The first thing Daniel Cross learned about impending disasters was that they rarely waited for you to finish panicking.
The second thing he learned was that running through an unfamiliar building with a frightened teenager and a suspicious boy named Arlen was an excellent way to discover how badly maintained the building actually was.
A wooden staircase collapsed beneath his left foot.
He caught the railing.
The railing came away in his hand.
For one spectacular moment, Daniel was suspended above a dark opening, contemplating the possibility that he might survive the Titans only to die because some ancient carpenter had been paid by the hour.
Eren grabbed the back of his jacket.
Arlen grabbed Eren.
All three boys nearly went over.
"Pull!" Eren shouted.
"I'm trying!"
"Then try harder!"
Daniel looked down into the darkness.
"Excellent advice. I'll inform gravity that we're negotiating."
With a final heave, they dragged him onto the landing.
Daniel lay on his back for two seconds, breathing hard.
Then he sat up.
"Nobody mentions that."
Eren stared at him.
"Mentions what?"
"My almost-death. It was embarrassing."
"You almost fell through a staircase!"
"Exactly. I have standards."
A distant explosion shook dust from the ceiling.
The joking stopped.
Through a narrow window at the end of the corridor, Daniel could see smoke rising over the rooftops of Shiganshina.
People were running through the streets.
A horse galloped past a vegetable cart, scattering cabbages across the road. A woman clutched a child to her chest while shouting for someone who was nowhere to be seen.
Then a second explosion sounded.
The window trembled.
Daniel's stomach tightened.
This was not supposed to happen yet.
The system's countdown had dropped below seventeen minutes, but the distant destruction suggested that the situation had already begun to unfold.
He opened the interface.
[WORLD EVENT: TITAN BREACH]
[Estimated time until direct encounter: 00:15:09.]
[Timeline deviation: INCREASING.]
[Cause of deviation: UNKNOWN.]
[Recommended action: Evacuate civilian population.]
Daniel stared at the recommendation.
"Thank you," he muttered. "I'd never have thought of that."
The system remained silent.
Naturally.
It could identify an impossible biological signature beneath a city, but it apparently couldn't provide a useful map.
"Daniel!" Eren called.
He turned.
Arlen was standing near the stairs, staring through the window.
His face had gone white.
"There," Arlen whispered.
Daniel followed his gaze.
At first, he saw only the rooftops.
Then something moved behind the buildings.
A pale shape rose above them.
A head.
An enormous head.
The creature's face was stretched into an expression that might have been a smile if nature had been feeling particularly cruel.
Its bare shoulders appeared above the rooftops.
Then it took a step.
A building disappeared behind its legs.
Daniel felt his mouth go dry.
He had seen Titans before.
He had studied their movements, watched them devour people, and begun to understand how their bodies operated.
None of that made seeing one from this distance any easier.
The creature tilted its head.
Its eyes seemed to wander aimlessly across the district.
Then it smiled.
Eren stopped breathing.
"That's a Titan," he whispered.
Daniel grabbed his shoulder.
"Yes."
"It's inside the district."
"Very observant."
"People are going to die!"
The words struck harder than Daniel expected.
Eren wasn't looking at him anymore.
He was staring at the streets below, where civilians were beginning to realize that the screaming had a source.
Daniel remembered something he had been trying to forget.
He was not the protagonist of a story.
He was a man trapped inside a world where people died horribly, often without accomplishing anything particularly meaningful first.
He could evolve.
He could gain extraordinary physical abilities.
He could potentially become something far more dangerous than an ordinary Titan.
But none of that guaranteed he could save anyone.
The system flickered.
[EVOLUTIONARY RESPONSE AVAILABLE.]
[Condition: Acute predatory stress.]
[Potential adaptation: Enhanced threat perception.]
[Cost: Increased neural strain.]
[Accept adaptation?]
Daniel hesitated.
His instincts told him to accept.
His previous experiences with the system told him that every gift came with a bill.
"Not now," he muttered.
[ADAPTATION DECLINED.]
Arlen looked at him strangely.
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. I'm arguing with my terrible life choices."
He moved toward the stairs.
"We need to get outside."
Eren followed immediately.
Arlen remained where he was.
Daniel stopped.
"Are you coming?"
Arlen looked toward the underground passage.
"I need to go back."
