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  Approaching dawn that broke over the opulent inner district of Wall Sina wasn’t really the cheerful kind. It was a pristine, golden dawn that should have promised a day of leisurely strolls in manicured gardens and the gentle clinking of fine China. Instead, the air, clean and crisp just hours before, carried a faint, coppery tang that clung to the back of the throat, a secret whispered on the breeze that something beautiful had died horribly in the night.

  The commotion had started with the screaming. Not the dramatic, sustained screams of a street brawl, but the raw, primal, shrieking terror that could only be torn from a human throat in the face of the utterly incomprehensible. It had drawn a crowd, as such things always do. They gathered at a safe distance beyond the low stone wall of the property, a flock of silk-robed and sleep-rumored spectators as their faces were a mixture of morbid curiosity and practiced disdain.

  "Probably a drunken brawl," a man in a velvet smoking jacket muttered to his wife, who clutched her shawl tighter.

  "Disgusting. In this neighborhood? Hendricks always was a bit simple." another woman sniffed, as if the servant's alleged incompetence was the true crime.

  Most, however, said nothing. They simply watched with hooded eyes. In Sina, the first and most important rule of survival was to mind one's own business, especially when the Military Police were involved. And they were here now, a splash of grim green and steel against the pastel perfection of the estate.

  Three MPs stood in the garden, their presence an anchor of grim reality in the surreal scene. The garden was a complete warzone. The decorative sheep pen was a slaughterhouse, the dressed ground now churned to mud and saturated with dark, drying blood. The carcasses of sheep lay scattered, not just killed, but dismantled. Ribs gleamed white through torn fleece, heads were separated from bodies with brutal, ragged tears.

  But the centerpiece of the horror was what was left of Hendricks. It wasn't a body; it was a ruin. The MPs had thrown a coarse canvas sheet over most of it, but a single, pale hand was visible, fingers curled into a final, agonized claw, and the shape underneath the sheet was all messed up; too low, too spread out. A dark, viscous pool of blood had seeped from beneath the canvas, soaking into the expensive imported grass.

  Two of the MPs, a stocky man with a perpetual sneer and a younger, greener-looking one who was trying very hard not to look at the sheet, as they were "interviewing" the owner of the house. The husband, a man named Alistair, was a portrait of shattered privilege. His fine nightclothes were torn and stained with dirt and his own blood. A thick, pristine bandage was wrapped around the left side of his face, covering the space where his eye used to be. He was trembling, but it was a tremor of pure, undiluted fury.

  "-And for the fourth time," Alistair snarled with a cracking voice, his patience already thinned out long ago, "it wasn't a person! It wasn't a damned Titan! It was a beast! A demon! I saw it with my own eyes!" He jabbed a trembling finger at his bandaged face. "DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE WORK OF A MAN TO YOU?"

  The stocky MP, Corporal Graf, sighed with an air of profound boredom. "Sir, please, lower your voice. We're conducting an investigation. You said it was a large animal. A wolf, perhaps? There have been… unconfirmed sightings."

  "Unconfirmed?" Alistair laughed, a harsh, broken sound. "You think I did this to myself? You think my wife is hysterical? That thing… its eyes…" His voice trailed off, the rage momentarily eclipsed by a memory so terrifying it stole his breath. The world around him; the skeptical MPs, the gawking crowd, the morning sun; all dissolved, yanking him back into the visceral, blood-soaked darkness of just a few hours prior.

  “Its…eyes…”

  Few hours ago…

  The first thing that had pulled Alistair from his wife's embrace was the sound. Not the initial, wet cacophony from the garden; that had been muffled, dismissed as Hendricks clumsily dealing with the livestock. No, this was the frantic, terrified, screaming bleats of his remaining sheep. It was a sound of pure, animalistic panic that went on and on, shredding the peaceful silence of the night.

  "By the Walls, can that man not do one simple thing?!" Alistair had grumbled, extricating himself from his wife. "I pay him to keep the animals quiet, not to incite a bloody riot!"

