Chapter Text
Snowflakes danced across the barren terrain, and a soul was not to be found in sight—at least, not one with a beating heart and blood rushing through their body.
The husk of the man he once was, tanned skin now a dull grey, eyes once so vibrantly sea-green reduced to a lifeless green. Eren Jaeger was just shy of twenty when the disease broke through the lands, infecting the lives of Earth.
It had been a few years now, and Eren had only made it a few months before a hoard cornered him; nobody could say it was a miracle that Eren had become a zombie instead of devoured on the spot. Not that anybody could speak, considering how things had gone.
Eren took a heavy step, snow crunching underneath his feet with every stumbled step taken. His once wide, now slanted, eyes stared straight ahead. The world was a blur to the man, unable to register the snowflakes on his ice-cold body or the lack of proper clothing. Days passed easily; nothing seemed to matter when the hunger persisted.
Hunger was all he could feel in his empty stomach, starved and desperate for a meal. The body he possessed felt frail and distant, every step leaving the man to stumble and shake, every movement an abrupt jerk and a growl on his cold blue lips.
The outbreak had been sudden; there was no warning, no buildup, nothing. Eren had been in his dorm room and sat beside his frenemy, Jean, who he shared a room with. The conversation was all but a distant blur, nothing that the absent mind of Eren could remember.
They had been arguing; the other male sat in the bed across from him, hands gesturing wildly. Eren could never remember what happened next—a vague tremor in the ground, and then everything went dull to his brain.
It was odd, his brain forgetting and blocking out the most crucial part of the outbreak, and yet he remembered just how the sunlight poured in from the window and highlighted the sharp angles of Jean’s face, his honeybrown eyes twinkling as he argued.
An Eren who lived would’ve fantasized over his lips on the others; now all he wanted was to sink his teeth into Jean’s angular face, to tear the pale skin off the bone, and feast. It’d be a meal, one for a king and not one he deserved.
No, he would not mindlessly tear apart the man, no matter how desperate and starved he was. Eren would take his time; he’d leave not a scrap behind. It’d be his first meal in years; no other flesh could compare to Jean’s.
The zombie had been desperate, only a few weeks into his zombie-fied life when he spotted a survivor, a man with a narrow body, long hair, and rounded glasses on his face. Eren wasted not a second before he was atop the man, bloodied and rotted hands clawing into the other’s flesh as teeth sunk into a narrow shoulder, growling between greedy bites.
The man did not fight; he screamed, but he never raised a hand to Eren, only sobbing and begging for the Lord’s forgiveness. Eren never questioned it, not when he needed the other’s blood to fill his own empty stomach; he needed to feel intestines between sharp teeth and the tender meat.
Eren left nothing behind, but even to the zombie, it was not enough, ever so greedy even when dead.
Another step, another crunch below him, the trees bared to the root and hung heavy with snow that clung to persistent leaves. The air was frigid and numbing, and the sun was hidden behind thick, dark clouds that left the world around freezing.
Animals loitered around the bumbling zombie; they knew better than to run considering no zombie yearned for their flesh; it never quite tasted the same as the density of human flesh and blood.
Another step, a new crunch to the ground, had his head lifting, dull eyes looking through long ratted brown hair. Considering Eren had not smelt a human, he was in no desperate desire to rush ahead, to eat whatever lay there.
As he looked, the figure of a large deer stood only a mile or so away, head held high as if it had something to prove. Eren stared, an oddity even for him considering it was no human. But it was familiar. It left the man’s undead heart to awaken, only for a brief moment.
Recognition flashed in his eyes, his torn lips opening before all clarity smeared away as quickly as it came, any thought he had now wiped away with the rest of his identity. Eren was neither a man nor anything to be grieved over. He simply existed as a husk, a cruel reminder of what humanity had become.
Infrequently the brunette would see other zombies; there was no hive mind or cognitive conversation between them. They simply existed among each other, all competing to find a meal first, all before they were wiped away.
A growl slipped from torn lips, stumbling forward as he fell into the trunk of a tree, torn fingernails scratching at the bark, his growls becoming more animistic as he attempted to pull himself up. It must’ve been a root that tripped him, hidden below the layers of snow.
The growls became louder as he struggled, the cold temperature leaving his body to feel frozen and useless, his legs slumped and bent against the tree, his arms progressively slowing as the fight to get up became harder. The determination was there, always has been, but his body fought against the forced desperation to get up and dine.
The brunette slowly lowered himself to the ground, croaking and groaning from torn vocal cords as he slumped into the snow, torn pants collecting the snow as it seeped into the fabric and pressed against gray skin.
The zombie's back pressed against the trunk of the tree, legs laid out in front of him as his nails dug into the snowy ground, head hung as thick hair hid his face.
The husk of his body demanded he get up—hell, even to crawl. He was so hungry, he needed something. Pitiful growls left him, attempting once more to pull himself to his feet before he collapsed once more, a long whine slipping past his lips. Eren was so hungry, so why could he not get up?
Eren’s attempts slowed, as did his brain that demanded he get up. It wasn’t long before the snow cleared, or even when the leaves began to fill the trees, and the forest thickened once more with the beginning of spring.
There was nothing that held Eren back from getting up; easily he could. But the zombie didn’t. He lay there, hair dirty, leaves and dirt stuck to his rotting body and clothes; even animals would sit upon his frozen body. He never reacted; why would he?
