looking. Someone must’ve left something behind.”

The three of them moved on, cautious and deliberate.

Reiner, caught between who he had been and who he had become, felt the yearning again for the past. For the people he’d lost.

For Wall Sheena, gleaming in his mind like a distant promise he still couldn’t let go. He hasn’t been there personally, but he knew Zeke was somewhere out there.

They had to get past Wall Maria first. 

Every gamble, every lie, every stranger he chose to spare was for that reason. If they made it through the dead zones and the broken checkpoints, if they somehow slipped beneath that massive ring of concrete and steel that protected the masses from the disease, Reiner told himself he would feel it again.

That old warmth.

The kind he used to drown in during summer afternoons. The sweat, the laughter, the pounding of his own heartbeat under the sun as Zeke whistled sharply from the sidelines and Porco shoved him for missing a catch. Pieck sitting cross-legged on the bleachers, pretending to read while watching all of them like they hung the moon.

Reiner could almost smell the cut grass, hear the scoreboards ticking, feel the way his mother hugged him after practice, proud even when he stumbled home with turf burns and bruises. But now the world smelled like mold and blood and rooms long emptied of life.

He blinked the memory away as he stepped over shattered glass, the beam of his flashlight sweeping across what used to be a sterile hospital hallway. 

Paperwork littered the floor. Wheelchairs empty and overturned. Vending machines were pried open, their steel bent and now its entirety remained hollowed.

He nudged a collapsed gurney aside with his boot, his breath fogging in the stale air. He wasn’t doing this for nostalgia. He wasn’t doing it for hope. He was doing it to survive.

That meant choosing the right people to drag with him.

He knew exactly what he was doing when he didn’t kill Jean and Marco on sight. It wasn’t softness— God, he didn’t have softness left in him. It was calculation.

Most civilians they encountered were already half-broken. Starved, confused, desperate enough to lunge at anything with a pulse. But those two? They still fought like people who believed tomorrow mattered.

Especially Jean Kirschtein.

He was all sharp corners and restless eyes, tension wrapped in a lean, thin frame. He watched everything.

When they tied him to the truck, his gaze mapped their positions, their footwork, their weak spots. Reiner caught him counting breaths, waiting for openings that never came. 

A guy like that didn’t give up. A guy like that kept groups alive. Then there was Marco Bodt… quiet, gentle almost to a fault, but steady in a way Reiner hadn’t seen in ages. He was a planner. A navigator. 

The kind of mind that turned chaos into manageable routes. When Marco traced roads with trembling fingers, adjusting for destroyed bridges and overrun towns, Reiner felt something tighten in his chest, something dangerously close to trust. Together, they were balanced.

Reiner needed that balance when he knew he couldn’t stand as one with Bertholdt and Annie. 

Sometimes Annie and him would argue about what's best, wasting time. Sometimes he doubted himself, and that was the scary part of it. Hesitating would open a chance to get killed in this cold, cruel world. He needed direction.

He needed the Wall.

Reiner paused at the doorway to what used to be a pharmacy. Shelves collapsed inward, pill bottles scattered like spilled marbles. Annie was already there, her light glinting off broken glass. She glanced over her shoulder.

“Empty,” she muttered. “All of it.”

Reiner clicked his tongue in annoyance. Bertholdt drifted quietly behind him, collecting whatever scraps might still be worth something… a roll of bandage, an unopened syringe, a half-intact mask. This was what the world offered now. Scraps. Reiner tightened his grip on his backpack strap, jaw clenching.

Maybe that was why Jean and Marco mattered so much. Maybe that was why he’d spared them.

Not because they were good people.

Because they were useful.

Because they had a truck.

Because they had a destination.

Because their desperation aligned with his.

He let out a long, tired breath, the dusty air scratching at his lungs. If they could watch each other’s backs—if no one broke, lied, or slowed down—maybe they all had a chance.

Maybe they could actually make it to Wall Maria.

Maybe, just maybe, he could feel that warmth again.

Reiner, Annie, and Bertholdt had arrived months ago as immigrants, refugees who were pushed out of their own collapsing districts long before the outbreak hit full force because their hometowns had been decapitated by the end of the 2-year Marleyan-Eldian War. 

They came from the far edge of the territory. Rich cities that didn’t fall to infection first, but to explosions. Places where the skyline lit up with fire before anyone understood what was happening, where whole blocks vanished under blasts meant to “contain” outbreaks. 

The military never reinforced those districts, they simply erased them, leveled them, sacrificed them in the name of control.

They fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs and whatever they could loot from abandoned checkpoints along the way.

But Route 11 was cruel.

The people who used to live and stay there had seen three strangers walking together, armed, moving with purpose. They heard the distinctness of their accents, the unfamiliar tone, the clipped way they spoke.

They watched them take supplies from broken storefronts, raid empty houses, and defend themselves with frightening efficiency whenever someone tried to take what little they had.

In a dying world, competence looked like threat… and Route 11’s survivors needed someone to blame as if most of the nomads there weren’t coming from other parts of the places themselves. They hadn’t set out to become nightmares whispered along the roadside. Survival just molded them into shapes people feared.

When food got scarce, the rumor twisted ahead. Turning three tired travelers into predators haunting the highway. When bodies were found near the roadside, half-eaten or torn apart by infection, it hardened.

Nobody cared who, or what killed those poor souls. Nobody cared that Reiner’s group had only stopped long enough to drag the corpses out of the middle of the road so drivers wouldn’t crash. 

By the time fearful survivors reached the next camp, the tale had already grown teeth.

Bandits. Killers. Avoid Route 11.

It didn’t matter that most of the fights they’d been in were desperate ambushes against them. The infected stumbling from ditches, foreign raiders try to pry open their bags at night, starving civilians willing to spill blood for a can of food. 

It didn’t matter that Reiner always tried to warn people first, or that Annie hated fighting, or that Bertholdt only swung when someone else was already bleeding.

The truth was irrelevant; the story people needed traveled faster. Bertholdt’s height made him look impossible, a figure people couldn’t ignore in the fog. Annie’s quiet alertness was misread as coldness, her careful movements mistaken for cruelty. 

Reiner’s protective instincts, meant to keep his friends alive, were twisted in rumor into something dangerous—people said he picked who would live and who would die, when really he just wanted to survive, like everyone else.

They stopped trying to correct any of it. At first out of exhaustion… then necessity.

By the time Jean and Marco stumbled into Route 11, shaking, exhausted, and desperate, the warnings were already nailed to rotting fences and scorched into concrete:

BANDITS AHEAD. KILLERS. AVOID ROUTE 11.

But the truth was far simpler, far sadder:

They were just three lost immigrants, clinging to each other and to the hope of a safer place, trying to reach the wall before the world swallowed them whole.

Jean’s hands clenched the wheel until his knuckles ached, the worn metal pressing into his palms. Dust from the cracked road hung thick in the air, settling on everything, softening the edges of the world and making it feel smaller, quieter.

As if it were holding its breath along with him. Every mile forward pressed against a single thought.

Don’t screw this up.

He glanced at Marco, hunched over the map, finger tracing their route with a tremor he couldn’t quite hide. The kid had a gift for reading roads and landmarks, always had, but even now, Jean could see the tension written across his face.

The checkpoint emerged from the haze ahead, half-collapsed yet still somehow threatening. Guard towers leaned like exhausted sentries, cracked and empty.

Rusted barriers sagged under years of neglect, the remnants of barbed wire curled like skeletal fingers. Concrete and metal screamed of warnings long ignored, of a world that had already moved on without mercy.

The truck rattled over cracked asphalt, and Jean’s fingers ached from gripping the wheel. He barely had a chance to breathe before Bertholdt’s voice cut through the tense silence. “Take a break,” he said, voice quiet but firm. “I’ll drive.”

Jean hesitated, eyes flickering to Marco, then back to the stranger who wanted to take the wheel for him. 

The thought of giving up control made his stomach twist, but the knot of nausea from Route 11, and the exhaustion that had been building for hours won. He exhaled and stepped on the brakes.

Bertholdt slid into the driver’s seat like he belonged there, long legs adjusting to reach the pedals easily, hands steady on the wheel.

There was a calmness to him, an eerie patience that set Jean on edge. Even the hum of the engine seemed quieter under his touch, as though the truck itself obeyed him.

He sat behind Marco and right next to Annie, who was sitting in the middle between him and Reiner. Jean’s eyes scanned the road ahead. 

The checkpoint was closer now, the empty guard towers looming in the mist like skeletal sentries. The wall was getting bigger in view. Dust hung in the air, catching the pale morning light, turning the world a sickly yellow. Every shadow pressed at him.

Reiner hummed. “He drives well… smoother than I thought.”

Jean grunted, not trusting his voice. He didn’t like how easy Bertholdt made it look. Everything about him screamed patience and calculation, like he had already accounted for every mistake they might make.

His fingers ached. It must have been from the long drives where he held onto the steering wheel way too tight.  But it was somewhat a breath of fresh air to be the one not having the tension on his arms. They hurt, soreness seeped in.

His eyes kept drifting around the truck, noting the small things. Bertholdt had a habit of tapping his fingers against the dashboard whenever he was thinking, a soft, almost inaudible rhythm that seemed to measure time itself. 

Reiner’s shoulders tensed and relaxed in a pattern, like he was reading the road with his body before his eyes, always ready for sudden movement. 

Annie had this way of tilting her head slightly whenever someone spoke, just enough to catch details most people missed, her sharp eyes scanning the interior of the truck and the road beyond.

Even Marco had little quirks. He hummed under his breath when he got frustrated with the map, eyes narrowing, lips pressing together like he was holding back a storm. 

Jean found himself smiling softly at that, just a little, because it was so human, so small, so different from the chaos outside.

For the first time in days, he felt a thread of normalcy, or at least something resembling it. In the middle of the cracked asphalt, the overgrown roadside, the ever-present danger, they moved together in small rhythms, subtle signals, habits that made them predictable to each other. There was a strange kind of comfort.

The truck hummed along the cracked asphalt, tires rattling over patches of gravel and debris. The silence inside was heavy, the kind that pressed on Jean’s chest and made the air feel thin. 

Marco fidgeted with the map, eyes darting between lines and the road ahead. Even Bertholdt’s calm presence did little to ease the tight knot of anxiety coiling in Jean’s stomach.

Reiner cleared his throat softly, leaning back slightly against the edge of the truck bed. “So… we’ve been riding together for a while now,” he said, voice low but steady, almost casual. “Might as well talk a little, make the time pass easier.”

Jean frowned, but didn’t answer. Marco shifted nervously in the seat.

“Look,” Jean said finally, voice low and rough from disuse, “I don’t know if you… get it, out there. I know most people don’t make it past a week. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what’s left of them. And I’m not… I’m not just trying to survive. I want to get somewhere. I want to make it to the wall. That’s all that matters to me right now.”

Reiner nodded, the corners of his mouth lifting just slightly. “Good enough. Doesn’t matter who’s strongest or fastest. Out here, it’s about noticing things others don’t, keeping your wits, and...” he glanced at Bertholdt and Annie, who watched quietly from the back. “People you can trust, at least a little.”

Jean’s shoulders loosened a fraction from those simple words. Somehow, they carried a weight that made sense. He stole a glance at Marco, who gave a small, uncertain smile, then at the other two strangers.

“So you’ve all been out here long?” Jean asked finally, voice low, cautious.

Reiner chuckled softly. “Long enough to see that fear kills faster than anything else. And long enough to learn who can survive it and who can’t. You two… you’ve got potential. Smart, adaptable. You’ll last longer than most.”

Jean blinked, uncertain how to take that. But beneath the tension, a small ember of reassurance flickered. 

The conversation eased the silence, letting them breathe. Jean looked down at his hands, calloused, worn, and dusted with tiny cuts that stung faintly with every movement. 

They were the hands that had gripped the wheel through sleepless nights, loaded a shotgun with trembling fingers, and wiped bile from his own mouth when the world had turned to rot.

He flexed them slowly, feeling the ache in his knuckles, the stubborn sting that reminded him he was still alive.

These hands weren’t steady and polished. They shook and burned with exhaustion. They were human, messy, and flawed. Yet, they were his. They had kept him moving. They had kept Marco moving. They would keep him moving still.

Jean realized that even in this broken, dangerous world, people could still… be people.

-

Hours passed in a haze of grayness and rain. The windshield blurred under the steady drizzle, wipers squeaking against the wet glass. When Jean stirred, his neck screamed from the angle he had slept in, stiff and sore, a reminder that the world didn’t pause for exhaustion. He rubbed it slowly, blinking into the dim light that crept from the storm-heavy sky. 

Night was falling, though the rain made it feel like darkness had arrived early. Shadows stretched long and uncertain across the cracked highway, blending with the gray of the clouds and the blurred outlines of the trees.

Marco’s voice broke the silence for the first time in a while during the ride. “Guys, we’re close… I think the checkpoint’s just up ahead.”

Jean exhaled, dragging himself upright, letting the truck’s vibrations rattle the last remnants of sleep from his bones.

The first faint outlines of the checkpoint appeared through the curtain of rain. It was a cluster of guard towers, sagging barriers, and rusted signage that had long ago lost any sense of authority.

He shifted, wincing at his stiff neck, and glanced in the rearview. Reiner’s eyes were steady, scanning the treeline, while Bertholdt adjusted something in the back.

Annie remained still, silent, yet Jean could feel her gaze on every shadow. The truck moved slower now, tires crunching over slick gravel and shallow puddles.

Rain streaked the windshield, and the wipers could barely keep up, leaving Jean squinting through the smeared gray. Every shadow along the roadside twisted into something alive, threatening.

Reiner’s voice broke the tension, low and calm from the back. “Good thing it’s raining,” he said. “They don’t move as fast in this. Wet, cold… it slows them down. Gives us a small edge.”

“Small edge,” Jean muttered, voice raw. Every inch forward felt like threading a needle through darkness. 

Marco leaned over the map again, tracing the road with a finger. “The checkpoint should be just over that rise,” he whispered. 

The rain muffled the distant groans and shuffling that had become a constant undertone of the world, but it didn’t erase the fear. It just made it quieter, more insidious. Jean’s stomach churned, and every instinct screamed for him to slow down, to stop, to hide.

The checkpoint emerged through the mist, jagged and broken, barriers sagging like tired sentries, guard towers cracked and empty. Rusted signs swayed in the wind. 

WARNING: CHECKPOINT ABANDONED. CROSS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Reiner leaned forward slightly, voice quiet but firm. “Eyes everywhere. We stick together, okay?”

Jean nodded, letting the tension settle in his shoulders like a weight. The checkpoint was near, and every drop of rain that hit the truck seemed to count down the moments until they would see what waited on the other side.

The rain helped, sure. It slowed the infected, made their movements sluggish and clumsy. But it also blurred the world into a gray smear, washed out the edges of ruined buildings, it drowned the road beneath shifting puddles. The downside was that they couldn’t tell where the ground dipped, where metal jutted out like teeth, or where something waited still enough to look like debris.

The first sign was the barricade, split clean down the middle, steel twisted outward like something had rammed it with unstoppable force. Marco shifted beside him, voice tight but soft. “They’re here.”

He didn’t have to say the rest. Jean saw it too. The chaos, the panic etched into the broken structures, the desperate last stand that must’ve lasted minutes, maybe less. Checkpoints like this were supposed to be unbreakable.

Once they fell, the rest of the territory usually followed. The rain drummed harder on the roof, steady and suffocating. Between the drops, Jean heard it—a low dragging groan, dulled by water but unmistakable.

Reiner’s jaw tightened. “They got in. Means they’re still around.”

Jean blinked away the sting in his eyes, pushing down the ache in his neck from the brief sleep he’d allowed himself earlier. Bad timing. Bad habit.

He needed his head clear and his hands steady. The rain helped, sure; it slowed the infected, it made their movements sluggish and clumsy. 

He reached behind the seat, fingers brushing cold metal until he found the spare gear Marco and him had tossed earlier before they left town. Pulling out a spare holster with worn leather, stiff from weather and time and a pair of compact double pistols wrapped in a rag that smelled faintly of oil and old smoke. One of them slipped from his hand, and he caught it by reflex.

The weight settled in his palm like it belonged there, familiar in a way he didn’t want to think about. The holster fit snugly once he strapped it around his thigh, the buckle clicked into place. 

But when he picked up the second pistol, the hesitation came. He already had the shotgun across his back, heavy and dependable. Adding another firearm felt like preparing for a fight he wasn’t sure he wanted to face, like admitting something about the road ahead.

Jean rolled the gun in his hand, thumb brushing the grip. He thought about the rain, the groans in the distance, the checkpoint that wasn’t dead but sleeping.

And then he looked at Marco.

Marco was hunched over the map, trying to steady his breathing. Marco, who wasn’t a fighter but kept moving anyway. The same Marco, who had followed him through every stupid decision and never complained once.

Jean exhaled through his nose. He held the pistol out. “Take it.”

Marco blinked. “What? Jean, you—”

“Just take it,” he said, softer this time, but with that insistence Marco knew too well. “You’re not going in there empty-handed.”

Marco stared at the pistol like it was something fragile, something dangerous and precious at the same time. His hand hovered for a moment before he finally took it, fingers curling around the grip with surprising steadiness.

“… You sure?” he asked, voice low.

Jean shrugged, trying to play it off even though something warm tugged at his chest. “Yeah. I’m not letting you die just because you’ve only got a map to swing at ‘em.”

Marco let out a shaky laugh, barely there, but real. “Thanks, Jean.”

The rain slammed against the roof so hard it sounded like a thousand fists beating the metal from above. Every step they took across that makeshift bridge was drowned in the relentless downpour hammering through gaps in the ceiling, dripping cold water down the back of Jean’s neck, soaking into his collar until he felt it in his bones.

Hard rain always meant two things: the infected were slowed, but everything else became harder to see and to pass through, especially in a place that was falling apart like this.

The bridge quivered under another gust of wind that pushed rain in sheets across their path. Jean blinked through it, the drops stinging his eyes. It was like walking through a waterfall suspended in midair. Below them, the groans sharpened.

The infected were waking faster now, drawn by the vibrations, the noise, the scent of rain-drenched flesh above them. Every metallic clang of their boots on the steel echoed downward like a dinner bell. A hand slammed into the underbelly of the bridge again, harder this time.

Jean felt the vibration run clean up his legs. Marco yelped softly, not loud. But loud enough that Jean whipped his head back, eyes wide.

“I’ve got you,” Jean said again, breath hitching with the effort to stay calm, the storm making his voice thin. Rainwater ran down his face like sweat, mixing with the adrenaline. “Just don’t look down.”

Marco didn’t. He kept his eyes on Jean’s shoulder, breathing tight, chest rising and falling too fast. Reiner approached from the back, barely visible through the curtain of rain pouring past the skylight above. His hair was plastered to his skull, clothes drenched, but his steps stayed slow and controlled.

“Easy,” Reiner called out, raising his voice over the roar of water. “Hard rain throws them off, but it shakes the whole damn structure. No sudden moves.”

Lightning cracked somewhere outside, lighting the pit beneath them for a split, horrifying moment. Dozens of faces were pale, ruined, soaked, stared straight up with dead eyes. They couldn’t see, but their sense of smell was heightened, somehow. Jean’s stomach lurched.

He forced himself forward, feeling the bridge sag a little under Bertholdt’s next step. Hard rain masked their breathing but not the metallic creaks. Not the groans below.

Halfway across.

Just… halfway now.

Another thunderclap rattled the ceiling. Rain poured harder, slamming down like the sky itself was collapsing.

The steel shifted.

Jean’s foot slipped.

Marco caught him with both hands this time, heart hammering against his ribs like it wanted out. “Jean!” he hissed, voice cracking with fear.

Jean steadied, shaking, breath fogging in the cold air. Reiner’s voice cut through the storm, sharp but steady. “You’re doing fine. Both of you. Just a few more steps.”

The bridge shuddered beneath their boots, every step echoing through the hollow space like a warning. One step. Then another. Each movement felt heavier than the last, the metal groaning beneath them as if pleading for mercy, begging them to hurry before it gave out completely.

Below, the chorus of groans swelled in response, rising up through the rain-soaked air like a tide clawing its way toward them. The storm hammered the roof in brutal drips, the cold water slicing through the broken skylights and drenching them as they crept forward. 

The far landing of the second floor finally materialized through the curtain of rainfall: a narrow stretch of cracked concrete, swallowed in shadow but miraculously solid compared to the trembling steel they stood on. 

Jean reached it first, boots slamming onto the platform with a thud that sent relief flooding up his spine. He grabbed Marco’s jacket, hauling him the last step as the navigator stumbled in behind him, wide-eyed and soaked to the bone.

Annie followed with a silent hop off the bridge, fringe plastered to her cheeks. Her eyes scanned the dark like she could see straight through it. 

Bertholdt’s tall frame crossed next, the bridge bending dangerously under his weight, and then Reiner stepped off last, closing the distance just as a fresh sheet of rain crashed down behind him like a curtain dropping on the world they’d just fought their way across.

Jean exhaled shakily, lungs stuttering as the tension seeped out in uneven breaths. The thunder above rolled long and deep, rattling through the bones of the hollow building.

They were soaked, cold, and exhausted, trapped inside an abandoned checkpoint that felt more like a tomb than shelter but they had made it to the second floor, still breathing, still together. 

“Good.” Jean whispered to himself, teeth chattering from the piercing cold that made his clothes stick to his body like ice.

They had barely taken five steps when Annie froze, chin lifting, breath stilling. Jean felt it a second later: that shift in the air, that awful awareness, like the world itself was holding its breath.

Then the hallway ahead flickered under the emergency lights dim, stuttering red and the silhouettes waiting in the dark sharpened into shape. A cluster of zombies stood shoulder to shoulder, unnervingly still, as if listening. As if they were waiting.

A low groan rippled from one of them. Another answered. Then another, until the whole line seemed to twitch awake.

“Shit,” Jean whispered.

The moment broke.

The first zombie lurched forward, its arms jerking, jaw snapping. Jean didn’t think. His hand flew to the pistol at his side; he drew it, braced it, and fired. The shot cracked like lightning in the narrow hall, the recoil jarring his arm. The bullet punched clean through the first zombie’s skull, snapping its head back as it crumpled to the floor. But the rest surged forward.

Bertholdt fired from behind him wild, too high. Reiner shoved past to take aim, but the hallway was too narrow. Annie was already stepping forward, her gun drawn, moving like the storm outside. Low, fast and deadly.

“Don’t push in, pull back!” Jean barked, grabbing Bertholdt by the collar and yanking him away from the line of fire as another zombie lunged.

Reiner grunted as he shoved one back with his shoulder, then slammed it against the wall. Annie’s knife sliced across its throat in one clean motion, but two more replaced it instantly, fingers clawing, teeth gnashing.

“Jean!” Marco shouted. “We’re boxed in!”

No. They didn’t have to be.

Jean fired again. One shot, then a second, then a third. He forced himself to breathe, to ignore the tremor in his hands. The hallway rang with thunder and gunfire, the wet slap of bodies hitting the ground, Annie’s quick metallic slices.

But the line didn’t break. The noise was drawing more from deeper inside; groans echoed like rolling waves, multiplying by the second. If they stayed here, they’d drown in them.

“We need to regroup!” Jean yelled over the chaos. “Back to the corner, tight formation!”

Reiner hesitated mid-swing, confused. “We fall back now, we lose the hallway—”

“We lose everything if we stay and choke the damn corridor!” Jean snapped. “Move back and funnel them! Trust me!”

Reiner’s eyes narrowed, then he shoved the zombie he was grappling with straight toward Jean.

Jean caught the moment, pivoted, and shot it clean through the temple. They retreated in sync. Annie slipped back first, guarding the flank. Bertholdt clung to the wall, reloading shakily. Marco stayed close to Jean, steadying him without a word. Reiner backed up last, pushing forward any zombie that got too close, turning the hallway into a killing lane.

To his surprise, it worked.

The narrow corner forced the horde into a single-file choke point. Annie stabbed low, Reiner struck high, and Jean fired with ruthless precision, every shot controlled, deliberate at his best this time when he found places to take aim. Groans rose, bodies collapsed, and inch by inch, the press of the undead began to thin.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the last zombie crumpled at their feet, its skull split clean by Annie’s blade and dark blood spilled.

The hallway went still. Jean watched as steam rose off their skin, sweat mixing with the cold rain that had followed them inside. Marco leaned against the wall, breathing hard. Reiner rolled his shoulders, muttering under his breath. Bertholdt just stared at the pile of corpses like he couldn’t believe they were still standing.

Jean exhaled, lowering the pistol. His arm was shaking.

Marco stepped next to him to help him up with a hand outstretched forward, his voice low but certain. “That call you made… it saved us.”

Jean blinked, thrown. Marco smiled—a little breathless, a little proud. “You think you’re some loudmouth screw-up, but… you saw it before any of us did. You led us through that.”

Jean opened his mouth, ready with a joke, an insult, anything to break the tension but nothing came.

Marco slapped his shoulder with a firm, comforting grasp as they walked to carry on forward. “Jean… you’ve got it in you. More than you think.”

Jean swallowed hard, glancing down the blood-slick hallway where the horde had fallen.

For the first time, he didn’t feel like running. For once, he felt ready to face whatever came next.

-

The cage lights had burned hot on her skin. The roar of the crowd was a storm. Annie Leonhart moved through the arena with precision, compact and lethal, a fighter shaped for efficiency.

She never fought to win, even though they paid for spectacle, but she fought to end it. Fast, clean and controlled. Every strike deliberate, every movement calculated to survive. Her father had trained her for it, not for glory, not for fame, but for survival.

Every match was a contract, every bruise a reminder, every victory a promise of autonomy. For years, she honed her body, learned to read every twitch, every shift, every breath her opponents gave her. It was discipline, but it was isolation too. Trust had never been an option, only observation, calculation, and control.

When the outbreak came, the arenas went silent. Promoters vanished, cities burned. The streets became cages, full of screaming, grasping bodies.

Annie’s training, her instinct to stay alive, became sharper. Humans were dangerous. But the infected, who were mindless and relentless, were another kind of challenge. They forced her to adapt, to move with precision not for applause, but for her life.