  Grabbing a heavy, brass-handled torch from its sconce, he’d stormed out into the cool night air, his irritation a shield against the first prickle of unease. "Hendricks! If you've let a fox in there, I'll have your wages for a month!"

  He reached the pen, the lamp oil cutting a wobbly path through the darkness. The bleating was deafening. And then he saw it. First, the fallen torch, its wood snapped in half, and a small, guttering flame licking at the spilled oil. Then, the dark, sprawling shape near the fence. He thought it was a sack of feed at first, until the lamp glistened on the red.

  He took a step closer, his heart hammering against his ribs. It was Hendricks. Or what was left of him. The body was… opened up. Mutilated beyond recognition, chunks of flesh ripped away, the architecture of bone and sinew exposed in a grotesque display. The coppery smell of blood was so thick it was a taste.

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  “By the beards of Fritz…” Alistair muttered fearfully to himself.

  A low, wet, tearing sound came from the other side of the pen. Alistair’s gaze, wide with horror, swung towards it. One of his last sheep was pinned down, and something was on top of it. Something big. In the shadows, he’d thought it a massive wolf, a freak of nature. He opened his mouth to yell, to scare it off.

  Then he pointed the oil lamp directly at it.

  The creature lifted its head from its meal.

  It was a hound, but a hound from a fever dream. Its body was sleek and powerful, built for speed and slaughter. But its fur… V-shaped patterns along its chest and spine glowed with a sick, deep light-blue, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm. And its face… its face was a smooth, eyeless dome.

  Until it wasn't.

  As it focused on this new interruption, on the light and the man holding it, six vertical slits tore open across the smooth flesh of its head. They peeled back, not like eyelids, but like wounds, revealing six orbs of the same malevolent blue light, all locking onto him with predatory intensity.

  It wasn't a fox. It wasn't a wolf. It was a demon.

  A guttural, earth-shaking growl rumbled from its chest, a sound that vibrated in Alistair's bones. The creature rose to its full, terrifying height, easily over two meters tall on all fours, blood and saliva dripping from its needle-filled maw.

  "St-Stay back!" Alistair stammered, thrusting the oil lamp forward like a sword. "I'm warning you!"

  The demon took a step forward, its six eyes burning into his soul. Alistair’s courage shattered. He turned and ran, his heart trying to burst from his chest. The back door of his house was only twenty feet away. Safety. Civilization.

  He was five feet from the door when the air in front of him shimmered. It was like looking through warped glass. Then, with a sound like a muffled thunderclap, the creature materialized, phasing into existence directly between him and his sanctuary.

  Alistair stumbled, falling hard on his backside, scuttling backward like a crab. The beast advanced, its growl a promise of evisceration.

  "Alistair, darling? What in the world is—?" His wife's voice called from the doorway, then cut off in a strangled gasp. She saw it. To her credit, she didn't freeze. He heard her scramble inside, and a moment later, a heavy ceramic vase sailed through the air and shattered against the creature's shoulder.

  The demon flinched, its heads snapping towards the new threat. It was the distraction Alistair needed. He scrambled to his feet, lunged for the door, and practically fell inside. He and his wife slammed the heavy oak door shut, throwing the bolt just as something massive slammed into it from the outside.

  THUMP.

  The wood splintered around the lock.

  THUMP.

  A long, clawed paw, wickedly sharp and stained with blood, punched through the solid oak panel, swiping blindly at the air inside. The growls from outside were no longer of hunger, but of pure, incandescent rage.

  Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The claw retracted. Silence.

  "It’s… it’s out of its mind…" his wife panted, clutching a fireplace poker.

  But then, a sound from the top of the grand staircase. A low, clicking growl. They looked up. The creature was there, at the head of the stairs, having somehow gotten inside. It had phased through the second-floor walls. Its six eyes blazed down at them.

  The chase was a blur of screaming and terror. They fled through the upper hall via the other staircase, the beast loping after them with terrifying, fluid speed. Alistair shoved a heavy dresser in its path; it simply phased through the solid wood, the dresser shuddering violently in its wake.

  In a desperate move, Alistair turned to face it, trying to shield his wife. "Run! Get to the panic room!" (Does Paradis even have something like that???)

