YEAR 3023.
The world isn't flat. It's stacked—twenty levels high.
The rich live in the sky. The poor rot beneath the clouds.
Every floor means status. Every floor means survival.
And Level 3?
Level 3 is where the real war begins.
Eren's only sixteen, but he's already wearing armor, loaded with live rounds, and sitting in the middle of nowhere watching ghosts move through smoke.
He likes it.
The tension.
The rush.
The war.
Outpost 9. One of the few still holding strong.
Six soldiers. One mission: monitor the border and report any illegal trades.
Tonight's quiet… too quiet.
Jarro, the squad leader, scans the ridge. "Eyes open. Don't let the silence fool you."
Rek, the sniper, doesn't even look up from his scope. "Crates. Four men. No insignias."
"Black market?" Nol asks, shouldering his AK.
"Probably," Vesh grunts, tightening his grip on the minigun strapped to his chest. "Could be scrap tech. Could be fragments."
Kree laughs. "Crystals? You swallow that and next thing you know, you're puking lightning."
Rek says it calm, like he's naming a ghost. "Unless you're born from Cake."
Everything stops.
No one speaks.
Because they all know the name.
Cake.
The girl they trained to survive poison. The one who ate the first and only crystal and didn't die.
She didn't become a hero. She became an experiment.
She had seven kids. Then she died.
But one of her daughters still walks the levels.
Emma.
People call her a living weapon. Untouchable.
The last thing you see if you ever piss off the wrong name.
Eren breaks the silence. "So she's real? I thought that was just some fear story for rookies."
"She's real," Jarro says. "And if you're smart, you don't say her name twice."
Then—
BOOM.
The outpost explodes.
Fire and debris tear through steel.
Kree is gone. Just… gone.
One second laughing—
The next? Nothing left but pieces of metal and ash.
Eren's thrown back, ears ringing, vision blurred.
"NO—NO—NO—KREE!!"
Nol's screaming, digging through rubble, eyes wide and frantic.
Vesh is down, leg torn open, blood spraying from his thigh.
"I'M HIT—SHIT—I'M HIT!!"
Jarro yells, diving behind cover.
"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK—RETURN FIRE—NOW!!"
Eren doesn't panic. He doesn't even flinch.
His rifle's already up, scanning for movement.
Rek fires from the rooftop. "Two in the trees. Fast movers."
"I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU—YOU BASTARDS—YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!!"
Nol's voice is cracking, broken. He grabs Kree's gun like it's a lifeline and starts firing wildly into the smoke.
"STAY DOWN!" Jarro shouts. "HOLD POSITION!"
The enemy isn't just some ragtag group—they're trained, they're loaded, and they came to bury this post.
Eren pulls the pin on a grenade. Calm. Steady. "Frag out."
The blast clears some of the smoke.
One enemy drops, body shredded.
But they're not retreating.
They're getting closer.
Eren reloads. Breathes in slow.
No fear. Just cold calculation.
He didn't come here to die.
Nol's still screaming, still unloading bullets into the smoke.
"COME ON THEN—COME ON!!"
A sharp crack.
Then silence.
Rek slumps forward, a clean shot through the head.
His sniper rifle hits the metal roof with a hollow clang.
"Shit—SHIT!!" Jarro pulls Nol back behind cover. "WE'RE BEING FLANKED!"
But it's too late.
A figure bursts from the smoke, masked, fast.
A blade—not a gun. A blade.
SLICE.
Nol gasps.
Blood sprays like mist across the broken wall.
He tries to speak.
He tries to scream.
But all that comes out is choking, wet, and final.
Then Nol collapses beside Kree, his brother.
Vesh, still bleeding out, screams as he pulls himself toward the mounted minigun.
"GET SOME—YOU MOTHER—!"
BRRRRTTT.
He lets loose a wall of metal death. Bullets cut trees in half. Dirt and bodies fly.
Two enemies go down.
One tries to crawl. Doesn't make it.
But another RPG arcs out from the forest line.
BOOM.
The gun and Vesh go up in the same instant.
What's left rains down in smoking scraps and burning flesh.
"WE'RE LOSING THEM!" Jarro shouts, blood on his face, eyes wild. "WE HAVE TO FALL BACK—NOW!!"
Eren doesn't move.
He watches as three of his teammates—brothers—die in front of him.
His ears ring.
Everything slows.
The air itself seems to vibrate.
He grips his rifle tighter.
Feels something boiling just beneath his skin.
Something is awake.
Something hungry.
"Jarro…" he says quietly. "Get behind me."
"What are you doing?!"
"I don't know," Eren whispers. "But something's coming."
And he's not talking about the enemy anymore.
The sky rips.
Not from thunder.
Not from jets.
From her.
A streak of burning light drops like death itself.
No warning. No sound—until impact.
KRAAAAAAAAOOOOOOM!!!
A thunderclap of raw force.
The explosion tears the world apart from the far ridge—half a mile from their outpost.
But the shockwave?
It hits everything.
BOOM.
Eren's body is thrown like a ragdoll.
Jarro too—spun into the air, armor scraping metal, gear flying off like shattered feathers.
Eren crashes into a rusted barricade, helmet splitting at the seam.
His rifle skids off into smoke and dust.
Then—
SILENCE.
Not peace.
Just the kind of silence that shouldn't exist.
Eren's ears ring with a high whine.
No gunfire.
No yelling.
No breath.
He gasps. Blinks.
His mouth opens but nothing comes out.
He can't hear.
He looks at Jarro, slumped and coughing beside him, yelling something—but it's all muted. Muffled.
Then he sees it.
Off in the distance—past the haze, past the smoke and war machines—
A crater.
Huge. Deep. Glowing at the edges.
And her.
At the center.
Not moving.
Not pacing.
Just standing.
Emma.
She hasn't noticed him. Not yet.
She's facing the other direction, backlit by the crater she carved into the earth like a divine scar.
The wind shifts. The dust lifts.
Eren pushes himself up, knees shaking.
His heartbeat is louder than the world.
Then—
She turns.
Slowly. As if she felt him.
Her eyes lock with his.
She doesn't speak.
She doesn't flinch.
She just stares.
Like she already knows his name.
Like she already knows how this ends.
Eren's breath catches in his throat.
And then—without breaking eye contact—Emma kneels down, scooping glittering fragments from the soil. Tiny crystal shards, glowing faintly in her hand.
She rises.
Touches her ear.
Speaks.
Listens.
Nods.
He can't hear a word.
He doesn't need to.
Her stillness says it all: mission complete.
She looks at him once more—one last, unreadable stare.
Then her boots lift from the ground.
WHOOOOM.
A pulse of force knocks dirt from the earth as she launches.
A streak of white fire trailing upward into the clouds.
Gone.
Just like that.
Eren stands in the wreckage—deaf, dazed, and full of questions.
The ground smolders beneath his boots.
And something inside him whispers:
That wasn't human.