Word Count: 2497

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IT HAD been 10 minutes of just straight running for the two best friends, after they finally arrived at their destination. Eren didn't protest the entire way as Mikasa dragged him along, not knowing at all where she was going. When they did stop, however, they found themselves standing in front of a two-story house painted grey, with a black car parked outside of the garage that sat at the front of the house.

'Where are-' Mikasa slightly gasped as she realized where they were. Subconsciously, Mikasa had led the way to Armin Arlert's house, their other most trusted friend. Mikasa turned around to Eren, prepares to tell him that they were at Armins house, when she was interrupted with a loud crash that seemed to have come from the house before them.

'What was that?! Did it have to do with Armin?! Is he okay?!" Mikasa thought frantically as she started walking towards the house, determined to find out for herself. Although, there was no need, as the front door to the house slammed open to reveal a very frightened and heavily breathing Armin. He stumbled towards his two friends, still in shock from what he witnessed inside of his own home.

"Armin! Are you alright, what happened?!" Mikasa grabbed onto her friends' shoulders, shaking him a bit out of worry.

It took him a few tries as he struggled to get his emotions in check enough for him to speak, but he eventually managed it, and held onto Mikasa while she still had her arms on him, and squeaked out,

"I-I'm okay. Y-you don't have to w-worry about me, Mika. I'm okay."

Mikasa nodded as she pulled him into a tight, reassuring hug, comforting him the only way she knew how: wordlessly and possessively.

She, however, almost instantly pulled back from the hug as soon as she felt something warm and sticky in the back of Armin's shirt.

"A-Armin...are you sure, alright?" Mikasa hesitated as Armin broke from the hold that he was in and looked at his friend. His eyes were searching hers, looking for something that was unknown to Mikasa.

"Um, Mika, can you promise not to get mad if I tell you?" The second he stopped talking he wobbled in his place, his footing suddenly too unstable for him to continue standing properly. Mikasa quickly grabbed onto him and supported him by putting his left arm on her shoulders as she wrapped her right arm around his waist. She turned her head a bit so that she could look at his back, only to see a giant red stain gradually getting bigger and bigger by the second.

"What the-Armin! You're bleeding!" Mikasa took his arm off of her and carefully, treating him as if he were a ceramic vase, placed on the ground; his stomach being met with the grass that lightly grew in the front of the home. While she gently set him down, he cried out, the pain a bit too much in the moment.

"How in the bloody hell have you not passed out?!" Mikasa hastily pulled the back of his shirt up, and gasped as soon as she saw the giant gash that ran from the nape of his neck all the way to his lower back. The cuts weren't deep, just long, and losing too much blood.

"Please, Mika. N-no bad words," Armin meekly said, too tired to realize how much blood was gushing from his backside.

"Really, Armin? You're worried about my language and not you're own well-being?! Hah, sometimes I wonder how well you would do if you were forced to survive all on your own," Mikasa sourly whispered.

She ripped the bottom edge of her frilly shirt as well as Armin's', and wrapped both makeshift bandages around his back tightly, giving him the best medical attention that she could in the moment.

"Hey Armin, dont you have gauze in your house? Or at least something to clean out the-what are these? Scratches?" Mikasa asked of her bleeding friend, trying her best to be a amateur nurse for him.

"N-no! We can't go back in there, Mika! I-I can't...go back." Armin lifted his left arm and weakly gripped onto the red scarf that was wrapped lightly around Mikasa's neck, conveying the message to her that he couldn't stand going back inside of his own house.

Mikasa so badly wanted to know why, but she didn't overstep the boundaries that Armin had created, respecting his fear for whatever resides in the home.

"Well, this is the best you're gonna get then. I can't help you much more than this," Mikasa concluded as she finished up wrapping his back.

"Good, that's all I need. Thank you Mikasa," Armin gratefully thanked his friend.

"By the way, Mikasa, w-why are you guys here? Did something...bad happen?" Armin paused for a second before he said the word 'bad' as Mikasa helped him up with care, squinting his eyes and gritting his teeth at the pain.

"Well, yeah. Something bad did happen. It was.." Mikasa started, but trailed off, thinking up an excuse so as not to depress her already sad friend more.

"It was bad Armin. Really, really bad. But for now, can you please not ask what the bad thing was? I don't want to scare you with the-" she cut herself off, trying to think of the right word to describe the horror show that had occurred at Eren's place, "-disturbing details."

Eren perked up a bit at this, the sound of his mothers screams plaguing his mind, and thrusting him into the deep, dark crevices of his mind that never stopped replaying the scene of his father tearing his mother apart.

Armin paled as he imagined what could have happened to his two best friends, figuring that it was way worse than what his mother did and said to him. At the thought of this, Armin imagined his mother hurting his friends like she did him, and that was enough to get the adrenaline pumping through his veins, and the irrational thoughts to fill his mind.

They had to get away, he couldn't let his friends get hurt. He couldn't lose more of the people he loved. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

"Guys...backyard, now!" All three of them ran towards the house at Armin's command, already knowing what he was getting at. They raced to the side of the home; reaching a wooden gate-like door that blocked outsiders from getting into the back.

"Hurry up and unlock it, Mikasa!" Eren whisper-shouted to her as she fiddled with the lock on the gate. The two other kids were quite surprised that Eren spoke up after being so quiet this entire time, but paid it no mind as they were too focused on the task at hand.

"You know, I would, if you would stop moving around so much!" Mikasa stopped working the lock for a second to look down at Eren's fidgeting form as he held her up on his shoulders, helping her reach the lock since none of them could reach it on their own.

"Stop arguing you two! We don't have time for any of this!" Armin frantically pointed at the door, signaling that they needed to hurry it up. He was on his last nerve, and feeling like he was gonna faint at any point in time didn't help in the slightest.