  The beast swiped. A searing, white-hot pain exploded in the left side of his face. Before he knew it, he was lifted off his feet, shaken like a ragdoll, the world a nauseating whirl of pain and blue light, before being thrown against the wall. He slid down, dazed, his vision swimming in a haze of red. He could feel a warm, empty socket where his eye had been.

  The demon stood over him, its bloody maw opening for the killing bite.

  Then, a scream of pure fury erupted. His wife was there, not with the poker, but with a long, sharp carving knife from the kitchen. She lunged, driving the blade deep into the centermost of the creature's six glowing eyes.

  The effect was instantaneous and shocking. The creature didn't just roar in pain; it shrieked, a high-pitched, almost psychic sound of agony and… memory? It recoiled violently, clawing at its face, the blue light in the wounded eye flickering and dying. It whimpered, a pathetic, wounded animal sound. Its entire form seemed to destabilize, its vision distorting violently as it thrashed. Then, with another distorting shimmer, it simply vanished, leaving behind only the scent of blood, ozone, and a single, black-tinged droplet of ichor where it had stood.

  Alistair blinked, the memory releasing him back into the harsh morning light. He was breathing in ragged gasps; his hand pressed against his bandaged face.

  “…And just like that, it was gone.”

  The younger MP, who had been taking notes, looked up, puzzled. "Sir, you said it… phased? Through a solid door?"

  The third MP, a man with a sketchpad, approached Corporal Graf and the younger one. He showed them his draft. It was a grotesque, almost heraldic image: a massive, canine-like beast with six glowing eyes and strange, glowing patterns along its body, it looked messy but it was close to the description of the witness as he could get.

  "See? This is what the wife described," the sketching MP said quietly.

  Graf scoffed. "Looks like a child's nightmare. Or the ravings of a drunk."

  He turned back to Alistair, whose his patience was entirely gone. "Sir, we have a report of a wild animal attack. A tragic death. We will file it accordingly. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have real crimes to attend to."

  That was the final straw. Alistair lunged forward, grabbing Graf by the front of his uniform. "DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M JOKING?!" he screamed, spittle flying into the MP's face. "DO YOUR DAMN JOB! THAT'S WHAT OUR MONEY IS FEEDING YOU BASTARDS FOR!"

  The other two MPs pulled him off. The sketching MP gave a curt, apologetic nod to the fuming nobleman. "Thank you for your contribution, sir. We will… look into it."

  As Alistair stormed back into his violated home, the three MPs huddled together.

  "The hell’s his problem?" the younger one asked, nodding after Alistair.

  Graf just rolled his eyes. "Hysterical rich folk. Probably spooked their own livestock and the servant got caught in the stampede. The eye? Probably fell on a rake in the dark."

  The MP with the sketchpad, however, stared at his drawing, his face pale and serious. "Corporal… this looks nothing like a dog. And the wife was… very specific. The phasing. The eyes appearing."

  "So? She's crazy too."

  "Remember the report from a couple years back?" the sketching MP pressed, his voice low. "The three kidnappers on the outskirts of wall Maria? The ones they said were likely mauled by wild dogs? The scene was… messy. And one of them had a kitchen knife buried in his chest. They said it couldn't have been the kids they kidnapped. What if… what if it was the same kind of thing?" (Remember chapter 2 with Eren as wildmutt, that’s what he’s talking about)

  Graf stared at him, then snorted. "You read too many fairy tales. Come on, let's wrap this up. File it under 'Animal Attack - Cause Unknown' and be done with it."

  They turned to leave, but the artistical soldier lingered for a moment, looking back at the bloody garden, then down at his drawing of the six-eyed demon.

  He was over-serious, they said. A stickler. But as he walked away, a single, chilling thought echoed in his mind, a thought his colleagues would dismiss as paranoia, but one that felt like a shard of ice in his gut.

  ‘If this thing is real… and it's been inside the walls with us… for years now… then what the hell else is in here?’

  Chapter 21-30 are already available on P a tre on . com (slash) Weeb Fanthom.