By the time she ran into Jean, Marco, and the others, she was already conditioned to act first and never ask questions.

She joined them not out of trust, but out of practicality. They didn’t flinch at her presence, they moved fast, and they survived. 

In this downfall of the world they live in, survival demanded more than brute strength, it demanded clarity, decisiveness, and a cold edge she already had.

The group crept forward, boots slipping on wet concrete and debris. The rain had stopped, leaving puddles that reflected the skeletal beams above. Jean’s grip tightened around his pistol, Marco followed close, eyes darting to every shadow.

The distant groans grew louder, echoing between half-finished walls of the building. Annie moved ahead, low and deliberate, eyes scanning every shadow and broken beam. A zombie shuffled toward them from behind a pile of boards. 

Without hesitation, she sidestepped and grabbed it by the shoulder before shoving it hard against the scaffolding. The creature toppled and hit the ground with a dull thud, then it was motionless. Jean and Marco followed her lead.

Annie moved deliberately, using walls, scaffolding, and debris as cover while forcing the zombies into narrow spaces where she could control them. She gestured subtly to guide Jean and Marco through the safest path, keeping them just far enough to avoid injury but close enough to follow.

A small cluster began forming near a collapsed stairwell. Annie grabbed a heavy plank, braced her feet, and shoved it against two staggering creatures, using leverage to knock them both over. 

One fell awkwardly against the steel beams, the other landed atop it in a heap, groaning weakly. Jean took the opening to aim carefully and fire the pistol. Marco shot at them as well.

Each move was purposeful. Annie didn’t shout, didn’t flail, she controlled the space, guided them with her actions rather than words, and eliminated threats. 

Jean realized that her calm approach allowed them to move through the construction site faster and safer than they could have alone.

By the time they reached the far side, soaked from rain and sweat, the horde lay quiet. Annie paused briefly, scanning their path again, shoulders steady, as if nothing had happened and Jean lowered his pistol, reloading it with a click.

“Let’s go.” Annie urged as she peered over her shoulder to them.

The shortcut spat them out onto the outskirts of the checkpoint just as the first pale light of morning streaked across the bruised sky. The rain softened into a steady drizzle, puddles reflected the skeletal outlines of guard towers and broken barriers ahead.

Silence hung at first. It was too perfect, like the world was holding its breath. Then came the distant hum, a low vibration that grew steadily louder that could be military vehicles.  Tires crunched on gravel, engines burbling through the mist. Static also hissed through abandoned comms boxes along the barrier, intermittent bursts of garbled messages catching Jean’s attention.

He froze, heart pounding. Beside him, Marco’s hands tightened around the map, eyes scanning every shadow for signs of both the living and the dead. Annie and Bertholdt were tense but quiet, poised like coiled springs. Reiner leaned slightly out of the window, listening, sensing the rhythm of approaching danger.

The barrier arm rattled and shifted, scraping against the concrete like metal fingernails. Rainwater ran along its edge in tiny streams, turning the sound into a haunting accompaniment to the distant roar of engines. Every second stretched, tense and thin, until it felt as if the world itself waited for the first move.

Jean swallowed hard. His throat was dry, muscles tight from the long night of fighting, navigating, surviving. Wall Maria was just a few steps beyond, a fragile promise of safety and answers.

The vehicles grew louder, the static sharper, and every shadow along the cracked pavement seemed alive. Jean glanced at his companions, eyes meeting theirs.

“How do we get in?” Marco whispered, voice tight, eyes flicking toward the half-collapsed barrier.

Jean’s gaze swept over the checkpoint, taking in the mechanical scanners, the abandoned guard booths, and the faint lines of survivors huddled together, waiting to be processed. 

They were cramped in a long, winding line, shoulders pressed against one another, children clinging to parents, every face tense with fear and exhaustion. 

Modern sensors scanned each person as they passed through, measuring temperature, heartbeat irregularities, and signs of infection. 

Some stepped aside at the warning of the machine, sickly pallor or a twitch in a finger marking them as unfit. Others shuffled through, silently praying that the technology wouldn’t stop them.

Reiner’s hand brushed Marco’s shoulder, quiet but firm. “We follow the flow,” he said, voice low. “Don’t draw attention. Watch the people, see how they move, see how the machines react.”

Jean’s heart hammered in his chest as they edged closer to the scanners, each step was measured and careful. The machines hummed with quiet authority, lights pulsing red and green as if judging every movement, every breath. He watched the line of survivors ahead, noting the nervous glances, the way their shoulders hunched, how some flinched as the sensors whirred.

“Keep moving,” he whispered to Marco, who nodded but didn’t meet his eyes. Jean felt the weight of the pistol at his thigh, the shotgun heavy in the back, both a comfort and a reminder of what waited outside.

When their turn came, Jean guided Marco forward. He mimicked the body language of the others who were slow, unhurried, careful. He kept a hand lightly on Marco’s back, a subtle push to keep him steady. He watched the scanners, the faint green lights reflecting in their wet clothes. Every second stretched, every blink could be their undoing.

Then a soft click, a green pulse, and then they were through. Jean exhaled, relieved so sudden it left him dizzy. The tension in his shoulders melted slowly. He let his hands drop from Marco’s back, shaking slightly from nerves and exhaustion.

Marco turned toward the gates beyond, eyes burning with determination. “We… we have to keep going,” he said, voice low but fierce. “Mina… she’s there. I have to see her.”

Jean nodded, gripping the pistol tighter, feeling the weight of responsibility settle over him again. “I know,” he said, voice rough from disuse. “We’ll get there. We have to.”

The rain had softened to a drizzle, dripping from the eaves of the checkpoint roof, washing over them in cold relief.

Beyond the scanners, the wall rose, colossal and silent, a boundary between them and whatever fragile safety the world could offer.

Jean stole a glance at his companions, Reiner, Annie, Bertholdt, all quiet but ready. The small ghost of hope flickered.

They had survived this far together, and now, inch by inch, step by step, they were moving past and into Wall Maria’s colossal gates.

Chapter Text

Small hospitals reported patients with fevers that wouldn’t break, bodies that refused to heal, minds that snapped without warning. Doctors called it strange, mysterious and deadly.

Scientists speculated from the dark, immunologists argued during meetings, and the military tried to contain it, but containment had already failed them from the start.

By the time Jean heard the stories, the Spread had already reached every district outside the walls. It didn’t just kill, it corrupted. The infection ravaged the immune system first, then twisted bodies, sometimes leaving the mind intact long enough to scream in horror at what it had become. 

In other cases, it fractured the psyche first, turning people into something alive but monstrous, a shell driven by rage or instinct.

The infection spread fastest where the rules had already broken down. Cities hit by explosions, or the fires set to contain outbreaks. 

Scientists had previous names for it long and precise, but Jean felt it in a way no term could capture. It lived in the hollowed eyes of the fallen, in the stiff, twitching limbs of the infected, in the silent, haunted gaze of those who had seen too much.

However, it did not rush. It crept, patient and deliberate, but unstoppable. A single cough in a crowded square, a faint touch on a hand, and entire neighborhoods could unravel in days. It fed not just on flesh but on fear, turning whispers into panic. Panic into chaos, and chaos into death. 

Those who survived the first week carried it in their bones, in the tremor of their hands, in the nights they spent listening to every creak and groan outside their windows.

Rumors of a cure drifted through the walls of safe zones, half-hopeful, half-impossible. Some said there were vials, precious and hidden, containing drugs that might slow the infection or stall the inevitable. 

Others insisted it was only speculation, notes scrawled in the shadows by scientists who had lost their faith in a world that had gone mad.

The truth was fragmented, now scattered like ash on the wind, and everyone clung to it in pieces, desperate for any thread of certainty.

So now they were inside Wall Maria, a place meant to protect, but protection was only as strong as the people inside it. 

The ride in the military transport was quiet, the hum of the engine a steady reminder that they were moving forward, but nowhere near safe.

Jean stared out at the cracked landscape, noting the broken streets and collapsed buildings, and tried not to think about what had been left behind. Marco sat beside him, eyes set on the faint outlines of Wall Maria around them.

After a few hours, they arrived at the evacuation center, a sprawling complex that had once been a warehouse. It smelled of antiseptic and damp clothing, of fear and fatigue baked into the concrete floors. The faces of the survivors were marked by weeks of restless nights as they wandered around, exhausted and wary.

The Wall Maria that presented itself in front of their eyes was… underwhelming, far from what they expected. Beyond the gates, access was still heavily restricted, a fractured maze of zones and checkpoints. 

The real danger, Jean recently learned, was Shiganshina. Its districts had suffered an outbreak just a few months ago, leaving it quarantined.

What began as a handful of unexplained infections in the southern ward had spiraled into a catastrophe no one could contain. Authorities tried to seal the smaller inner gates of Shiganshina, but it was too late. The infection spread faster than anyone had predicted.

Survival was temporary, it was almost fleeting as it was, measured in hours and careful steps.

As the five of them settled in, Reiner, Annie, and Bertholdt moved silently through the center of the evacuation place, they busy themselves taking stocks of supplies.

Marco’s hand tightened around the edge of the bench, thoughts of Mina pressing on him, fueling a determination that wouldn’t let him rest, even here, even among walls and regulations.

The military vehicle they were in hummed steadily as it carried the survivors deeper into Wall Maria’s borders. Hours passed in silence, broken only by the occasional bark of orders from distant soldiers and the soft shuffle of rain against the windows.

Marco’s eyes flicked constantly between the cracked map in his hands and the road ahead. “Jean… do you think she’s okay?” He asked quietly, voice tight with worry.

Jean glanced over, seeing the tension that pressed his friend taut. “She’s strong, Marco. She’s smart,” he said, keeping his tone steady, more to convince himself than Marco. “We’ll find her.”

Marco bit his lip, tracing a finger along the faint streets marked on the map. “She has to be… she has to be alive somewhere in this mess.”

Jean didn’t answer immediately, only nodded, understanding that words couldn’t carry the weight of hope.

When the vehicle finally rolled into the evacuation center, Marco’s pace quickened, almost pulling Jean along. The taller man kept close with his voice low. “Slow down, Marco. One step at a time. Don’t draw too much attention.”

Marco’s jaw tightened, but he obeyed, inching forward with eyes locked on every figure. “I… I can’t just sit here. She’s out there somewhere.” 

“Marco,” Jean murmured to catch his attention again. This time his tone was softer, stepping close. “Hey man, slow down. You’ll draw attention.”

“I can’t,” Marco whispered back, barely audible. His jaw was set, teeth clenched. “She’s here somewhere, I can feel it. Someone has to know something. Someone has to have seen her.”

They weaved through rows of survivors, all clutching blankets, bags, or children, voices low, eyes wary. Marco approached a small cluster gathered near a medical tent. “Excuse me,” he called softly. “Have you seen a girl, Mina? She has black hair, pigtails, she’s… she’s about this tall?” He gestured with his hand.

A nurse glanced up from her clipboard, frowning. “We’ve had a few groups come in today, but I don’t recall that name. Try the registration tent. They’re keeping records of everyone who passes through.”

At the tent, Marco pressed close, scanning names aloud quietly to himself, lips moving over each one like a chant. “Mina… Mina… Mina…” His voice shook as he ran down the list, searching, heart hammering in his chest.

Then he froze. His finger hovered over a line. He leaned closer, breathing shallow. “Jean… here. This one. It says Mina. Registered this morning, cleared as uninfected.” Marco’s grin was small, tight, but it was there, the first real lift to his shoulders since they’d left Route 11. “She’s alive,” he whispered. “She’s actually here.”

Jean clapped him lightly on the back. “Good. Now we go. One step at a time, ‘kay?”

Marco nodded, eyes flicking around, scanning every shadow, every movement. 

Together, they moved toward the area where survivors were being held temporarily, his pulse syncing with the drizzle tapping on the tent flaps.

Marco’s determination was palpable, almost a force Jean could lean on, guiding them both safely through the chaos, closer to Mina with each step.

Marco’s steps quickened as he spotted her, smaller than he remembered, clutching a worn blanket, eyes wide but alive. Relief slammed into him like a tidal wave. “Mina!” he breathed, rushing forward.

She spun, surprise and recognition flashed immediately across her face. “Marco?” Her voice trembled, then steadied as she ran into his arms. He held her tightly, afraid to let go, afraid the world might tear her away again. 

“I thought… I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured.

“I’m here,” she whispered back, voice muffled against his shoulder. “I’m safe… for now.”

Jean, a few feet away, leaned against the side of the tent, eyes closed for a moment as he twisted the cap off a small bottle of painkillers scavenged from the medical supplies.

His neck ached, ribs protested from long hours in the truck, and every step had left him bruised and stiff. He popped a pill, letting it slide down, hoping it would dull the constant thrum of exhaustion.

The quiet, however, didn’t last. From a nearby corner came voices.

“Sasha, you can’t just eat all the rations!”

“I’m not! Connie, you’re always exaggerating!”

Jean opened one eye, glancing over, lips twitching. From what he recalled with his conversations with Marco from earlier, they were Mina’s friends.

Conne’s voice rose. “You left half the food in the mud last time! You think that’s smart when the Spread is still out there?”

Sasha shot back, defensive. “I’m careful, okay? Not like you’re perfect!”

Jean’s attention drifted back to Marco and Mina. The girl clung to him, and for the first time in days, Marco’s shoulders seemed to relax.. He finally let go of her arm, holding her at a safe distance to smile.

Jean felt a pang in his chest. He glanced at the arguing pair, then back to his friends. For a moment, amidst the chaos, the Spread, and the uncertainty, they were just people trying to survive. 

He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until the sound of voices broke through the quiet of the evacuation center.

“I told you! You can’t just hoard the rations, Sasha!”

“I’m not hoarding! I’m… rationing! Strategically!”

Jean blinked. He hadn’t met them yet, but the way they bickered like siblings, like people who had fought and laughed together a hundred times made him pause. It was… almost comforting, in a way.

Connie crossed his arms, tapping his foot. “Strategically? You left half the cans in the mud last time. Strategic or not, that’s stupid.”

The brunette girl wagged a finger, mock-serious. “You left your boots in the mud, too! Are you expecting me to carry your mistakes around as well?”

The ash-blonde haired man snorted quietly, letting a small grin escape. He hadn’t realized he could smile like that in weeks. Marco, still holding Mina close, glanced over at him, eyebrows raised, but didn’t interrupt.

Sasha noticed him first, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Who’s the new guy?”

“Jean,” Marco said simply, voice rough but polite. “And this is Sasha.”

Connie perked up, leaning against the edge of the tent, grinning. “Nice to meet you. You look like you’ve seen better days.”

Jean gave a short, tired laugh. “You could say that.”

Sasha softened a little, giving Connie a pointed look. “Be nice. He’s probably been through hell.”

Connie shrugged, still smirking. “Yeah, alright. But we are the ration police around here. Consider this your first warning.”

Jean raised an eyebrow, amusement creeping in despite his exhaustion. “Noted.”

Marco nudged him gently, whispering, “They seem… harmless enough.”

Jean shook his head, smirking. “Harmless? Maybe. Entertaining? Definitely.”

Sasha rolled her eyes, and Connie chuckled. They moved on to fuss over supplies again, but the tension in the air softened just a little. She tossed a wrapped bundle toward Jean, a half-smile tugging at her lips. “Here, take this. You look like you could use it more than we could.”

Jean caught it, hands trembling slightly, and unwrapped the meager rations. The smell hit him first. Stale bread, cured meat, faint smoke and something in his chest tightened. His stomach growled, a hollow, aching reminder that he hadn’t eaten properly in… he wasn’t even sure how long.

The hunger wasn’t just physical. Jean’s brain flooded with signals. Dopamine and serotonin, normally keeping his mood in balance in general, had dipped low after days of unimaginable stress, and now the simple act of smelling food made his emotions surge uncontrollably.

A small, bitter warmth gathered behind his eyes. He blinked rapidly, fighting the sudden sting of tears. 

Connie noticed immediately, shifting closer, a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Jean… it’s just hunger.”

Jean nodded, voice tight. “I… I didn’t realize how long it’s been. I just…” He swallowed hard, forcing himself to focus on the food instead of the memories of empty stomachs on the road. The times he’d gone days without anything apart from water.

The brain’s limbic system, already on high alert from fear and fatigue, magnified the sensation, his body reacting as if the deprivation had been even longer than it was. He tore off a piece of bread, chewed slowly, letting the taste ground him. Connie took a cautious bite beside him, keeping his eyes forward.

Jean finally let himself breathe, the tension in his shoulders easing fractionally. Hunger was a cruel reminder of vulnerability, of the fragility of life in this world but in this small moment, it also reminded him of survival. Of being alive.

Sasha and Connie exchanged a look, smirking slightly at each other. “See?” Sasha said softly. “Not so scary when you actually get fed.”

-

The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, clinging to the edges of the tents and slicking the roads with mud. Wall Maria’s evacuation center sprawled ahead, a tangle of scaffolding, makeshift shelters, and fenced-off corridors, but it pulsed with life. 

Warm light spilled from lanterns and fires, casting golden reflections across puddles and metal alike. The smell of smoke and wet earth mingled, grounding Jean.

Voices rose in muted chatter, laughter and arguments mixing with the hiss of rain on canvas roofs. Children clutched small blankets, mothers scurried to tend fires or hand out bowls of food, and survivors huddled around the warmth, trading information, supplies, and scraps of news from outside. 

The place felt alive in a way Jean hadn’t expected. It was messy, chaotic, yet alive.

Jean kept his eyes moving, scanning faces, routes, and exits. Marco walked beside him. “Look at this,” he murmured, nodding toward a small cluster of fires where a few people were cooking fish over embers. “People… are still surviving.”

Jean nodded, swallowing hard, letting the warmth of the scene sink in, even as the drizzle pattered over his shoulders. “Yeah… but only for so long,” he said quietly, voice low, more to himself than anyone else. 

The safe zone had rules: survivors couldn’t stay more than fourteen days. Beyond that, they were supposed to keep moving towards somewhere safe. Wall Maria wasn’t salvation, but it was just another checkpoint, another temporary reprieve.

“The real goal isn’t Maria,” he’d said. “It’s past Rose, Sheena’s district. That’s where the central stockpiles are. That’s where command still has a grip on things. People who make it there… they don’t have to run every two weeks.”

Jean had seen the evidence himself. Every dawn, like clockwork, the sky filled with the heavy thrum of rotor blades. Helicopters and supply choppers carved wide arcs across the morning clouds, flying towards the heart of the walls where Sheena’s district lay.

Their shadows swept over the makeshift camps like reminders of hope, or of everything the outer districts had lost.

Sometimes the aircraft flew low enough that Jean could see the cargo nets swinging beneath them, packed tight with crates of medicine, fuel, food, and whatever else the central command could spare. 

Other times, they flew higher, escorting gunships flanking them like silent guardians. Survivors would stop what they were doing just to watch, necks craned, eyes reflecting the distant glint of metal. 

At night, the same aircraft returned in staggered intervals, their navigation lights blinking like fireflies against the darkening sky. Some came back intact. Some didn’t come back at all. 

But every mission meant Sheena still stood. And as long as Sheena stood, people had a direction to move toward, even if the roads leading there were soaked in danger.

It could be that Reiner, Annie, and Bertholdt were wasting no time heading that way. He needed to see them. He needed to know if they were still out there, still moving toward the same thin thread of hope. 

That thought alone had kept him anchored through the worst of the journey, and now, even surrounded by temporary safety, it pulsed quietly in the back of his mind.

A few days passed, each one blending into the next in the evacuation center. Jean felt it. The first real relief in what felt like weeks. His body no longer ached with the raw tension of constant alertness, his stomach finally forgiving him after proper meals, and his mind, though still taut, loosened just enough to notice the small details of life continuing around him.
Fires crackled in the night, tents rustled with whispers and quiet laughter, and the drizzle had softened into a steady rhythm against the canvas roofs.

Jean moved past the central cluster of tents, grabbing a few supplies for himself and Marco, when a voice drifted through the thin fabric of one nearby shelter. It was quiet, raw with emotion that made him pause.

He hadn’t really noticed her before, a dark-haired woman hunched over papers and a battered notebook, scribbling furiously in the corner.

“…and then they just… left. Everything! My apartment, my job… my friend, Colt. Gone. Just like that,” the woman said, her voice low, hoarse with exhaustion and something darker—grief wrapped in disbelief.

Jean’s steps slowed. The words resonated differently than the usual panic and noise he’d grown used to. This wasn’t fear of the Spread or the immediate threat of the infected. It was human loss, the kind that cut clean through even the harshest survival instincts.

As he listened, he felt an old heaviness stir. A quiet guilt that he was still here, still breathing, while so many others weren’t. Reiner, Annie, Bertholdt… where the hell are you now? Did you make it past the gates? Are you even alive? 

“… Crazy how it sounds but, they think there’s a cure,” she continued, flipping a page with a shaky hand. “A few scientists, a few vials, hidden in places no one can find unless… unless you’re desperate enough to look. But everything else is speculation. Rumors. Lies to keep us moving, to keep us fighting.”

Jean’s brow furrowed. Her tone was measured, tired, but sharp. Someone who had once wielded words like weapons, someone used to chasing truth. He realized she was a journalist by her tone alone, though she hadn’t introduced herself.

Great, Jean thought, a faint, wry edge tugging at him. Just what this place needs. Someone who still believes in answers.

But beneath the sarcasm, something else lingered. Respect. Maybe even comfort. Because of her voice, her fear, her persistence… it all reminded him of why people kept going at all.

She wasn’t just writing now. As he took a quiet step forward to peer further past the clothes hung, he could see that she was holding a small handheld recorder, one of the old battery-powered types that journalists clung to like lifelines. 

The device flickered weakly in her hands. She tapped it twice, shook it once, then leaned close to whisper a test line into it. She replayed the audio, trying to salvage clarity from failing circuits.

It looked like she’d been doing this for hours. Patching together fragments of her voice, her story, maybe even warnings she hoped would reach someone beyond the safe zone. 

The way her shoulders curled protectively around the device said everything. It seemed like she wasn’t just documenting events; she was sending pieces of herself into the void and praying they landed somewhere that mattered.

Jean felt a renewed awareness of the world around him, of people still fighting in their own quiet, stubborn ways. Some survived with weapons. Others with notebooks, scribbling frantically on their laps in their open tents and her… with a dying recorder and a voice that refused to disappear.

The mix of exhaustion and determination in her voice echoed his own resolve, the thread of humanity he still held onto despite the chaos around them.

Jean finally moved on, glancing back briefly at the fleeting figure of the dark-haired woman scribbling into the dawn, and felt a renewed awareness of the world around him.

-

Jean stepped lightly through the narrow path between the tents, letting the warmth of the fire fade behind him. His mind still turned over the woman’s words about the cure, about the fragile thread of hope in the wreckage of the world. 

That’s when he almost collided with someone moving with careful precision, a small crate tucked under her arm.

“Oh, sorry,” she muttered, steadying herself. A pair of grey eyes met his amber ones for a brief second before flicking away, scanning the surroundings like she was measuring every shadow. Her fingers adjusted the crate’s latch, nimble.

“You okay?” Jean asked, trying to break the tense stillness.

She glanced at him again, expression guarded but not hostile. “I have to be,” she replied softly, voice carrying a hint of urgency beneath calmness. “I need to check on Gabi and Falco. They were separated in the last move. Can’t leave them exposed.”

Jean noticed the careful way she moved, the way she didn’t draw attention yet exuded quiet confidence. The taller man blinked, a slow realization creeping over him.

The dark-haired woman standing so precisely before him, the one fussing over the crate, muttering about Gabi and Falco, wore the same worn beige office jacket.

It clicked. She was the same journalist he had overheard a few days ago, the one scribbling into the dawn about the rumored cure, about vials hidden beyond the walls. Her presence here was so calculated, so deliberate, made sense now, she moved through the evacuation center.

Recognition settled between them silently. Jean gave a small, cautious nod, more an acknowledgment than a greeting. The journalist’s eyes flicked toward him briefly, and though her lips didn’t move, there was a subtle recognition in the way her shoulders shifted, a tiny ease in her stance.

The black haired woman’s gaze lingered on him for half a second longer than politeness required. Not startled, she was just registering him, filing him somewhere in that quiet mind of hers. She shifted the crate to her hip and exhaled through her nose, a soft, weary sound.

“Sorry again,” she murmured, her voice low, a little huskier than he remembered. “Didn’t see you there. Things are… a mess.”

Jean shook his head. “No harm done.”

Up close, the ink stain on her sleeve was darker, fresher, as if she’d been writing again moments before darting through the crowd. And now that he saw her fully, he could see how thin she’d gotten underneath the layers.

The journalist wasn’t just tired, she was stretched, held together on sheer will. Her eyes flicked past him again. “Gabi and Falco,” she muttered the same names under her breath. “They should’ve been with the southern transport. Unless the schedule changed again…”

Jean asked. “They your family?”

She blinked, as if surprised he’d even spoken. “Not by blood, but close enough. Well… at this point, too close, maybe.” She huffed a humorless laugh, brushing a dark strand of hair behind her ear. “The kind of kids who get into trouble even during the end of the world.”

There was worry in her tone, deep rooted, but she wore it like armor. Carefully… quietly.

Jean found himself watching her more carefully than he meant to. There was something strangely compelling about her, something steady beneath the exhaustion, something precise in the way she measured every word and every step.

“You look like you’ve been searching for days,” he said.

Pieck gave him an almost-smile, small and fleeting. “I have been. But panic wastes energy and energy is… limited.”

That calmness struck him. Even now, she wasn’t frantic, she was methodical. A journalist’s mind, he realized, repurposed for survival. Observing and connecting lines he couldn’t see.

Before he could say anything else, she tilted her head slightly. “Jean, right?”

He stiffened. “How—”

“You walk loud,” she said simply. “And you talk even louder in your sleep.”

Heat rose to his face, and she let the corner of her mouth lift. It was subtle, amused, almost hidden.

The rain softened to a mist around them, the camp bustling beyond their narrow little space. For a moment, they were simply two strangers thrown together by disaster, linked only by chance and shards of overheard stories.

