Alternate | Aruani

Chapter 1: A unfamiliar place

He sat up from the cold wood floor with a grunt. Looking around, the room was not the one he usually sleeps in, where was he? And where is she? Questions started to form in his head wondering what was happening. He tried looking back what happend the night before, but wasn't successful trying to do so.

He stood up and walked around the room with ocean blue walls and wooden shelves filled with many kinds of books. He stayed calmed collecting all his thoughts, trying to form an answer how he got there.

'Maybe this is a dream?' He thought and pinched his skin hoping he'd wake up but he didn't.

"Where am I then?" He asks himself, looking at his forearm and his palm turning it over and over again, and clenching his knuckles.

"Armin! It's mom... sorry about last night can I come in?" A lady on the other side of the door said. He stayed quiet questioning what he had just heard.

'Mom? How? she's dead...' He thought and looked at the door thinking whether he should answer or not.

"Yeah sure." he said loud enough for her to hear. She opens the door, Armin looked shocked once she came in view. She went closer and hugged him.

"I'm sorry we got you in the stupid fight, we're good now don't worry." Her voice had a hint of guilt in it. He hasn't seen her since he was little, she died. He's unsure if this lady is his mother or not but they have the same look, voice, and smell. He hugged her back, his lips slowly formed into a small smile.

"I m-missed you m-mom." He whispered, and patted his back, rubbing it slowly.

"I know I know, I've been gone for weeks after all." She said pausing and continued "Come on then let's eat breakfast, your father is waiting."

"Son! Come let's have breakfast!" The middle aged man invited him into the breakfast table, he looks like Armin's father too, he stares at him at them both. He stopped himself from hugging the man, knowing that this people might not be trustworthy. Though the fact that they are like them and acts like them, makes him wonder if they really are his parents.

'Why are they here? They died, what is this place? This reality?' He thought, slowly sitting on the chair and ate his food. The table was quiet, awkward quiet, the adults kept on glancing at each other, trying to open up a conversation but none came out. Armin wondered why they were being like this, if they are his parents like the ones from when he was little, why is there a huge wall between them?

'The fight. The fight m-mom mentioned from last night... what was it about?' He looks down on his plate, seeing the food sort of disfiguring.

"Huh?" His thick eyebrows furrowed as he stared at his food.

"I-Is there something wrong?" The lady asked him and he shook his head.

"No nothing is wrong, maybe my eyes are playing tricks with me" He said and the two adults eyed each other. They nodded their heads and continued to eat.

* * *

His door unlocks with a brunette boy peeking through. His green eyes met with Armin's blue ones.

"Eren?" He mutters looking at the boy with confusion. Again a dead loved one of his' appeared.

"Hey." The brunette fully entered the room, with Mikasa following him. The day just keeps getting weirder for Armin, they died but here they are in his presence, young and well.

'First mom and dad, now Eren? We look younger too. Where am I?'

"W-what brought you here?"

"Zeke invited us to play baseball but we were short with players, wanna come?"

'Zeke? He's dead too, is this some sort of a place where dead people are alive, I'm not complaining but it's odd, everything here is odd, maybe I'm the odd one? I should join them, I need to observe as much as I can.' Armin thought and he went by it, he joined them, they headed out and Eren led them to where Zeke and the other kids were at.

"You seem off today, are you okay?" The brunette asked the blond; whose movements have been subtle enough for them to notice. Keeping his eyes straight to where they are headed.

"Uhh who? me?" The blond pointed at himself, buying himself a short time to think of an excuse.

"Yes you! You've been acting weird is something wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong, just a bit forgetfull today." He lied, with his excuse they won't ask much about him not knowing anything later on since they'd think he just 'forgot'.

"That's unlike you."

"I know, I don't know how I just became forgetful today." Eren hummed to his reply and they continued to make their way to where the others situated.

"Zeke!" The boy yelled and ran towards his older brother, followed by Mikasa and lastly Armin who stared for a while. Some kids were with him, but he couldn't make out all of them.

"You guys took long. Anyway let's divide into two groups. Eren you pick the ones on your team and I pick the ones on mine. You go first."

Eren ended up with Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Sasha, Connie, Marco, and Ymir. And Zeke got Annie, Bertholdt, Reiner, Pieck, Porco, Colt and Floch. Both teams were short with members and decided to just work with it.

(I don't know a thing about baseball.)

As the game went on, Armin closely watched each and one of them. Especially this particular blonde, who seems lost in thought too, who kept a straight face the way through the game. Unlike him who couldn't, he was too preoccupied in his head.

The game took long with many rounds, the skies now painted orange, with the sun sitting on the horizon.

Both teams were taking a rest on the nearby bench. Armin still wondering about this place and the unusually normal things here. No walls, no titans, no war, no deaths, no hatred between people. Such things he and his comrades have always wished for. Some things they never have experienced.

Someone was too experiencing the same thing, with their story quite like the boy's. Where was he really from? Why is he here? Is he alone? Stuck? What's going to happen to out protagonist?