Arc 2 — Old Frost
CHAPTER 15 (White)
Bob shifted in the front passenger seat.
"Guys."
Nobody responded.
"Guys."
Still nothing.
"HEY---"
The tunnel end was a line.
Thin. Pale. Far away.
Then not so far.
Then---
White.
BLINDING.
The RV burst from the mouth of the tunnel, and light exploded through the windshield like a detonation. Total. Instant. Merciless.
Everyone lurched forward.
Eren. Silas. Mark. Bob.
All of them pressed toward the front, shielding their eyes, trying to see---
"GUYS." Wade's voice cracked from behind the wheel. "GUYS. MOVE. I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING."
Nobody moved.
"YOU'RE ALL IN MY---"
"Move," Eren said.
They shifted. Barely.
Wade exhaled sharply through his nose.
Slowly---the white burned down.
And Zemlyia appeared.
It rose from the frozen earth like something ancient and furious that refused to finish dying. Brutalist towers of black concrete clawed upward into a pale, colourless sky. Enormous. Severe. Their faces blank and cracked---shattered windows hollow as dead eyes, entire facades collapsed inward, spilling mountains of frozen rubble down their sides like open wounds. Skeletal cranes jutted from broken rooftops at wrong angles. Rusted deep orange against grey.
The scale of it pressed through the glass.
Snow covered everything.
Thick. Grey-white. Undisturbed on broken ledges. Packed, dark and filthy below. It swallowed pillars. It buried whatever had once stood at street level. It filled the mouths of every alley and choked every dead fountain and sat heavy on every surface that hadn't yet collapsed.
It wasn't snowing.
It didn't need to.
Silence filled the RV.
Nobody spoke.
"...Stop here," Eren said.
Wade hit the brakes.
Eren pushed the door open and stepped out.
The cold hit him like a wall. Sharp. Punishing. Dry in a way that sat deep in the chest.
His boots found cracked paving stone beneath the snow.
He took one step forward.
Two.
Then---
Pain.
SUDDEN. VIOLENT.
It detonated behind his eyes without warning, driving through his skull like something forcing its way in. He staggered. Both hands flew to the sides of his head. His knees buckled---
One hit the ground hard.
"Ani?..."
The voice.
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Inside him. Not outside.
"...Eren?"
"NGGHHH---!"
The sound tore out of him before he could stop it. Raw. Uncontrolled. He drove his fist into the snow-covered stone, and his whole body shook with it.
Inside the RV---
Avelin's eyes snapped open.
She was upright before she was fully awake, moving before she knew where she was, out the door before anyone else reacted.
Her boots hit the ground.
Eren was on one knee. Head bowed. Arm trembling. About to go down completely.
She crossed the gap in three steps and caught him.
Both hands gripping his arm. Holding him up. Holding him together.
Eren's breathing came ragged. He lifted his head slowly.
Looked at her.
"...Oh," he said. "You're awake."
"Obviously," she said. "Can you stand?"
He planted his foot and pushed upward.
She steadied him.
He straightened---
"Stay."
The voice again. Low. Close. Like it was right behind his ear.
"...Wait."
His jaw locked.
He stood anyway.
Fully upright. Jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
Then---
Something warm on his upper lip.
Avelin's eyes dropped.
"Eren."
"I know."
"Your nose---"
"I know."
He raised one hand and wiped it across his upper lip. Dark red smeared across the back of his knuckles.
He stared at it for a second.
Then the pain eased.
Not slowly.
All at once.
Like a door closing.
The voice went silent.
The pressure lifted.
He exhaled through his nose and lowered his hand.
Avelin hadn't let go of his arm.
Eren steadied himself.
Breathed once.
Then looked left.
Through the grey light and the frozen rubble---a structure. Half-collapsed. One wall fully gone, two others cracked and leaning, a partial roof still clinging to the top like it hadn't decided yet.
Big enough.
"Mark."
Mark turned.
Eren nodded toward it. "Park the RV in there. Hide it."
Mark followed his gaze.
"We're camping there?"
"Temporarily."
Mark looked at it for another second.
Then nodded once.
"Wade. You heard him."
The fire was small.
Just enough.
