This story is my first attempt within the fandom, so please be kind. Also, this is a slow-burn and I focused a lot on world-building, so hold on for a little bit for the romance and tension, it'll come, but - if you know me - you know I love to introduce the world and the characters a bit better before I start pushing anything.

Thank you for reading!

Please, leave comments!

This is a general warning: canon-level gore and violence, some medical procedures and explicit sexual content in the future.

Angela Relish felt like she was hit by a sledgehammer straight to the chest as she fell to the ground, a gunshot to the chest.

She remembered the screams of horror, people calling for help, people crying for someone to protect them amongst the crowd. Still, by the time she died, she was quite sure that nobody else had gotten hurt by a gunshot – she had been the only target of the man standing in the crowd, gun in hand, tears in his eyes, mouthing the lyrics of the song Angel had been singing, looking at him in confusion.

For all she knew, she had never seen that man before. Yet, he shot to kill as soon as they made eye contact.

Within just a minute of death, Angel grew used to the feeling of it. There some quiet feeling of belonging, like floating on a pool calming waters – like being at the deep sea, but without the waves, just the feeling of bodyless lightness. For a moment, Angel was quite sure that it was the best feeling she ever had in her life, better than the drugs she took, better than the alcohol she swallowed, better than sleeping in arms of beloved people.

And then she wasn't dead anymore.

Hallucinating, blinding pain. The feeling of crushing bone and the sound of one's own wet flesh.

A memory of the pain that killed her, and then the pain became real.

In the middle of tall trees, Angel sat up at once, gasping for air, hands flying to her chest to stop the bleeding, only to find nothing there. Panting with the very real pain in her chest and the startlement that had just woken her up, Angel started to look around.

"Help!" she called out, voice choked.

Eyes darted around in panic.

She had no idea where she was and nothing seemed familiar.

She was in the woods, clearly. The ground was made of dirt, the roots of the gigantic trees elevated high enough to hide her from view in case someone was passing back. Angela had never paid much attention in biology class to figure out what sort of trees they were, but she sure as fuck knew that they were far too fucking tall, because she had vertigo as soon as she looked up.

Slowly, Angel looked down at herself.

While dirty from the mud and dust, there was not a single drop of blood in her clothes – deep inside she was just glad that she was still wearing clothes, because for all she knew, she could've been kidnapped by that crazy man that shot her and sold to sexual slavery or something equally as horrifying. The jade-coloured babydoll was untouched, all ruffles in place. Even her high-heels were still on her feet.

"HELP!" she tried again, this time louder.

She could still smell blood; she could still taste blood. There was nothing but the pain.

"HELP ME!" she yelled out.

It was a struggle, but she managed to drag herself closer to one of the tall roots, pulling herself to sit up straighter and take a deep breath, which made the sides of her body burn, but it wasn't the worst pain she had felt – the problem was the very middle of her chest, the sternum screaming. She couldn't feel the breastbone to be broken, but it was blindingly painful to the touch.

Her trembling hands gripped on the wood of the tree and pulled herself to kneel, then slowly she dragged herself up. She stood on wobbly legs, head attacked by a sudden dizziness; it made her stomach roll inside of herself.

Angel took a breath through her nose, letting it out through her mouth.

She wondered if she had the energy to take her shoes off before walking, but she couldn't find it in herself to crouch and unzip the sides of her platform shoes. She walked through the drag path, dragging her feet.

"SOMEBODY!" she tried.

Where was she? How did she get there? Where was her security team? Where was her manager? Where were all her things, her clothes, her phone?

With every step, she had to struggle to breathe. Her ribs hurt, her chest hurt and her feet hurt, especially her left ankle. She still tried to push through with some of the pain, but she knew that she couldn't make much further without medical assistance.

Logically, she remembered the pain of the gunshot, but there was no harm to her chest, no blood soaking the babydoll dress. It must have been a blunt bullet or, at least, something that would put her to sleep – if she had been drugged, any sort of 'coming-down' would start soon enough, which meant that her pain was going to get worse.

"HELP ME!" she screamed.

That scream felt different from the others, almost like a wild animal stuck in a trap. A wail of warning – pain, dread.

She couldn't hold it, Angela sobbed. The sob made her body hurt more, but the crying wouldn't stop.

For the first time since the start of her fame, Angela didn't care if the perfect makeup was smeared around her face, mascara running down her cheeks and making her look even more pathetic than before. She didn't care if someone saw her. She only cared that somebody found her before things got too much for her to handle.

"Miss Carina?" she called out for her manager, but not answer came. "Please!" she tried.