She didn’t usually look back at people, at conversations, at the tiny moments that tugged at whatever thin threads remained of her trust. But after brushing past Jean, she found herself slowing, caught by an unfamiliar pull. 

He’d asked for her name with a sincerity that felt almost out of place in a world stitched together by fear and rumor, and that alone made her uneasy. 

Most people asked what you had to trade or what you were hiding, he had simply wanted to know who she was. 

She recognized the exhaustion in him, too. Not the kind sleep could fix, but the kind etched into the bones of survivors, those who had lost and kept going anyway. When she’d mentioned Gabi and Falco, he hadn’t winced or dismissed it. Instead, he just listened quietly, like children were still worth worrying about. 

He listens, she thought. Not just with his ears, he listens like he’s trying to understand.

Her thoughts tugged her right back to the tall, weary-looking man with the furrowed brows and the hesitant voice. His ash-blonde mullet had visibly been overgrown past his ears, like waves of sand that framed his weary face. 

The dirt on his cheeks emphasized the prominence of his sharp features, his cheekbones. But he didn’t seem unhealthy or malnourished, she could see it in the way his sleeves clung to his biceps just right. His black and white flannel sleeves and dark olive shirt made him look… charming.

Jean.

A simple name for someone who didn’t seem simple at all.

But what surprised her, what made her pause now was the way he had asked for her name like it mattered. Like he planned to remember it. 

Like he believed names still held weight in a world where everything else had been blown apart.

Most people asked what you had to trade, or what you wanted… or what you weren’t telling them.

Jean had asked her name.

Why? he wondered, adjusting the crate in her arms as she navigated the muddy path. She wasn’t sure.

Her dark hair clung to her cheek, her tired eyes steady on his. For a beat, she simply studied him, as if deciding whether he deserved the answer… or whether names still mattered in a world falling apart. Then she gave a slow, almost reluctant smile.

“Pieck,” she said quietly. “Pieck Finger.”

The name hung between them for a moment, and for the first time since she’d fled her district, she felt the faint echo of who she’d once been—someone with purpose, with a voice that had carried further than gunshots or sirens.

Before the outbreak, Pieck had been a news broadcaster. One of the few whose reports people actually leaned in to hear. A renowned journalist with a reputation for threading uncomfortable truths into every segment she delivered. The kind of truths the bigger media networks preferred buried beneath polished headlines and sanitized narratives. She spoke plainly, persistently, and with a calm conviction that made even those in power shift in their seats.

Because of that, she was constantly fighting to keep her stories aired. Producers rolled their eyes. Executives sent down warnings. The station insisted she “tone it down.” Pieck never did.

Justice wasn’t a slogan to her, it was oxygen. If something was wrong, she said it. If someone was in danger, she made sure the world knew. She followed what was right for people, even when it meant pushing back against the very system she worked inside.

She hadn’t done it alone, either.

Porco had been at her side the whole time, her sharp-tongued cameraman, always complaining, always filming, but never failing to capture exactly what mattered. His lens was merciless, steady, unfiltered.

And Colt… Colt drove the company van like he was born behind the wheel. He could find back roads no map had labeled, charm his way past blockades, and get them to scenes long before the sanitized crews arrived. He had a talent for slipping through cracks in the system, legal or otherwise.

He’d kept them out of trouble more times than she could count. They were the team that went where other crews wouldn’t. They were the ones who dared to broadcast what others tried to silence.

Now, as Pieck lowered her crate beside the tent and brushed the damp strands from her face, she felt the ghost of that past life linger for a heartbeat.

Her voice had once reached thousands. Now she wasn’t sure anyone was still listening.

Pieck had been in the evacuation center far longer than Jean ten days earlier, when the rain hadn’t yet washed the blood from the roads and the safe zone still smelled like burning rubber from the flood of fleeing vehicles. 

The journalist, Porco, and Colt had driven straight from the outskirts of Quinta District, the place that had an outbreak after Shiganshina, squeezed into the station’s battered van with two kids crammed into the backseat: Falco, Colt’s little brother, and Falco’s best friend Gabi.

They had been on assignment when the first screams echoed through the alleys, Pieck interviewing a local official, Porco adjusting the camera angle, Colt leaning against the van eating a piece of donut.

None of them knew then that those minutes would be the last quiet ones they’d ever share.

Unfortunately, the chaos hit fast. Too fast.

Colt had been the one to get them moving, shouting for everyone to get inside the van while he kicked open the door and hurled their gear inside. His driving was reckless and it saved them more than once as the infected poured into the streets like a wave.

But the cost came later. Colt hadn’t survived the crossing to the safe zone. Pieck never told the kids the exact moment she knew, they didn’t need that memory lodged behind their eyes. But she carried it every night. 

Now, Porco was the one handling the wheel… or trying to. Half the time he was elbow-deep in the engine, swearing at every bolt, his knuckles scraped raw from trying to keep the old vehicle alive. 

He claimed he’d have it running before they made their push toward Wall Rose in a few days, but Pieck could hear the doubt in his voice when he thought no one was listening.

That was why they were in the evacuation center in the first place. Falco was exhausted, Gabi had twisted her ankle during the escape, Porco was desperately trying to fix the van and Pieck had been running on fumes, on stubborn will and a journalist’s instinct to survive long enough to tell the truth.

She’d used the time to ration what they had, gather what they needed, document what little she could on her failing recorder, and keep the kids close under her arm. The world outside the walls didn’t care about justice or truth anymore. But she still did… she always would.

Pieck snapped herself out of her reverie before the memories pulled her under again. The journalist straightened and cleared her throat softly. “I should… keep moving,” she said, shifting her weight as if ready to walk off before he could ask anything more.

Jean blinked, stepping slightly aside but not letting her vanish into the maze of tents just yet. “Where?” he asked, not prying, just simply asking. Like someone who actually cared about the answer.

She hesitated. Falco and Gabi had been waiting on her. Porco was still fixing the engine grease, desperately trying to coax life back into the battered van. They didn’t have the luxury of staying too long. Ten days here had already stretched their luck thin.

“Wall Rose,” she said. “We’re heading there once our van’s up again.”

Jean absorbed that for a moment, rubbing a thumb along the strap of the supply bag slung over his shoulder. Then he nodded, decisive.

“We could come with you.”

Pieck froze just slightly. Barely enough to notice unless one was looking closely, but Jean was.

Traveling with strangers was dangerous. Slowing down for strangers was worse. Her mouth opened to answer, instinctively leaning toward refusal, but Jean beat her to it.

“Look,” he said, voice low, earnest, “we're heading the same way and I have someone who knows how to get there, an acquaintance. Reiner. Strong guy, good head on his shoulders. He knows how to get people through the checkpoints. Could make things easier for all of us.”

The name hit her like a quiet spark in the fog. She straightened, the shift subtle but unmistakable.

She knew that name, it rang a bell. Not from scattered broadcasts or survivor chatter, not from half-forgotten reports buried under crisis coverage.

No. The recognition cut deeper, and suddenly in a way that made her grip tighten around the crate she had just put down.

Reiner Braun. Her friend from Marley.

She hadn’t seen him since the war fractured Marley’s districts. She’d assumed, quietly, painfully, that he hadn’t made it. That he’d been another body swallowed by the chaos.

Her voice came out softer than she meant it to. “Reiner… Braun?”

Jean’s eyes widened a fraction, surprised she knew the surname. Pieck’s pulse kicked. If Reiner Braun was still alive, if Jean actually knew him, then maybe the route to Wall Rose wasn’t as impossible as she’d feared. Maybe Falco and Gabi wouldn’t have to see another road lined with bodies. Maybe Porco wouldn’t be driving blind into the unknown.

-

Nightfall had settled fully over the evacuation center, draping the tents and mud-soaked paths in a heavy, quiet darkness. The distant hum of helicopters had faded, leaving only the occasional crackle of a dying fire or the murmur of survivors moving between tents. 

Jean led the way carefully, navigating the narrow, uneven paths, while Pieck stayed close to Falco and Gabi, keeping an eye on their footing and the crate of scraps for the van she carried. 

Then, from the edge of the faint lantern light, a figure emerged. Reiner.

“Pieck?” His voice carried softly through the night, laced with disbelief and relief.

Her heart leapt. For a moment, she couldn’t speak, frozen in the sudden clarity of seeing a familiar face, then she rushed forward to him. “Reiner… you’re here!” Her voice trembled with the mix of relief and exhaustion.

He gave a small, steady smile, brushing dirt from his jacket. “I thought I’d catch up to you. Didn’t expect to find you in the middle of all this.” His gaze swept over the group, lingering briefly on the kids before returning to her. “You’ve been holding it together.”

Pieck exhaled, letting a faint smile break through the tension. “Had to. Falco, Gabi… someone has to steer the wheel now that Colt’s gone.”

Reiner nodded, his expression softening. “I see. You’ve been doing well. I’m glad you’re all still moving. But we need a plan if we’re going to get through Rose safely. I’ve actually found something that might make this easier.”

From behind, he produced a small set of keys, dangling them with a confident flick of his wrist. “A six-seater car. I spotted it abandoned near the edge of the safe zone. My group could use it.”

Pieck’s eyes widened. The possibility of moving in a vehicle, instead of trudging along muddy paths with children and supplies, felt like a small miracle. “That… could work,” she said, cautiously hopeful.

Jean perked up. “We can tail behind you. Keep a low profile, stay together. Makes sense.”

Pieck nodded, feeling a flicker of hope she hadn’t allowed herself in days. For the first time since leaving Marley, the pieces seemed to line up. Her friends were still alive. The night stretched ahead, heavy and dark, but now it carried a sense of purpose.

Porco’s eyes widened the moment he saw Reiner when he came back with his hands dirty with dark grease. The tension in his shoulders eased. “Reiner…” he breathed, stepping forward without hesitation. 

The two men closed the distance between them, and in the dim lantern light, they clasped forearms, then held each other in a brief, almost desperate hug. 

Words weren’t needed. Porco’s voice cracked slightly. “I thought… I thought you didn’t make it.”

Reiner shook his head, a small, rueful smile forming. “Neither did I think I’d find you here.”

Porco laughed softly, a sound heavy with relief. He then slapped Reiner’s shoulder. “Still standing… yeah. Still standing.”

Pieck, watching them, felt a warmth spread through her chest. Her gaze shifted, scanning the shadows beyond the lantern light, and then she froze. Annie and Bertholdt were there too. The two figures stepped into view as if emerging from the night itself.

Her pulse quickened, recognition hit immediately—familiar faces from Marley, faces she had feared she’d never see again. 

“Annie… Bertholdt…” she murmured, stepping closer, careful not to break the fragile moment. They met her gaze and the recognition was mutual. 

There were no words at first, just the silent acknowledgment of shared pasts, survival, and the uncanny fortune of meeting again in this fractured world.

Jean, standing slightly to the side, watched quietly. He didn’t step into the reunion; he didn’t need to. But he felt the weight of it all, how fragile these connections had become, how precious and rare such reunions were. 

Porco and Reiner laughed and spoke in low, urgent tones, sharing news and updates, filling in gaps of time lost to distance and chaos. Pieck’s voice trembled slightly as she greeted Annie and Bertholdt, a mixture of relief, joy, and disbelief in every word. Falco and Gabi looked on, wide-eyed, sensing the intensity of emotions too complex for them to fully understand but too palpable to ignore.

As the group slowly calmed, exchanging stories and laughter that had been buried under weeks of fear, Jean knew the journey ahead would be dangerous.

Chapter Text

What they won’t tell you is that Wall Maria held abandoned shelters, crumbling remnants of a pre-apocalypse before the Spread, once meant for nomads and travelers seeking refuge within its gates.

They were scattered in strange, forgotten corners of the districts. Narrow alleys that echoed the sound of footsteps, framed by half-collapsed buildings that once held marketplaces where moss and ash grew together. 

To anyone passing through, they were just ruins now. But to those who lived long enough under Maria’s shadow, they were landmarks too. But there was no guarantee anymore. 

The shelters were cracked open to the sky, their roofs broken enough to let rain and moonlight fall through. Their walls, now thin and brittle, offered little to soften the echo of metal groaning in the distance or the faint, unmistakable shuffle of the infected. 

Maria never promised safety, only places to delay danger for a few hours when it was deemed as a danger zone. Everyone outside the walls was at high risk. Only a few could ever make it.

Pieck knew all this too well. She had walked these ruins before anyone else here had dared to look beyond the official routes.

During her broadcasts, she had mapped out the quiet corners, memorized the buildings that bowed under their own weight, and learned which paths turned deadly at night. She had survived Maria not by running from it… but by listening to it too.

Jean watched her with a growing tightness in his chest. The way she spoke, the way she pointed out routes, the way she measured their odds, it all told him one thing. 

The walls weren’t salvation.

They were only a fragile pause between one threat and the next.

Now that Wall Maria had partially fallen into ruin, that pause was even thinner.

Marco spoke first, voice low. “What I heard about Shiganshina…” He shook his head. “It’s too late. It collapsed faster than anyone expected. That route was supposed to be ideal. The direct access to Wall Rose.”

Annie, sitting with her elbows on her knees, stared at the ground. “Quiet means empty. Empty means either everyone fled… or no one survived.”

Jean muttered, his gaze distant. “And we know which one’s more common.”

Reiner, who had been tracing circles into the dirt with a broken piece of tile, finally looked up. “The outermost wall used to be the barrier between us and the unknown. What’s life even like out here anymore?”

“That depends on where you stand,” Pieck replied. She shifted, leaning her back against a rusted van. “Some districts still have stable pockets—neighborhoods that the Spread hasn’t touched. Pretending the world beyond Maria hasn’t already broken through.”

Marco frowned. “Pretending? They’re still living?”

“Living,” Pieck echoed lightly. “But not safe.”

Jean crossed his arms. “And outside those pockets?”

“Empty streets. Abandoned homes. Herds of infected wandering aimlessly and people who’ve been outside for too long. Desperate people. Sometimes they’re worse than the infected.”

Bertholdt scratched uneasily at his sleeve. “Even with the gates, even with checkpoints… Maria feels like it’s slipping.”

“It is,” Pieck said softly. “The military knows it. That’s why they’re watching the evacuation center so closely… they can’t afford stragglers staying too long. They’re afraid someone infected slips through, or starts trouble.”

Annie scoffed under her breath. “So we’re next on their list to throw out.”

Pieck nodded once. “They’ll rotate groups. Move them east or west. They’ll force people out the moment supplies thin or the moment they think we look ‘too comfortable.’”

Reiner let out a long breath. “Meaning we need another plan before they shove us into the open?”

“Exactly,” Pieck murmured.

Marco leaned closer. “You mentioned earlier… Porco scouted somewhere?”

Pieck’s eyes flicked to him. “He did. Before he left to link up with another unit, he covered parts of northern Maria and found a route most patrols don’t bother with anymore.”

Jean raised a brow. “Why not?”

“Because it’s tricky,” Pieck explained. “Narrow, scattered with old debris. Looks like nothing from above. But if you know how to move through it, it cuts around the bigger districts entirely.”

Reiner sat up a little straighter. “A bypass.”

Pieck nodded. “A safe-ish one. Safer than Shiganshina, safer than the market routes, safer than waiting here for the military to point at us and say ‘your turn to leave.’”

Marco’s expression sharpened, hope wrapped in worry. “Could there be shelter along that route?”

Pieck hesitated for a moment, then said, “Yes. Two potential spots. One’s a big old watch tower. Got high vantage, no signs of Spread to the structures attached to it, might as well be a sturdier makeshift fort. The other’s an abandoned workshop with reinforced walls.”

Jean let out a relieved breath. “So we might actually have a place to sleep without the roof falling on us.”

Pieck’s tone softened, but not with comfort. More like strategy. “If we move soon, if we don’t draw attention... and if Maria stays quiet tonight.”

The group exchanged looks. Grim, tired, but steadier.

Reiner pushed himself off the vehicle. “Then we move at dawn?”

Pieck nodded. “Dawn. Before anyone thinks to question why six people slipped out of the evacuation center.”

Marco gave a thin smile. “Then let’s hope Maria doesn’t wake up angry.”

Pieck leaned her shoulder gently against the rusted frame of the vehicle, the faint moonlight catching the curve of her tired smile. It was one of those small, deceptively calm smiles that made people forget just how sharp she really was.

Because Pieck wasn’t the loud one.

She wasn’t the one who barked orders or swung her weight around. No, her strength lived in the quiet spaces.

Those soft, deliberate pauses that made you lean in just a little closer. She had this slow, almost languid way of moving and speaking. Like she’d already thought two steps ahead.

But underneath that gentle posture?

Steel. Absolute steel.

A strategist who learned to survive by reading rooms, reading people, and when necessary, reading danger before anyone else even sensed it.

Even now, as she stared into the distant silhouette of Wall Maria, she looked almost serene. But the serenity wasn’t peace, it was more like a practiced composure honed from years of watching, adapting, and studying the world with quiet precision.

She didn’t panic. She didn’t raise her voice either, but she noticed everything.

The shifting boots of soldiers patrolling too close, the flicker of lanterns dimming, the way Reiner’s jaw tightened every time Maria was mentioned. The tremor in Marco’s smile and Jean’s attempt to sound bold when exhaustion still clung to his eyes.

Pieck took all of it effortlessly, storing it the way she stored routes, escape paths, safe corners. Always preparing for the next move before the rest even knew they needed one.

“We’ll make it,” she murmured, still watching the skyline. Her voice was gentle, almost soothing, but the confidence in it had weight. “Maria’s still dangerous… but she’s predictable if you know how to listen.”

Jean blinked at her. “Listen to a wall?”

Pieck’s smile tugged a little higher, lazy and knowing.

“Not the wall. The people. The paths. The patterns.” She tapped the side of her temple lightly. “Maria talks. You just have to pay attention.”

Bertholdt swallowed, Annie kept her arms folded but attentive, and Reiner muttered under his breath like he wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or unnerved.

The blonde huffed a tired chuckle. “Guess that’s why you always look like you haven’t slept in two days.”

Pieck glanced at him before the rest of them scattered from the circle, on their way to retreat back into their respective tents. “Reiner, I rarely sleep for two hours.”

Jean nudged Marco’s shoulder as they slipped past a line of snoring evacuees, heading toward one of the darker corners of the camp.

The lanterns behind them flickered out, leaving only moonlight and the wet crunch of gravel under their boots. When they were far enough from the others, close to a half-collapsed tent where no one bothered to sleep. Jean finally exhaled the thought that had been gnawing at him.

“Okay,” he muttered. “So, uh… be honest. Are we really trusting her? Just like that?”

Marco glanced at him, brows raised. “Pieck?”

“Yeah, Pieck.” Jean rubbed the back of his neck, his voice half-whispered, eliciting a half-frustrated sigh. “I mean, I get it, she’s… weirdly calm and somehow knows every damn back alley like she was born in them, but we literally met her, what— two days ago?”

Marco’s mouth pulled into a faint, crooked smile. “Jean, we met everyone here two days ago.”

“That’s not reassuring, Marco.”

Marco chuckled softly, stuffing his hands in his pockets as they walked a little deeper into the shadows. “Look… I get what you’re saying. She’s hard to read. Makes you feel like she already figured out the ending to a story you just started.”

Jean scoffed. “Exactly. She talks like she’s seen everything twice already and half the time I’m not sure if she’s being reassuring or warning us we’re all gonna die.”

Marco hummed thoughtfully, head tilting as he remembered Pieck’s earlier expression, soft eyes, lazy posture, but a mind running faster than any of them could track. “But she hasn’t lied to us. Not once. Everything she’s pointed out checks out. Terrain, patrol patterns, blind spots… even Reiner listens when she talks.”

Jean kicked a small rock with a little more force than necessary, hands shoved in his pockets as he strode lazily to pace back and forth. That old habit of his. “I know, I know.” He paused, voice softening. “It’s just… people like her? They usually want something. I’d like to know what it is before we follow her into Maria’s backyard.”

Marco stayed quiet for a moment, considering.

Then he shrugged lightly. “Maybe she just wants us alive.”

Jean blinked at him. “That’s it? That’s your big analysis?”

Marco gave a small, gentle grin. One that somehow made Jean’s shoulders loosen despite himself. “Look at her, Jean. She’s exhausted, but she never really stops watching out for everyone. She didn’t have to help us. She didn’t have to stay with us on our plan with Reiner and the rest of them. But she did. And she’s the only one with enough sense not to walk straight into a military checkpoint yelling ‘hi, we’re lost.’”

Jean let out a long breath, staring up at the murky stars barely visible past the smoke of the campfires.

“… She makes sense,” he admitted reluctantly. Jean wiped a hand down his face. “Annoying, but she does.”

Marco nudged him again, softer this time. “So trust her. At least enough to get some sleep tonight.”

Jean glanced back in the direction of the group, where Pieck’s faint silhouette still leaned against the vehicle, quietly observing the camp like she was memorizing its heartbeat.

“Yeah,” Jean murmured. “Maybe tomorrow, too.”

Jean tried to shake off the unease, but it followed him all the way back into the cramped section of the evacuation center where he had claimed a patch floor.

People slept in uneasy clusters around them, they were curled on coats, makeshift mats, even scraps of cardboard, breathing in short, nervous bursts like they expected to wake up running.

Jean lay down beside Marco, folding his jacket under his head, but his thoughts refused to settle.

Pieck Finger.

Seeing her here, skin smudged with dirt, hair tied back sloppily, voice soft but razor-sharp, made the memory feel surreal, like he’d taken someone from a broadcast and dropped her into a nightmare.

He remembered her reporting from Shiganshina once. Real raw footage. Half-collapsed roads, smoke drifting from unseen fires, her voice calm even when the wind nearly drowned her out.

“An early warning system failed,” she had said on-screen, “but the second line held long enough for civilians to evacuate.”

Yeah. He remembered her now.

Knowing she was here, telling them dawn was the only safe shot out of Wall Maria? That was enough to keep him awake way too long.

Eventually, exhaustion dragged him under.

It didn’t ease him into sleep, it dropped him violently.

He was back in the ruins of Trost District, but everything was wrong. Too quiet. Too empty. The kind of silence that felt like someone had sucked the air out of the world. He walked forward and saw his own boots leaving wet prints on the street.

Blood? Water? He couldn’t tell.

Then he heard a scream. Marco’s.

Jean whipped around and saw him stumbling backwards, pointing at Jean with terror stretching his face thin.

“Jean, your eyes—”

Jean blinked. The world flickered.

A metallic taste coated his tongue.

His limbs felt heavy, like his body wasn’t his anymore.

He reached out, wanting to reassure him, but his fingers were pale and stiff, veins darkening like ink spreading under his skin.

“No… no, no, no!” Jean tried to speak, but the words warped into a low, broken groan. His jaw ached. Something pulled at him from the back of his skull. Hunger. A mindless, suffocating pull.

Marco stumbled away, tears forming. “Jean, you’re scaring me. Snap out of it! Please!”

But Jean couldn’t.

His body lurched forward on its own.

He felt his breath stop. Felt his heartbeat flicker into nothing.

He was becoming one of them.

Jean snapped awake like someone had yanked him out of the dream by the throat. His breath hitched, sharp and ragged, and before he even understood where he was, his hands flew up to his ears, clamping down hard.

Everything felt too loud.

Way too loud.

The murmur of sleepers.

The scrape of boots.

The wind whispered through cracked boards.

The soft creak of someone shifting on the floor.

Even his own heartbeat, thundering and frantic, felt like it was shaking the whole damn room.

He squeezed tighter, palms pressed over his ears, elbows tucked in, trying to shrink himself down, trying to drown everything out. A shaky breath left him as he curled slightly forward, forehead resting against his knees.

Not real. Not real. Not real.

He repeated it silently, desperately, forcing the nightmare back into whatever dark corner it crawled out of.

His veins weren’t darkening. His breath wasn’t gone. He wasn’t hungry for anything but air. Real, living air.

Marco stirred beside him, alarmed by how fast Jean was breathing. “Jean? Hey, easy, easy…”

But Jean couldn’t answer yet. His chest stuttered, breath coming in uneven bursts as he forced the noise out, forced the images out—

Marco screaming, his own hands turning pale, the hunger scraping against his mind like claws.

His hands stayed pressed over his ears, fingers trembling.

Marco scooted closer, voice soft. “It’s okay… you’re here. Just breathe. Come on, man. Breathe.”

Jean inhaled shakily through his nose, exhaled slower. It wasn’t perfect. Nowhere near, but it was enough to pull himself back from that panic edge. He kept his hands over his ears, grounding himself in the pressure, shutting out the world until the present was louder than the nightmare.

From her place against the support beam, Pieck opened her eyes, already awake, already watching. For someone who was supposedly resting, she didn’t look the least bit surprised.

Marco rubbed his back lightly. “You’re safe. Nothing’s happening.”

Jean blinked, still shaky, but the words cut through the fog. He loosened his grip around his ears, not letting go, just easing the pressure, and drew in a deeper breath. It didn’t fix everything, but it made the world a little less sharp.

Marco exhaled in relief. “Better?”

Jean nodded once, tiny but real. “Yeah… yeah. Just… just a bad dream.”

Jean closed his eyes and focused on the air moving in and out, his hands still cupped over his ears like a barrier between him and the ghosts still clinging to his mind. He wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t turning.

He was just scared.

Fear gripped him, raw and unfiltered. For a moment he thought he might lose himself to it. But that fear didn’t make him weak. If anything, it reminded him he was human. 

It reminded him that he could feel, that he could be hurt, and that he could survive, and that survival meant understanding the stakes.

Marco’s hand that was resting lightly on his back anchored him, but it was the trembling, the terror, the way he felt every inch of the nightmare lingering in his body, that grounded him in reality.

It was strange, he realized, how fear could connect people. How someone who had faced it, who understood the taste of panic and the impending scrape of dread, could become reliable to others. 

But someone like him, someone who had felt it and survived could move deliberately, anticipate threats, and help others navigate the chaos. His fear didn’t isolate him, it made him relatable. It made him a point of understanding for anyone who had ever trembled in the dark.

