Part One: Family Business
"I don't know what's waiting for us when we die– something better, something worse. I only know that I'm not ready to find out yet."
- Charles De Lint, The Onion Girl
———
September was ten days away, and Eren still hadn't found a job. He wasn't good enough with a rifle to be a fence guard; he wasn't old enough to join the town watch; he wasn't patient enough for farming; and he wasn't strong enough to work as a hitter or cutter–not that smashing in zombie heads with a sledgehammer or cutting them up for the quarry wagons was much of a draw for him, even with his strong hatred for the monsters. Yes, it was killing, but it also looked like hard work and Eren wasn't all that interested in something described in the papers as "demanding physical labor." Was that supposed to attract applicants?
So, after soul-searching for a week, during which Levi lectured him pretty endlessly about detaching himself from preconceived notions and allowing himself to become part of the co-creative process of the universe (or something like that), Eren went and asked Armin to take him on as an apprentice.
At first Armin studied him with narrow-eyed suspicion.
Then his eyes widened in shock when he realized Eren wasn't playing a joke.
As the reality sank it, Armin looked like he wanted to cry.
He tried to hug Eren, but that wasn't going to happen in this lifetime, so they shook hands on it.
Eren left a smiling Armin and went upstairs to take a nap before dinner. He sat down and starter out the window, as if he could see tomorrow and the tomorrow after that and the one after that. Just him and Armin.
"This is really going to suck," he said.
CZYTASZ
Damage & Decay
PrzygodoweIn the zombie infested world Eren has grown in, teenagers must work once they turn fifteen-or they'll lose their food rations. Eren isn't interested in taking on the family business, but he reluctantly agrees to train as a zombie killer with his bor...