For what felt to be too long, too much of dragging her feet, she just screamed, cried and tried to walk without falling.

By the time she was ready to give up, she had fallen several times. Her body hurt almost unbearably, her knees were scaped alongside her hand palms and she had managed to hit her forehead, though she didn't feel any blood when she touched it find the wound.

"HELP ME!"

"PLEASE!"

"MEDIC!"

"I NEED HELP. SOMEBODY!"

It was only after the sun had already started to move towards the very top of the sky, shining down on her even through the treetops, that she heard another noise besides her screams and footsteps.

"Hello?" someone else called out.

She froze in place, ears almost standing up to get a better sound.

"Hi?" she tried, voice cracking after so long screaming.

"Where are you?" the person called out in return.

"Help!" she screamed. "Help me! I'm hurt!"

Her ankle gave out on her. Angel had to sit down on the root closest to her, unable to stand any longer.

Footsteps approached, more than a person coming her way.

She tensed up, fearful that the man that shot her had come back, but between being alone in the forest and having a bad company, she'd rather have bad company. She was scared of the dark more than anything in her life – more than being shot and killed. She hated the dark. She couldn't see, feel or fight back in the dark because she didn't know what she was fighting against. Perhaps it was the fault of one too many horror movies in her youth, or perhaps she had just been wired to survive in big cities like New York and Los Angeles.

A group of men walked into her sight, freezing when they saw her and she didn't move an inch when she saw them.

At first, she felt a wave of relief for not being alone after almost three hours walking and screaming and hearing nothing other than animals and her own echo. Then, she felt a wave of fear, because in front of her were five men.

Five men, all carrying weapons and guns, all staring at her as if she was an odd creature that they hadn't seen before.

"Help me," she said.

One of the men blinked a few times, avoiding looking in her direction at all when he put the gun over his shoulder.

"Are you hurt, Miss? How did you get here?" he asked.

"I don't know!" she said, voice almost hysterical. "Please, I need a doctor. I'm hurt. Where am I?"

The group of men exchanged worried glanced amongst themselves, almost pretending she wasn't there at all.

"We can always take her back. We're at the edge of the woods," another one of the men said.

"I think that I twisted my ankle," she added. "I hit my head and I need to clean my scraped before they infect. Please, take me to the hospital."

The eldest of men in the group sighed, seemingly annoyed at the awkwardness of the men around him. He shoved his gun into the arms of the man beside him and shrugged off his coat, offering it without stepping closer to Angel.

"Here, Miss, cover up," he said, as if he was doing her a kindness.

Angel was confused at first. Sure, it was babydoll that she wore, but everybody knew that she wore those sorts of things in her concerts. Unless... they had no idea who she was, and saw her as a strange woman walking in seemingly lingerie in the woods with really high-heels.

She reached out, taking the coat.

"Thank you," she replied, pulling it closer to herself.

She held it against her body, not willing to take the pain of putting it on – her arms and ribs were not going to cooperate.

He looked kind while smiling at her, trying his best not to look at her with anything besides a fond and sad look, like one would look to a puppy limping around. He seemed to be safest one out of them.

Especially because there was one staring at her legs like a hungry wolf.

She swallowed, trying to get rid of the pain in her throat after so long screaming for help.

"My name is Angela Relish. I don't know how I got here," she said to the men near her. "My ankle is hurt, I hit my head and I think there's something wrong in my chest – my ribs, my... everything hurts. I need help."

"What happened to you?" the kind man asked.

"I don't know. I don't remember," she answered. "Please, I might be bleeding internally. Breathing hurts, please, I need help."

The men exchanged looks again.

"We can put her with the game, bring her back with the cart," one of them said.

"And end hunting sooner?" another argued.

"Look at her! Somebody clearly attacked her!" the first one said, annoyed at the answer he received.

Angel wasn't sure she was attacked. Well, she was, but... did something happen to her besides the gunshot?

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to feel anything besides pain from her body, any sort of proof that she had been hurt in more ways than physical, but she couldn't. A sense of hope flooded her chest, clinging to the idea that nobody had touched her while she had been asleep.

"Miss? Did you hear me?" a man asked.

She blinked, eyes opening. "Excuse me?" she whispered, confused.

"Can you walk with some help? We are a bit further out with the cart. It doesn't get in between the trees," he said. He looked a bit uncomfortable, looking over his shoulder. "We have a bit of game in the cart."

It took her a moment to understand that the equation of 'game' plus all the guns and weapons, equals hunting. Game meant dead animals.

"I need help," she agreed.

The kind man stepped forward. "Let me help you get dressed, then we'll take you to the city, alright?" he said.

