The Experiment (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) (Part 1)

Antidote

Hanji suddenly got much worse a few hours after falling into a restless slumber. However hard he tried, Levi could no longer rouse her. Her breathing became irregular, her pulse erratic. Her fingernails turned black.

So it was what he had dreaded: She had been poisoned.

Death, so a saying in the Underground, had a seat at every table. But even though it was their constant companion from the moment they took that first gulp of putrid air, Levi had found it impossible to get used to the idea that people simply ceased to exist once Death took them. That however much someone might scream, kick, and fight, they always lost the battle in the end. One moment here, the next... a final rush of air out of their lungs and they were gone, leaving a terrifying emptiness behind.

As a small child, he had dared hope he could bargain with Death. He had found a small bird lying in the muck behind their house, stirring feebly when he poked it with a finger. Levi had carried the fluffy creature home, feeling its heartbeat flutter against the palm of his hand. His mommy had told him that prayers were a good thing because they sometimes gave you hope - and so Levi had prayed: to Death, the Great Taker, to spare the little innocent bird who had had the misfortune to fall down into the darkness from its world of light.

His mother sometimes told him about that world of brightness. She enthused about a blue thing called sky, which apparently could change color at will. He didn't quite believe that but decided not to spoil her wondrous stories with his doubts and was quietly content instead to see his mommy's eyes light up when she allowed herself to remember joyful things.

Because it proved that the outside she cherished so much truly existed, the bird was an invaluable treasure to him. He made a comfortable nest for it from colorful rags, which he put into the corner next to his mattress. He fed it flies, maggots and spiders several times a day. Very soon, the bird lifted its head every time Levi entered the room, chirping in anticipation. It made him very happy.

But one day it stopped chirping. There was something in its eyes on that dreary morning, something that haunted Levi in his nightmares for months afterwards. It was a desperation that knew no salvation, a knowledge of the end that was coming.

He couldn't, wouldn't accept such a thing. So he had tried to bargain. He had promised Death a finger. When the bird continued to fade away, a hand. A hand and an ear. He had even added his foot to the offer... if only Death let the bird live its full life, he could take Levi's limbs.

It was all in vain.

Death did not bargain. Death did not listen. Death only took and gave nothing back. The bird had become a lumpy cold thing from one moment to the other, with glassy, unseeing eyes.

"You cannot do anything against it," his mother had tried to console him, when she had removed the dead animal from his room. "Every living thing has to die."

And now, in this hideout from a life long ago, Death sat down at the table to wait for his next quarry.

"You won't get her too," Levi shouted, "go the fuck away!"

His limbs shaking from the cold fear that gripped his heart, he balled his hands into tight fists. But there was nothing he could hit, nothing he could kill, nothing he could do to make this better.

Yet, Levi searched the shelves like a maniac, even though he already knew there was nothing in the carefully boxed up provision that would help Hanji. In his panic, he had fled to a place he instinctively associated with shelter. Only... in the months of his absence, the underground city had become something he no longer quite knew, a place that no longer felt like he belonged. He should have gone to a doctor when there was still time. He had suspected poison right away, so why had he not done that? Or better, he should have let the military police whisk her away and bring her to a proper hospital. He should have claimed he had kidnapped her so that only he would have to go to prison.