THE TREE ON THE HILL • Eren Jaeger

i. the boy.

2854.

PARADIS ISLAND is the enemy of humanity, so it mystifies you as to why they agreed when your doctor wrote for help. To send a ten-year-old child to the island of devils alone was grounds for a case; thankfully, they never made a fuss. It was good will, they said. You were a polished wooden horse—a deadly trap disguised as a merciful gift.

An old legend passed down generations like folklore: there was once an alliance between Marleyans and Eldians during the Rumbling. They heroically killed the leader of the genocide and later on, attempted to bridge the tensions between Paradis and the rest of the nations.

It worked—for a short time, anyway. The world went to war against Paradis again a few centuries after that. That had been around 2000 years ago.

You wonder what that must feel like. To go through hell and back, to lose everything, only to find out that hell has always been the final verdict.

Your bags are light and the clothes you wear are simple as you lean on the starboard of the ship, not too far from the captain's sight. He eyes you with scrutiny. You're sure he's seen many passengers before, but he's probably never had to ship a sick person to heal in enemy territory.

"You Eldian or nah?" he asks in a gruff voice. He doesn't sound angry, more like he's asking if you're part of the club.

You reluctantly nod. "Marley-born Eldian."

"Bah," he says. "Marleyans, Eldians, you're all the same. You can't deny the blood of a motherland."

You say nothing. You don't say much even when the ship docks at the port in Paradis Island. The captain lets you off with a nod that you don't return.

-

THE ISLAND'S HARBOR looks civilized. Beaches line the coast in pristine condition where crystalline blue water rushes to kiss the shore. Unlike Liberio, Paradis's air is fresh and crisp, the island brimming with greenery. It catches you off-guard.

You've always imagined Paradis to be some sort of no man's land because that is what they teach you in Marley. It almost irritates you that you are the ill one, while the island whose people started the war that made you sick live in such an untouched Eden.

Paradis Island is beautiful, too beautiful. It does not match the sea of blood that its past inhabitants slew.

"You're the kid, right?"

The man waiting for you ahead seems middle-aged, and the woman next to him is stocky and well-built, clearly his daughter. They both have mousy brown hair and calloused hands, like they've spent their whole lives hunting in the woods.

They use the name your mother called you but without the malice and disgust. The kid.

"Braus," they introduce themselves by their surnames first. "Sasha and Abraham."

"My daughter," Abraham says, gesturing to Sasha as she shakes your hand, "was named after an old Braus family member of ancient times. Sasha the hunter. She died in the Battle of Liberio. That's where you're from, right?"

"Yes, very interesting," you say, though you are not interested at all. It rings like a bad omen.

You find it strange. They seem so normal. Marley has received a few immigrants and they live in society just fine, but the Eldians generally prefer to stay on the island.

Sasha carries your bags and they lead you to a train station. Words from passersby fly past your ears like Trost and Stohess. You board the train easily, though it's an old-fashioned steam train, unlike the magnetic bullet technology ones in Marley that run underground.