To most people in the world, winter was just an annoyance. The chill of the season was just something that was complained about but tolerated for the few minutes one was outside. The short days were merely sighed upon in passing until the topic of conversation changed. The snow was just a cause of traffic or delayed trains. Winter didn't matter to most people in this day and age.

For the small town of Edensburg, though, it was a different story. Located in the middle of a forest in Germany, winter always hit Edensburg hard. Anyone stepping outside could feel the frozen cold of winter bite their bones. It snowed so often that the plows couldn't always keep up, and anyone walking would have to trudge through snow halfway up to their shins. The harshness of winter may have been blunted for the rest of the world, but Edensburg still got the season's full, unrelenting fury.

Located a long hour's drive from Munich, Edensburg was mostly isolated. It had a small population of two thousand or so, and rarely received visitors. It was a middle-class town, with most of the residents well off. It had a grocery store, a few restaurants, two schools, and even a movie theater. It was as inconspicuous a town as any in the world.

On a cold day early in January, snow was falling in the village, as usual. It was white and pure, covering everything in the schoolyard in a uniform blanket. There were several inches piled up already, and the storm didn't look like it would be relenting anytime soon. Every now and then the wind would pick up, blowing the falling snow sideways through the air.

From the warmth of her classroom, Annie Leonhart stared out the window, watching the snow fall. She had seen snow fall hundreds of times in her life, yet she always found herself watching the snow whenever it fell. It was a mesmerizing sight, to her, watching the snowflakes lazily dance their way to join the millions upon millions of others already stacked on the ground.

She enjoyed it, but from a distance. She hated actually being in the snow. It was frigid and wet, making her incredibly uncomfortable walking to and from school. The wind snowstorms brought with them were biting and cruel, and she always managed to get snow down her shirt, no matter how much she bundled up.

Unfortunately, it looked likely she'd repeat the experience on her way home from school that day. The forecast said that it would snow until around eleven that night. Walking home would be a pain in the ass, but she'd at least enjoy looking at it from indoors in her seat next to the window while she could.

Around the rest of the classroom, Annie's homeroom classmates were casually chatting with each other while they waited for the teacher to arrive. Like any normal high school, everyone was separated into their own cliques. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin were hardly ever apart, now clustered near the front of the room. Jean and Marco were talking to Sasha and Conny nearby. Ymir hardly ever left Christa's side, and Reiner and Bertholdt were talking to each other alone near the back of the room. Various others, whose names Annie didn't remember, were chatting amicably to their closest friends.

As for herself, Annie preferred to keep in silence. She was never one to talk much to begin with, and she didn't have any friends amongst her classmates. From what she understood, the rest of her class had been going to school together for years. She, on the other hand, had only joined the school about four months ago, and didn't know anyone when she came in.

She was completely fine with that arrangement, though. Annie had always been a person who was perfectly fine on her own. She had been on her own for much of her life, and had gotten used to not having anyone to spend time with. Moreover, she preferred it. She liked the idea of being left alone. She didn't need anyone.

"Alright class, settle down," said the teacher, Mr. Schultz, as he walked into the classroom. "My apologies for being late. I had to practically dig my car out of this snow. Now, for roll call."

Schultz dug through his briefcase for his class roster, signaling that it was time for Annie to space out. The list was in alphabetical order, but since she joined the school mid-year her name was just lopped on at the end of the list, instead of the middle where it belonged. It would be at least five minutes before her name was called.

So she continued to watch the snow fall outside. A plow passed by the street that the school was on, clearing some of the snow out of the way. It didn't do that much good, though. The snow was falling so heavily that the street would be back to the way it was before the plow came in no time.

"Annie Leonhart," Mr. Schultz called, reading from his sheet.

Annie turned toward the teacher in surprise. "Oh, uh, I'm here sir."

The stupid teacher didn't call out any names yet, why was he calling on her. It was very rare that she was caught off guard, and it irritated her when she was.

"I'm glad to see you answered the third time I called your name, Miss Leonhart, I was afraid you'd lost your hearing," Schultz told her sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, sir," Annie replied in a low voice. "I wasn't expecting you to call my name so soon." The entire class was staring at her now, which she loathed. She hated being the center of attention.

"I started roll call backwards today to see if you were all paying attention," Schultz explained. "Clearly you were not."

As the teacher continued taking roll call backwards, Annie let out an annoyed sigh. That was all she needed, to be called out in front of the entire class. She could still feel all of the stares that her classmates had given her. They weren't angry stares or anything like that, but any stares sent her way went ill received.

Once the roll call was finished Mr. Schultz began to teach them chemistry. Annie took out her notebook and started taking notes. She was a smart person, something that most people didn't realize about her. Most simply defined her by her tendency to be alone. No one bothered to dig deeper than that, but she was actually very bright.

That didn't change the fact that she hated school and the things she learned there. Useless, in her opinion; just a bunch of stuff that she'd never see again outside the classroom. From the second she entered the school building she ached to leave, and only did as well as she did in class because she had to.

Overall, it was a very dull morning. She just drifting from class to class, following the same routine as every other day. She'd sit, scribble some notes down, get up and move to the next class. She was almost glad when lunchtime came along, giving her a break from the dullness. Almost glad, because she knew what would happen when lunch came along.

There was a group of five boys, none of whose names were known to her, that seemed to get a kick out of her loneliness. They had a competition going on between them, whoever could get her to smile first won. More annoying, they thought she was so dumb that she wouldn't notice.

Usually she just sat there and ignored whichever one of them was taking their crack at her. She absolutely despised it, though, and really wasn't in the mood for it that day. So when she sat down with the lunch, a sandwich she made herself at her house, she sat with a heavy sigh, hoping that somehow what was coming next wasn't coming at all.

