[Incidentally, Eren’s sharkhunt isn’t wholly metaphorical—the stained ground is quite literal, and it’s not ooze. The creature “kicked” her pretty sharp.]

[Aubrey hears the warning; there’s barely time to act on it, but she just manages to dive and duck before the heatwave hits. She thought her death hallucinations might be a little more… not like monster fights on morning cartoons. It’s hard to register what’s going on, hard to recognize what she’s looking at, hard to breathe.]

[But she’d recognize Eren anywhere, by now—at least in human form, even with those lines. She thinks it’s blood.]

[Aubrey is on the ground, kneeling, hunched; one arm is still clutched around her gut like her life depends on it, and she hasn’t noticed but it’s still spilling red. The other is just barely supporting her, just so she doesn’t drop facefirst. She’s shaking uncontrollably, a wild, animal look in her eyes.]

W-Wh—[at the, she wants to say, and stabbing pain kicks in, making her breaths heavy, gritted, and she falls forward.]