Jean’s eyes fluttered shut briefly, and he remembered Annie’s words from earlier in the camp, a warning tucked behind her usually indifferent tone.

“Don’t let it get to you. Zombies don’t feel fear. Only humans do.”

Her words hit him now with the weight of truth. It wasn’t fear that made humans weak, it was forgetting it existed, pretending it didn’t shape decisions, shape survival, shape life.

The undead didn’t hesitate or didn’t second guess. 

Only humans felt the pull of terror, the weight of what could go wrong, the horrifying awareness of mortality. As terrifying as it was, it was precisely what gave him control.

-

Past the barrier of the evacuation center although still within the range of the safe zone, the early light painted the cracked pavement with soft gray tones, broken by patches of sunlight slipping between ruined walls. Reiner stood beside Jean, watching him adjust his grip.

“Alright,” Reiner said, voice low but firm. “Let’s get you moving properly. You tense up too much. Relax your shoulders.”

Jean nodded, trying to mimic the stance Reiner demonstrated. Reiner crouched slightly behind him, positioning his hands over Jean’s as he adjusted the angles, correcting the tilt of his arms. Every so often, their bodies brushed slightly, and instinctively, both froze for a heartbeat. 

“Eyes on the target,” Reiner instructed. “Follow the motion. Flow with it. Don’t think too much, but don’t panic either.”

Jean mirrored him, trying to absorb not just the technique but the calm, measured energy Reiner exuded.

Reiner stayed close, guiding his elbows, adjusting his wrist subtly, the rhythm of correction and practice weaving a silent trust between them. 

The pause between touches was noticeable, but it never lingered long. Each instance ended as quickly as it began, replaced with instructions.

Meanwhile, across the cleared lot, Marco knelt with Bertholdt, a rifle resting against his shoulder. Bertholdt patiently demonstrated the proper stance, how to line up sights, and how to anticipate recoil. 

Marco tried again, adjusting his grip, listening to Bertholdt’s calm but precise instructions. Each shot was slower at first, then more controlled, until the metallic clang of hitting targets began to punctuate the quiet morning.

“You’re improving,” Reiner said finally, standing slightly behind Jean, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Remember, control yourself, control the flow. Fear won’t help you fire a gun. Awareness will.”

Jean exhaled, muscles loosening, the rhythm of training washing over him. His earlier fear was still there, low and humming, but now it was useful. It kept him alert, human… alive in ways.

Across the field, Marco’s measured breaths and Bertholdt’s patient guidance mirrored the same practice.

The camp itself stirred with the quiet energy of survival, shadows stretching across broken pavement as the sun climbed higher.

The next day, Gabi had gotten comfortable beside Pieck, leaning back against the cool concrete as the faint static of the radio buzzed between Pieck’s fingers.

But Pieck wasn’t really listening to it. Hah. Not right now. Her attention kept drifting across the broken training field, eyes narrowing every so often as she observed the movements of the group.

Except this time, she wasn’t watching Jean fire a gun.

Reiner had decided something else would suit him better.

Jean stood in the open lot gripping a battered metal baseball bat. Its end wrapped in barbed wire and rusted nails they’d salvaged from an old barricade. Reiner stood behind him, posture loose, confident, explaining each motion with calculated gestures.

“No wide swings,” Reiner said, tapping Jean’s wrists to adjust the angle. “You open your guard and you lose your arm. Or your head. Either way, messy.”

Jean huffed. “Yeah, thanks. Very comforting.”

“It’s realistic,” Reiner replied with a shrug. “Here, keep your stance narrow. Let the weight do the work. Don’t fight the momentum. Guide it.”

He stepped in close. Closer than Jean expected, bracing Jean’s elbows from behind, guiding the bat through the air with a slow, deliberate sweep. The nails hissed faintly as they cut the air. 

Jean froze for a fraction of a second at the closeness, the heat of Reiner at his back, but Reiner didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did, and simply didn’t care.

“Flow,” Reiner murmured. “Not brute force. You’re not trying to bench-press the dead. You’re trying to redirect their skulls.”

Jean tried the motion again. This time the bat swung cleaner, smoother, the weight pulling through his arms in a satisfying arc.

“There you go,” Reiner said, stepping back finally. “Again.”

Jean swung. Nails sliced through empty space. Again. And again.

Reiner observed with crossed arms, nodding in approval. “You’re getting it.”

Across the field, Marco was working with a handgun this time, Bertholdt showing him how to angle his arms, how to align front and rear sights. Marco’s shots were becoming tighter, less panicked, each bullet hitting closer to center.

Bertholdt offered quiet encouragement after every attempt, his soft voice oddly reassuring.

And Pieck…

Pieck was pretending to tinker with her radio, adjusting a broken antenna, thumbs grazing dials that barely functioned.

But Gabi caught every sideways glance she stole at Jean’s training, every flicker of eyes that lingered too long before darting back to the radio.

“You’re watching him,” Gabi said casually, swinging her legs.

Pieck didn’t look up. “I’m watching the group.”

“You’re watching Reiner, Marco, Bertholdt too?”

“Yes.”

“With that face?”

Pieck paused mid-dial turn. “… What face?”

Gabi grinned. “The one where you look like you’re analyzing his entire life based on how he swings a nail bat. You do that with Reiner sometimes, but this one’s new.”

Pieck finally lifted her gaze from the radio, long lashes narrowing slightly. “I analyze everyone. It’s important to understand how people adapt under stress.”

“So you’re just studying him?”

Pieck hesitated. A small, almost imperceptible breath escaped her nose. Her version of flustered.

“Observation is necessary,” she said quietly. “And Jean… he adapts quickly. Fear sharpens him. It… makes him careful. That’s rare.”

Gabi nudged her. “Sounds like you’re describing someone you like.”

Pieck’s lips twitched, the faintest smile ghosting her features. “Don’t be childish. I don’t ‘like’ anyone.”

“You like me.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Pieck didn’t answer, but her eyes drifted again, this time openly, toward Jean trying another swing. The bat cracked against the training dummy’s skull with a satisfying crunch, sending plastic fragments scattering.

Reiner let out a low whistle. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

Jean straightened, panting slightly. “Damn… that felt good.”

Pieck watched the way Jean’s shoulders relaxed, how his stance stabilized, how his earlier terror had channeled into precision.

She admired that kind of growth.

Gabi bumped her shoulder lightly. “Mm-hm. Sure. Just observation.”

Pieck’s sigh was soft, weary, but undeniably fond.

“Go focus on your own training,” she muttered, but her tone held no real bite.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with training and prepping supplies while Pieck continued her quiet, steady surveillance from the shadows. Watching. Calculating.

Caring far more than she would ever admit.

-

Time slipped by almost unnoticed. Days of training, practice, and quiet observation folded into one another, and before anyone fully registered it. By evening, the group had returned to the evacuation center. 

The day’s fatigue settled into their bones like a familiar weight, muscles sore but spirits steadier. For Jean and Marco, the training had done more than hone their skills. They were ready enough now. 

Reiner stood near them with his arms crossed, watching them carefully, while Pieck sat in her usual shadowed corner, talking to Marco about the maps and navigation since she was the one more familiar around the districts of Wall Maria.

Gabi had made herself comfortable beside her, whispering small observations, teasing, but content just to watch.

The camp itself had grown quieter as night deepened. The distant groans from outside the walls, the soft shuffle of military patrols within, and the murmur of exhausted travelers all blended into a lullaby of the city beyond the walls. 

Reiner finally broke the quiet. “Tomorrow, we move at dawn. We leave with the van and the six-seater Reiner salvaged. Everything we’ve trained for… we’ll put to use.”

Gabi perked up next to Pieck. “Porco will be with us, right?”

Pieck’s gaze lingered on the van’s image from afar, then swept across the group. “We leave before anyone notices six people slipping away from the evacuation center,” she reminded them. Her tone was calm, matter-of-fact, but there was no mistaking the undercurrent of warning.

Maria’s ruins were wide, dangerous, and unpredictable. And so, every hour counted.

Gabi snuggled closer to Pieck, whispering softly, “You’re really watching everything, huh?”

Pieck’s fingers grazed the radio dials, the small one she fished out from her jacket. “Always. Even when you think I’m not.” Her eyes flicked toward the horizon, distant and jagged. “Tomorrow, we put all of it to use.”

The group settled in for their final night under the walls of Maria, the night thick with anticipation and the quiet hum of nerves. Every sigh, rustle, and faint groan beyond the gates reminded them of what awaited.

Tomorrow, they will move at dawn. 

They were going to leave past the wooden and barbed borders, the evacuation area and finally, into the streets of Wall Maria.

-

Dawn broke over the wall, spilling pale gold across the ruins and sending long, fractured shadows stretching through the streets. The camp stirred as the six of them climbed into the vehicles. 

Porco was at the wheel of the company van, Pieck beside him, and the rest settled into the salvaged six-seater Reiner had found as a convoy.

The engines hummed to life, the van purring smoothly under Porco’s hands, a testament to his week-long fixing.

Falco peered out the window, eyes tracing the jagged outline of the towering walls that had loomed over them since they’d entered Maria. “Why are the walls so… high?” he asked, his voice carrying a mix of curiosity and awe.

Porco glanced at him through the side mirror, a faint grin tugging at his lips. “They weren’t always this tall,” he said, keeping his tone even as he navigated the narrow, crumbling streets.

“Back when these walls were first built, they were lower, just enough to keep normal threats out. But then… the Spread happened.” His hand tightened slightly on the steering wheel. “Hordes of infected started climbing. Some even jumped over. People died… a lot of people.”

Falco’s hands tightened on the edge of the seat, and he swallowed hard. Porco’s voice softened, but it carried the weight of experience. “So they rebuilt them. Higher, stronger and layered. Every time there was a breach, they learned what to do next. The walls you see now? They’re meant to be unscalable. That’s the only reason they’re still standing.”

Falco’s eyes widened slightly, taking in the sheer vertical span, the jagged edges, and the gaps patched with reinforced metal. “So… people lived behind these walls and still weren’t safe?”

Porco nodded, eyes on the road. “Safe’s a relative term. The walls keep a lot out, but nothing’s perfect. They buy time. That’s all.”

Pieck, sitting beside him, didn’t look out the window. Instead, she studied the cityscape as it passed, calculating distances, noting which streets were blocked, which buildings could collapse, and where dangers might hide. “Height alone isn’t enough,” she murmured, almost to herself.

Falco nodded, absorbing both Porco’s story and Pieck’s quiet observation. The walls were impressive, but their height was only a fraction of the protection they offered. 

The salvaged six-seater rattled along the cracked streets, Reiner gripping the wheel with a mix of concentration and curiosity.

Marco sat beside him, hands on his knees, eyes flicking between the street and the dashboard, trying to absorb every detail of Maria’s buildings.

Reiner’s fingers hovered over the radio dial, then finally twisted it experimentally. A sudden burst of static filled the cabin, followed by a familiar, upbeat rhythm.

“Wait, what is this?” Marco asked, raising an eyebrow.

Reiner grinned, tapping the steering wheel in time with the music. The unmistakable opening chords of Burnin’ Up by the Jansen Brothers blasted through the speakers.

Reiner’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! Now this is how you drive through a zombie wasteland!”

Marco blinked, then let a small smile tug at his lips. He bobbed his head subtly, trying not to make it obvious he was enjoying it. Jean, sitting quietly in the back, didn’t move much, but a faint twitch of his lips betrayed the corner of amusement he felt.

Reiner, on the other hand, was entirely unabashed. He sang along quietly under his breath, fingers drumming the wheel, tapping every beat with exaggerated flair. “Burnin’ up, burnin’ up!” he muttered, and then laughed when he realized Marco had started nodding along.

“You actually like this?” Marco asked, smirking.

“Of course!” Reiner shot back, grinning wide. “If we’re gonna survive Maria and the next horde, we might as well enjoy ourselves while we can.”

Jean rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. “I don’t get it,” he said dryly, “but it’s… fine.”

Marco let himself bob to the beat more freely, a small grin tugging at his lips. Jean, Bertholdt, and Annie stayed quiet but allowed themselves to relax slightly.

Jean, in particular, slipped a pair of shades over his eyes, tilting his head back just enough to hide the faint smirk that threatened to appear. 

For a brief moment, the tension of the walls, the training, the constant fear of the Spread. All of it melted away into simple, ridiculous joy.

Reiner, entirely unabashed, sang along under his breath, fingers drumming the wheel, tapping every beat with exaggerated flair.

Marco chuckled at him, still bobbing along, while Jean’s shades gave him a mysterious, almost nonchalant aura that made him look far cooler than he felt.

Even Pieck, in the van ahead, caught a glimpse of the six-seater swaying slightly with Reiner’s exaggerated movements through the side mirror. A small, amused twitch touched her lips before she returned her attention to the road.

The upbeat music faded gradually as the streets of Wall Maria stretched out before them. Reiner eased the wheel with a lazy precision, tapping the last echo of the rhythm against the dashboard, while Marco leaned back slightly, still nodding subtly to the lingering beat.

The laughter and absurdity of moments ago began to soften, replaced by the quiet hum of the engines and the occasional creak of the salvaged six-seater.

Marco glanced at Jean, who still wore his shades, and then at Bertholdt and Annie, all of them settled into a calm attentiveness.

The day demanded focus, even as the calm after the fleeting joy lingered around them. Marco exhaled softly, breaking the silence.

“So,” he said, voice low, almost conversational, “Pieck mentioned Nina District, right? And Pinta’s… well, somewhere beyond that. I’ve heard a bit about the layout.” He tilted his head toward the cracked streets ahead, trying to picture the map in his mind. “Nina District’s… tight. Crowded. Older buildings, narrow alleys. Not the easiest to move through, but it has a few tall watch towers. Perfect vantage points if you know where to go.”

Reiner hummed, keeping his eyes on the street. “That’s why Pieck suggested it. A watch tower could give us a safehouse, somewhere to rest and monitor the outskirts without being seen. Makes sense.”

Marco nodded, tracing the path they were following. “Pinta District’s newer, bigger streets… more open, easier to spot trouble, easier to get stuck. Nina’s small enough to navigate quietly. We head there first, mark the tower, and make sure it’s secure. Then we can figure out the next move.”

Jean, shades still in place, leaned back in his seat, listening. “So it’s not just a random stop. It’s… tactical. Good thinking.” His tone was calm, almost indifferent, but the small nod betrayed the fact he was already picturing the route, the approach, the possible exits.

Even Bertholdt and Annie, quiet as they usually were, followed the discussion with soft glances toward the streets ahead. 

Marco’s voice softened further, almost to himself, as he gestured toward the crumbling rooftops in the distance. “If we can secure Nina’s watch tower, we’ll have eyes on a big stretch of the city… and somewhere to fall back to if things go sideways. Quiet, high up, defensible too. Just like Pieck said.”

The hum of the engines filled the tight streets of Nina District. Marco’s words still lingered in the front seat, quiet and calm, when Porco’s voice cut sharply over the radio.

“Eyes open. Horde spotted. Move now,” he barked, urgency in every syllable.

Jean’s shades slipped slightly as he leaned forward, scanning the narrow alleyways ahead. Reiner’s hands tensed on the wheel of the six-seater, muscles coiling, instincts kicking in. “What kind of horde?” he asked.

“Lots! Shufflers, fuck—! Not runners too, there’s spitters,” Porco replied, voice steady but tense. “And fast. We’re going to drive through them. Avoid, don’t fight. Stick to the streets!”

The reality hit instantly. Nina District’s narrow alleys meant no room for error. The incoming horde was a grotesque, shambling masses with gleaming eyes and snapping teeth.

Porco’s van roared past, and Reiner immediately followed suit, their tires squealing as they drifted around corners.

Marco gripped the edge of his seat, heart thudding in rhythm with the screeching of metal. “Keep close! Don’t lose them!” he shouted over the noise.

The six-seater lurched through another corner, nearly scraping a crumbling brick wall, as Porco’s voice rang out. “Stick to my tail! Don’t get greedy with the corners!”

Metal banged against metal as the two vehicles threaded through Nina’s claustrophobic streets. Tires kicked up dust and shards of broken glass, the horde’s groans echoing off the walls like some monstrous percussion. 

In between an unintentional chaos. Marco fumbled with the radio, trying to coordinate with Porco, when the volume suddenly blasted. The unmistakable beat of Rinna’s Shut Up and Drive roared into the cab.

“What the?!” Marco yelped, teeth gritted as the music collided with the screams and groans outside.

Reiner threw his head back in frustrated laughter, just a fraction of a second.

“Seriously?” Jean muttered, voice muffled but precise, already correcting his grip as the car drifted around another corner.

Porco’s voice cut through again, gruff and panicked. “Focus! No time for a concert!”

“Eyes on the road! Keep up with the van!”

Jean adjusted, Annie and Bertholdt readied themselves, gripping weapons tightly, scanning each alleyway, preparing for stray walkers to crash into the chaos.

The streets of Nina District became a dangerous playground of narrow lanes, sharp turns, and the looming horde just behind them.

The chase stretched tense, each drift as Reiner drove bringing them closer to the watch tower Pieck had suggested. 

The frantic energy of the chase shifted abruptly as the streets of Nina District narrowed even further. Porco’s van skidded around another corner, engine screaming, but a sudden bottleneck of debris forced them into a tighter alley. Reiner’s followed, tires scraping over broken bricks. 

The horde was increasing. 

Their grotesque forms crowded the alleys, snapping and shoving, teeth glinting in the pale morning light. Panic clawed at the group’s focus now, the music from the radio long drowned out by the moans and shuffles of the advancing dead.

Reiner barked directions, guiding them around obstacles, but the narrow streets offered little room to maneuver.

For a moment, it felt like the horde had them trapped, the walls of Nina District closing in with the relentless pressure of living death.

Dust, debris, and broken glass littered the lanes. Marco, hands trembling but determined, grabbed a bottle filled with a flammable mixture from his backpack, one of their hastily improvised molotovs. “Here goes nothing,” he muttered, voice tight with fear and adrenaline.

The bottle flew through the air, shattering against a pile of debris as flames erupted, hissing and crackling in a vivid glow that followed .

The nearest zombies recoiled instinctively, stumbling back, shrieking as fire licked their decaying flesh.

“Fire… it scares them,” Marco shouted, eyes wide as more of the horde hesitated, shuffling backwards. “It– it actually works!”

With careful coordination, Reiner guided the six-seater through another narrow opening. Bertholdt and Annie watched from the back and kept their weapons ready, firing selectively at any stragglers who pushed too close.

Porco’s van led the way, the engine roaring as he weaved expertly, flames from discarded Molotovs and overturned barrels cutting swaths of temporary safety through the pursuing horde. The scent of smoke and charred debris filled the alley, harsh and acrid, but effective.

By the time they burst into a slightly wider street, the horde had been forced to retreat slightly, repelled by fire and the chaos of the vehicles’ movements. The group exhaled in unison, sweat mixing with soot, hearts hammering.

Marco lowered the last Molotov from the window, breathing hard but triumphant. “They… they’re afraid of it. Fire works! They actually backed off.”

No sooner had the group caught a brief moment of relief than the ground ahead erupted with sudden motion. From the shadows of a crumbling side street, a pack of runners.

Runners were fast, feral zombies capable of sprinting unnaturally, lunged toward them, teeth bared, eyes wild. They were unnervingly coordinated, moving as a single, desperate wave toward the rear of the six-seater.

Reiner slammed his foot down on the brakes, tires screeched as the car fishtailed as he struggled to regain control. “Hold on!” he shouted, gripping the wheel tighter, muscles straining.

Marco ducked instinctively, heart hammering as a runner slammed into the back of the car, claws scraping along the metal. The vehicle shuddered violently.

Bertholdt and Annie in the back leaned forward, weapons ready, firing precise shots. But the sheer speed of the attackers left little room for error.

“Runners!” Annie yelled, voice tense but steady, “They’re fast! Keep the wheel steady, Reiner!”

The car skidded around a corner too sharply for comfort, narrowly missing a collapsed wall, but momentum carried them straight toward the base of the watch tower Pieck had pointed out. 

The impact was brutal. The tires slammed into debris, the chassis groaned, and the vehicle skidded, finally coming to rest just under the tower’s entrance.

Reiner cursed under his breath, the adrenaline still thick in his veins. Marco exhaled shakily, eyes wide, and Jean leaned back slightly, shades slipping down as he assessed the chaos around them.

Porco, already out of the van, shouted back over the roar and distant groans. “Move! Up the tower, now!”

Pieck was already leading the charge, guiding Gabi and Falco beside her, boots striking the crumbling steps as they began their climb.

Smoke and the acrid scent of charred debris filled the air, but it couldn’t mask the metallic tang of blood and the guttural screeches of the pursuing runners.

The group scrambled, clambering up the narrow access to the watch tower, adrenaline sharpening every sense.

Behind them, the six-seater shuddered from the repeated impact of runners, Reiner and Marco coordinating to keep it steady enough for a quick exit once the immediate threat had passed.

Gabi clutched Pieck’s arm lightly, eyes wide. “Pieck!” 

Pieck urged them up firmly, scanning the streets below as she guided them higher. “Just keep moving. Don’t look down.”

The climb to the watch tower became a desperate, frantic race as the runners pressed closer, their guttural snarls echoing off the narrow streets. 

Marco’s hands shook on the railing, Jean’s jaw clenched, and Reiner kept a steady, determined pace, guiding them toward the tower’s battered entrance.

But behind them, Bertholdt hesitated for only a fraction of a second too long. He raised his rifle and fired into the advancing runners, buying precious seconds for the others. 

Every shot was precise, deliberate, and desperate, but there were too many, and the narrow alley offered no real escape.

“Bertholdt!” Annie called over her shoulder, panic threading her voice, but Bertholdt’s eyes held a quiet, grim resolve. “Go! Get to the tower!”

Jean and Marco didn’t need to be told twice. They surged forward, Reiner at the front, Annie close behind. Their boots pounded against the uneven steps, hearts hammering against their ribs, lungs burning with each quick breath.

Bertholdt’s figure lingered in the alley below, a barrier between the pursuing runners and the escaping group. He fired repeatedly, every shot a plea for the others to live. The noise and the smell of smoke and blood mingled as the runners pressed in, relentless.

Annie’s face hardened as she reached the entrance, eyes flicking back for just a heartbeat.

She saw Bertholdt’s last stand, the horde converging around him, and a pang of guilt and helplessness struck deep. 

Reiner caught her arm in a quick second, guiding her forward. “No time,” he urged, voice tight. “We keep moving!”

Marco’s hand trembled on the railing as he glanced down at Bertholdt, knowing without doubt that their companion wasn’t going to make it.

His throat tightened, but he didn’t falter, moving alongside Jean and Annie, climbing higher toward the tower’s platform.

By the time they reached the first level, gasping for air, bruised and shaking from the scramble, the sounds below had grown chaotic but distant. 

Fire from Molotovs and overturned barrels burned in patches, keeping the horde at bay, but Bertholdt’s absence was painfully obvious.

Annie sank to her knees against the railing once they reached the top where no infected could reach them. Her mind replayed the scene as if she could somehow rewind it.

Reiner crouched beside her, hands on her shoulders briefly, grounding her.

Jean and Marco stood slightly apart, catching their breath, eyes scanning the streets below for any sign of further pursuit.

The reality hit them… they had survived, but the cost was real. Bertholdt’s sacrifice was a harsh reminder that every move, every choice, came with consequences.

Fear, adrenaline, and sorrow intertwined, anchoring them in the relentless, unforgiving reality of Nina District and the dangers that lay beyond.

For a long moment, the tower was silent except for their ragged breaths, the wind rattling the remnants of the structure, and the distant groans of the undead below.

Chapter Text

It had been raining for days in Marley.

Not gentle rain. Nothing like the kind that made people think of warm blankets or lazy afternoons. This rain came down hard, cold, and relentlessly. It drowned the city, swallowed sound, and stung skin until it felt raw. It made the world look colorless.

Bertholdt had been seventeen when the Spread tore through the east side of Liberio and took everything from him.

He and his father had run through the flooded alleys, slipping in mud and rainwater. His father wasn’t a soldier or a fighter. Just a quiet tailor who stitched uniforms and mended sleeves, someone who never raised his voice at anyone. Bertholdt remembered him for his softness, the way he smiled as if every expression needed permission to land on his face.

They had tried to get back to the internment zone. Tried several doors, tried knocking. His father had begged through the cracks. Calm, desperate, still polite even with death breathing down their necks.

No one had opened.

The infected bodies scraped across the cobblestone, drawn by the splashing of their feet. The rain glossed their skin like wax. Their eyes looked dead before they were dead.

When the horde cornered them in a narrow alley, Bertholdt’s father had stepped in front of him without hesitation. He’d shoved his son back, fingers trembling but firm, and whispered, “Run.”

Bertholdt hadn’t run immediately. Shock glued his feet to the ground.

… And then he’d seen the bite.

His father’s jaw clenched. He pushed him again, harder this time,voice breaking apart in the rain, “Please. Go.”

Bertholdt finally did.

He ran until he couldn’t breathe, until his soaked clothes stuck to his skin like another layer of fear. He slipped, skinned his palms, pushed himself back up, and kept going. He didn’t stop even when he heard the sound behind him. The wet, final sound he wished he could unhear.

By the time he stumbled into the internment zone, the guards didn’t ask questions. They just let him through, and he collapsed on the gravel, trembling so violently his teeth chattered.

Annie had found him first. She didn’t speak. She just sat beside him under the awning, legs pulled close, letting the rain run off the edge of the roof while he cried into his hands.

Reiner arrived next. He draped his jacket over Bertholdt’s shoulders, awkward and too big, and stayed silent.

The three of them formed there, huddled in the rain, not from destiny or duty but from grief, from being three kids trying to survive a world that only knew how to take.

Now at present time on the watch tower staircase, the rain felt almost the same. Cold, heavy, merciless. Bertholdt had been older then, stronger, faster, but in those final moments, something about him had looked fourteen again, small inside a world too big and cruel.

The horde had crashed against him like a second storm.

He had held them back with everything he had. Fear, strength, desperation. All of it echoing the night he lost his father. Annie saw it. Reiner saw it. They knew that look. It was the look of someone who had already been through hell once and refused to let the people he loved go through it too.