Daniel stared at him.
"No."
"You don't understand."
"I understand that there is a giant man-eating monster outside, people are screaming, and you're considering returning to the place where something with a personal grudge against me is locked beneath the floor."
"It's not locked anymore."
Daniel's expression hardened.
"What?"
Arlen looked away.
"The hatch was already damaged before we opened it."
A cold silence settled between them.
"How long?" Daniel asked.
"I don't know."
"How long has it been damaged?"
"Since yesterday. Maybe longer."
Daniel closed his eyes.
He wanted to scream.
Instead, he took a slow breath.
"Arlen, listen carefully. Whatever is down there, whatever you think you can fix, you are not going back alone."
"I'm not asking you to come."
"Wonderful. I wasn't offering."
Eren stepped between them.
"We don't have time for this!"
For once, Daniel agreed without qualification.
They descended the remaining stairs and emerged into a narrow alley.
The district had become a maze of panic.
People pushed past them in every direction. A merchant abandoned his cart in the middle of the road. Two soldiers hurried toward the inner streets, shouting orders nobody seemed to understand.
A horse lay injured near a broken fence.
Daniel looked toward the distant rooftops.
The Titan had moved out of sight.
That was not reassuring.
Titans were considerably more dangerous when you couldn't see what they were doing.
"Which way to the evacuation route?" Daniel asked.
Eren pointed toward the eastern street.
"The main road leads toward the gate."
"Then that's where we're going."
"We should help those people," Eren said, pointing toward a family struggling to pull an overturned cart from the road.
Daniel followed his gaze.
A middle-aged man was trapped beneath the cart's wooden frame. His wife and two children were trying to lift it, but the wheel had lodged against a broken section of stone.
Nobody else was stopping.
Daniel looked toward the eastern street.
Then back at the family.
He swore.
"Of course."
He crossed the road.
"Eren, get the children away from the wheel. Arlen, help me lift."
The man beneath the cart was conscious and cursing loudly.
"Stop pulling my leg! You'll tear it off!"
Daniel crouched beside him.
"Good news. If I wanted to tear your leg off, I'd probably start with the other one."
The man stared at him.
"Are you mad?"
"Frequently. On three."
They lifted.
The cart barely moved.
Daniel gritted his teeth.
His arms trembled as he pushed upward, and pain burned through his shoulders.
The system flashed.
[PHYSICAL OUTPUT: 87% OF CURRENT HUMAN LIMIT.]
[WARNING: MUSCULAR DAMAGE IMMINENT.]
Daniel ignored it.
"Again!"
Eren joined them, bracing his shoulder against the wooden frame.
Arlen pulled at the opposite side.
This time, the cart shifted enough for the trapped man to drag himself free.
He collapsed onto the road, clutching his injured leg.
His wife threw her arms around him.
"Thank you," she sobbed.
Daniel was already backing away.
"Save the gratitude. Get moving."
The family hurried toward the eastern street.
Eren watched them go.
For a moment, his expression was almost peaceful.
Then a scream rose from behind the buildings.
A second Titan appeared at the end of the street.
It was smaller than the first, perhaps seven meters tall, with a round belly and thin arms that swung loosely at its sides.
Its head turned toward the fleeing family.
Then it began to run.
Daniel felt his heart slam against his ribs.
"Move!"
The family scattered.
The Titan lunged forward and caught the father by the torso.
His scream ended when the creature lifted him toward its mouth.
His wife stood frozen.
One of the children began crying.
Daniel moved before he had time to think.
He snatched a discarded stone from the road and hurled it at the Titan's head.
The stone bounced harmlessly off its forehead.
The Titan turned.
Its enormous eyes settled on him.
Daniel stared back.
For one terrible second, he felt like a mouse that had just insulted a hawk.
Then the Titan dropped the man.
The body struck the road.
The creature opened its mouth and began walking toward Daniel.
"That," Daniel whispered, "was not my best decision."
Eren grabbed his arm.
"Run!"
They ran.
Behind them, the Titan's footsteps shook dust from the buildings.
Daniel's lungs burned.
His legs felt heavier with every step.
He had no weapons capable of killing it, no equipment for maneuvering around its body, and no convenient rooftop positioned for a dramatic counterattack.
He was just a man with a system that seemed determined to make his life more complicated.
