The light hurts.

You scrunch your eyelids shut, a wave of red and black popping up into your vision. The brightness of the light is currently blinding you, rendering you unable to open your eyes without a flash of pain and nausea. You slow yourself down, forcing the air out of your lungs in an attempt to relax. Take your time. Breathe, then open.

Following your own advice, you inhale shakily. The air stings your throat. You force the air out again in a measured exhale.

Okay, let's try this again.

The first fact that's becoming increasingly apparent is that you can't open one of your eyes. You raise your hand to your face, prodding around your left eye. Bandages- a lot of them. They're forcing your eye shut. Well, one is better than none, I suppose.

Slowly, you blink your right eye open and try to adjust to the light as you take in your surroundings. The current bane of your existence is caused by a singular lamp that's swinging from the ceiling. You're in a bed, wearing- a hospital shirt? It's a faded blue thing that looks like it's seen better days. You frown. There's a set of chairs next to one side of your bed, accompanied by a small side table.

You try to reach out and wince at how stiff you are. "Ow," you complain, shoulders tight. You lift the light sheet and wince; one of your ankles is heavily wrapped in white bandages.

"Where am I?" you whisper, and it's only after speaking that you realize how dry your throat feels. Water. Water would be nice.

You glance around. No water. No signs of other people. You slowly sit yourself up, head spinning, but you manage to keep yourself upright. Your hands fly to your forehead, trying to banish the dizziness, and you're surprised to feel more bandages. You gently prod your face; they're covering your entire forehead as well as your left eye.

"What the fuck," you echo hollowly, wishing you had a mirror. What the hell happened to you?

Do you wait for someone to find you, or do you go find someone yourself? You puzzle it for a moment, listening attentively. Faint footsteps, coming towards you. You glare expectantly at the door, but the footsteps pass right on by. Shit. Maybe you are going to have to get up.

Carefully, you swing your legs over the bed and set your feet on the ground. The stone is cold underneath your bare feet.

"One, two," you chant to yourself, palms pressed into the mattress, "three!"

You push yourself up to your feet and regret it immediately. The crippling wave of nausea and dizziness swarms you, and there's a blistering pain in your left ankle that feels like fire crawling up your leg. You fall back onto the bed, blinking the spots out of your vision. Okay, maybe not.

You don't let your head fall against the pillow, unwilling to accept defeat. But after another attempt of standing, it's clear that you're not going to be in much shape to hold yourself up, let alone walk to the door. With a sigh, you swing your legs back up onto the bed. You hear footsteps again and look around wildly, wondering if there's some way you can get the attention of whoever's in the hall. "Hey!" you call out weakly, but the word hurts your throat.

Your eye zeroes in on the table. There's a mug.

Well, broken glass... The footsteps have almost passed, and you groan. "Fuck it," you mumble. You pick up the mug in your right hand and throw it at the door.

Your muscles sing in pain. It's a weak throw, but it does the job; the mug strikes the wood and falls, shattering upon impact. You hear the footsteps pause and hold your breath, then nearly cheer when the doorknob turns. The wooden door pushes open, revealing two men, both wearing suits. You don't recognize either of them.

"She's awake," one of them says softly. He's wearing a crisp grey suit and has brown hair combed back and perfectly styled. You have a weird urge to mess it up. Both men look down at the broken mug, then back up at you. The first man turns to his partner. "Go fetch Doctor Fizal." His partner nods, shooting you one last wary look, and takes off.

"Where am I?" you ask, but your voice is so raspy that you immediately cringe.

"A hospital located inside Wall Rose," the brown-haired man says. "Your doctor will fill you in."

You blink. Wall who?

The man disappears briefly, but he returns with a bottle of water and broom. You take the water gratefully, taking large gulps. The water is cold and refreshing, almost stinging your throat. The man sweeps away the broken glass, picking up the larger chunks and setting them on a shelf. He waits at the door, periodically checking his watch and glancing down the hall. You're not sure if you're allowed to ask anything, but you hit a point where there's way too much you want to ask.

"What happened to me?" you ask, bottle clutched in your hand.

He raises an eyebrow at you. "You don't remember?"

You shake your head.

"An expedition against the titans," he explains, but you just stare at him in confusion. "I don't know much about it, but I know you've been out for a while and you weren't exactly expected to wake up."

...Titans?

He says it like it's supposed to be obvious what a titan is. Expedition? Wait- "How long have I been out?" you ask.

"A little over a month, I think," he replies, checking his watch again. "Maybe two. Three?" Your jaw slips open in surprise. Have you been in a coma since then? "You've missed quite a bit," he continues. "Wall Maria fell. A giant titan, over fifty meters tall, appeared and broke the gate into Shiganshina. Another titan, one covered entirely in armor, broke the main gate into Wall Maria."

Wall Maria? Titans? Fifty meters, armor?

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" you say aloud.

The man stares at you, eyes narrowed, like he's trying to decipher what you mean. It should be obvious- you have no idea what he's talking about, but he's saying it like it's common knowledge. How much more clear can you be?

He opens his mouth to reply, but someone new walks into the room. It's a small woman with a white coat, her black hair pulled up into a bun at the top of her head. The man who had been keeping you company nods to her, gives you a hard stare, and leaves. "Hello, Miss Logan," she says politely, pulling up one of the chairs next to your bed. "How are you feeling?"

Your head spins. Logan? Miss Logan?

That's when you realize your situation may be worse than you originally expected, because she just called you Miss Logan and you had no idea that was your name. Holy shit, what's your name? Why don't you know that? Logan, Logan, Logan- what's your first name? What's your doctor's name? Mother, father, friends- anyone?

Do you really not remember anything?