He had shouted for them to climb.

Reiner had hesitated first, hands shaking on the railing. Annie had grabbed him, dragging him upward. Jean and Marco had pushed from behind. Bertholdt had stayed below, swinging pipe and elbow and fist, forcing every infected body to give them one more second, then another, then another.

Annie had turned once. Just once.

Bertholdt had looked up at them the way he had looked up at his father that night in Marley. Rain streaking down his face, expression apologetic, pleading, determined.

And then the horde had dragged him under.

There had been no scream. Just the rain.

Just the sound of bodies collapsing over him like a second burial.

Bertholdt’s death rolled through Annie like a silent quake. She didn’t cry; she never did. But when she reached the top of the watch tower, her knees almost buckled. She stared at the floorboards, then at her hands.

Hands that wouldn’t stop shaking no matter how hard she told them to.

She remembered the rain in Marley. She remembered sitting beside him.

She remembered thinking, at least we survived together.

Now… there was no “together.”

Reiner broke in a different way.

He sank to his knees near the window as rainwater dripped from his sleeves, breathing in uneven bursts. He muttered things that were half thoughts, half illusions. “He’ll catch up… he always does… Bert’s just behind us… he’s fine… let me go back, please let me— let me fix it.”

His voice cracked into something hollow, his mind splintered under the weight. One moment he was the dependable golden boy everyone leaned on. 

The next, he was disconnected as he was taring through walls, whispering Bertholdt’s name like it was the only thing holding him together.

A coping split. A fracture. A desperate rewrite of reality to escape the unbearable truth.

Annie sat beside him, her shoulder brushing his. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t know how. But she stayed. Just like they had stayed for Bertholdt in the rain.

Outside, the storm pressed against the tower. Inside, it was quieter. But the grief hung heavy, thick as the night air.

Bertholdt’s absence filled the room louder than screams ever could.

Annie’s hands shook so badly she nearly dropped the lighter. The spark flicked once… twice, before finally catching a tiny flame wiggling in the damp air. She leaned in, her cigarette between trembling lips. As the moment the paper on the cig began to burn, the sound hit her.

Tick… tick… tick… tick…

Those damned mimic-throats.

The Tickers had been distant at first. Just soft, unsettling rhythms echoing through the thinning rain, but now they were closer, clinging to the perimeter below like vultures waiting for the dying. Each “tick” was too precise, too deliberate. Too human.

Someone down there must’ve screamed earlier or cried, or begged.

Now the monsters repeated it like a sick chant.

Annie’s jaw twitched. Her fingers curled around the cigarette tin until the metal groaned.

The flame reached the end of the lighter’s fuel and sputtered out.

“Are you fucking kidding me.” The words tore from her throat, low and sharp and full of everything she’d been refusing to feel like a barbed write tightening around her throat. 

Annie slammed the tin onto the wooden table. A violent, final punctuation to her unraveling patience. The sound echoed inside the watchtower room, bouncing off stone and steel. Everyone jolted from it and even Reiner flinched.

Marco’s head whipped toward her, wide-eyed. Jean straightened up against the wall where he’d been sitting, hand instinctively reaching for a weapon.

Reiner blinked like he’d been pulled from somewhere far away, one version of him fading so the other could figure out what just happened.

In the corner, Gabi and Falco pressed closer to Pieck like frightened pups, eyes round, breaths tight. Piece by piece, the room fell quiet again.

Except for the Tickers.

Tick… tick…

A low, dragged-out moan mimicking someone’s sob.

Tick… tick… ticktickticktick. Tiiick.

Annie stared down at her trembling hands, the broken tin, the useless lighter. The cigarette had fallen, rolling slightly until it tapped the base of the steel table. She didn’t pick it up.

Her voice, when it came again, was quieter. But it scraped raw in her throat, like she’d ripped it through broken glass to get it out. “…Can’t even get five minutes,” she muttered, head hanging low, but the frustration wasn’t about the cigarette anymore. The others knew it. She knew they knew.

Outside, the rain continued its slow fade, and with it, the world seemed to hold its breath.

Everyone in the tower did, too. No one dared speak. Bertholdt’s absence lingered like a phantom taking up space at the table, in the stairwell, in the silence between heartbeats.

Annie felt all of it, pressing against her ribs, clawing up her throat, right as the Tickers below mimicked a voice too eerily close to a dying scream.

A scream she’d heard not long ago. She wasn’t sure she’d ever forget.

Tickers were a different kind of nightmare. They were slow, weak, but armed with a voice that could get you killed. When most people turned, their throats decayed until all they could make were groans. 

But a rare few kept just enough vocal cords intact to mimic whatever they’d heard before dying.

They didn’t understand the sounds; they simply replayed them. Screams, footsteps, breaking wood, a name yelled in fear. 

It always came out wrong, hollow and twisted, like a broken echo pretending to be human. Everyone learned fast. Never respond to a voice in the dark unless you can see who’s making it. 

Jean slumped against the cold wall of the watch tower. His backpack was pressed behind him, eyes half-lidded as he worked absentmindedly.

He picked up a stub of dried, half-burnt candle from the table. It looked like the kind that suggested whoever had been here last hadn’t stayed long. He kneaded it between his fingers until it softened. 

Carefully, he pressed the wax into a torn strip of cloth, rolling and shaping it into a makeshift earplug while the faint clicks of Tickers outside still kept going.

When he finished the first two pairs, he immediately slid them across the floor to Falco and Gabi without a word. Both kids accepted the plugs from him before they were glancing at each other.

“Here,” he murmured quietly, tilting his head toward Falco and Gabi. “These should help… block out some of the noise.”

Falco blinked up at him, eyes wide. “Really, Jean? Will it… work?”

Jean gave a faint shrug, his voice calm, almost indifferent. “Better than nothing. Just try not to touch them too much, yeah?”

Beside them, Pieck’s eyes followed Jean as he leaned toward the kids, sliding the makeshift earplugs across the floor with careful precision. 

Even in the chaos of the horde outside and the tension of the tower, Jean moved with a steady, resourceful calm that reminded her of why certain people survived longer than others. 

Gabi fiddled with the soft, wax-filled cloth, tucking it carefully into her ears. “Huh. It feels… weird,” she admitted, a nervous laugh escaping.

She didn’t intervene, the journalist didn’t speak. She just watched as he crouched low to Falco and Gabi, hands careful, movements deliberate.

There was something almost protective in the gesture, a quiet human connection amid the decay and fear. 

Pieck’s gaze lingered for a moment longer before she returned to her tinkering on the radio, but she didn’t miss the way Jean’s presence seemed to ease the tension for the younger ones, even just a fraction.

“It’s supposed to,” Jean said softly. “Keeps the Tickers from, well, making it worse than it is.”

Pieck allowed herself a subtle twitch at the corner of her lips, not speaking, just watching. “Resourceful,” she murmured under her breath, eyes narrowing slightly as she observed him. 

Jean noticed her glance and gave a small, almost imperceptible nod before returning to knead another piece of wax into cloth.

“Want one too?” he asked quietly, holding it out toward Pieck without looking up.

The journalist shook her head. Her lips twitched in that tiny, ghost of a smirk. “I’ve got other things to do,” she replied, returning her attention to the radio, though she didn’t stop watching.

Falco peeked up again. “Jean… you made these?”

“Yeah,” Jean said, leaning back against the wall. “Figured it’s better than hearing every little thing the Tickers want you to.”

Gabi glanced between them, tugging slightly at her earplug. “Thanks… I think.”

Jean gave a short nod, already rolling another strip of cloth. “Yeah… just don’t lose it. You’ll want it when the night gets louder.”

Pieck’s gaze lingered, noting the way Jean moved with calm precision and quiet authority. Even in the chaos, even with the horde pressing outside, he had this… presence. 

Porco leaned against the rough wooden wall of the watch tower, arms crossed loosely, and felt a twinge he couldn’t quite name.

Pieck’s gaze was fixed on Jean, quiet and calculating, following his every movement with that sharp precision she always carried. 

He noticed the way she seemed to catalog Jean’s calm hands. A flicker of something. Jealousy, maybe, though he wouldn’t admit it— stirred in Porco.

It wasn’t loud, not exactly obvious. More like a subtle twist in his chest, the kind that comes when someone else’s presence is quietly acknowledged in a way you wish were reserved for you. 

He blinked and shook his head slightly, forcing it down, telling himself it was nothing. Pieck wasn’t his concern.

But still… he felt it, a fleeting, uncomfortable awareness as he watched her eyes linger on Jean, following him with measured scrutiny.

He let it slide, turning his attention back to the room, the Tickers’ distant clicking filling the silence.

It was dark in the watch tower, the walls swallowing any shape beyond the faint outlines cast by the dying candle stubs. The air smelled of damp wood and wax, heavy with the weight of unspoken loss. 

Pieck crouched a short distance away, radio forgotten at her side, watching Reiner and Annie as they each grieved in their own way.

She hadn’t been close to Bertholdt, hadn’t known him like they had, but the hollow ache in their faces pressed on her too, a shared understanding of what had been taken from them.

Jean shifted slightly, tugging another strip of cloth from his backpack, wax between his fingers, ready to make another earplug.

He looked toward Pieck, the urge to speak flickering in his expression, something gentle, maybe grounding. But before he could, Porco’s voice cut through the quiet, low and deliberate.

“Don’t,” Porco said softly, stepping closer without moving his lips toward a grin or expression. “Not yet. Let them… breathe in it first. You talking now won’t fix anything.”

Jean paused as his hands froze over the wax, his shoulders slackening. He nodded faintly, conceding. 

The two who grieved shifted slightly, Reiner muttering Bertholdt’s name under his breath, Annie staring at the floor, silent but shaking. 

Pieck stayed still, her eyes scanning every slight movement, every tension in their posture, holding the space with a calm that wasn’t comfort but acknowledgment.

She understood that grief didn’t need words to be real. It simply was.

Outside, the faint clicking of Tickers echoed, eerie and hollow, but inside the tower, the darkness wrapped around them, holding them together in the shared, heavy quiet of loss.

-

“Get some sleep.” Porco murmured to Pieck as the sunlight crept through the large open window of the watch tower. The soft glow touched the sleeping forms around them: Falco and Gabi curled up together, their breaths even and untroubled.

Marco and Jean left sprawled on the floor, exhaustion pressing them into the rough wood beneath. Reiner and Annie were slouched in the rickety chairs, eyelids heavy, bodies slumping into brief rest.

Pieck gave a quiet nod, her voice low and calm. “I will… just for a little.” She settled against the wall, still keeping one eye on the small, sleeping figures, a habitual vigilance refusing to leave entirely. 

Porco crouched near the center of the watch tower, rifling through his backpack with quick, efficient movements. He pulled out a few dented cans, rattling them lightly to check contents, the sound echoing faintly against the walls. 

Hunger gnawed at him, a dull, persistent reminder that even in fleeting safety, survival demanded energy.

He set the cans carefully on the floor, stacking them near Pieck who had shifted slightly but remained quiet, eyes still scanning the sleeping group.

As he cracked the first can open, the aroma of beans and preserved meat triggered a memory he couldn’t quite shake. His father’s shop, the butcher’s stall that had filled the streets of Marley’s market, came back in vivid flashes.

The coppery tang of blood, the sharp metallic scent of freshly honed knives, the rhythmic thump of cleavers splitting bones.

Porco remembered the way his father moved with certainty and precision, hands steady despite the work’s brutality, teaching him to respect the craft, to respect the life behind every cut.

Even as a boy, Porco had watched closely. Mimicking the motions with sticks and scraps, imagining himself handling the knives with the same care, the same sharp awareness. 

It had been a hard relentless upbringing, but one that shaped him into someone who noticed details, moved decisively and could calculate risks instinctively. 

That instinct was the same one keeping him alert in the watch tower. Rooting in those early mornings in the stall, surrounded by the scent of raw meat and the hum of the marketplace.

Opening the second can, he set it aside for Reiner and Annie, the taste of metal and beans a poor substitute for the meals of his childhood, but it grounded him.

Porco’s hands paused over the cans, the faint clink of metal filling the quiet room. His gaze drifted across the floor, landing on Jean’s sleeping figure which was slumped against the rough wood, his chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. 

Almost without realizing it, his mind flicked back to Pieck. The way she had watched Jean earlier, eyes sharp, precise, lingering just a moment too long to be casual. It wasn’t admiration exactly, but it was close enough to make Porco feel… something unfamiliar. 

A faint, uneasy tug he couldn’t name, hidden beneath the familiar edge of his own self awareness.

By the third day, the watch tower had begun to feel like a cage. Supplies were stretched thin, the candle stubs burned lower, and even the faint wind through cracks seemed to echo louder than it should.

The group settled into positions along the watchtower’s crumbling parapet, each finding a spot where they could see both the streets below and the rooftops stretching toward Wall Rose. 

From this height, the city revealed blocks of abandoned apartments, alleys covered with rubble, and the occasional street that still looked almost navigable.

Pieck crouched near the edge, binoculars trained on distant buildings. “See that cluster over there?” she murmured, pointing toward a series of low, interlinked roofs. “If we can cross there, we can move north quietly. It’s not a straight line, but it’s mostly sheltered from the streets.”

Jean leaned against the stone wall, scanning rooftops for movement. “We’d need to check every building though,” he said, voice low. “Some of them might have weak floors or collapsed stairwells. One misstep and we’re pinned or trapped.”

Marco squinted toward the horizon where the outer wall of Wall Rose in the distance, its massive outline broken only by distant watchtowers. “It’s still taller,” he murmured, tracing the silhouette with a finger. “Hmmm. But from here, we can see the gaps. Patrol routes, maybe even weak points.”

Reiner shifted behind them, hands resting on the edge for balance. “Height gives us an advantage. If we mark those streets and rooftops, we can plan the safest route.”

Annie, quiet as ever, finally spoke, nodding slightly. “And if we map it carefully, we can tell where the patrols change, where the outer districts meet open spaces. It’s about knowing the terrain as much as knowing the walls.”

Falco and Gabi stayed close to Pieck, ears tuned to distant noises, occasionally pointing out the faint echoes of movement in the streets below.

From the watchtower, Wall Rose wasn’t just a looming barrier. It was a map of possibilities. The gaps between buildings, the safe alleys, the long shadows cast by taller structures, they all suggested ways forward and ways to move carefully toward the next layer of safety. The city below was dangerous, decayed, unpredictable.

Pieck finally lowered the binoculars she borrowed from Marco, her gaze sweeping across the streets. “It’s not easy. We just have to respect the gaps and the patrols.”

Looking around, buildings leaned and sagged, bricks crumbling and windows shattered, their glass glinting faintly in the weak sunlight.

Rusted fire escapes jutted at odd angles, and chunks of concrete had fallen onto cracked, weed-strewn sidewalks. Broken signs swung from bent poles, empty storefronts and hollowed out apartments still lined the streets, some partially collapsed now from the previous chaos it went through.

As they began moving forward from the watchtower, the streets below were eerily quiet. No groans, no shambling figures. Just the creak of broken signs in the wind and the occasional scuffle of loose debris. 

They came to a small, abandoned courtyard littered with toppled crates and a few rusted barrels.

Reiner leaned against a crumbling wall, breathing heavily from the tension of the day. “So, who goes first? Preferably the one with the bat,” he huffed, eyeing the scattered slow zombies in the vicinity.

Jean rolled his eyes, stepping forward, shades still perched over his face. He gripped the spiked bat firmly, feeling the weight, the balance, and the rhythm he had practiced over the past days.

“Give me a second,” he muttered under his breath, swinging the bat with smooth precision. The first zombie’s head cracked with a sickening thud, collapsing instantly.

He pivoted, using the momentum to drive the next strike directly into another skull, the metal nails embedding with brutal accuracy.

Each hit was controlled, deliberate, and merciless. No wasted effort, no reckless swings.

Marco and the others stepped back, eyes wide, watching Jean’s skill in action. 

Even Reiner’s lips twitched in what might have been approval, though his posture remained tense.

“Damn,” Marco whispered, nudging Falco slightly. “He’s… really improved.”

Jean didn’t respond, he just focused entirely on the final zombie before him. With one clean, forceful strike to the temple, it crumpled silently.

He rested the bat on his shoulder, staring down at the corpse moving, sizzling with smoke as it slowly dissipated close-up. “All clear.”

-

They reached the medium-sized mall just as the sun dipped low, casting long shadows over the cracked pavement and shattered glass of its entrances. The sight meant two things. Number one, potential supplies and temporary shelter, the second— also unknown dangers.

Stepping inside, the group was greeted by silence. The air smelled faintly of dust and stale ventilation, mixed with the metallic tang of abandoned machinery. 

Broken mannequins stared blankly from display windows, their limbs twisted at impossible angles, and abandoned shopping carts lay scattered across the floor. 

The flickering overhead lights, powered by a still-functioning generator, cast uneven pools of illumination that made the empty corridors feel both vast and claustrophobic.

Every step echoed as it bounced off high ceilings and vacant storefronts. The place felt frozen in time, as if the world outside had left it behind.

A ghost town suspended between life and decay. 

It had the peculiar tension of a liminal space: familiar enough to be navigable, yet alien and unsettling in its emptiness.

Pieck moved ahead, scanning the upper mezzanine and stairwells, her eyes flicking toward potential vantage points or hidden rooms. “Generator’s still kicking,” she murmured, noting the steady hum that filled the background. “We might even be able to keep the lights on for a bit. Makes it safer… for now.”

Most of the entrances had been sealed early in the outbreak, metal shutters welded down and furniture piled behind them, as if people had fought hard to keep something out… or in.

A dead fire had scorched part of the lower floor, blackening storefronts and leaving the air tinged with the faint smell of old smoke, the kind that kept zombies away.

Whatever had happened here had driven most of the horde off long ago, leaving behind only a few stragglers that wandered the dark aisles like ghosts with nowhere left to go. 

They walked through the atrium carefully, boots echoing against tile, passing escalators frozen mid-step and mannequins locked in bizarre poses under flickering emergency lights. 

An abandoned campsite lay collapsed in the food court with tents, trays, dried cups, a single toy left on a table— another untold story of survivors who had stayed a while but never made it out.

A generator somewhere deeper in the building hummed weakly, sputtering like a heartbeat on its last legs, proof that someone had kept this place alive until recently. 

They continued down a long, dimly lit aisle, the faint hum of the generator above filling the heavy silence. Racks of abandoned clothes jutted out at odd angles, some coated in dust, some torn from neglect.

Marco rifled through a pile of jackets, Porco quietly examining shoes, and Reiner leaned against a nearby column, keeping an eye on the entrance.

Jean moved a few steps ahead, scanning for anything useful, when he suddenly collided with someone in the narrow aisle.

“Oh, fuck!” he yelped, stumbling back a step.

Pieck looked up, frowning, her shorter frame making him momentarily misjudge her. “Careful,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Or what, you’ll scream again?”

Jean froze, blinking at her. “I—sorry, I thought this was a zombie kid for a second.”

Her lips twitched. “A zombie kid? Really?”

“I mean, it’s dark, tight, and you weren’t moving like a normal person,” he explained, running a hand through his hair. “Also… you’re short. Didn’t help my first impression.”

Pieck crossed her arms, tilting her head. “Short? That’s the best insult you’ve got? Really, Jean.”

The ash-blond haired man shrugged sheepishly, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Hey, I panicked. You’re lucky I didn’t swing the bat.”

“I am lucky,” she muttered, though the corner of her mouth betrayed a slight grin.

They stood there for a moment, the tension of the abandoned mall around them softened by the absurdity of the collision.

“You know,” Jean said, letting the smirk linger under his shades, “if we survive all this, I’m never letting you sneak up on me in a tight space again.”

“Oh, I’m quaking in my boots,” Pieck replied dryly, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face.

A faint shuffle echoed down the aisle, cutting through their teasing like a knife.

Jean and Pieck froze simultaneously, instincts kicking in as the mall’s oppressive quiet suddenly felt heavier, darker.

From the far end of the corridor, a figure emerged, moving stiffly but deliberately. A blonde-haired woman in a frayed uniform, a saleslady, shambled toward them. Her vacant eyes fixed forward. 

Her features were oddly striking, almost unsettlingly “alive” beneath the decay, a cruel reminder that this world could twist beauty into horror.

Jean tightened his grip on the bat, shades glinting faintly in the dim light. “Uh… yeah,” he muttered, his voice low, “that’s… a saleslady, all right.”

Pieck’s lips pressed into a thin line, her hand brushing the edge of her holster. “And she’s… visually distracting,” she said carefully, a note of disbelief in her tone. “Focus. Don’t look at her like she’s human.”

They both inched sideways, aligning themselves for a quick strike if she lunged. Pulse pounding, not just from the immediate threat but from the strange surreal mix of horror.

The blonde saleslady tilted her head unnaturally as she advanced, eyes locked on them, her mouth curling into a faint, lopsided smile that was almost human, almost. Jean’s jaw tightened and Pieck’s gaze sharpened.

“Let’s… just be professional,” Jean muttered under his breath, adjusting his stance. “Hot or not, she’s still going to bite if we slip.”

Pieck nodded, a quiet exhale escaping her, acknowledging the irony of the situation. The blonde saleslady shuffled closer, and with a silent, synchronized glance. Jean and Pieck readied themselves, every muscle coiled for the first strike.

The first shots rang out sharply, echoing down the empty aisles. Jean’s hands were steady, pulling the trigger as Pieck’s precise aim kept the blonde saleslady at bay. 

The bullets tore through the decayed uniform, but to their growing alarm, she barely faltered. Her speed was unnerving, far beyond the sluggish pace of the other zombies they’d faced, Jean kept missing his shots.

Jean’s brow furrowed as he fired again, trying to anticipate her movements, but each time he thought he had her cornered, she twisted unnaturally, lunging faster than expected. 

“Wait… why the hell is she this fast?” he muttered under his breath, voice edged with disbelief.

Pieck didn’t answer immediately, eyes narrowed as she assessed the creature. “She’s still freshly turned,” she said cautiously. 

The blonde zombie continued her relentless approach, arms outstretched, teeth bared, and Jean realized instinctively that this wasn’t just a fight of reflex. It was a test of how quickly they could adapt. 

Every swing, every shot, every step backward was a dance with something both eerily human and terrifyingly unnatural.

Jean’s grip on the bat tightened, shades sliding slightly down his nose. “Okay… new rule. If she moves like this, we don’t underestimate anyone. Not even a pretty saleslady.”

The blonde saleslady lunged again, moving impossibly fast now, her teeth snapping mere inches from Jean’s shoulder. He froze for a split second, caught off guard, and that’s all the opening Pieck needed.

With a squeeze of the trigger, the gun barked, and the bullet struck right between the creature’s eyes. The zombie convulsed violently, jerking backward before collapsing in a heap. Blood sprayed, dark and warm, and a few slick drops landed squarely on Jean’s shirt.

He froze, stunned, his eyes wide as he glanced down at the spreading stain. “Ugh,” he muttered, swiping at it with his sleeve, grimacing.

Pieck exhaled slowly, gun still raised just in case, eyes darting down the aisle to confirm there were no more threats. “Careful,” she murmured, voice low but steady. “Close call.”

Jean shook his head, half-annoyed, half-impressed. “Yeah… thanks for the save and… for the souvenir,” he muttered dryly.

Pieck didn’t respond immediately, just gave him a sharp glance, the corner of her lips twitching almost imperceptibly. “Don’t make it a habit of standing still like that,” she said finally, holstering her weapon. “Even if they’re dead, hot or not.”

Jean shook his head, and drifted toward a rack of shirts half-swallowed in dust. He sifted through them until he found something that looked clean enough, then slipped behind a display to change, the metal hangers clinking softly as he moved. It’s a dark brown compression shirt, a little bit dusty but it will suffice after a few brushes.

Pieck wandered a few aisles down, fingers brushing the fabrics absently while her mind stayed half on the group’s footsteps, half on the unsettling quiet of the mall. 

She didn’t even realize she’d drifted closer to Jean’s section until she rounded the end of the aisle, right as he lifted his shirt over his head.

She froze.

Not dramatically. Just a small, instinctive halt. The kind someone makes when they unexpectedly catch the last thing they meant to see. 

Like karma just bit her in the ass. Jean tugged the damp cloth over his skin, wiping the dark, sticky stain from his arm and chest. 

As he shifted, the movement caused his muscles to tense and flex under the dim mall light. Pieck, passing by just a step too close, caught the brief outline of his abs, the unexpected detail making her pause ever so slightly. 

Pieck blinked once, slow, her face blank except for the tiny flicker in her eyes. Not flustered. Not obvious. Just… caught off guard and for a second, she didn’t move.

A beat too long.

Then a voice behind her hissed in panic.

“Pieck? Pieck… are you okay?”

Falco’s nervous whisper cracked exactly loud enough to jolt her spine straight. She sucked in a sharp breath and stepped aside quickly, as if the floor had suddenly given way under her.

“I’m fine,” she said, voice too composed to be casual. “Just… don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Jean tugged his shirt down and stepped out from behind the rack, rubbing the back of his neck like he’d just won an argument with an inanimate object. “What’s with you two?” he asked, clueless.

Pieck didn’t look at him. She grabbed the closest hoodie from the shelf, eyes fixed a little too intently on the fabric. “Nothing. Let’s keep moving.”

Falco nodded rapidly, eyes bouncing between them like he’d walked into a conversation he absolutely did not want context for.

-

Jean regrouped with Marco near the escalators, finding him elbow-deep in a snack display that looked like raccoons had fought over it years ago. Marco turned with a hopeful smile, holding a crushed pack of crackers.

“They’re only a little stale,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Jean muttered, “and I’m only a little tired of gambling with my digestive system.”

Before Marco could fire back, something clattered deeper in the mall, metal cans rolling, a soft grunt, that wet shuffle that always meant trouble.

Jean’s grip tightened around his bat. “Don’t tell me that’s another fast one.”

Marco grabbed the nearest thing off a shelf. A tall giant can of salon hairspray. “Huh.”

The taller man stared at him. “…Marco. No, it’s a stupid idea.”

“Anything is a weapon if you’re brave enough.”