They turned into a narrow passage.
Daniel shoved Eren ahead of him and slammed a wooden door behind them.
The Titan's hand smashed through the wall.
Splinters exploded across the room.
Daniel threw himself sideways.
The creature's fingers swept through the space where his head had been.
Eren fell against a table.
Arlen dragged him upright.
Daniel seized an iron cooking pot and struck the Titan's fingers with it.
The pot bent.
The Titan barely noticed.
Daniel stared at the ruined utensil.
"Well, that was humiliating."
He threw it at the creature anyway.
Then they ran through the opposite doorway.
They emerged into a courtyard filled with abandoned barrels and broken furniture.
A ladder leaned against the far wall.
Daniel pointed.
"Up!"
Eren climbed first.
Arlen followed.
Daniel was halfway up when the Titan reached the courtyard.
Its hand closed around the ladder.
The wooden rungs snapped.
Daniel dropped.
He hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
Pain flashed through his back.
The Titan's shadow swallowed him.
For a moment, he could only stare upward.
The creature leaned down.
Its mouth opened.
Rows of blunt teeth filled Daniel's vision.
He tried to move.
His body refused.
The system appeared.
[CRITICAL THREAT.]
[Predatory response activated.]
[Biological transformation available.]
[Transformation stability: 19%.]
[WARNING: Severe tissue rejection likely.]
Daniel stared at the numbers.
Nineteen percent.
He had no idea whether that meant a nineteen percent chance of surviving the transformation or a nineteen percent chance of maintaining control afterward.
Either interpretation was unpleasant.
The Titan lowered its head.
Daniel made his decision.
"Do it."
[TRANSFORMATION INITIATED.]
Pain detonated through his body.
His spine arched.
His jaw locked.
Something inside his chest seemed to split open as heat rushed through his veins.
He heard Eren shouting his name.
Then the world vanished beneath a flash of white light.
For a fraction of a second, Daniel experienced something that did not belong to him.
A vast, dark expanse.
A forest of enormous trees.
A figure standing beneath a pale sky.
And a voice speaking from somewhere beyond the horizon.
"The first one has awakened."
Daniel tried to answer.
He had no mouth.
The voice continued.
"Then the wall will bleed."
Something seized him and dragged him backward.
The vision shattered.
Daniel opened his eyes.
He was no longer lying on the ground.
His body had grown.
His hands were enormous, their skin darkened and stretched across powerful muscles. Steam rose from his shoulders.
He looked down at himself.
A Titan.
Not the ordinary, grotesque shape of the creatures roaming the streets.
His frame was leaner, more compact, and covered in dense muscle. His fingers ended in thick, dark nails. A ridge of hardened tissue ran from his shoulders down his spine.
His mouth hung open.
He could feel the air moving through lungs far larger than his human ones.
He could also feel something else.
Hunger.
Not the ordinary hunger of a man who had skipped lunch.
This was a deep, instinctive demand that seemed to originate in every cell of his body.
Consume.
Grow.
Survive.
The system flickered.
[DEVOURER FORM: UNSTABLE.]
[Estimated duration: 00:02:41.]
[Warning: Cognitive interference detected.]
Daniel forced himself to look away from the Titan standing before him.
The creature hesitated.
For the first time since entering the courtyard, it appeared uncertain.
Daniel took a step forward.
The ground cracked beneath his foot.
He looked down at the damage.
"Oh," he rumbled.
His voice sounded like distant thunder.
"That's going to be expensive."
The Titan lunged.
Daniel moved.
He didn't know how.
One moment the creature was reaching for him; the next, he had slipped beneath its arm and struck its torso with both fists.
The impact sent it crashing into the courtyard wall.
Stone crumbled.
Daniel stared at his hands.
A horrible grin spread across his face.
"All right."
He flexed his fingers.
"That is considerably better than the cooking pot."
The Titan scrambled upright and charged again.
Daniel met it head-on.
They collided with a sound like a falling building.
He felt its teeth tear into his shoulder.
Pain exploded through the Titan's body.
His body.
For a moment, the two identities seemed to overlap.
He was Daniel Cross.
He was the Devourer.
He was something that had been hungry long before he arrived in this world.
The Titan tried to bite deeper.
Daniel seized its jaw.
His fingers dug into the creature's face.
The hunger surged.