Mikasa made a "hmph" like sound and turned back around, returning her attention to the gate, and managing to unlock it.

"Go, go, go!" Eren yelled as Mikasa jumped off of his shoulders, already sprinting into the back. They ran down a small pathway that had gravel covering the ground, and took a short turn as soon as it ended, of which opened up to the huge yard that accompanied the house.

Ahead of them to the left was the pool with a very small deepend, and in front of them to the right was the huge grassy space that had luscious green bushes here and there, and two big trees on each side of it. To the very right was a long bike rack that stretched about a meter long. Three bikes were present in the rack, a blue one, a black one, and a red one.

Eren is the first to reach the rack and grabs onto the black bike, pulling it out and hopping on it, ready to go at a moments notice. Then comes Mikasa, hastily grabbing onto the red bike, pulling it out, and partially getting onto it like Eren.

Then lastly comes Armin, slowly dragging himself over to the last bike, fully getting on it and pedaling as soon as he does. His two best friends that he has picked up the habit of considering brother and sister, follow closely behind him, monitoring his health and closely observing his movements.

As the three of them turned left, and went down the narrow path that led to the front of the house, they noticed someone was blocking their exit.

Armin's mother was standing there, an unusual hungry look present in her eyes.

Armin started to slow down, scared out of his mind at what his mother might do if she caught them.

'Not again. Please, not again,' he thought, suddenly getting very lightheaded at the thought of what she did to him.

His pedaling became a little sloppy as he put his foot out onto the rocky floor, and stared deeply into his mothers crystal blue eyes, coming to the realization that he might never see her again as long as his bike kept on moving.

He took what little time he had left looking at her memorizing her features; the cute, and small freckles that spread from the bridge of her nose, all the way to the edge of her cheek bones, her short, blonde, and wavy hair fluttering in the small breeze that suddenly drifted down the small path, and her long, flowy, floral dress that stopped at her knees, bringing out her soft, and elegant features well.

He snapped out of the little stupor that his parent had put him in, seeing as he was about to just straight up run her over with his bike, when she slammed into the wall next to her, harder than she needed to at that, her instincts taking over at the three moving threats coming straight for her, and watched as she growled at them, wanting something, needing something, that she could not have.

Eren winced as he passed by her, noticing that her face was beginning to rot, strickinly similarly to his father's, and caught a whiff of what she smelled like. Unlike Armin, who had had not enough time to see what she's looked like; and not enough focus to really pay attention, only remembering what she used to look like.

'Just like dad. She smells...just like dad,' Eren had thought as he sped by, scrunching up his nose, and preventing the tears that pricked the corners of his eyes from falling.

As Eren, Mikasa, and Armin pedaled away from the place that all three of them used to call home collectively, Eren briskly looked back at Armin's mother once again, letting one single tear slide down his already tear-stained cheek, before turning around to look at the retreating forms of his friends' backs, and aggressively wiping his face with his arm.

^^^^^^^^^

The trio had been pedaling on their bikes silently for several minutes as Mikasa and Eren followed Armin, trying to solve the puzzle that was their strange predicament and what had happened between him and his mother.

'Where is Armin taking us? How well is he holding up?
Is his back alright?' Mikasa thought once.

'Is Armin really okay? Should I ask? No, he didn't ask me, so I shouldn't ask him,' Eren wondered.

'What is happening, and why are we having to deal with whatever is going on?' they simultaneously asked themselves.

"Okay, we're here," Armin said quietly, pointing at a house that sat nicely in front of them. It was one sorry and was painted a light yellow. It didn't really stand out, and it didn't look much different from the hosie they just came from.

"Armin, where are we?" Eren asked as he looked at the house, making sure that there weren't any strange and scary adults around like the last two times.

"My grandma's house," Armin responded, putting the kickstand that his bike had down with his foot, and trying and failing to get off his bike.

"Armin!" both of his friends shouted as they made it to his side as fast as possible after situating their bikes like he did.

Eren got to Armin faster, and held him the same way that Mikasa did before.

"And why, exactly, are we ate your granny's house?" Mikasa crossed her arms sassily, raising her brow at her friends' way of thinking. She wasn't complaining so to speak, she was just, curious, was all.

"I was a little worried about my grandmom. I-I just...really want to make sure she's okay. I also couldn't think of anywhere else we could go," Armin explained, barely holding onto consciousness.

"Well, geez, Armin. You could have told us that before so we wouldn't have worried the whole time," Eren whined, thinking that his concern for his delusional friend was all for nothing.

"At least you get a bonus for caring, Eren," Mikasa sarcastically pointed out, patting his shoulder and making her way to the front door of the little house that supposedly was owned by Armin's grandmother.

"Whatever, Mika. It's not like you ever actually care," Eren retorted back, slowly walking along with Armin so as not to hurt him while they went.

Mikasa snorted, amused by Eren's comeback. She didn't say anything else, however, as she knocked on the stained, wooden door leading into the home.

It took a few seconds before someone actually answered, revealing a short, blonde-haired girl with the same crystal eyes and freckle-covered face as Armin's mother. She wore a long, orange dress that stopped at her feet, of which were covered with white tennis shoes. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, but even so, it still reached her upper thighs. It was surprising how beautiful she was, especially since she looked so young.

"Yui?!"

Hey guys! I'm sorry if at times the chapter is a bit slow, I just had to get some characterization and Armin best boi in this, so. I'm a little unhappy with how I ended the chapter, only becuz it complicates how I'm gonna write the next chap. But oh well, I guess.

Anyway, as always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

That's all I have to say, and,
To have a good day you shall!

-wen_ur_actual_trash
2494 words