It sat in the center of the broken floor, throwing low orange light up the cracked walls, shadows shifting in the gaps where the structure had given way to open sky. Snow sat heavy on the partial roof above them. Cold pressed in from every open edge.
Around the fire---
Mark. Bob. Wade. Silas. Avelin. Eren.
Nobody was talking much. The warmth of the fire did what warmth does after a long enough day---it made the silence feel earned rather than empty.
Bob stared into the flame.
Wade leaned back against the wall, arms crossed.
Silas sat with his knees drawn up, eyes distant.
Avelin stood.
"I'll scout the perimeter," she said. "Check for anything close."
She glanced at Eren.
He was already getting up.
Outside, the cold returned immediately.
They moved together along the outer wall of the structure, boots quiet on the snow. Zemlyia loomed in every direction---dark towers, broken skyline, the hollow sound of wind cutting through dead architecture.
Avelin stopped.
Eren turned.
"Avelin?"
She wasn't looking at him. Eyes forward. Jaw slightly tight.
"...Lately," she said. "You've become strange."
Eren said nothing.
"It seems like you're hiding something." She paused. "From us."
A beat.
"It's nothing," he said.
She turned her head and looked at him.
He held her gaze.
Neither of them spoke.
The wind moved between the towers.
Back at the fire---
Mark was prodding the flame with a stick.
Bob had his eyes closed, not quite sleeping.
Wade stared at the ceiling gap, watching the dark sky between broken concrete.
Silas hadn't moved.
Then---
A sound.
Stone under weight.
Everyone looked up.
On the half-broken wall above---a figure.
He landed from somewhere above without a sound, one boot finding the broken edge of the wall, the other following. He straightened slowly.
Long white coat. Double-breasted. A peaked cap, white, low over his brow. Dark uniform beneath. Red armband at the sleeve. Black gloves. A long rifle resting across one shoulder, held loosely---the way people hold things they don't need to think about.
Green hair. Pale. Easy expression.
The kind of easy that isn't relaxed.
The kind that's decided.
He looked down at them with something close to amusement.
"Greetings, travellers."
His eyes moved across the group.
Then landed on Silas.
And stopped.
The amusement left his face.
All of it.
What replaced it had no name that was polite.
His voice dropped.
"Don't," he said simply. "Make the mistake of aggression."
Nobody moved.
He reached into his coat.
Pulled something small.
And dropped it.
It hit the ground ten feet to their right---
BOOM.
The explosion tore through the floor, dust and stone fragments blasting outward in a violent ring. The fire scattered. Debris rained from the partial roof. The walls shook.
Far enough not to kill.
Close enough that nobody breathed.
The ringing settled slowly.
Outside---
The sound hit Eren and Avelin like a fist.
Both of them were already moving before it finished echoing.
Back through the dark. Around the wall. Through the gap.
Eren came in first.
Dust still hanging in the air. Fire dying on its side. The group pressed back against the far wall, wide-eyed, unhurt.
And above them---the man. Still on the wall. Still standing. Still unhurried.
His eyes moved to Eren.
Just for a second.
Something passed across his face.
Unreadable.
Then back to the group.
"Consider this a warning," he said.
His voice hadn't changed.
"Go against the Hammer---"
He let it sit for a moment.
"---and you'll be crushed."
He stepped back off the wall.
Clean. Backward. Into the dark.
Gone.
Eren crossed the room in three steps and reached the wall---
"WADE---!!!"
Mark's voice.
Eren turned.
Wade was on the ground near the blast site. The lower half of his body buried under a collapsed section of wall that hadn't held through the explosion. He was conscious. Trying to move.
Not moving.
"I'm fine---" Wade started.
"You're not fine," Mark said, already crouching, hands finding the edge of the rubble.
Eren dropped beside him.
Both hands under the slab.
"On three," Eren said.
Mark gripped the other edge.
"One---"
Wade braced his arms against the floor.
"Two---"
"Three."
The rubble shifted. Groaned. Lifted.
Wade dragged himself free.
He collapsed back against the floor, breathing hard, legs scraped and bruised but intact.
Mark let the slab drop.
It hit the ground with a heavy, final crack.
Dust rose.
Settled.
Eren looked at Wade.
Then at the wall where the man had been.
Empty.
Dark.
Cold.
Author's Note
