🌫️ Chapter Seventeen: What's Left Behind
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In the darkness of half-sleep, Eren dreamed.
A forest, the iconic super-tall trees. The sound of boots crashing through leaves.His father, Grisha, eyes frantic, voice trembling, as if he had very little time left.
"You have to do this! There's no time!"
A needle. A key. A promise he didn't understand.
The weight of something ancient pressed on his spine.
Then—
"Mikasa?"
He jolted awake from another weird dream...
Mikasa stood over him, arms crossed, hair slightly disheveled.
"You were talking in your sleep again," she said.
Eren wiped sweat from his face and sat up.
The key around his neck clinked softly against his chest.
He tucked it under his shirt.
Time to move...though they weren't going very far.
...
They joined Armin outside, walking together in silence.
The sun was harsh. The line was longer than yesterday.
More refugees from Wall Maria had arrived.
More mouths. Less bread.
"Why are we even here?" Eren muttered, he knew why, he just wanted to say something.
"Because we're hungry," Armin said plainly.
Mikasa didn't speak.
They waited. The line crawled, probably because everyone was in the same bad mood as them.
Just ahead of them, two soldiers leaned against a cart, talking low.
"…Can't believe they're still giving rations to Wall Maria scum."
"Right? They should've died with their district."
Eren's fists clenched, and his usual temper was flaring up,
His breath came short.
"You little—"
He lunged, and what else? A straight right, and as he followed up with a left uppercut
Mikasa grabbed his shoulder, but he was already shouting; this bad habit of violence he had wasn't curbed in the slightest.
"You think this is funny?! You think any of us wanted to run?! You weren't there!"
The soldiers turned.
One of them stepped forward with that signature side character walk.
"You wanna start something, brat?"
"Eren, stop—" Armin stepped between them.
Hands raised. Eyes wide.
"Please—we don't want trouble."
The tension snapped like a wire, he didn't have a habit of beating kids.
The soldier scoffed, pushed past, and walked off.
Eren glared at Armin, how dare he interrupt Eren getting served on a platter.
"Why'd you stop me?!"
"You were going to get us all arrested!"
"I'm tired of running! I'm tired of being weak!"
He turned to Mikasa.
"You saw them! They think we're nothing!"
Mikasa's eyes didn't waver.
"The only thing we can do right now… is survive."
Her voice was low. Steady.
"Like your mother said."
That cut deeper than anything else.
Eren looked away.
...
Food didn't improve.
The Wall couldn't hold them all.
There wasn't enough land to cultivate. Too many people. Too few hands.
Too many mouths.
The government made a choice.
In 846, they launched a "reclamation effort."
The plan: retake Wall Maria.
The reality: cull the masses.
250,000 refugees were sent.
Eren watched them march away. Young men. Old women. Children barely taller than swords.
They walked past the walls like lambs to slaughter.
Only a hundred came back.
Armin didn't say a word for three days.
Then he found Eren and Mikasa in the alley behind the barracks.
"I need to tell you something," he said quietly.
Eren looked up.
"My grandfather… he didn't make it."
They said nothing.
There was nothing to say.
Only the wind. The echo of boots. The scream of silence.
That evening, Eren stood before the old wall near the refugee center.
Hands in fists.
Eyes red.
"I'm done waiting," he said. "I'm going to kill them," Eren said firmly.
Mikasa stood beside him. "Then I'll go with you." Mikasa naturally would follow Eren wherever; it wasn't even a question at this point.
Armin stepped forward, too. "And I'll see the ocean."
That night, they signed the forms.
104th Training Corps.
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Side Story, Vol. 4 — "The Sky You Gave Me"
Shiganshina District — Summer, Year 838.
The sun filtered through the trees, casting a patchwork of shadows over the cracked dirt road. A light breeze shifted the leaves, and with them, the boy perched upside down on a thick branch swayed idly in the wind.
Kaelen Jaeger hung there like it was the most natural place in the world — legs hooked loosely around the limb, hands resting behind his head, eyes half-closed in boredom.
"Your arm's gonna scar if you don't rub it in properly," he called down.
Eren Jaeger, ten years old and visibly annoyed, sat cross-legged on the ground, frowning as he dabbed thick salve across a fresh scrape running down his forearm. "I know how to use it, you idiot."
"Just making sure." Kaelen dropped lazily to the ground, landing in a practiced crouch. He stood and stretched, arms overhead like he hadn't just let his little brother get beaten into the dirt thirty minutes ago.
Eren didn't even look at him. "You ditched me. Again."
Kaelen's lips curved upward. "Wrong. I was giving you the spotlight."
"Spotlight?" Eren snapped his head around to glare at him. "They kicked me into a water barrel!"
"Yeah, but you looked cool getting back up. Heroic."
"I'm soaked, bruised, and grounded. Again."
Kaelen tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. A tragic hero, then."
Eren rolled his eyes and kept rubbing the salve in, not hiding how forcefully he did it. The skin around the wound was already raw. "Why do you even pretend you're not causing this stuff?"
Kaelen knelt next to him, unfazed. "I'm just helping you get stronger."
"By making sure I always get in fights?"
"If you never lose, then you're not learning. You need adversity. Pressure. Like how diamonds are made."
"I'm not a rock!"
"No," Kaelen said with a grin. "You're better."
Eren scowled harder. It wasn't even that Kaelen was wrong. The truth just made it more irritating. Eren always figured it out eventually: Kaelen stirred the pot, vanished before any adults showed up, and left Eren holding the consequences. Somehow, he never got blamed. Probably because, as Eren bitterly noted, Kaelen was too calm, too polite — and annoyingly pretty. People forgave him just by looking at him.
Eren sighed. "Why are you even here? Don't you have some creepy meditation thing to be doing? Or one of your weird 'missions'?"
Kaelen laid on his back in the grass beside him, hands folded on his chest. "You don't sound happy to see your older brother."
"Because you only show up when you want something."
Kaelen laughed softly. "You're getting way too used to me."
There was a pause. The wind stirred again.
"I found the end," Kaelen said suddenly.
Eren blinked. "To what?"
"That old story. The Boy Who Reached the Sky."
Eren sat up straighter. "Wait, seriously?"
Kaelen nodded.
Eren looked up toward the wide blue above them, squinting through the branches. "So what happens?"
"The part he saw," Kaelen said, "wasn't the whole sky. It was only a piece. The rest was still locked away. And the boy was trapped... If he couldn't escape, he'd never see it. Never be free."
Eren was quiet.
His eyes stayed fixed on the open sky — vast, unreachable, always just beyond the walls.
Then he exhaled, slow and low. "I kinda wish you hadn't finished it."
Kaelen raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because you based that kid on me, didn't you?"
Kaelen smiled faintly but said nothing.
Eren lowered his head, arms resting on his knees. "You always do that. Make stories about me, stir up chaos, disappear... then come back like it's nothing. What, is this all just material for your next bedtime tale?"
There was no answer.
Kaelen looked sideways at his brother, watching the frustration simmer under his skin. The silence stretched.
Then Eren stood, slowly, fists clenched. His voice was low but sharp.
"You're making my life hell so you can tell a better story."
Kaelen gave a weak, nervous laugh. "Hey now, it's all character development—"
Eren lunged.
"GET BACK HERE!"
Kaelen yelped and bolted, laughter trailing behind him like dust. Eren chased him full speed, yelling curses loud enough for the whole block to hear.
The birds scattered. The branches shook.
Two small figures — one calm, one furious — vanished down the road together, like they always had.
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[Author: Yo, finally done...this was pure pain. This chapter is such trash...I should work on it more...that's what my brain said and now I regret it...]