Levi had woken from a smearing, blurred dream that left his pulse thumping in his throat. He couldn 't remember it, exactly; there had been stone, and laughter, and the metal bars of a cell, and then titans, and guts, and more laughter still.

I 'm the strongest,

Levi had insisted, but whatever the dream was doesn 't matter ' it had ended in the same place it always ends, that rattling closet, a rat scratching up his leg, a squeaking bed, sobs. He 'd woken silent and swinging, hand ripping beneath his pillow for his knife, but there was no knife. Erwin 's been taking them as fast as he can hide them.

He 'd felt this aching emptiness, then, at the absence of Erwin from his bed. He 's on business, he had said, but Levi hadn 't thought to ask where, which ' which isn 't like him, now that he thinks on it, but he 's been distracted lately. Or more like, not distracted enough. Erwin had said,

I need to be going. Just a few days,