She nodded.

He put her hands through the correct hole and helped it up the arms to her shoulders. She only allowed him to help her walk, even though he was clearly more advanced in age and his back seemed to ache with the effort.

By the time they got the cart and she was helped by the kind man and two other people to climb up, she fell asleep against the wood, as far away from the dead deer and dead rabbits on the cart.

She did not dream.

She did not feel pain for a blissful moment.

There was a hand holding her face, fingers pushing her cheeks in so her mouth would open. Angela was grinding her teeth again, not because she was asleep, but because she was in pain.

As soon as she was conscious enough, her mouth opened.

She screamed.

Blinding pain.

White, searing pain.

She screamed and screamed and screamed.

Her eyes widened, trying to see anything, looking at the person forcing her mouth open and blinking in confusion. It was the Kind Man again, and this time around he was dropping some liquid down her throat.

"Swallow, sweetheart," he begged.

She coughed, gurgling the extremely bitter liquid at the back of her throat in the process. To breathe she had to swallow whatever that was. As soon as she was able to scream again, it came out ragged and midst a sob.

The man was kind enough to reach for her face with a handkerchief and clean the corner of her mouth and neck as drops of the brown liquid escaped and ran down the sides of her face alongside her tears.

"I know it hurts, sweetheart. I know, I know," the man soothed.

Angel couldn't move, she realised with dread. Her hands were tied to the sides of whatever she was lying on and so were her legs, even her torso – where most of her pain came from – was tied down.

"It's going to pass soon. The laudanum will take effect, don't worry," he continued.

She barely had time to think about what the hell laudanum meant before she was slipping away from the scene again.

The next time Angela woke up, it wasn't with a start or with pain choking a scream out of her. She woke up slowly.

Again, she didn't know where she was, but she didn't move when she started to come back into her own body.

The room was mostly dark if not for a very slim flicker of sunlight. She was in a twin-sized bed that seemed just big enough for her, barely leaving much room for her short height, and the room was barely decorated with anything – the walls and floor were made of the same wood, and she had little doubt that so would be the bed she was lying in. There were a few books near the window, one chair under the window and the curtains were drawn together with just a sliver of light coming between them.

Still on the bed, she tried to catalogue the state of her body, raising just her head to see what had happened.

Angela was no longer wearing her babydoll dress nor her shoes, but a white cotton nightgown that reached past her ankles. Her bare foot and ankle were tightly bound, which she assumed was because of her twist she had gotten. Her hands were also wrapped, but they weren't tightly done up, but covered up by gauze and band. The nightgown was loose around her torso and the side of it had been cut, where an old-looking, yellowish hose seemed to be going out of, aimed towards a glass bottle at the side of the bed – the glass seemed to have a finger or two of a yellowish liquid dripping onto it.

She blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. Her thoughts seemed muddled and confused, as if she was taking a few more seconds to understand what was happening around her than usual.

But when she did, she felt all breath escape her.

The liquid was coming from a very rustic pleural effusion... or is it drainage? It didn't matter. It was really fucking weird.

She felt her stomach churn, though she had nothing to throw up.

Frozen in place, she decided against moving with a seemingly old and used hose was inside of her thorax.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, looking to the side in horror.

Her mother was a doctor, her father was veterinarian in the army, she had known about on field, emergency treatments and she couldn't blame some doctor for saving her life. She could blame them, however for not calling a fucking ambulance and getting her to a real hospital.

"Shit," she continued whispering.

She didn't know what to do. Should she call for someone? What time was it? Was there anyone there? Where was she? Was she in danger? Was she –

The door to the bedroom opened before she could panic any further and Kind Man walked in, footsteps light and eyes surprised to see her looking at him wide-eyed.

"Oh, you're awake!" he said, overwhelmed in happiness.

She just stared at him, unsure of what to say.

He no longer wore layers of clothing and a hat, but a common fabric blue shirt and dark trousers. He looked older like this, more harmless.

"Yes," she settled.

Her voice was weak and it hurt a bit to talk.

"I'm Adawolf Arlet. You said your name was Angela?" the man started, walking further into the room, but keeping a good distance between them. "Tell me, Angela. Do you know where you are?"

"No." Her eyes darted around. "Your house?"

He nodded.

"Yes, yes, you are," he said, glad that she was well enough to think. "You got hurt in the Forest of Giant Trees, can you remember that?"

"A bit," she admitted. "Everything's confused."

"You got a concussion," he explained, pulling the chair to sit near the foot of the bed. "You got bruised lungs and a badly twisted ankle. Some scraped, too, but that was from the falling, Doctor Jaeger said. But what we are concerned about is the bruising."