Maybe this is what he was waiting for, what he craved. Instead of the beautiful flesh of a human, maybe he longed for a peaceful end, a quiet scenery that would finally allow for him to decompose, the Earth to take back the horrendous monster he had become, even turn him into something lovely like a flower.
That would be symbolic, would it not? The disgusting and dangerous creature turns into something useful, maybe berries to be picked, a tree to climb, and taking refuge in.
Erens eyes never shut, not once in his mind-numbing slumber, cold and open but ever so distant. Never registering the bunny that sat in his lap, the long grass that brushed against his hands, or even the sun that peeked through dense leaves.
There was no urgency; what did he have to look forward to? The taste of human meat felt so distant now, a thought that sat in the back of his mind but was never forceful enough to have him scrambling to his feet, rushing through the dense forest to sink his teeth into anybody.
His teeth yearned for something it could never have—to feel the ash blonde beneath him screaming as he dined upon his heart, broken fingernails gently prying apart the strength of the man’s rib cage, listening to each crack as he’d reach into the thick blood to gently cradle the beating heart.
The name of the man was lost, as was his face. But Eren could only yearn for him, tied to a stranger he was bound to. No flesh could ever taste as good as the man’s, Eren’s zombie-fied state reasoned.
Eren's thoughts were distant and dull; sometimes a moment of clarity peaked through the horizon but never enough to allow him to reminisce.
If he could, maybe he’d remember dancing with his raven-haired friend in the quiet of their mother’s kitchen, reading beside a blonde with glasses, or even the faintest memory of staring at a man with ash blonde hair, his heart thrumming in his chest and reaching for something he could never have. Green eyes watching the figure from across the room, his throat dry as tanned skin reddened.
A snap of twigs hadn’t broken the zombie from the depths of his empty mind, assuming it to be another critter. His eyes stared at the grass ahead of him, shoulders slumped with the air of a corpse. Twigs continued to snap, slowly approaching the zombie, sounding hesitant, odd for a critter.
The figure crouched in front of him, Eren only able to see thick brown boots of some kind. It was silent; Eren hadn’t moved an inch as the silence persisted. Finally, the figure rested something wooden against the bottom of Eren’s chin, lifting the zombie's head.
Slowly, his head lifted to stare at the figure, distant eyes staring straight at the man’s face. Honey brown eyes, angular sharp features, narrowed eyes, and pursed lips that fell into a frown. Eren’s eyes seemed to dart from one feature to another until it clicked. He was him.
There was no rationality or grace as Eren practically threw himself at the figure, screeching and growling as they collided onto the forest floor, the man’s back flat as Eren pried apart his thighs and climbed forward. Oh, how long he had waited for this meal, sitting patiently and painfully.
Eren ignored the man’s gasp, not when Eren's hands found themselves on the other's chest, clenching and tearing at the flannel beneath him, exposed teeth snapping as he resisted the primal urge to sink his teeth into the other's sharp face and rip him apart, to use his claws to greedily rip fingers off, pulling at eyesockets, devouring the other like a child in a candy store.
The zombie held back desperately; he had to savor this; no other meal would ever taste nearly as good as the man below him would. No, the man was a meal to be cherished and taken apart as beautifully as he was put together.
The breathing was heavy underneath him, strong enough to cause Eren to gently move with it. It only made Eren struggle harder; the reminder of blood rushing beneath him, belonging to the other male, was enough to make the zombie let out a noise of genuine desperation. If he had a heart, Eren’s would’ve been soaring.
Hands gripped at his damaged thighs, holding the zombie as the two finally made eye contact. Narrow honey-brown eyes looked into Eren’s green, the look of genuine horror and sadness on the other’s face barely registering to the zombie.
The hands on his thighs tightened, and Eren watched as the liquid slowly leaked from the man’s eyes, running to the sides of his angular face, dripping into long hair.
Clarity slipped through within those brief few moments, his hand jerking forward as if to wipe away the tears, a wounded noise leaving his broken throat as he watched the man below him tremble, another painful sob sounding out.
The man’s eyes seemed to widen at the abrupt gesture, his mouth falling open as tears continued to spill. The tension was heavy between the two for those brief seconds, the man struggling to wrap his head around what was happening.
“Eren?” The man whispered, his eyes looking deep into the zombies, possibly as if he were staring straight into his soul, nails tearing apart at the zombie core to read him.
The zombie let out a groan, the clarity snapping away as his nails sunk into the other's chest, leaning forward and opening his mouth to taste the man’s cheek, needing to know if the flush of red would taste just as good as he’d been imagining it to be.
As his teeth grazed the man's cheek, something abruptly rushed from the side, something metal cracking against the zombie’s skull and throwing him off the man below him.
Eren desperately clawed at the ground, trying to stand up and tear apart whoever dared interfere with his meal. Yet a metal object swung at his knee, forcing the zombie back to the ground.
Screams grew louder, Eren’s growls growing in volume as the figures around him seemed to be screaming at one another. The man’s voice sounded desperate, strained, choked, and begging.
Eren chittered from where he lay, the item he had been hit by doing nothing to stop the zombie due to his dead nerve endings.
Everything around him seemed to grow in intensity, the zombie screeching as something heavy like a boot was stomped onto his back, forcing the zombie's face into the forest floor.
“We can’t!” A voice sobbed out, screaming, uncaring towards any other possible zombies loitering nearby. “Why?” A cold voice demanded, though it didn’t seem to care much for whatever answer the man gave considering the zombie could feel the pressure of the boot on his back increase.
“It’s Eren!”
What followed was cold, bitter silence.