The doctor must sense your distress. "Miss Logan, calm down," she says firmly, which definitely doesn't help calm you down, "you're safe here, I assure you. You may be feeling a bit of stress from the night of the incident."

You want to scream. Instead, you settle on, "what the fuck."

The doctor's eyebrows raise. "Well, an appropriate reaction, considering what you've been through."

What the ever-loving hell have I been through?! You're two seconds away from strangling this woman for her lack of clarity when the door flies open again, and another person appears, breathless. He's short and has shaggy black hair, slightly unkempt- it looks like he's been running. He's wearing some sort of training uniform with a brown jacket. The logo on it is a set of wings, and it feels like it should be familiar.

He's got the sharpest eyes you've ever seen- a steely grey color. Your jaw slips open slightly. You know him, you're sure of it. You've felt that piercing gaze before, and as your eye drifts to his hand placement on the doorway, you're almost sure that you can feel a solid grip around your wrist.

His expression is a mix of controlled neutrality and relief. "You made me wait," he says, his voice carefully quiet.

You should know him. You should. What's his name?

"Sorry?" is the only thing that comes to mind. He raises an eyebrow at you, looking somewhat puzzled by your answer. "I, uh..." how do you bridge this? How do you tell these people that seem to know you that you have no idea who they are?

The man steps into the room. He doesn't take a chair, instead moving to stand on the other side of you. He glances up at the doctor. "How is she?"

She smiles politely. "I arrived barely ten seconds before you did, sir."

He looks to you next. "A month and a half? Really?"

You resist the urge to snap at him. You've already gathered that you've been in a coma of sorts for a while, based on what the first man said to you. "Oh, my bad," you say sourly. "Next time I'll wake myself up earlier."

"See that you do."

Despite the banter, he still looks rather relieved. His lips are twitching in a smirk- whoever this guy is, you must have bickered an awful lot. At least, that's your guess. So is it safe to assume that he's a friend? He seemed relieved when he came in, and his timely appearance must mean he heard the news rather quickly. He must be important.

You're about to say something about the fact that you have no idea who you are when the doctor says, "Miss Logan, I'm Doctor Fizal, and I've been monitoring you for the past month or so. Your ankle will take longer to heal, but it will at some point- I'm unsure about your eye."

"My eye," you repeat, your hand flying up to prod the white bandage.

The man next to you must be catching on that you're a bit out of it, because he says, "what do you remember?"

You swallow. Here goes. "Nothing."

"The brain sometimes suppresses traumatic memories," Doctor Fizal says calmly, fingers gently pushing at your ankle in different spots and looking for where you wince. "It's natural. They'll come back over time."

"No, I..." you trail off. "I don't remember anything."

She hums. "Like I said, it's not a surprise. Give it a few days. I'm sure Levi can help fill you in."

The handsome man next to you- Levi- leans towards you. "What do you mean, you don't remember anything?" he says cautiously.

You meet his eyes. "I- I don't know anything," you say, and your general confusion seems to pour out of you in the form of word vomit. You look away. "I just woke up a few minutes ago, and- some man mentioned titans? And a wall? And I don't know what either of those are. You, I feel like I should know you," you say, looking at him. "But I didn't even know your name until she said it. I- I don't know what my name is."

There's a stony silence. All traces of relief vanish immediately from Levi's face. "You're joking."

"What's my name?" you ask quietly, tears pricking your eyes. Well, the one that's working, anyways.

"This isn't funny."

"I'm not laughing."

He doesn't say anything else. His impassive face of relief and maybe a bit of warmth has been replaced with an icy, guarded expression. He's shut himself off.

Before you can think of anything else to say, he turns and storms towards the door, throwing it open and slamming it shut with enough force to rattle the lamp above your head. You stare at the door, a lone tear rolling down your cheek that you barely notice. Why does this hurt so much? You don't even know him.

"Miss Logan, I believe you may have amnesia," Doctor Fizal says softly, taking a paper clipped onto a board from the side table.

You snort, handing swiping at your cheek. "Gee, you think?"

"Do you remember anything at all?" she says, ignoring your sarcasm. She dips a quill in ink, and her hand flies across the paper. You resist the urge to grab her papers and see what she's writing. "Anything at all? Names, feelings, words?"

"No," you murmur with a shake of your head.

She sighs. "Well. This may be a trifle bit more complicated than we anticipated."

"A trifle?" you mutter. You don't know much about yourself, but at the very least, you don't hold back on your sarcasm. Once again, the woman doesn't bite on your sarcasm. You swallow your nerves and ask the question you almost don't want to hear the answer to. "Doctor? What's my name?"

Doctor Fizal says a name- your name, apparently. It sounds weird.

You try it out yourself, repeating it and then again with the last name attached. "Weird," you murmur, your tongue dry in your throat. You glance down at your water bottle- empty.

She tucks the quill into a small case and stands up. "Alright. I'm going to go speak with a few of my colleagues- we haven't had an amnesia case in a long time. We'll look through our notes and report to Commander Erwin."

"What am I supposed to do?" you ask, frowning.

Doctor Fizal smiles at you. "Exactly what you've been doing for the last two months, dear. Get some rest."

With that, she leaves, closing the door softly behind her. You stare blankly at the wooden door again, racking your brain for any sort of memory. All you've got is your own name- which someone else had to tell you- and the fact you were friends with someone named Levi, who looked like he wanted to tear your head off your shoulders.

Levi. He'd seemed so hopeful. Relieved. And when he left, he'd been cold. Angry. He was definitely a friend. So why couldn't you remember him?

Confused, upset, and overwhelmed beyond belief, you tuck your knees up to your chest and cry.