To You, 2,000 Years From Now

In the year 845, mankind survives only behind concentric Walls, its numbers devastated by the Titans, giant humanoid predators that eat people. Outside Wall Maria, the Survey Corps pursues a lone Titan through a forest on horseback, splitting into five groups with one acting as bait before switching to vertical maneuvering equipment for the kill.

In Shiganshina District, Eren Yeager dreams of Mikasa telling him goodbye, her hair oddly short, then wakes beneath a tree with the real Mikasa standing over him. She mentions he was crying, something he cannot explain. Walking home with their firewood, they meet Hannes of the Garrison, and Eren bristles at finding the wall guards drinking on duty. Hannes shrugs that no Titan has breached the defenses in a hundred years, which only deepens Eren's disgust at what he sees as a complacent, penned-in existence.

Eren confides his ambition to enlist in the Survey Corps just as the expedition returns, gutted and bloodied. A frantic woman pushes through the crowd calling for her son Braun; all the soldiers can give her is his severed arm, and the commander tearfully admits the mission, like so many before, learned nothing. Mikasa hauls the furious Eren away and demands to know if he still wants that life. He dodges the question.

At home, Mikasa exposes Eren's enlistment plans, drawing a fierce rebuke from his mother Carla. When Dr. Yeager asks his son's reasons, Eren answers that he refuses to die ignorant of the outside world and wants the sacrifices of the fallen to mean something. Before leaving for his patient rounds, Grisha shows Eren a key on a cord around his neck and promises to reveal the secret basement upon his return. Carla keeps insisting only fools join the Corps; Eren retorts that living safely as livestock is the greater foolishness, and Carla quietly asks Mikasa to look after him.

Later, Eren finds Armin being beaten by boys who brand him a heretic for saying humanity must someday leave the Walls. Mikasa's arrival scatters the bullies. The three friends discuss the fear that rules everyone's lives until a thunderous impact shakes the ground. Rushing back to town, they look up to see the Colossus Titan looming over the Wall itself, an instant before it kicks the gate open.

The setting is established: in the year 845, the remnants of humanity live behind the Walls under a Royal Government, preyed upon by Titans.

The Survey Corps returns from another catastrophic expedition, and Moses Braun's mother receives only her son's arm.

Eren declares his intent to join the Survey Corps over his mother's objections, driven by his hunger to know the outside world.

Grisha Yeager reveals the key to his basement and promises to show Eren its secret when he returns.

The Colossus Titan appears above Wall Maria for the first time and breaches the Shiganshina gate.

To You, 2,000 Years From Now opens both volume 1 and the series itself, from the pen of Hajime Isayama. Japan saw it on September 9, 2009, with the English edition following June 19, 2012, as the lone chapter of the Prologue arc. The anime adapts it in To You, in 2000 Years: The Fall of Shiganshina, Part 1, and material from it resurfaces in THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 1 during The Rumbling. Its successor is That Day.

The title's meaning unspools across the series: Chapter 55 hints at a royal line unbroken for two millennia, Chapter 86 traces the Titan power's origin to Ymir Fritz, 1,820 years prior to Grisha's childhood, and Chapter 122, From You, 2,000 Years Ago, completes the pairing by telling Ymir's full story.

A free sampler volume containing only this chapter was distributed before volume 1 went on sale. On page 46, a shop sign written in the Walls' katakana-based script reads toolshop.