“It’s literally for volume and shine.” He deadpanned, drawing out his gun from the holster and getting into position. “Fuck, we’re gonna die.”

Marco shook the can fiercely, clicking his lighter which he grabbed from the shelf earlier. “Aerosol plus spark, boom, flamethrower. Science, Jean. Trust me.”

Jean opened his mouth to protest, but the zombie rounded the corner. A balding man in a torn security uniform, dragging one leg, making horrible chewing noises like he was already imagining them as lunch. Shuffler.

Marco sucked in a shaky breath. “Okay… okay, come on, you undead bastard…”

The zombie lunged.

Marco hit the hairspray.

A FOOM erupted way bigger than either of them expected. A fire blasted through the aisle, lighting up the broken displays like a pyro show gone wrong. Jean and Marco both yelped and dove sideways.

The zombie didn’t get far. It shrieked, staggered back, and smacked into a rack of clearance purses that promptly collapsed on top of it.

Jean peeked over an overturned cart, blinking through the smoke. “… Marco.”

Marco coughed. “Yeah?”

“That was not science! That was arson.”

“But did it work?”

Jean watched the zombie flail under a pile of burning handbags. “… Okay, yeah. It totally worked.”

Marco gave a triumphant nod right before the overhead mall speaker system crackled to life with an old looped recording. “Attention shoppers…”

Both of them froze.

Jean whispered, “Nope. Nope. Absolutely not. I’m not dying in a mall listening to ghost announcements.”

He sprinted forward, finishing the zombie with a clean, practiced shot to the skull. It went still instantly.

Marco jogged after him, wheezing. “So… same deal? We never tell Reiner?”

Jean wiped sweat and ash off his face. “If he finds out we survived with hairspray and a lighter, he will never respect us again.”

The freckled guy nodded solemnly. “Pact of silence.”

They clinked fists, surrounded by smoldering handbags and the lingering smell of burnt aerosol, and continued deeper into the mall. The horror is still real, but the absurdity helps them breathe again.

The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting long, wavering shadows that made every aisle feel like it could hide a dozen dangers.

Soon, they reached the food court. Tables were overturned, chairs scattered, but amid the chaos were signs that someone… or something had been here not long ago. There was a half-eaten sandwich left on a tray, a can of energy drink, a barricade of chairs pushed up against a side entrance.

Jean crouched, examining the space. “Not zombies,” he murmured. “Someone human. Or was.”

Marco swallowed, eyes wide. “Do you think… we’re the first ones since they left?”

Jean didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he traced the barricades with his eyes, calculating the routes they could take, the potential exits, and the vantage points. 

Tucked behind a sagging display near the food court, Marco’s gaze caught something. A folded sheet of paper and its edges worn, partially hidden beneath a chair. He nudged it with his shoe. “Hey… Jean, check this out.”

Jean crouched beside him, eyes narrowing. The paper bore a crudely drawn map, lines leading out of the mall and toward something labeled Wall Rose.

The two exchanged a tense glance. The horror and absurdity of the mall felt distant now, replaced by something heavier. It seemed like they weren’t alone in plotting their survival. Jean hesitated, glancing down at the map. “Yeah… this is something we need to look at.”

Marco studied the map, tracing the crude lines with a finger. “Looks like there’s a shortcut,” he muttered, eyes narrowing. “It cuts through a series of back streets and service alleys. Could save us hours.”

Annie, silent as ever, crouched beside one of the fire exits near the food court. Her sharp gaze caught something Jean had almost missed. A couple of faint footprints pressed into the dust, leading out into the alley beyond the exit. “Footprints.  This way,” she pointed. "Come on."

The prints were fresh.

Someone had used this route recently.

Chapter Text

Reiner grunted in agreement. “Alright. The first team goes ahead. We clear any trouble before the others follow.” The group split quickly, moving in tight formation. Reiner, Marco, and Annie took the lead, carefully picking their way down the narrow alley. The city outside the mall felt hollow, abandoned, but even in the quiet, the air was heavy with tension. Every shifted shadow and dripping pipe made them flinch.

As they turned to a corner, the faint sound of movement reached Jean first. He froze, signaling Reiner and Annie to stop. 

The alley was empty or so it seemed. Then, a guttural hiss erupted from the darkness, a figure lunging out from behind a stack of crates.

“Holy—!” Reiner’s voice could have been heard in the other group if he were there, but it was swallowed by the alley. 

Jean, who was in the middle between the two groups, barely had time to swing his nail-studded bat. 

It met the zombie with a harsh, metallic crack. The creature stumbled back, eyes wild.

Reiner stepped forward, fists ready, breathing heavy. “Watch your sides!”

Annie’s hand went to her gun instinctively, shooting through the shadows where another groan suggested more were waiting. 

But it wasn’t a full horde, just a single scare, enough to make their hearts race, test their nerves and get reminded how dangerous every corner could be.

Marco’s eyes lingered on the corpse longer than he had ever allowed himself before. Up close, without the chaos of a horde chasing them, the decay was almost mesmerizing in its grotesque precision. 

The skin blistered and bubbled, thin plumes of smoke rising from the mottled flesh as if the body itself were evaporating from the inside out. 

The stench was cloying, thick and acrid, sticking to his nostrils and making him gag slightly, but he didn’t look away this time.

Reiner stepped beside him, fists relaxed for the first time in the alley, and let out a low whistle. “Never thought I’d see them like this… without having to run for my life.”

Annie, still cautious, kept her gun raised but lowered her stance. 

Jean knelt slightly, running a finger near the edge of the smoking skin without touching it. The heat was faint but real, curling off the corpse in waves. “First time we’ve seen it like this,” he muttered. “Usually, it’s chaos. We’re running, fighting… barely catching glimpses. But here…” He shook his head slowly.

The four of them shared a silent moment, the world around them oddly still despite the lingering threat. 

For the first time, they could study it, understand it, without the immediate terror of being eaten alive. 

The evaporating bodies, the hiss of sizzling flesh, and the foul, lingering smoke became a grim kind of lesson.

Marco’s hand tightened around his gun, eyes scanning the alley once more. “Shortcut’s still ahead, and we’re not done yet.”

The body didn’t rot, it didn’t collapse. It evaporated. He recalled that one time they were on their way to Wall Maria, stuck in a horde of zombies in the hard rain. The time he had led them, he did see the corps sizzle and steam.

The corpses weren’t just decomposing. They were breaking down, collapsing into vapor and residue as if something inside them refused to stay dead and solid. Annie crouched near the lingering puddle, her face tense.

“They burn out,” she said. “Like their bodies were never stable to begin with.”

Annie was right from what they’ve just seen.

The Runners, Tickers, Shufflers…

Each mutation depended on what body the thing took over and how much of it remained intact.

Jean’s grip tightened on the bat. “So they’re fast because the thing inside keeps forcing the body past what it should handle.”

Annie added, “and once the body can’t take it anymore, it breaks apart. It steams away. Huh.”

A chill ran down Jean’s spine. The alley fell quiet again, the air still tainted by that sharp rotting smell of a creature that shouldn’t exist dissolving into nothing.

They kept moving.

The further they walked, the more Jean’s mind circled the sight they’d just witnessed. The zombie evaporated like it was made of steam and rot instead of flesh and bone. 

It wasn’t something he could just shake off, and the others felt it too. Even Reiner, who usually forced himself into calm, kept glancing back at the stain left behind.

Porco’s group followed minutes behind, moving slower, more cautiously, the echo of the earlier gunshot still ringing faintly through the empty street.

Falco kept close to Gabi, eyes darting at every window as if expecting something to peel itself off the glass. “Do you think they’re okay up there?” he whispered.

Gabi scoffed, though her voice wavered. “It’s Marco, Reiner, and Annie. If something tried to eat them, it’d probably apologize halfway through.”

Falco didn’t laugh.

Pieck’s steps were light, almost silent, but her gaze stayed sharp. She noticed everything. The strange crisp smell in the air that didn’t match dust or rot. She noticed Porco too.

He hadn’t said a word. Not since they heard the distant thud of Jean’s bat against a skull.

Porco’s jaw was tight, eyes fixed ahead, moving with a restless energy Pieck recognized all too well. A simmering frustration, the kind that burned hotter the longer he stayed quiet.

They turned into the alley, the same one the first group had passed, and Falco gagged instantly.

“Ugh— what happened here?”

Gabi grabbed his sleeve and pointed. “Look.”

The ground was littered with the remnants of what had once been a body. Half-melted, steaming, and curling into itself, it left a dark, oily smear across the cracked pavement. 

Wisps of smoke drifted upward, carrying a sharp, almost metallic stench that made Falco cover his nose. 

Porco crouched, eyes narrowing as he studied the remains. “This… isn’t normal decay,” he muttered. “It’s like the body’s giving up from the inside out.” His fingers hovered over the smoking residue but didn’t touch.

Gabi shivered. “So… it just… evaporates?”

Porco stood abruptly, brushing his hands on his pants. His voice had a low edge. “From what we’ve just seen, it does.” He gestured at the curling smoke. Porco glanced at her, jaw still tight. “We need to catch up. If Jean and the others ran into whatever did this, they’ll need support.”

Pieck nodded sharply, waving the smoke that blocked her vision off. The journalist gasped, reflexively raising her arm to shield her face, coughing harshly as the acrid scent burned her lungs. 

The alley was tight, shadows stretching across the cracked pavement like fingers. Every step they took seemed amplified, the distant groans and shuffles bouncing off the walls, keeping their nerves taut. 

A sudden, guttural hiss from the corner of the alley. A lone zombie lunged from the darkness, teeth bared, eyes wild. Pieck froze for a heartbeat, too close for comfort.

Jean reacted faster than thought. He stepped in, one arm wrapping firmly around her waist, pulling her back just as the creature snapped forward. The move was instinctual, precise, but the closeness froze them both for a fraction too long. 

His chest pressed against hers, the world narrowing down to that immediate space, breath mingling, hearts hammering.

“Careful,” Jean muttered, voice low, almost caught between warning and... something else that was obscured by the smoke. 

Pieck’s hands instinctively pressed against his chest to steady herself.

But it didn’t last.

“Move! Now!” Marco’s voice cut through the smoke, urgent and sharp, followed closely by Annie’s barked instructions. 

The tension snapped, replaced by the immediate need to flee. Jean tightened his hold just enough to guide Pieck forward, then stepped back slightly, breaking the closeness as they both adjusted to the sudden clarity of their situation.

Porco led Falco and Gabi through, each step bringing them farther from the choking smoke and the lurking shadows. 

When they finally emerged into the open, the air hit them like a balm. Cool and at least cleaner than what suffocated them inside. Gabi’s shoulders sagged in relief, Falco took a deep, shaky breath, and even Porco exhaled, letting the tension seep out of him.

“Alright… everyone breathe. For now, we’re not choking on smoke or being chased by those things.” Reiner gestured toward the faint outlines of trees and low buildings in the distance. “Let’s get somewhere to camp for the night.”

The group moved forward, boots crunching softly on gravel, hearts still racing but steadied by the sudden, simple comfort of fresh air.

-

The days blurred together in a haze of dust and bone-deep exhaustion, but the nights… the nights were where the horror lived. 

Not the zombies, but something far quieter, far more human. Reiner’s fractures didn’t crack loudly, they opened like hairline fissures along a dam, invisible until water surged through. 

In the firelit dark, he stood at the tree line like a statue carved from old war stories. His shoulders squared, breath steady, eyes sharpened into a predatory stillness that did not belong to the man who teased Gabi into smiling or shielded Falco with his whole body. 

It belonged to the other Reiner, the one Jean and Marco had met in the earliest, bloodiest hours of the outbreak in Route 11. 

The unraveling started so slowly it felt like the wind changing subtly. No one pointed fingers at first. No one even thought to. 

They were too tired, too hungry, too focused on following the cracked road stretching toward Wall Rose like a promise they weren’t sure they’d live to see.

But the first missing food pack hit them like a slap.

Then another, and another.

By the fourth morning, tension hung thick over the campfire like smoke. Pieck kept counting and recounting the inventory, lips pressed into a thin line. Marco tried to soothe things, but even he sounded strained. 

Falco hovered close to Gabi, protective in a way that suggested fear rather than comfort. And Porco… Porco was one frayed nerve away from snapping.

“Someone is taking our damn rations,” he said, voice low and shaking. “And if we don’t figure out who, we’re screwed.”

Eyes drifted around the circle, quick glances, sharp glances, guilty glances from people who had nothing to be guilty about. 

No one said a name. No one dared. But the silence was loud enough to carve distrust into all of them.

Reiner stood there too. Jaw tight, shoulders stiff, staring into the fire like he hated the way the flames flickered. 

But nobody lingered on him long. Nobody lingered on anyone long. Suspicion was a poison that kept jumping hosts.

And at night, the dread grew thicker.

Everyone started waking up at strange hours. Hearing footsteps, soft movements, rustling near the packs. 

Every time someone jolted awake, the sounds would stop. Fade. Blend back into the chirping insects or the breeze shifting branches overhead.

Jean swore he’d seen a silhouette once, just a shape bending near the supplies before melting back into the dark. 

But when he blinked, it was gone. He didn’t tell anyone; it didn’t even feel real enough to say out loud.

Falco said he heard breathing that wasn’t human.

Gabi swore the bags weren’t where she left them.

Marco claimed he saw footprints circling their camp… but they overlapped and crossed one another so many times that he couldn’t tell whose they were.

Even Pieck, the calmest among them, looked over her shoulder more than usual, as if expecting someone to be watching her. Or following her.

Reiner was just another possibility in a list none of them dared to write aloud.

Every night, the unseen presence came back. Every morning, something else was missing.

Whatever was happening, whoever was doing it, the fear was the same. If someone was stealing from them, was it because they were trying to survive? Because they were planning something worse?

No one knew.

That was the part that kept them awake. The terrible idea that the real danger wasn’t the things growling in the dark outside their camp but one of the things pretending to sleep inside it.

And starvation… starvation made everything uglier.

By the seventh night, even the air felt hostile. It was hot, stale, buzzing with irritation. They ate almost nothing. 

They walked on shaking legs. Every small sound made someone twitch. When Pieck opened the last bag of rations and found it lighter than it should’ve been, something inside Porco just snapped.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he hissed, grabbing the empty wrapper and holding it up like evidence of a crime scene. “Someone took more. Again.”

Jean rolled his shoulders, exhausted. “Porco, we don’t even know—”

“Oh spare me,” Porco barked, eyes bloodshot, movements sharp and wild. “You’re always awake at night, aren’t you? Always wandering around camp? Or is that convenient?”

Jean blinked, stunned. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Porco stepped forward, jabbing a finger into Jean’s chest. “You act all responsible, all noble, but you’ve been on edge since day one. Maybe you’re the one losing it. Maybe you’re the one taking the food.”

“Porco—” Marco tried, but it was useless. Porco was too far gone.

Jean grabbed Porco’s wrist and shoved it away. “I’m not stealing from anybody. If I were, don’t you think I’d look less like death?”

“Oh, that’s cute. Real cute.” Porco shoved him back, harder.

Jean stumbled but didn’t fall. He came right back up, jaw clenched. “You’re losing it, Galliard. Don’t drag me into your paranoia because you can’t handle being hungry.”

That hit like a slap.

Porco lunged at him.

They collided hard enough to knock Jean aside. Fists swung wildly, born not out of hatred but sheer desperation. 

Porco fought like a man cornered, starved, scared. Jean fought like someone who’d been holding too much inside for too long.

Gabi screamed. Falco tried to pull Porco back and got elbowed in the shoulder. Pieck moved fast, faster than anyone expected, grabbing Jean’s arm and yanking him away just before Porco landed another hit.

“Enough!” she snapped, voice slicing through the chaos.

But Porco wasn’t done. His chest heaving as tears of rage and exhaustion pricked the corners of his eyes.

“You’re lying,” he spat. “Someone’s lying to all of us and until we figure out who, we’re gonna starve. Do you understand that? We’re gonna starve.”

Jean wiped blood from his lip, glaring. “Then stop wasting your energy beating up the wrong person.”

The camp fell silent, except for their ragged breathing, except for the wind whispering through trees like it was laughing at them. 

In the corner, Reiner sat quietly with his head bowed, hands shaking almost imperceptibly.

The camp didn’t breathe for a full minute after the fight broke apart. The crackle of the dying fire, the trembling branches above them, the whisper of wind— everything felt too loud.

Porco wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, chest still heaving. But it wasn’t just hunger anymore. Something murkier twisted behind his eyes. Then he looked at Pieck.

Not at Jean. Not at the empty ration bag.

At her.

Something snapped all over again.

“Oh, I see,” Porco said, voice rough and breaking at the edges. “You jump in pretty fast to defend him, huh?”

Pieck froze. “Porco, don’t start—”

“No, go on,” he snarled, stepping toward her as Jean instinctively moved between them. “Explain it. Why him? Why’d you throw yourself in front of him?”

Jean lifted a hand. “Porco, man, you’re spiraling—”

“Shut up!” Porco barked, the sound raw enough that even Gabi flinched. “You think I don’t see it? You think I’m blind?”

His glare cut through Jean like a blade, but it wasn’t just anger, it was something brittle. Something wounded.

“You think I haven’t noticed you two getting closer?” Porco said, voice dropping low. “And now she’s protecting you like—like…”

He couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t handle the shape of the sentence.

Pieck took a slow, careful breath. “Porco. I stepped in because you were going to hurt him. Or yourself. It’s not—”

“That’s crap,” Porco snapped. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t—don’t play stupid!”

Jean’s jaw tensed. “Hey. Don’t talk to her like that.”

Porco’s fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white in the dim firelight. His chest heaved, voice breaking as he spat words that weren’t quite coherent, a mix of fear, frustration, and something that felt dangerously like jealousy.

“You always—always look out for him!” he shouted, stepping closer, the shadow of the flames stretching his figure into something monstrous. “And me? You… you act like I’m not even here!”

Falco flinched behind Pieck, and Gabi’s small hands gripped her sleeve. The fire crackled, shadows dancing wildly across the tense faces, echoing the chaos in the air.

Pieck’s eyes narrowed, but her voice stayed calm, measured, though firm enough to cut through the tension. “Porco, listen to yourself. Step back. This isn’t about me, it’s about you losing control. About what’s happening with all of us out here!”

Marco instinctively moved closer, his hand hovering just enough to ward off another strike. “Porco… breathe. You’re letting this spiral. It’s not her, it’s not anyone. It's hunger, fear, all of this.” 

They simmer down and Jean's shaking hands reach for something in his backpack, tossing the last can of beans at his feet as his own stomach growls. 

That was one of his emergency foods that had been untouched. "You want it? Take it." Jean stormed off. 

Porco froze, eyes narrowing at the sudden gesture, the tension in his chest twisting with every word. 

He stared at the can for a long moment, the metal gleaming faintly under the dim light, before finally letting out a harsh, rattling sigh. 

The anger in him didn’t vanish, it just folded into exhaustion, shame, and a gnawing emptiness that wasn’t just hunger.

Marco stepped closer. “He’s not trying to humiliate you. He’s just… trying to keep us alive, same as you.”

Porco’s jaw clenched, the faintest flicker of a scowl still lingering. “I know,” he muttered, voice low, rough. “I just… can’t… I can’t do this right sometimes.”

Pieck watched silently, her expression unreadable but her eyes sharp, noting the way Porco’s frustration seemed tied less to Jean and more to the stress gnawing at all of them. Gabi and Falco peeked at the scene, wide-eyed, sensing the storm but not understanding it fully.

Jean’s back was already turned, his footsteps fading, leaving Porco standing there with the can at his feet. A small, absurd token of survival in a world that rarely offered mercy. 

Pieck let out a quiet sigh and fell into step behind him, her boots crunching softly over the debris-strewn ground. 

Jean sagged down onto one of the broken shades leaning against the wall, the green moss overgrowing its edges cushioning him slightly. His hands gripped his stomach, fingers pressing into the tense muscles as a low groan escaped him.

“You alright?” she asked, keeping her voice calm, careful not to startle him.

Jean’s head drooped, eyes half-shut, jaw tight. “Just… damn hungry,” he muttered, voice rough, more from frustration than actual pain.

Pieck crouched slightly beside him, scanning the alley quickly to make sure they weren’t being watched, before letting her gaze settle back on him. “We’ll fix that. Just sit for a second. Breathe.”

He huffed, leaning back against the mossy shade, hands still clutching his stomach. The tension in his shoulders and neck made her heart tighten. 

This wasn’t just hunger, it was exhaustion, frustration, the weight of survival pressing down on him like a physical force.

The dark haired journalist exhaled softly, a sigh that carried both apology and weariness. She lowered herself beside him, careful to give him space yet close enough that the silence between them felt shared, not empty. 

The air was thick, damp with the lingering scent of moss and decay, but in that small pocket of quiet, it was almost peaceful.

Without a word, an unspoken permission seemed to pass between them, and she reached out, her fingers brushing lightly against his jaw as she tilted his head slightly. 

Her eyes traced the jagged line of the cut on his cracked lips, concerned with knitting her brows together.

The crickets chirped softly, the wind whispering through the overgrown moss and broken slats of the shade, carrying with it the faint scent of damp earth and decay. 

The night felt oddly still, a fragile calm after the chaos they’d just survived.

Pieck murmured again, almost to herself, “I should’ve been faster.” Jean caught it, his eyes catching the faint glint of moonlight on her hair.

From her bag, she pulled out her medkit, setting it carefully between them. Her hands moved with steady precision, preparing a cloth and antiseptic. 

The closeness was charged, awkward, but unspoken, as they both let themselves exist in the quiet together.

Jean’s hand twitched, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he let her work, the tension in his shoulders easing under her careful touch. Then he smirked, breaking the silence. “You didn’t have to… you’re shorter than both of us.”

Pieck glanced up, expression unreadable for a heartbeat, then allowed the faintest twitch of a smile. 

The antiseptic stung and he flinched, the wind blew, crickets chirped, and for a few suspended seconds, the world outside their little patch of mossed shade felt a little farther away.

“Why… why are you even doing this?”

Pieck’s hands paused for a fraction of a second, her fingers hovering over the antiseptic cloth. She exhaled, slow and deliberate, like she was weighing her words. “Because… you saved me in that alley,” she murmured, voice low but steady. “I owe you that much.”

Jean blinked, the comment hanging in the humid night air, mingling with the chirping crickets and the faint rustle of wind through the mossed shade. It wasn’t a compliment. Just… acknowledgement.

He let out a half-grin, half-chuckle. “Guess that makes us even… for now.” His hand twitched again, but he didn’t move it. Pieck’s focus returned to his lips, gently pressing the cloth to the gash. 

The world outside their small patch of night remained distant, the tension of the day fading into a quiet intimacy they hadn’t expected.

Jean let out a soft huff, a mix of amusement and disbelief breaking through the lingering tension. “You know… I remember seeing you once, on a screen. New anchor, right? Before all this… before the Spread got this bad.” His voice was low, almost conversational, but there was a hint of curiosity threading through it.

Pieck paused, her hands stilling over the antiseptic cloth for a brief second. Her sharp eyes met his, just for a flicker, before returning to her careful work. “You… noticed?” she murmured, a trace of surprise in her tone.

Jean shrugged, a small, wry smile tugging at his lips. “Hard not to. You had that same calm, clipped way of speaking even then. Always seemed like you had everything under control.” He leaned back slightly, letting the tension of the day seep out in the slight stretch of his shoulders. “Funny, seeing you here, doing the same calm, precise thing… just a lot more… hands-on.”

Pieck’s lips twitched, caught somewhere between a smirk and a frown, the corners lifting just enough to betray that his words landed. 

She finished pressing the cloth against his cracked lips, letting him feel the careful precision in her touch. “I… didn’t think anyone would remember that,” she said quietly, almost to herself, but loud enough that Jean heard it.

He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Guess I do. Some things stick.” The wind stirred gently around them, carrying the distant chirping of crickets and the faint rustle of leaves. 

For a moment, the moss-covered shade around them felt like its own small world. Quiet, suspended, and shared only by the two of them, far removed from the chaos that waited just beyond the edges of the camp.

Jean’s eyes flicked to her hands again, noting the meticulous way she moved, and then back up to her face. “You know,” he added with a teasing tilt of his head, “if we survive this, I might have to start tuning in to your anchor gigs… just to make sure you’re still as composed as you were back then.”

The journalist rolled her eyes. “I’ve already resigned.”

A quiet settled between them, the kind that wasn’t uncomfortable but heavy with unspoken thoughts. Pieck’s movements slowed as she carefully folded the cloth and set her medkit back into place, her hands deliberate, almost ritualistic. 

Jean watched her, noticing the way her fingers lingered on the latches, the way she exhaled softly before closing it fully.

The wind stirred the leaves above, and the faint chorus of crickets filled the pause, punctuating the stillness around them. The chaos of the city, the horrors of the spread, the constant pressure to survive, all of it felt distant, as if sealed outside the circle they unconsciously formed.

Jean shifted slightly, testing the weight of the silence, and allowed a small smile to tug at his lips. “I… guess I should thank you,” he murmured, voice low, almost hesitant, “for sticking around..”

Pieck’s eyes flicked briefly to meet his, her expression unreadable but softer somehow. She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she straightened, her shoulders easing into a more neutral stance, and gave the faintest shrug. A gesture that was part apology, part acknowledgment, part distance. 

Slowly, she stepped back, placing the medkit beside her and letting her hands fall to her sides. The movement was measured, controlled, but it spoke volumes.

Jean exhaled, a mix of frustration and admiration threading through him. The gap between them felt wider now, yet somehow more intimate, as if the brief brush of contact and shared focus had left an invisible mark that neither wanted to break but both felt deeply. 

“Let’s go back.”

Jean didn’t follow.

The two words… let’s go back, hanging between them like wet rope. It was heavy and sagging, refusing to snap cleanly. Pieck waited patiently in that quiet way she had, eyes steady on him as if she already sensed he wasn’t done talking.

He wasn’t.