"My lung."

"All of torso is bruised, especially here," and he showed on his own chest the breastbone.

She blinked slowly, trying to imagine why –

Oh.

Yeah.

She was shot.

"We wanted to know if someone hurt you. The officers said that when you woke up, they'd want to talk to you about it. They'll protect you and find that bastard," Adawolf continued, mistaken her pause for fear, not disorientation. "You are safe while under my roof."

She shook her head slightly, but regretted it as soon as it moved. She grunted, closing her eyes tight, grinding her teeth to keep herself quiet.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"In town, I live near the main-street," he promised. "We couldn't find anyone with the surname Relish. We searched for your people."

"Yeah, you wouldn't. They are in Texas," she said.

Silence.

She opened her eyes, looking at Adawolf and waiting for his reaction.

"I believe I should call for Doctor Jaeger again," he said under his breath, looking at her with uncertainty.

"That would be nice, she whispered, looking at the bottle with her lung-liquid on the floor. "This hurts a lot."

She frowned. "By the way... who changed my clothes?" she asked.

He gave her a little smile, seemingly aware of what she was asking him.

"It wasn't me. It was Doctor Jaeger's wife, she came with him when she heard of your situation. She feared you'd be scared of so many men around you, but you didn't wake up," he said, tone honest enough.

She couldn't even hide the little noise of relief she made, though sighing was difficult and painful at that moment. Whoever that woman was, she deserved a place in Heaven, because if she had woken up with an all-men room, undressed and probed, she would've started kicking even with a bad ankle.

The bedroom door opened again. Both Adawolf and Angela turned their heads towards it – him sharply, she slowly.

A little boy stood there, all elbows and knees, blond hair cut in the shape of a bowl.

"Grandpa?" he whispered.

"Armin," Adawolf answered.

The boy looked at Angela, blue eyes analysing and measuring her in silence before he decided it was safe enough to walk into the bedroom. While looking back at him, Angel realised that she was most likely in his bed. She watched him approaching, tugging at the end of his shirt and twisting it gently, occupying his hands to not show his anxiety on his face.

"This is my grandson, Armin. This is Angela," Adawolf introduced, eyes gentle as he reached for his grandson, pulling him closer to him and further away from the woman he barely knew about.

Angela didn't blame him. He was already being too kind in letting her stay in his home, letting his grandson get too close to her was just too much – she would react the same way if roles were reversed.

"Hi, Armin. Am I in your bed? I'm sorry for taking over your bedroom," she said to the boy, trying her best to give him a smile.

The boy's cheeks flushed, not expecting it from her.

"It's okay," he dismissed.

Adawolf gave him a little smile, already changing subjects.

"Armin, I need you to go to your friend's house and call for Doctor Jaeger again, alright? Tell him that Angela is awake," he told the little boy.

Armin nodded, face turning into a soft expression of determination only found in children that wanted to make somebody proud. Without any hesitation, he turned around and ran out of the room and – possibly – out the front door.

"Angela, I'll ask again, do you know where you are?" he asked.

The forest. The houses. The cart. The way they reacted to her.

The group was most likely some sort of Amish community.

"Pennsylvania?" she asked.

Adawolf didn't seem to like her answer.

"You're at Wall Maria, Shiganshina District," he corrected, frowning at her. "Do you know what that means?"

She frowned back, because – at first – she didn't.

And then she did at once.

Her little brother had always loved animes, mangas and anything remotely similar to that. He had taken a liking to that when he was seven or so, and the passion didn't disappear even after he went to college. They were similar enough in age where she was invited to watch a few things with him sometimes or would catch an episode or two of something that seemed interesting to her.

She remembered a very specific interview she gave where someone made a nerdy joke about Attack on Titan and fans were in uproar when she laughed along, understanding and joking back about Misaka being stronger than her will to live, or something similarly silly. She remembered a feeling of overwhelming pride when her brother sent her a clip of it and gave her a thumbs-up for remembering the episodes she had watched with him.

And now she was there.

Inside Wall Maria, prior the end of it all. Before the Titans, before the death, before the horror.

Speechless, she stared at Adawolf, Armin's grandfather, who would sooner or later die and leave his grandson alone to fend for himself.

"When the doctor gets here, can you ask him to give me more pain medicine?" she managed to ask, voice monotone and weak.

Adawolf clearly wasn't aware of the fact that he had just broken her mind, just smiled and nodded, gently patting her good foot before standing up and walking slowly towards the bedroom door, leaving it open as he walked out to wait for the doctor.

So? What do you all think? Please, leave comments and opinions.