As she figured, she was wrong. One of the five morons, a dumb jock with curly blond hair and a smile to make any frilly girl swoon, was sauntering over to her table. She sat in the same table every day, a small one in the corner of the lunchroom, so she wasn't difficult to find.

"Hey Annie," the guy greeted casually, leaning against the table as if he and she had been friends their entire lives. "How's it going?"

"Fine," Annie replied dully, not even looking the guy in the eye. She unwrapped her sandwich and took a small bite, doing her best to pretend he wasn't there. Maybe if I ignore him, he'll go away, a small part of her mind told her. She knew better than that, though.

The guy took a seat opposite her without asking permission, still smiling that irritating smile. In an ordinary situation the guy could be described as acting friendly, in which case Annie might have acted a bit warmer. But she knew that wasn't case, she could clearly see the other four boys sitting at a nearby table chuckling under their breaths.

Annie sighed. "Can I help you?"

"Aww, why are you acting so heartless?" the guy asked in reply, but not seriously. "Would it kill you to smile for me, sweetheart?"

Over at the other table, the four boys were laughing openly, all of them red in the face. Deep in her heart, Annie wanted to walk over there and hurt all of them. She could do it, too; she had some skill in martial arts. She was also a master at burying her emotions and restraining herself, though. Those boys were lucky that was the case.

Instead, Annie did what she was best at: ignoring people. She just concentrated on her sandwich, speeding up the pace of her eating so that she could leave the table sooner.

"Here, maybe this'll help," the guy said. From the edge of her vision, Annie saw the guy reach out with her hand toward her face. He took that large strand of hair that ran down the right side of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Then he reached forward and caressed her cheek, greedy fingers running over her soft skin.

That's when she had enough. They had all tried to flirt with her before, but none of them have touched her before. Before the guy had a chance to retract his hand she grabbed him by the wrist, holding it in an iron grip. The smile was immediately wiped from the guy's smirking face.

"Don't you ever touch me again," Annie growled in a low voice. "How dumb do you think I am? You really thought this whole time I didn't notice your stupid game? Why did you do it, I wonder. Was it because you thought me sitting by myself was funny? Or did you just want to get into my pants? Either way, you should have known you had no shot. I've got not time or patience for lowlifes like you."

While Annie was talking, the guy was more and more desperately trying to break free of her grip. She didn't let him, though. She wanted him to know deep down that she was stronger than he had given her credit for. Finally, once she had finished talking, she released him.

"Freak!" he yelled as he stood up. "No wonder you're always alone!" He stormed off to the table where his friends howled with laughter.

Annie just sat there, staring at her empty hand. Freak. Was that what she was? Just because she liked sitting by herself? Just because she didn't smile all that often? Just because she wasn't what everyone considered to be normal? That made her a freak?

Of course it does, Annie told herself in resignation. You know this world well enough to know that.

For the second time that day, all the eyes in the room were on her. They all looked at her, as if trying to peer into her very soul, trying to make her squirm. She could stand anything, but if there was one thing that made her extremely uncomfortable, it was stares. Clenching her fists, Annie stood up and left the room at a brisk pace.

Throughout the entire ordeal, no one had come to her. No one came to see if she was okay, if she was feeling alright. She knew better than to get angry about that, though. This wasn't some movie, this was the real world. And in the real world, she was on her own.

Slowly but surely, the day progressed until the final bell of the day rang. It couldn't have come soon enough; Annie was incredibly eager to leave the wretched school. She didn't run out, though. She kept her composure and walked out like a normal person, bundling herself up in a coat and scarf before venturing into the snowstorm.

Her house was on the edge of town, right on the border with the forest that surrounded Edensburg. Every day she walked by a path that led into the woods on the way to and from her house. It wasn't a very wide path, perhaps wide enough for a single car to fit. That didn't matter, because hardly anyone ever followed the path into the woods. The rumor was that an ancient, abandoned castle lay on a hill at the paths end, but no one had actually gone to verify the rumor. Wolves lived deep in that forest, a risk no one wanted to take.

Annie barely gave the path a glance when she passed it by on her way home that afternoon. The first time she laid eyes on it when she moved back to the town three months prior, rumor in mind, she had been slightly awed. Now it was a simple forest pathway to her. Nothing significant about it.

For a fleeting moment, though, she thought she saw something move near the pathway. Annie did a double take. It looked like—looked like a person.

"Ridiculous," Annie muttered under her breath. "You're the only idiot out in this storm right now."

Redoubling her pace, Annie walked the final quarter-kilometer to her house. She was eager to get inside the comfort of her home to recover from the hellish day she had. She quickly walked through the door and entered, alone in her empty house.

It had been her dad's house, the one where the two of them had lived since Annie was born. She still remembered the good times she and her dad had while they lived here. The two would play together all the time, but Annie had no better time than when the two would play in the snow.

Then, one day ten years ago, when she was six, Annie received word that her father had had a terrible accident. A bus whose brakes had malfunctioned ran over her father in Munich, placing him in critical condition. She was rushed to the city and arrived at the hospital with her father at death's door.

With nowhere else to go, Annie spent the next ten years living at an orphanage in Pasing, a suburb of Munich. It was a hard, friendless life. The keepers of the orphanage provided for her, but were by no means warm toward her. She ached to get out of there, so she finally applied for social welfare from the state a few months back, enabling her to return to her dad's empty house.

She still remembered the last words her dad ever spoke to her, as it dawned on both of them that his time in the world had come to an end. I will always be with you, Annie. Even if it seems like I'm not, I will always be there. Even if you feel like you're entirely alone in the world, I will be there.

Shedding a single tear, Annie closed the door on the violent snowstorm, sealing herself in her loneliness.