The taller man scrubbed a hand over his face, fingers trembling just enough to betray him. “Pieck… no. I can’t.” His voice came out thin, tired, stretched like it had been wrung out. “Every time something goes wrong, I’m right in the middle of it. Porco is ready to bite my head off, Reiner’s—” He cut himself short, jaw locking. “I’m just… in the way. A nuisance.”

Pieck’s brows pulled together. Not in pity, but in something sharper. Irritation. Concern. Something tangled between those two words. 

“That’s not true.” The words were clipped, measured, like she was trying not to raise her voice. “You being tired or hurting doesn’t make you a problem, Jean.”

“Maybe not to you,” he muttered, staring at the moss beneath his boots, “but to them? I don’t know. I’m tired of being the one everyone looks at when things go missing or fall apart.”

Pieck stepped closer, enough that he felt her shadow slide over his. “Leaving them won’t fix that. Wandering off by yourself isn’t strength, Jean. It’s suicide.”

He didn’t respond. Didn’t lift his head. Just exhaled shakily, shoulders folding inward as if he were bracing for a hit she wasn’t going to throw. For a long moment, they stood like that.

Jean didn’t respond. Didn’t lift his head. Just exhaled shakily, shoulders curling in on himself like he was trying to make his own body smaller, softer, harder to see. 

As if shrinking might somehow hide the fracture lines spreading inside him. And Pieck who was still steady, patient, maddeningly gentle, just waited. 

But his mind was already somewhere far uglier.

The spiral hit fast, sharp, and mean. 

Wall Rose. Wall Sheena. The plan. The route. The timing. The “maybe.” The “if.” All of it suddenly felt like chasing smoke with bare hands.

His breath hitched. He could practically see the map folding up and burning in his head. What if they never make it that far?

What if the roads are already overrun? What if the group is already cracking? What if he slows them down? What if he dies? What if he causes someone else to die?

The thoughts stacked, collapsed, then rebuilt themselves even worse.

His heart thudded against his ribs like it was trying to climb out. The hope he’d been clutching for days was shredding thread by thread. Every empty ration bag, every unexplained shift felt like another nail sealing that hope into a coffin.

He swallowed hard, but it didn’t go down. Jean’s throat felt tight, but his chest felt tighter. He wasn’t ready to say he was scared. Not out loud. Not even to Pieck, who could see straight through him anyway.

He just stayed curled in on himself, eyes fixed on the ground because if he looked up and saw her looking at him with understanding, or worse, sympathy… he might break in a way he couldn’t piece back together.

Pieck, however, didn’t move. Didn’t force him to talk. Just stayed there in the cold quiet with him, giving him the space to fall apart without actually falling apart.

Finally she sighed. It was a soft, weary sound that carried more resignation than defeat. “Fine,” she murmured, though the reluctance dripped from every syllable. “I can’t force you.”

He looked up at her then, surprised she wasn’t pushing harder.

But before he could speak, she grabbed something from her pocket and shoved it into his hands. A walkie-talkie. Cold metal. Scuffed edges. Functional.

“Take it,” she said, stepping back before he could protest. “If you’re going to be stubborn, at least don’t be unreachable.”

Jean swallowed, throat tight. “Pieck…”

“No.” She lifted a hand not to touch him, not this time, but to stop him from trying to explain himself again. “Just keep it on. Even if you’re far. Even if you don’t want to hear us. Keep it on.”

He stared at her, speechless.

Pieck turned before the moment could grow too heavy. She moved toward the distant glow of the campfire, her silhouette cutting clean lines through the darkness. 

“Come back when you’re ready,” she called quietly. “Not when you think you deserve to.”

Then she was gone, swallowed by the dark and the whispers of night. The walkie-talkie felt heavier in Jean’s hand than any weapon he’d ever carried.

Jean walked away without another word, boots dragging through the dirt, breath still unsteady. The night air hit him cold, sharp enough to sting, but it was better than standing there drowning in his own thoughts. 

He needed distance. Noise. Anything to stop the spiral from turning tighter.

He didn’t get far before he spotted them, half a dozen shamblers drifting between the ruined stalls of what used to be a market lane. 

Thin ones. Slow ones. The kind that moved like forgotten laundry blown across a street.

Perfect.

He drew his gun first. Not out of strategy but out of spite.

The first shot cracked through the stillness, blowing open a skull that barely held itself together. The recoil rattled his starving arms, but he welcomed the sting. 

The second shot he lined up cleaner, right through the eye socket. The third wasn’t even necessary, he took it anyway.

The remaining corpses jerked toward the sound, groaning, arms twitching like they remembered how to reach but not why.

“Come on,” he muttered, voice low, raw. “Come on.”

He tucked the gun away and gripped his bat with both hands. The thing was dented, sticky in places he didn’t want to examine, but familiar… comforting, in a way that was messed up.

They closed in.

Jean swung hard. The bat connected with a wet, cracking thud that shot up his arms and rattled his teeth. Another swing that was lower this time and crushing a knee. The creature folded, and he brought the bat down again and again until what was left stopped twitching.

His lungs burned. His stomach cramped so sharply it felt like a knife twisting. Sweat dripped down his jaw despite the cold.

And somewhere in the mess of noise and panic and fury, a thought flickered—

I’m becoming one of them.

Mindless. Hungry. Violent.

It was eating himself alive from the inside.

He shoved the thought away and turned the fear outward, into something he could hit.

When the last corpse fell, its skull caved in, Jean staggered back a step. His arms trembled violently now, he couldn’t tell if it was adrenaline or the lack of food. Maybe both. Probably both.

Slowly, he looked over his shoulder, chest rising and falling too fast.

There was no one there. No audience, no witness, but he still tilted his chin up, a tiny, stubborn spark of pride flashing through the exhaustion.

I did that.

Whether it was a challenge or a confession, even he didn’t know.

Then the world tilted.

A wave of dizziness crashed through him. Jean’s vision tunneled, edges going soft, then darker. He blinked hard, fought it, but his body had already decided.

The last thing he felt was his knees giving out.

Then everything went black.

-

Jean’s consciousness clawed its way back slowly.

The sound of fabric shifting, then the rasp of someone breathing close, then fingers pressing firmly against the side of his throat. His pulse thudded under the touch, weak but steady. The stranger’s brows pinched. She leaned in, squinting at him, her face shadowed and sunlit all at once.

A brunette. Freckles scattered across her cheeks like someone had flicked paint at her. Eyes that were too sharp, honestly, studied him with the kind of suspicion that bordered on boredom.

“Huh,” she muttered, almost disappointed. “Still human.”

Before he could even register the words, ice-cold water splashed over his face and chest like someone had dropped winter straight onto him.

Jean jolted upright with a sputter, choking on his own gasp.

“Wha—?!”

“Oh, good, you can wake up.” Her voice carried zero sympathy. She capped the now half-empty thermos with a sharp click and wiped her wet hand on her pants.

Jean blinked hard, blinking away droplets, blinking away dizziness, blinking at… her.

She sat back on her heels, one knee bent, posture relaxed in a way that didn’t match the harsh sun beating down on her shoulders. She brought the thermos to her lips and took a slow sip as if she hadn’t just practically drowned him awake.

“What the hell are you doing here alone, stupid?” she asked, tone flat but edged with irritation. “Seriously. I’m trying to figure out how someone with your face made it this far without keeling over ten miles ago.”

Jean coughed once, wiping his face with a trembling hand. “I wasn’t alone. Not… exactly.”

“Mm.” She gave him a once-over, unimpressed. “You look like you crawled out of a grave and forgot to bring the muscle that dug you up.”

The sun glared unforgivingly, baking the air around them. Sweat beaded instantly at the back of Jean’s neck. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, but he forced himself to sit straighter.

“You could’ve just… shaken me,” he muttered.

“Oh, sweetie, you were out,” she said, tone slipping into a mockingly gentle lilt. “You think I’m wasting energy shaking someone who looks like he’s two blinks away from becoming beef jerky?”

She stood, dusting off her hands, then tilted her head again. The same analytical angle as before, like she was solving a puzzle she didn’t particularly care for.

“You got a name,” she asked, “or should I just keep calling you ‘stupid’?”

Jean didn’t answer her— not because he was being stubborn, but because the moment his eyes drifted to the thermos in her hand.

Clean water.

Actual clear drinkable water.

It wasn’t the cloudy rain-barrel slush they’d been forced to boil three times just to pray it wouldn’t make them puke. Not the metallic-tasting runoff from rusted gutters or the swampy, algae-filled puddles that stank like rot and chemicals. Half the rivers now carried more corpses, plastics, and oil than usable water. 

The filtration plants had been the first things to go when the infection spread. Power failed, maintenance stopped, and within weeks everything that used to be safe was suddenly a roulette wheel of parasites, toxins, and bloodborne sludge.

Most survivors hauled jugs that sloshed with water the color of weak tea. Some just resorted to swallowing whatever they found and hoped their stomach didn’t fold in on itself.

But the water in her thermos?

It looked clean enough to see through. And that was… rare. Beyond rare. Practically mythical.

His throat tightened painfully. He hadn’t realized how dry it was until right now.

She noticed exactly where his gaze landed and clicked her tongue.

“Oh. So that got your attention,” she said dryly. “Figures.”

Jean swallowed hard, trying and failing to hide the way his focus clung to the condensation on the metal surface.

She arched a brow. “If you’re thinking of stealing it, don’t. I’ve shot people for less.”

“I wasn’t—” His voice cracked mid-denial.

She smirked like she’d already won whatever unspoken argument was happening. “Right. Sure.”

But Jean couldn’t stop staring. Not at her, not at the question she’d asked, not at the blazing sky above them. Just at the water. The sudden realization of how desperate he must look. How desperate he was.

Jean didn’t even pretend to resist when she pushed the thermos into his hands. His fingers wrapped around it like it was sacred, and then he was drinking—no, devouring—every swallow. Cold, clean water hit his tongue and his whole body jolted like someone had plugged him into a generator. His brain barely caught up to the fact that he’d emptied it until the last drop hit the back of his throat.

“Jesus,” he rasped, breath hitching, “that’s—”

“You’re welcome,” she deadpanned as she snatched the empty thermos back. “Fucker took all of it. Anyway, I’ll spare you.”

Jean blinked. “…Spare me?”

She jerked her chin toward the gun at his hip, the bat strapped to his pack. “You’re a survivor. That’s worth something. Get in the truck.”

The brunette didn’t wait for him to argue which was convenient, because he didn’t have the strength to. His legs felt like overcooked noodles. He climbed into the passenger seat, the truck groaning under its own age, and Ymir hopped into the driver’s side with a grunt, slamming the door hard enough to shake dust off the dashboard. As they hit the road, she finally tossed him a sideways glance. “Name?”

“… Jean.”

“Right. I’m Ymir.” No surname, no explanation, no embellishment. Just Ymir. With her tone, it was impossible to tell if it was an alias, real name, or a joke she never intended to explain.

“Is that—”

“Nope,” she cut him off before he finished. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t overthink.”

He shut his mouth and stared out the window as she drove, dust kicking up in thick plumes behind them. The world looked hollowed-out as roads buckled in patches, signs rusted into lifeless slabs, skeletal trees clinging to gray soil. And still, somehow, her truck carved through it like it wasn’t a graveyard.

When they slowed, Jean’s breath caught.

It wasn’t a bunker. It wasn’t a warehouse.

It was… a house. A real damn house.

Tucked behind overgrown hedges, chimney cracked but still standing, windows reinforced but intact. But what really made him blink twice was the roof—lined with solar panels. A full array.

He almost laughed out loud. Solar panels… he hadn’t seen those in months. Not because they didn’t exist, but because they were impossible to keep. Too pricey before the world ended, too coveted after it did. Anyone who had them painted a target on themselves, and someone always came to take them.

But hers? They were intact. Clean. Actually functional.

Ymir parked, killed the engine, and hopped out like it was nothing.

Jean stayed seated for a moment, staring at the house like it was an oasis in the desert because in a way, it was. Things he’d almost convinced himself no longer existed.

Ymir paused at the steps, glanced back at him, and jerked her head. “Well? You coming, survivor, or you gonna melt into the seat?”

The moment Jean stepped inside, the cool air and the faint smell of real food hit him like a brick to the skull. His knees wobbled. The room tilted. He managed half a step over the threshold before everything just… collapsed.

He hit the floor with a dull thud.

Ymir stared down at him, one hand on her hip, the other still holding her keys. She let out an exasperated click of her tongue.

“Oh, this dude’s blacked out and fucked. What the hell happened out there?” She nudged his boot lightly with her own, half checking if he was alive, half annoyed he’d chosen her floor to die on.

From the kitchen, someone spoke with a calm, low, voice like he’d seen this a few too many times to be surprised.

“Another stray?”

Jean blinked himself halfway conscious at the voice. Shapes blurred, then sharpened. A man stood by the counter, sleeves rolled up, stirring something on a stove that absolutely should not be working in this world.

The smell coming off the pot made Jean’s stomach clench and complain violently—meat, spices, something warm and real.

The man, broad shoulders, dark hair, sharp features softened only by exhaustion shot Ymir a look that was half judgment, half resignation. “You bring home every half-dead idiot you find, or is this one special?”

Ymir tossed the keys onto a table, completely unfazed. “He was eating dirt in the middle of the road, Kruger. I’m not heartless.”

Kruger raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“It was a metaphor,” she snapped. “Mostly.”

Kruger stepped closer, crouched near Jean, and checked his pulse with expert ease. His fingers were steady, practiced like someone who’d done this in another life, in another world.

“He’s dehydrated. Malnourished. Running on adrenaline and fumes.” Kruger sighed, standing again. “Get him water and a blanket. He’s gonna crash hard.”

“He already did,” Ymir muttered, nudging Jean again.

Jean’s vision fluttered, drifting in and out. The ceiling blurred. Footsteps shuffled. A glass clinked. Someone lowered themselves into a crouch beside him.

He could barely keep his eyes open, but he saw Ymir’s outline. Her arms crossed, staring down at him like he was some strange animal that wandered into her house.

“Seriously,” she murmured, softer now, “what the hell happened to you?”

Jean tried to answer. He tried to shape words but all that came out was a broken breath.

Then the darkness took him again.

Chapter Text

Ymir folded her arms over her chest, weight settling into one hip as she stared down at the ash-blonde guy stretched out on the couch.

They’d moved him off the floor with more effort than she cared to admit. He was dead weight, the kind of heavy that came from exhaustion rather than muscle.

“He’s severely dehydrated,” she said flatly. “Starved. Running on fumes. All that unhealthy shit.” Her gaze crossed his cracked lips, the bruising along his knuckles, the way his chest rose a little too fast even in sleep. “The only thing that’s keeping him upright this long is sheer will and determination.”

Kruger leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, eyes sharp but thoughtful. “That kind of will usually means someone’s chasing something. Or running from it.”

Ymir snorted. “Yeah, well, whatever it is almost killed him.”

The house hummed quietly around them. Solar batteries clicked faintly from the adjacent room, a soft mechanical heartbeat that felt like a fossil in a world that had gone dark years ago. 

Outside, the wind pushed ash and dust along the street, but here there was light. Power. Warmth. A thin miracle held together by scavenged parts and stubborn refusal to give up.

Kruger grabbed a clean rag and dipped it into a bowl of water. Real water. Filtered twice, boiled once. 

He wrung it out and placed it gently on Jean’s forehead. Jean stirred, brow creasing, a faint sound escaping his throat like he was fighting something even in sleep.

“He didn’t turn,” Kruger noted. “No fever. No lesions. Pulse is weak but steady.”

“Good,” Ymir said. “I don’t have the energy to shoot someone on my couch today.”

She paced once, then stopped, glancing back at Jean. Up close, he looked younger than she’d first thought. Older than he should be, too. That strange, hollow in-between survivors carried.

“You think he came from one of the walls?” Kruger asked.

Ymir shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe nowhere. People are leaking out of everything these days.” She paused, eyes narrowing slightly. “But he’s trained. Look at his hands. Calluses. Old wounds. And that gun wasn’t for show.”

Kruger hummed in agreement. “Soldier, maybe. Or law enforcement. Before.”

“Before doesn’t matter,” Ymir said, sharper now. “The only thing that matters is if he wakes up sane.”

As if summoned by the words, Jean shifted again, fingers twitching weakly against the couch cushion. His lips parted, a whisper scraping out, too soft to catch.

Ymir leaned in despite herself. “What?”

Nothing. Just breath.

She straightened with a quiet exhale. “We give him water. Soup when he can keep it down. If he wakes up violent, you handle him.”

Kruger cracked a thin smile. “And if he wakes up lost?”

Ymir looked at Jean one more time, then turned toward the window, watching the light hit the dust in the air like falling snow.

“Then he’s in the right place,” she said.

Some time later, Ymir grew quiet in a way that wasn’t her usual sharp-edged silence.

It crept in during when the generator’s hum faded into the background, when the house settled and the world outside pressed close again. 

She sat alone at the kitchen table, elbow braced against the wood, a small metal locket resting in her palm. The freckled woman turned it over with her thumb, again and again, like a habit worn into muscle memory.

Inside was a photo that was creased at the edges. A blonde girl, smiling softly, sunlight caught in her hair like the world had once been kind enough to pause for her. The image felt impossibly clean compared to everything else now.

That was where it had started.

They’d been separated during one of the early crackdowns, military enforcements flooding the streets under the excuse of “containment” and “relocation.” Ymir remembered the shouting, the armored trucks, the way hands tore people apart without bothering to learn names.

The blonde girl had been dragged away in the chaos, marked and cataloged for transport to Wall Sheena.

Abducted.

Protected, they’d called it.

Ymir had learned early that words like that meant nothing.

After that, revenge had become less of a feeling and more of a direction. She sought out Kruger deliberately, earning his trust the hard way through bloodied knuckles, sleepless nights, and a shared hatred for the systems that still pretended they were saving what little humanity remained. 

Together, they raided abandoned and active military sites alike, slipping through patrol gaps and dead zones, stealing back what the world hoarded behind walls.

Solar panels, the mechanical parts that made the house function with batteries. The filters. Anything that could keep them alive without answering to uniforms or chains.

The house was proof of that war. Every panel on the roof, every rewired circuit, every stubborn light switch that still worked was a quiet middle finger to the people who took her.

But even that story, as true as it was, didn’t exactly explain everything.

There was something about the way Ymir held the locket, like it wasn’t just grief but guilt. Something unsaid layered beneath the revenge narrative, something heavier than loss alone.

Kruger had noticed it years ago and learned not to ask. Survivors carried their secrets like organs, you didn’t tear them out without killing something important.

For now, this was all anyone knew.

That she was a woman driven by separation, by a stolen future locked behind Wall Sheena.

That she built sanctuaries out of stolen light. That whatever else lived behind her sharp eyes and sharper tongue, it stayed buried, waiting for a moment when the past would finally stop knocking.

Jean woke slowly, the way people did when their body hadn’t decided whether to forgive them yet.

First came the weight that felt heavy, immovable, pressing him into the couch like gravity had doubled while he was out. 

Then the ache followed, radiating inward from his bones, settling deep in his joints and muscles until it felt like he’d been hollowed out and filled back up with sand. His throat burned, raw and tight, every swallow scraping like dry paper. 

The faint hum of the ceiling fan reached him next, steady and unreal, layered with the smell of warm metal, dust, and something unmistakably human. Real food on the table.

Light filtered in through the window, softened by curtains that had once been white. It painted the ceiling in uneven bands, and for a disoriented moment, Jean wondered if this was what dying felt like, then it felt more quiet, domestic, almost gentle.

He shifted, and pain answered immediately.

A low sound left his chest before he could stop it. His hand twitched, instinctively reaching for the bat that wasn’t there, for the familiar weight of a weapon, but his fingers met fabric instead. Clean fabric. A blanket pulled up to his waist. Someone had taken his jacket off.

His heart kicked hard at that.

“You’re awake,” a voice said.

Jean’s head turned sharply and the room spun for half a second before settling. Ymir sat a few feet away, elbows braced on her knees, leaned forward like she’d been waiting there a while. Not pacing. Not hovering. Just… watching. Her posture was loose but coiled, like she could stand without warning.

Her sharp eyes tracked him with quiet focus.

She tilted her head slightly, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Howdy, stranger,” she said, flat and unapologetic. “Now talk.”

Jean swallowed, throat protesting. His voice came out rough, barely there. “If this is an interrogation… you’re gonna be disappointed.”

Ymir snorted softly. “Good. Means you’ve got some fight left.”

The room itself felt like it belonged to her, the stocked shelves, the quiet order of someone who had learned how to survive without asking permission. Jean took it in piece by piece, the way his eyes lingered on the bottled water, the food crates stacked neatly against the wall, the absence of rot.

An oasis?

“Let’s start again. Jean,” she prompted again to catch his wandering attention, firmer this time.

Her gaze flicked briefly to his hands, his ribs, the faint tremor he couldn’t quite hide. “You gonna tell me why you were out there alone, half-dead, swinging like you had something to prove?”

Jean stared at the ceiling for a moment, jaw tight. Images surfaced uninvited, walls, fire, the way people looked at him like he was either a liability or a shield. He closed his eyes briefly.

“…Got separated,” he said finally. “Thought I was helping.”

Ymir’s expression didn’t soften, but it shifted just enough. She leaned back slightly, hands clasping loosely between her knees. “Yeah,” she muttered. “That tracks.”

The room fell quiet again, filled only by the low hum of stolen light and the unspoken understanding that whatever had brought Jean here wasn’t done with him yet.

The silence dragged and then something in Jean’s chest tightened.

Separated.

The word echoed, pulling him backward whether he wanted it to or not. The mossed shade. The argument. The way Pieck’s jaw had set when he refused to turn back.

He remembered the weight of the moment more than the words, her frustration, her worry, the sharp shove against his chest as she forced something into his hand.

The walkie-talkie.

His breath caught in his throat.

Jean’s hand slid instinctively to his jacket, fingers fumbling against the fabric until they found it. The hard plastic, cool and unmistakable. He froze for a second, as if afraid it might vanish if he looked too closely, then pulled it out.

Though it was scuffed and scratched with one corner chipped and the antenna slightly bent, it was still there with him.

-

Annie’s boot connected with Reiner’s side hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He curled instinctively, gravel biting into his palms as a sharp grunt tore from his throat. 

Dust clung to his clothes, smeared along his jaw and hair like a brand of shame he couldn’t scrub off even if he tried.

They were behind the abandoned bakery or what was left of it anyway. The windows were blown out, the sign hanging by a single rusted bolt that creaked every time the wind shifted. 

Inside, the others were scavenging in tense silence, pulling apart rotted shelves and overturned bins in the faint hope that something, at least anything, had survived the mold. The air reeked of damp flour and decay. Annie had already said it once, flat and disgusted.

Fuck molds.

Outside, there was no room for pretense.

“Now talk,” Annie repeated, sharper this time, like she was snapping a bone clean.

Reiner didn’t look at her. He stayed hunched, breathing uneven, one arm wrapped around his ribs as if holding himself together. 

For a second, it looked like he might actually be confused like he’d woken up in the wrong place, in the wrong body.

“I don’t—” he started.

Annie grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up just enough to force eye contact. Her chin was streaked with grime, sweat cutting clean lines through the dirt on her face. Her eyes were flat. The kind of calm that came right before violence.

“Don’t,” she said quietly. “Don’t lie. Not now.”

Reiner swallowed. His gaze flickered, unfocused, then sharpened too fast. Something shifted behind his eyes like a door slamming shut.

“The food,” Annie said. “The missing rations. The nights you ‘kept watch.’ The way you don’t remember a damn thing in the morning.” Her grip tightened. “You think we’re stupid?”

A muscle jumped in Reiner’s jaw. “I was protecting you.”

That answer landed wrong. Annie felt it immediately. She shoved him back down, harder this time. He hit the ground with a dull thud, coughing, but she didn’t stop. 

Her boot came down near his shoulder close enough to make the threat clear without breaking anything. Yet.

“Protecting us?” she echoed. “By stealing from kids? By letting everyone tear each other apart?”

Reiner squeezed his eyes shut, fingers digging into the dirt. “I didn’t have a choice.”

That was the moment Annie knew.

Not guilt. Not remorse. Just certainty. The kind that came from someone who genuinely believed what they were saying even if it made no sense.

“You don’t even hear yourself,” she said, voice low, almost disappointed. “You disappear at night, Reiner. You come back different. Cold. And we’re starving because of it.”

Inside the bakery, something crashed. There was Porco swearing under his breath, Marco telling him to be quiet. Annie didn’t turn. She kept her eyes on Reiner, watching the way his breathing slowed, steadied, like he was bracing behind some internal wall.

For a second, his expression cracked. Confusion bled through the hardness, fear following close behind. “I didn’t mean to,” he said, softer now. “I just… wake up, and it’s already done.”

Annie stepped back.

That scared her more than if he’d fought back.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing more grime across her skin, then looked down at him like he was something dangerous she couldn’t afford to ignore.

“Get it together,” she said. “Because if this happens again if anyone else goes hungry because of you, I won’t just kick you.”

Reiner didn’t answer. He just stayed there, half-curled in the dirt, staring at nothing. Behind Annie, the bakery creaked and groaned, full of rot and silence, just like the trust between them, slowly collapsing under its own weight.

The afternoon light hung low and harsh, bleaching the street in dull gold and casting long, warped shadows between abandoned cars and shuttered storefronts. 

The air smelled of dust and old oil, with a faint sweetness underneath something spoiled, something that had been left too long to rot.

The city felt paused rather than dead, like it was holding its breath and daring them to move.

Pieck stood a little apart from the others, as she had been doing more often lately. Not deliberately, just instinct.

Someone had to keep watch, keep track, stay sharp while everyone else focused on the immediate task of survival. 

She felt it all at once, the weight of responsibility pressing between her shoulders, the constant low-grade tension that never truly left her body. She hadn’t slept properly. None of them had. Every decision felt heavier now, every silence louder. 

Jean’s absence sat in her chest like an unresolved sentence, something she kept circling back to no matter how hard she tried to stay focused.

She told herself it was practicality losing a capable fighter was a risk they couldn’t afford but the lie never quite held.