Consume.
His vision darkened at the edges.
A message flashed before his eyes.
[CONSUMPTION OPPORTUNITY DETECTED.]
[Target biological signature: STANDARD TITAN.]
[Potential reward: Regenerative tissue adaptation.]
[Risk: Predatory instinct amplification.]
Daniel's grip tightened.
He could kill it.
He could consume it.
He could become stronger.
But something about the creature's exposed face reminded him of a nightmare he had experienced before waking in this world.
A white room.
A child's hand against glass.
Someone screaming for help.
Daniel hesitated.
The Titan tore free and struck him across the face.
He crashed through a wooden fence.
Pain and rage collided inside his skull.
He rose slowly.
The creature approached.
Daniel's fingers curled into fists.
"Fine," he growled.
He charged.
This time, he didn't hesitate.
He drove his fist into the Titan's throat, forcing its head backward, then seized the back of its neck and hurled it against the courtyard wall.
The creature collapsed.
Daniel stood over it, breathing heavily.
The system flashed.
[HOSTILE TARGET INCAPACITATED.]
[CONSUMPTION OPPORTUNITY REMAINS AVAILABLE.]
He looked at the creature.
Then at his own hands.
He didn't know what consuming another Titan would do to his mind.
He didn't know whether the process could be reversed.
And he didn't know if he would still recognize himself afterward.
He stepped away.
[CONSUMPTION DECLINED.]
[WARNING: EVOLUTIONARY PRESSURE INCREASING.]
[UNSTABLE FORM DURATION: 00:01:06.]
Daniel turned toward the broken doorway.
Eren and Arlen stood on the opposite side of the courtyard.
Eren stared at him with an expression Daniel couldn't interpret.
Fear.
Shock.
Wonder.
Perhaps all three.
"Daniel?" Eren whispered.
Daniel tried to answer.
A low growl escaped his throat instead.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.
When he opened them again, Eren was still standing there.
That was something.
The system flashed once more.
[MEMORY FRAGMENT RECOVERED.]
[ARCHIVED RECORD: PROJECT DEVOURER.]
[ORIGINAL SUBJECT: DANIEL CROSS.]
[FINAL RECORDED STATEMENT:]
"IF THE SUBJECT DEVELOPS HUNGER, DO NOT ALLOW HIM TO FEED."
Daniel stared at the message.
A sudden chill cut through the heat of his transformed body.
The original Daniel Cross had known about the hunger.
He had known it would happen.
And he had left a warning.
Not for the military.
Not for the people who had created the system.
For whoever became the Devourer.
Daniel looked down at the unconscious Titan.
The hunger whispered again.
Consume.
Grow.
Survive.
He clenched his fists until his nails pierced his palms.
"No," he growled.
For one moment, the hunger receded.
Then a tremendous crash shook the district.
The entire courtyard trembled.
Dust rained from the rooftops.
Daniel turned toward the distant wall.
Beyond the buildings, an enormous column of steam rose into the sky.
The system's interface changed.
[WORLD EVENT CONFIRMED.]
[THE COLOSSAL TITAN HAS BREACHED THE OUTER GATE.]
[HISTORICAL TIMELINE: SEVERELY DEVIATED.]
[UNKNOWN BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE DETECTED.]
[LOCATION: OUTER WALL.]
[Signature match: 98.7%.]
Daniel froze.
The system had identified the Colossal Titan.
But the second signature was what made his blood run cold.
It matched his own.
Not completely.
Not enough to establish certainty.
But enough to suggest that whatever lived beneath the quarantine chamber was connected to the creature standing beyond the walls.
Daniel stared into the rising steam.
His transformation began to falter.
The skin along his arms cracked.
His vision blurred.
He could feel his human body waiting beneath the Titan's flesh, fragile and exhausted.
One final message appeared.
[DEVOURER SYSTEM: EMERGENCY ARCHIVE UNLOCKED.]
[WARNING: THE FIRST DEVOURER HAS BEEN LOCATED.]
[IDENTITY: UNKNOWN.]
[STATUS: ACTIVE.]
[PROXIMITY: INCREASING.]
Daniel looked toward the outer wall.
Somewhere beyond it, something was coming.
And for the first time since awakening in this world, he wondered whether the Titans were truly the predators.
Or merely the prey.