published originally on Ao3. Blair Witch inspired, body horror.
---
The kettle whistled loudly as it sat on the stove, and the man took it off, pouring the boiling water into the mugs. He dunked the teabag in for a moment, and brought them over to the kitchen table where Levi was sitting.
"I did meet your boyfriend," The man, Keith, said. Levi took a sip of the tea and cringed. It tasted like watery piss.
"You were the last person to see him, right?" Levi asked, ignoring the terrible drink he'd been served.
Keith nodded. "He asked me about some local urban legends. I thought maybe he was an author or journalist, looking for a juicy tale, but we never heard back from him. Of course, until you came around and started asking about him."
Levi stared Keith in the eye. He wasn't that old, could barely be older than Levi himself, but he looked like the years had taken a toll on him.
"What was he asking about?" Levi asked, trying his hardest to keep his voice steady.
"It was nothing," Keith said, hand shaking as he held his mug. "Barely anything. Just an old story."
Levi was a master of intimidation - he'd been in a less than ideal living situation before he'd met Erwin, and he knew how to survive out in the world. "Tell me the story."
Keith sat his drink down. "You may have heard of the Maria Tree Baby before - they say there was a baby found inside the hollow of a tree."
"Yeah, I heard it," Levi said. Just an hour ago, he'd spoken to one of the firefighters who'd found the baby all those years ago. "They never found a mother, so they just put him up for adoption or whatever."
"They never did find her," Keith said, "but I think I know what happened to her."
Levi stared at the man. "You know what happened to her... and you didn't tell the cops?"
"Who would believe me?" Keith asked, looking wistfully into the distance. "What would they say if I told them what I told your boyfriend?"
"And? What did you tell him?"
Keith sighed. "I suppose - I'd better start at the beginning.
"Carla was my friend. This town, it's small. We all know each other, some of us since birth. It was like that with Carla. We went to school together, hung out at the park, I even took her to senior prom."
Keith chuckled at the memory, but his laugh faded as he continued.
"I liked her, 'course. She was - how do you say it? Perfect? Of course, she wasn't perfect, who is, but to me, all her flaws and imperfections made her, well, her. We dated, for a while, but - didn't work out. I didn't mind too much, because we were still friends. At least, until... him."
""Him?"" Levi raised an eyebrow. Keith narrowed his eyes, bitter at whoever this man was.
"Grisha Jaeger turned up on the edge of town one day, with no memory of where he came from or who he was, just a name. He and Carla hit it right off, and... they fell in love. It was hard, watching them together in love, but I figured that it was best for Carla if I let her be with the man she loved." A grim look overtook Keith. "I was dead wrong. After maybe a year of the two dating, Grisha claimed to remember his home and family. And the two of them took off to find them.
"I didn't see Carla again for a long time. A little over a year, it was, when she showed up on my doorstep - she'd been crying, and her hair was knotted, and she was pregnant. We talked, but not about anything important. Not about Grisha, or what they'd been doing, or her baby. She avoided any questions I brought up. I figured he'd hurt her, that she was running away from him."
