The laughter came from below.
Daniel Cross had heard men laugh while dying. He had heard frightened soldiers laugh because they couldn't think of anything else to do. He had even heard himself laugh once, shortly before a situation became so catastrophically bad that his brain apparently decided fear was no longer worth the effort.
This was different.
The sound was quiet, wet, and terribly patient.
It rose through the narrow opening beneath the quarantine hatch, echoing along the stone passage like someone standing at the bottom of a well.
Then it stopped.
Daniel tightened his grip on the iron bar in his hands.
Behind him, Eren Jaeger swallowed audibly.
Arlen stood beside the damaged wall with his lantern held high. Its flame trembled, casting long shadows across his pale face.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Finally, Eren whispered, "Was that a person?"
Daniel stared into the darkness.
"Probably."
"Probably?"
"Would you prefer that I confidently tell you it was a friendly old man living under the city?"
"No!"
"Then stop asking questions you don't want answered."
Eren glared at him.
Under different circumstances, Daniel might have enjoyed the exchange.
Unfortunately, the thing beneath them had laughed in response to Eren's question.
Not immediately.
Not accidentally.
It had waited until the boy finished speaking.
Then it had laughed.
Daniel felt the muscles along his spine tighten.
Something down there understood them.
Or at least understood the rhythm of human conversation.
That was enough to make him reconsider every decision that had brought him into this miserable underground hole.
A translucent interface appeared before his eyes.
[DEVOURER SYSTEM]
[ENVIRONMENTAL ANOMALY DETECTED.]
[Location: Abandoned Quarantine Chamber.]
[Biological signatures detected: 1.]
[Classification: INCOMPLETE.]
[Warning: Signature contains traces of a previously registered evolutionary pattern.]
Daniel's breath caught.
Previously registered.
He focused on the final line.
[Retrieve archived classification?]
A second message appeared.
[ERROR: ACCESS DENIED.]
[Reason: ARCHIVE CORRUPTION.]
Daniel almost laughed.
Of course.
His supernatural ability to turn living creatures into evolutionary upgrades had apparently been designed by the same incompetent administrator who managed the rest of his life.
He dismissed the interface.
"Arlen," he said quietly. "How much do you know about this place?"
The older boy looked uncomfortable.
"I told you. It was abandoned years ago."
"That wasn't my question."
Arlen lowered the lantern slightly.
Daniel stepped closer.
"You knew about the hatch. You knew there was a quarantine chamber beneath this building. You knew enough to lead us directly here. So either you're hiding something, or you're the most suspiciously well-informed idiot I've ever met."
"Which one do you think is more likely?"
"At the moment? Both."
Eren moved between them.
"Can we argue later? Whatever is down there—"
Three knocks sounded beneath their feet.
Slow.
Measured.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The iron hatch shuddered.
Eren stumbled backward.
Arlen nearly dropped the lantern.
Daniel didn't move.
A fourth knock followed.
Then a fifth.
Then the sound of fingernails scraping against metal.
Something was climbing.
"Everybody back," Daniel ordered.
This time, neither boy argued.
Daniel dragged a broken wooden cabinet across the hatch's edge. The furniture screeched against the stone floor.
It was a pathetic barricade.
He knew it.
The creature probably knew it.
Still, having a piece of furniture between himself and a possible subterranean nightmare made him feel marginally better.
The scraping stopped.
A soft voice drifted through the hatch.
"Daniel?"
His blood turned cold.
Eren looked at him.
Arlen's expression went completely blank.
Daniel tightened both hands around the iron bar.
The voice came again.
"Daniel Cross."
It knew his full name.
Not the name of the body he had inherited.
Not some nickname he had acquired since arriving in this world.
His actual name.
The name of the man who had died somewhere else and awakened inside a nightmare populated by giant man-eating monsters.
For one terrible moment, Daniel forgot how to breathe.
Then the system flashed.
[CRITICAL WARNING.]
[Foreign informational intrusion detected.]
[Attempting to isolate compromised memory structures...]
[FAILED.]
A sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes.
Images flooded his mind.
A white room.
Glass walls.
A table covered in instruments.
A child's hand pressed against the other side of a window.
Someone screaming.
And a voice he recognized as his own, though it sounded younger.
"Don't let them feed me again."
Daniel staggered.
The iron bar slipped from his fingers and clattered against the floor.
"Daniel!" Eren caught his shoulder.
Daniel shoved him away instinctively.
"Don't touch me!"
The words came out harsher than intended.
Eren recoiled.
For a moment, guilt cut through Daniel's panic.
Then the voice beneath the hatch spoke again.
"You took so long."
The wooden cabinet moved.
An inch.
Then another.
Daniel forced himself upright.
"Arlen," he said, keeping his eyes on the hatch. "Tell me what happened here."
Arlen didn't answer.
"Arlen."
"I don't know."
"Try again."
The older boy's hands shook around the lantern.
"They said the chamber was sealed because of an accident."
"What kind of accident?"
"People died."
"People die everywhere. What made this place special?"
Arlen's lips parted.
Before he could answer, the system interrupted.
[ARCHIVE FRAGMENT RECOVERED.]
[PROJECT DESIGNATION: DEVOURER.]
[SUBJECT STATUS: UNKNOWN.]
[ORIGINAL SUBJECT IDENTIFICATION: DANIEL CROSS.]
Daniel stared at the message.
Original subject.
His mouth went dry.
The world seemed to tilt around him.
There had been another Daniel Cross.
A Daniel Cross who existed in this world before he arrived.
A Daniel Cross connected to whatever was locked beneath the walls.