Pieck felt it most. The patterns she relied on, the subtle rhythm of the group, felt fractured. Each pause, each uncertain glance reminded her he wasn’t there to steady them, to anchor the chaos with calm precision.

Gabi and Falco fidgeted, uneasy without the familiar presence to reassure them. Marco’s steps were heavier, each sound and shadow sharper in the silence Jean left behind.

“Pieck.”

The name crackled through the walkie-talkie, distorted by static but unmistakable.

She froze.

For a heartbeat, the convenience store seemed to fall away in the hollow aisles, the dusted  air, the broken shelves littered with faded packaging.

Pieck’s fingers tightened around the radio clipped to her vest as her breath caught sharp in her chest.

Her heart leaped, sudden and unguarded, relief surging so hard it almost hurt. Alive. He was alive.

“Jean?” she said at once, voice low but urgent, as if speaking louder might shatter the fragile connection.

She turned slightly, instinctively angling herself away from the store’s open front, one hand lifting to press the radio closer to her ear.

Outside, Porco shook the knapsack again, frustration written all over his face as a few energy bars tumbled out onto the cracked pavement. 

Gabi crouched immediately, snatching one up, while Falco hesitated, glancing toward Pieck before taking his.

“Jackpot,” Porco muttered without humor. “Guess we’re eating like kings tonight.” He tossed a bar toward the kids. “Slow. Don’t wolf it down.”

The dark-haired journalist barely registered the exchange. Her focus tunneled inward, every nerve trained on the faint hiss of static and the voice bleeding through it. She swallowed, steadying herself.

“Where are you?” she asked, softer now, as if the answer might disappear if she pushed too hard.

The radio crackled again. Uneven. Strained. But real.

Relief loosened something tight and coiled in her chest, something she hadn’t realized she’d been holding onto since she shoved the device into his hands and watched him walk away. Her shoulders sagged just a fraction, composure slipping for that brief second.

On the other end of the line, Jean paused mid-breath. The radio hissed, filling the space with static, as if even it hesitated to carry what he was about to say. He glanced toward the dim interior of the house. Sunlight leaked through boarded windows, leaving streaks towards Ymir.

“There’s more of us, Ymir,” he said quietly.

Ymir didn’t look up at first. She was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, posture loose in that deceptive way of hers, like she could walk away from anything at any moment. “Spit it out,” she said. “Static’s not getting any more patient.”

Jean swallowed. “I wasn’t alone when I left. I’m… not alone now, I guess. There’s a group. A small one.”

That got her attention. She lifted her head, sharp eyes narrowing but not hostile, just measuring. “How small.”

“Kids,” Jean added before she could interrupt. “Two of them. Falco and Gabi.”

The change was subtle, but it was there. A crack in the armor.

Ymir’s jaw tightened, not in irritation, but in something closer to restraint. Her gaze drifted, unfocused for a second, as if she were looking through the walls. The locket at her neck shifted when she breathed in.

“…Kids,” she repeated, quieter.

Jean rushed on, afraid the moment would close. “They’ve been holding it together, but it’s bad out there. Food’s thin. The water's worse. They’re tough, but—” He stopped himself. “They shouldn’t have to be.”

Ymir pushed off the counter and walked a slow line across the room, boots thudding softly against the floor. She scrubbed a hand over her face, then dropped it again. When she spoke, the sharp edge was still there but it was tempered now, redirected.

“Where are they,” she asked.

Jean blinked. “What?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Ymir said, already moving toward the map pinned to the wall. “If there are kids, we don’t leave them out there. You tell them where you are. Routes, landmarks. Anything that won’t get them killed.”

He hesitated. “You’re serious.”

She shot him a look that shut that down instantly. “Nah, I don’t joke about children,” she said flatly. “Not anymore.”

Jean nodded, chest tight. He lifted the radio again, fingers curling around it with renewed urgency. On the other end, Pieck was waiting. He could feel it, like a held breath stretched thin.

“Tell them,” Ymir pointedly angled her chin up at the device in Jean’s hand. “We’ll get ‘em. All of ‘em.”

The static crackled again, and this time, Jean didn’t let it linger.

They gathered on Ymir’s porch as the sun dipped low, the light turning amber and tired, like it had seen too much to bother shining properly anymore.

The porch was narrow but solid, patched together with scavenged wood and reinforced metal. Solar lights lined the railing, dim and warm. For the first time in days, no one was pressed against walls or scanning rooftops every second. The air smelled like dust, dry grass, and something almost forgotten: safety.

Jean stood near the doorway, unsure where to put himself. He looked thinner. Paler. Still standing, though and that alone felt unreal.

Pieck reached him first.

She didn’t run. She didn’t say his name. She just stopped in front of him, close enough that he could see the faint redness in her eyes, the exhaustion she’d been wearing like a second skin since he left. For a second, she looked like she might say something sharp, something controlled.

Instead, she exhaled and rested her forehead briefly against his shoulder.

“You idiot,” she murmured, voice tight.

Jean let out a shaky breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”

Porco hovered a few steps back, arms crossed, jaw set. He looked Jean over like he was checking for missing limbs, for proof. When he finally spoke, it was rough. “You look like hell.”

Jean huffed. “You should see the other guy.”

Gabi and Falco were next, Annie stood off to the side, silent as ever, eyes flicking between Jean and Ymir, already cataloging exits, angles, threats that didn’t exist yet.

And then there was Marco.

He stood frozen near the steps, hands half-raised like he’d meant to reach out and forgot how. Relief was there, but it tangled with something heavier. Hurt. Confusion. The echo of Jean storming off, the can of beans clattering into the dirt, words said sharp and fast and never taken back.

“You just… vanished,” Marco said finally, voice uneven. “We thought—” He stopped, swallowed. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Jean’s throat tightened. “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I swear.”

Marco nodded, once, but his eyes stayed wet. “I know. That’s the worst part.”

Ymir leaned against the porch railing, watching them all with that unreadable expression of hers. She took in the way they clustered, the way tension eased just a fraction now that Jean was back where he belonged. A group. A mess. Alive.

“Alright,” she said, breaking the moment. “Reunions are great, but we do it smart. You eat. You drink. You rest.”

She glanced at Jean last. “And you, no more solo hero acts.”

Jean met her gaze and nodded. “Deal.”

The porch lights hummed softly as night settled in, and for the first time in a long while, the dark didn’t feel like it was closing in.

-

They sat in a loose circle on the porch and just inside the living room, plates balanced on knees, backs against railings and walls. Real warm food salted their tongues in the right way, filling. 

Mashed potatoes mixed with canned vegetables, protein bars split and rationed properly this time, clean water passed hand to hand like something sacred. 

No one rushed it. Hunger still clawed, but now it was tempered by the quiet understanding that this meal wouldn’t vanish if they blinked.

For a while, the only sounds were chewing and the low hum of Ymir’s solar inverter. Night insects chirred beyond the fence. Somewhere far off, something howled, but it stayed far.

Jean spoke first, because everyone was looking at him.

“I didn’t mean to split,” he said, fingers tightening around his cup. “I just—things were getting bad. The rations, the fighting… and Porco blaming me.” He glanced up briefly, meeting Porco’s eyes. “I figured if I was the problem, removing myself fixed it.”

Porco scoffed, but it lacked bite. “You almost got yourself killed.”

“Yeah,” Jean said flatly. “I know.”

Pieck leaned forward slightly. “You collapsed.”

“Twice,” Jean added sheepishly. “Once after clearing a small group. Thought I was turning. Turns out I was just starving.” He let out a dry laugh. “Then Ymir dumped cold water on me like I was a stray animal.”

“Correction,” Ymir said from where she leaned in a chair, arms crossed. “A stupid stray animal.”

Gabi blinked. “You fought zombies alone?”

Jean shrugged. “Wouldn’t recommend it.”

Reiner frowned. “Why didn’t you call sooner?”

Jean hesitated. His thumb brushed the walkie clipped at his belt. “Didn’t think anyone wanted to hear from me.”

Silence pressed in for half a second too long.

Marco broke it. “That wasn’t true. Ever.”

Jean swallowed and nodded once.

Annie shifted her weight, gaze sharp. “What about her?” She tipped her chin toward Ymir. “Why help?”

Ymir’s eyes flicked briefly to the locket now tucked beneath her shirt. “Because he said there were kids.” She looked at Gabi and Falco. “And because I’m not a monster.”

“Debatable,” Porco muttered.

She smirked. “You’re alive. Eat.”

Pieck cleared her throat softly. “Jean told us… about water. How bad it’s gotten.”

Ymir nodded. “Most sources are dead. Runoff, rot, chemical spillovers. If it’s not filtered, it’s poison. If it’s standing, it’s worse.” She gestured vaguely toward the house. “I’ve got collectors, purifiers. Not infinite though, but just enough.”

Gabi huffed. “So we don’t have to drink puddles anymore?”

“No,” Ymir said. “You don’t.”

That earned her the quietest, most sincere “thank you” Gabi had said in days.

Porco finally spoke again, voice lower now. “Jean… about that time. I was—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “I was wrong.”

Jean studied him, then nodded. “Yeah. You were.”

It wasn’t forgiveness. But it was a start. From the corner, Reiner sat stiffly, food barely touched. 

Annie noticed. Everyone noticed. No one said anything. The night version of him lingered in the back of their minds like a bad taste they couldn’t wash away.

Pieck’s voice softened the edge. “We’ll rest tonight. Regroup. Tomorrow we talk routes. Wall Rose, Sheena— whatever’s still standing.”

For the first time in a long while, the plan didn’t feel like a lie they were telling themselves just to keep walking. Ymir shifted where she sat, the chair giving a soft creak beneath her weight. 

The bravado she wore so easily earlier slipped, just a notch, enough for something more careful to surface. She leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped loosely as if grounding herself.

“Listen,” she said, gaze flicking briefly to the dark line of the road beyond the fence, then back to them. “If you’re ever wondering where this holy house came from,” a corner of her mouth twitched, humor thin but real, “,I stole shit from Wall Rose.”

The words landed heavier than they sounded.

She continued, voice steadier now, like she’d crossed some internal threshold. “Those solar panels? Batteries, tools, the water filters. stuff the military locked away while everyone else drank rust.” Her fingers tightened together. “I didn’t take it to play survivor queen. I took it because Rose has routes. Hidden ones. Service roads, checkpoints that don’t get used anymore. Places people forget exist.”

Marco’s brows knit. “You’ve been there.”

“More than once,” Ymir replied. Her thumb brushed absently against her wrist, where the locket usually rested. “In and out. Enough to know how to move without being seen.”

Jean felt it then, the subtle shift in the air. The way a direction suddenly stopped being an idea and became a place.

“I know the way there,” Ymir said. It wasn’t anywhere near boastful. Not proud. Just certain.

Pieck met her gaze, something calculating but hopeful flickering behind her eyes. Annie leaned back, arms crossed tighter, weighing risks. Gabi and Falco exchanged a glance of fear and awe tangled together.

Reiner’s head lifted slightly, attention sharpening despite himself.

Somehow, it didn’t feel like they were walking blind.

The porch light hummed softly, but in Ymir’s mind it spilled in flashes, splintering backward into memory, into heat and gunfire and the taste of metal on her tongue.

Concrete walls. Floodlights cutting through night like blades. She remembered the first base they hit.

Kruger had moved ahead of her, already halfway over the perimeter fence before she finished counting the guards. He never asked if she was ready. He never needed to. They worked in silence, a language built from shared intent and mutual fury. The alarms came too late. By then, Ymir had her hands on the solar rig, fingers flying, ripping cables free while bullets sparked against steel behind her.

“Move,” Kruger barked, calm even as chaos bloomed.

She moved. They always did.

She remembered the way military bases smelled back then. Clean, sterile, untouched by rot. Rows of supplies locked away behind reinforced doors while cities starved outside the walls. Generators humming. Water filters stacked like trophies. Power hoarded by men who still believed the world obeyed them.

Ymir took everything she could carry. Not because she wanted to survive, but because she wanted them to bleed.

The memory shifted, darker now.

A street filled with armored trucks and soldiers shouting. Civilians were forced to their knees. She remembered gripping the blonde girl’s hand, too tight, maybe, while boots thundered past them. The girl had been shaking, eyes wide, hair pulled back in a way Ymir would recognize anywhere, even now.

“It’s fine,” Ymir had lied. “Just don’t let go.”

Then the hands tore them apart.

Military insignia. Gloved fingers. A rifle butt to Ymir’s ribs that knocked the air from her lungs. She hit the pavement hard, vision swimming, just in time to see the blonde girl dragged toward the transport. Kicking. Screaming her name.

Sheena, they said.

Processing. Relocation. For her safety.

The truck doors slammed shut.

Ymir never saw her again.

The rage that followed wasn’t loud at first. It was cold. It hollowed her out and filled the space with purpose. That was when she found Kruger, or maybe when he found her. A man who didn’t ask who she’d lost. A man who understood that revenge could be methodical.

They raided bases not like thieves, but like executioners.

Every panel ripped free was a debt reclaimed. Every battery stolen was a middle finger to the walls. Every light she installed later felt like defiance made tangible.

She built sanctuaries from stolen power because the world had taught her what happened when she trusted systems to protect the people she loved.

Back on the porch, Ymir’s jaw tightened. Her eyes burned, fixed on nothing and everything all at once. The past pressed close, heavy and unresolved, but it didn’t crush her.

It sharpened her.

Sheena wasn’t just a destination.

It was the place where something had been taken from her. This time, Ymir wasn’t walking in empty-handed.

Before the walls became names whispered with dread, before routes turned into rumors, she and Kruger had torn through Maria’s districts like ghosts with a death wish. Every corner and every sector people marked too risky, too infested and already lost, they went anyway.

Because that was where the good stuff was.

Maria was chaos layered on chaos with collapsed overpasses and malls half-swallowed by vines and fire damage. Flooded underpasses where the water shimmered wrong and smelled like oil and rot. 

The infection hit harder there, way faster, stranger mutations, bodies pushed past limits until they burned themselves out into steam and ash.

Kruger was the reason she survived it.

A veteran, not just military, but the man was hardened by the aftermath of the outbreaks. He moved like someone who’d already died once and didn’t intend to repeat the experience. 

He taught her how to clear buildings without wasting breath, how to read silence instead of noise, how to tell when a space was wrong before anything showed itself.

Never trust empty,” he’d told her once, crouched beside a broken escalator slick with old blood. “Empty means something already ate.”

They scavenged malls together. Big ones. The kind built to trap people inside comfort and light. Emergency generators, fire exits that led into service tunnels, security rooms with still-functioning cameras if they were lucky and careful.

The most recent run had been one of those.

Half-collapsed, smoke still clinging to the walls days after something burned itself out inside. Ymir remembered the heat, the way the bodies didn’t rot so much as cook from the inside, collapsing into nothing but stink and residue. 

She remembered pulling supplies while Kruger covered the corridors, their timing razor-thin, the dead getting too close too fast.

She’d barely escaped with the truck intact.

Back on the porch, as Ymir spoke short, clipped explanations, nothing flowery about them. Annie’s attention sharpened.

The mall.

Fire exits used as shortcuts.

Zombies evaporating instead of dropping.

Annie’s jaw tightened. She’d seen it. The layout. The movement patterns. The way Ymir described slipping through the building, clearing just enough to pass before everything closed in behind her. It lined up too cleanly with what Annie, Reiner, and Jean had just come out of.

“That mall,” Annie said quietly, cutting through the low murmur of the group.

Ymir’s eyes flicked to her instantly. “Yeah? You been there?”

Annie nodded once. “

Something unspoken passed between them. Two people who understood the same kind of danger without needing to dress it up. Ymir leaned back, exhaling through her nose. “Then you know why I don’t go back unless I have to.”

Reiner’s gaze lifted fully now, focus snapping into place despite the fatigue still clinging to him. Marco swallowed hard. Porco went still, the humor drained clean out of his posture. Pieck listened without interrupting, eyes dark and intent.

The realization settled heavily among them.

Ymir hadn’t just survived Maria. She’d already mapped it with scars and stolen light.

“How do we get to Rose?” Jean asked.

“That’s easy,” Ymir replied with a sharp, humorless curl of her lip. “I’ll show you.”

She led them down into the basement, boots echoing against concrete steps worn smooth with use. The air changed immediately, cooler, drier, humming faintly with electricity. This wasn’t a cellar meant for storage. This was a bunker.

The walls were lined with metal cabinets and open cases, each one telling a quiet story of survival. Firearms rested in careful rows, some pristine, others stripped down and reassembled with mismatched parts. 

A few were broken beyond repair, labeled with chalk marks instead of being thrown away, like even useless weapons still deserved a place. Tools hung beside them: oil rags, spare bolts, handmade suppressors. Everything had a purpose. Everything had been touched recently.

Reiner slowed without realizing it.

His eyes locked onto the far wall, where a large axe rested against a reinforced pillar. The blade caught the light, clean, sharpened to a brutal edge. Not decorative. Used. His jaw tightened, something unreadable flickering across his face before he looked away.

Ymir noticed. But she didn’t comment before she continued, “Down here’s safer than anywhere else in the district,” she said casually. “Sound doesn’t travel right. And if something breaks in, I hear it before it gets close.”

She crossed the room and stopped near the back, brushing aside a tarp. Beneath it was a circular metal plate embedded into the floor, scarred, rusted at the edges, unmistakable.

A manhole.

Ymir crouched, gripped the handle, and hauled it open with a grunt. A breath of stale, underground air rolled up to meet them. It was dark but not pitch-black. Dim emergency lights glowed faintly below, casting long, warped shadows along concrete walls that stretched deeper than they could see.

They didn’t go down as they only peeked.

“...What’s that?” Pieck asked quietly.

Ymir straightened. “The underground.”

“The… what?” Marco echoed.

Ymir tilted her head, eyes sharp, almost amused. “Where do you think this house got built?”

Silence followed. Then understanding crept in slowly and unsettling.

A military HQ.

Buried beneath the city. Forgotten. Repurposed.

Jean swallowed. Annie’s expression darkened. Reiner’s shoulders went rigid, like the word itself had struck something buried deep in his chest.

Ymir let the manhole rest open for a moment longer, letting them feel the weight of it. The escape routes, the secrets, the blood that must’ve soaked into those tunnels long before the world fell apart. “This,” she said, finally closing it with a hollow clang, “is how you get to Rose.”

-

Pieck’s eyes flew open, chest hammering as if she’d been sprinting through the gates of Wall Rose herself. In her nightmare, the iron bars slammed shut before her, soldiers shouting, hands pressing against the metal, faces twisted in panic and anger. 

The lockdown had started, and there was no way through. Every step she tried to take dissolved into chaos, screams echoing and mingling with the clanging of the gates, trapping her in a helpless loop.

She shivered, wrapping the wool blanket tighter around her, the warmth grounding her, pulling her back from the edges of the nightmare. 

The room was quiet now, bathed in the dim orange glow of the lamp, shadows stretching long across the walls. Her pulse gradually slowed, her breaths evening out, though her hands still trembled slightly.

Then she heard it, a soft, deliberate strum, careful in the silence. The faint tune of guitar strings floated through the air, steadying, familiar. 

Her head turned, eyes focusing on the corner of the room where Jean sat, knees bent and guitar resting across them. He moved with quiet concentration, each note measured, as though afraid to disturb the fragile peace of the night.

Pieck exhaled slowly, letting the tension in her shoulders dissolve. The warmth of the blanket, the mellow glow of the lamp, the gentle music. They created a small bubble of calm in the aftermath of her fear. For a fragment of a moment, the world outside faded, leaving only this quiet, suspended slice of safety.

Jean’s fingers hovered over the strings again, settling into the same familiar sequence, almost hesitantly, as if each note had to be coaxed back from memory. 

The tune wavered, small inconsistencies rippling through it, like rust creeping over metal, stubborn and persistent. Every strum was deliberate, careful, yet fragile, as though he feared it might shatter if he pushed too hard.

Pieck watched him quietly, leaning against the table’s edge, her glass forgotten. The way his eyes narrowed, focused yet distant, the soft twitch of his lips when a note landed just right, she could see him wrestling with the memory, holding onto it like a lifeline. It was mesmerizing and sad at once.

“You… really keep at it, don’t you?” she said softly, voice threading through the fragile melody.

Jean didn’t look up immediately. His hands continued their slow, rusty dance across the strings, each note scraping slightly against the fretboard before settling. 

Finally, he gave a shrug, almost sheepish. “It’s the only way I can remember it. The way it’s supposed to go… or at least close enough.”

Pieck’s gaze lingered on him. “It’s… stubborn,” she murmured, a small, wry smile tugging at her lips. “Like you.”

That earned a faint chuckle, a sound almost lost in the dim light and low hum of the guitar. Jean’s eyes flicked up at her for a heartbeat, soft and tired, yet something unspoken passed between them. 

She didn’t move closer, didn’t interrupt, just observed, letting him unravel the tune one imperfect, rusted strum at a time.

For a while, neither spoke. Just the music, the warmth of the lamp, and the quiet understanding that some things, even fractured memories and imperfect songs, could still be salvaged. Jean’s eyes flickered to his friends soundly asleep.

Jean’s fingers hesitated over the strings, tracing the familiar chords with a careful, almost tentative touch. The notes wavered under his fingers, a little rusty, quite off but still recognizable. He leaned close to the guitar, voice soft, almost a breath, whispering the lyrics instead of singing them.

“When the light disappears, and when this world's insincere, you'll be safe here.”

Pieck’s eyes softened, her heartbeat settling as the melody wrapped the room in a fragile warmth. The faint orange glow of the lamp painted their shadows along the walls, the music threading them together in the quiet. 

Each strum was deliberate, a struggle against the rust in his memory, each whispered word a tether to something unbroken. Jean’s gaze lifted, just for a moment, meeting hers.

“When nobody hears you scream, I'll scream with you… you'll be safe here…”

Jean sighed, slapping the strings lightly. “Ah, damn it… I’ve forgotten the next line.” His voice was rough, edged with exhaustion, and he leaned back slightly, letting the guitar rest across his lap.

Pieck shifted closer on the edge of the mat, the soft wool blanket tucked around her knees. “It’s okay,” she murmured, voice low, almost hesitant. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t remember every word.”

Jean looked at her, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah… I guess. Some things stick, some things… just rust away.” He ran a hand through his overgrown mullet. He set the guitar aside, letting the silence stretch comfortably between them. “I… I don’t even know why I kept playing it,” he admitted, voice low. “Maybe to remember. Maybe to forget. Maybe just… to feel something normal, even for a second.”

Pieck nodded slowly, understanding more than words could capture. “Normal,” she echoed, a quiet promise threading through her tone. “Even for a second, we’ll take what we can.”

Jean’s shoulders slumped slightly, his hands folding together in his lap as if weighing the words he hadn’t yet said. The shadows stretched long across the walls, and in that dim, suspended light, the weight of everything outside felt a little sharper.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, voice low, almost swallowed by the quiet. “For walking off like that.” He stopped, struggling to thread the thought into something coherent. His jaw tightened, eyes tracing the edges of the room instead of meeting Pieck’s gaze. “I thought I was helping, but I know I made things worse.”

Pieck didn’t interrupt. She shifted slightly, the blanket rustling around her, giving him the space to unravel without pushing, letting the confession settle in the air between them. Her presence was steady, calm, yet patient, like the quiet of a room that had seen too many storms but refused to break.

The ash-blonde haired man drew a shaky breath, letting it out slowly, as if releasing some small part of the tension coiled inside him. “I just kept thinking about getting to Wall Rose, to Sheena trying to make it mean something. But what if it didn’t? What if everything I did… didn’t help? I kept you all in the dark.” His voice broke slightly, raw in its honesty, carrying the weight of exhaustion, fear, and guilt.

Pieck finally lifted her eyes to meet his, the soft glow catching the worry etched into his features. “You didn’t leave us,” she said gently, her voice almost a whisper, careful, steady. “We… we just didn’t know where you were. We worried, sure. But you came back. You’re here. That’s what matters.”

Jean’s gaze lingered on her, tracing the lines of her face in the warm lamplight, the quiet between them stretching like a taut wire. His hands itched to reach out, to bridge the space, but the weight of everything kept him rooted in place. 

The room hummed with the ceiling fan, the lamp’s glow painting everything in muted golds and shadows, the kind of intimacy that demanded neither words nor movement.

For a moment, it felt as if the world had shrunk to just the two of them, the rest of the apocalypse receding to nothing but distant echoes. 

His pulse quickened slightly, heart hammering in tandem with the memory of all the chaos he’d left behind. 

He leaned in ever so slightly, drawn by a need to apologize again, or maybe just to be near someone steady, someone who didn’t recoil from the storm inside him.

Pieck’s eyes caught his, steady, soft, but unreadable. The tension stretched, a quiet promise and a warning in the same breath. Jean opened his mouth, then paused, unsure if any words could hold the weight of what he felt.

The journalist exhaled softly, leaning back into the blanket, her shoulders sagging with the fatigue that had gathered over weeks of running, hiding, surviving. “Don’t stay up too late,” she murmured, her voice light but firm, almost teasing in its simplicity.

But even as the words left her lips, there was a tightness in her chest she hadn’t expected. An ache she tried to ignore.

Pieck had missed him more than she cared to admit, more than her careful composure would allow. The absence of his steady presence during the last harrowing days left an imprint she hadn’t realized. Every time she thought of him wandering alone, facing who-knows-what in the dark, her stomach had clenched, her hands had itched to reach out, to make sure he was safe.

Now, sitting here with him just a few feet away, she felt the quiet relief wash over her, but it mingled with an unacknowledged longing, a pull she wasn’t ready to name.

She let the blanket fold around her again, pulling herself into the small cocoon of warmth, eyes closing, drifting toward sleep but her mind lingered on him, on the soft glow of the lamp, on the quiet of the room, and on the little pang in her chest, just the slightest as tiny as a needle, of having missed him more than she was willing to say aloud.

Jean remained where he was, watching her settle, the intimate warmth of the lamp and the quiet of the room pressing against him. 

He swallowed, the ache of unspoken words twisting in his chest, and yet he stayed put, letting the moment linger, letting her sleep while he wrestled with the storm inside him. Something like guilt, relief, and something dangerously close to longing.