The system had not merely given him a power.
It had recognized him.
Or mistaken him for someone who had once possessed it.
Neither possibility was comforting.
The cabinet slammed upward.
A blackened hand emerged through the narrow gap between the hatch and the floor.
Eren screamed.
Arlen dropped the lantern.
The flame rolled across the stone, illuminating the hand for a fraction of a second.
Its fingers were too long.
The skin was gray and cracked, stretched over bones that seemed to bend in the wrong places.
Then the hand disappeared.
The hatch fell back into place.
Silence returned.
Daniel bent slowly and retrieved the iron bar.
His hands were trembling.
He hated that.
He hated the fear, the uncertainty, and the sickening realization that the world was becoming larger in precisely the way he had hoped it wouldn't.
He had spent the last several days worrying about Titans.
Apparently, he had been neglecting the possibility that something else lived beneath them.
"Move," he ordered.
Eren blinked. "What?"
"We're leaving."
"But we haven't—"
"We have discovered that a thing beneath the city knows my name, can manipulate my memories, and possesses fingers that look like they were designed by a drunk surgeon. Our investigation is over."
Arlen hurried toward the passage.
Eren hesitated.
Daniel grabbed the boy's collar and pulled him along.
"You can complain when we're somewhere without a murderous basement."
They had almost reached the stairs when the system appeared again.
[EMERGENCY OBJECTIVE GENERATED.]
[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE FIRST CONTACT.]
[Primary requirement: Prevent biological contamination.]
[Secondary requirement: Preserve the integrity of the Eren Jaeger anomaly.]
[Failure consequence: Irreversible evolutionary interference.]
Daniel stopped.
He read the message twice.
Then he slowly turned toward Eren.
The boy frowned.
"What?"
Daniel said nothing.
Preserve the integrity of the Eren Jaeger anomaly.
The system had classified Eren as an anomaly before.
Now it was treating him like something that could be damaged by whatever waited below.
Daniel's eyes moved toward Arlen.
The older boy had gone pale.
"What's wrong with him?" Daniel asked.
Arlen stared at Eren.
"Nothing."
"That answer is becoming very expensive."
"I said nothing!"
His sudden outburst echoed through the corridor.
Eren stepped back.
"Arlen?"
The older boy's expression crumpled.
For a moment, Daniel thought he was going to cry.
Instead, Arlen reached into his coat and pulled out a small brass key.
"I wasn't supposed to bring you here," he whispered.
Daniel raised the iron bar.
"Congratulations. You're finally contributing useful information."
Arlen ignored the remark.
"They told me the chamber was empty. They said the records were destroyed. But when I found the old documents, there was a list of names."
He looked directly at Eren.
"Your name was on it."
Eren went very still.
"What?"
"Not just yours. There were other children listed. Some were marked as deceased. Some were marked as transferred."
Daniel felt his stomach tighten.
"And mine?"
Arlen hesitated.
"Your name wasn't on the original list."
That was somehow worse.
Daniel stepped closer.
"Then why did you bring me here?"
"Because a new entry appeared three days ago."
Arlen turned the brass key over in his trembling fingers.
"It was written in fresh ink."
Daniel already knew what he was going to say.
He wished he didn't.
"Daniel Cross," Arlen whispered.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then a bell rang somewhere above them.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Not the ordinary bell that marked the hour.
The emergency bell.
Its metallic cry rolled through the abandoned building and into the streets beyond.
Daniel looked toward the stairs.
"What does that bell mean?"
Arlen's face had lost all color.
"It means the military has discovered that the quarantine chamber was opened."
"Wonderful."
A fourth bell rang.
Arlen looked at the ceiling.
"No," he whispered. "That's not right."
Daniel turned toward him.
"What isn't?"
"The fourth bell."
Another metallic clang shook the passage.
Arlen began backing away.
"That bell only rings when a breach has been confirmed."
Daniel felt a chill crawl beneath his skin.
"We haven't breached anything."
Arlen shook his head.
"Not this building."
The sound of running footsteps thundered overhead.
Voices shouted in the distance.
Then came a noise that Daniel recognized immediately.
The grinding crash of stone collapsing.
Somewhere beyond the walls of the abandoned building, people began screaming.
The system opened before his eyes.
[WORLD EVENT DETECTED.]
[LOCATION: SHIGANSHINA DISTRICT.]
[EVENT CLASSIFICATION: TITAN BREACH.]
[WARNING: HISTORICAL EVENT TIMELINE HAS DEVIATED.]
[Estimated time until direct encounter: 00:18:42.]
Daniel stared at the countdown.
Eighteen minutes.
He had no idea how a breach had occurred earlier than expected.
He had no idea why the system was associating the event with a chamber beneath the city.
And he had no idea why the voice that had called his name was now whispering from somewhere behind the walls.
But he understood one thing.
The original story was no longer moving according to its original rules.
Daniel tightened his grip on the iron bar.
Then he looked at Eren.
"Stay close to me."
Eren swallowed.
"Why?"
Daniel glanced at the countdown.
"Because apparently the universe has decided that today is the day we all discover how badly things can go wrong."
Behind them, deep beneath the stone floor, the thing in the quarantine chamber began laughing again.
This time, it was not alone.
Something answered from much farther away.
Something enormous.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, Daniel felt his system recoil.
[UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED.]
[WARNING: TARGET EXCEEDS CURRENT THREAT CLASSIFICATION.]
[DEVOURER INSTINCTS SUPPRESSED.]
[RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT APPROACH.]
Daniel stared at the final message.
Then he heard the walls begin to scream.