Chapter 1: The Line Between Fiction and Fate
Sebastian Whitlock was a name everyone seemed to know.
Not because he craved attention—but because it was hard not to notice him. At twenty, with a boyish smile that could soften any frown, eyes that flickered with curiosity like candlelight, and a kind of gentle confidence that wrapped around others like a warm coat, Sebastian made the world around him feel… less lonely.
He was an architecture student in New York City—a dreamer living in a patchwork of concrete and steel, always sketching, always building. His professors called him a “storm in disguise.” His mind refused stillness. If he wasn’t designing a floating library for a coastal town, he was painting sunsets he never had time to admire, or reading novels until the pages smelled like his soul.
Music pulsed in his veins—he would hum softly as he worked, his fingers drumming against tables in subconscious rhythm. He was a black belt in Taekwondo, a striker in his college football team, a spiker in volleyball. He cooked with jazz in the background and cleaned his room like he was in a Studio Ghibli montage.
Friends joked that Sebastian was a rom-com protagonist who somehow slipped into real life.
But for all the love that surrounded him—flirtations from both men and women, late-night texts filled with heart emojis, and coffee dates that could’ve turned into something more—his heart never strayed far from one peculiar obsession:
Anime.
It wasn’t just a hobby. It was religion. His walls were covered in posters, shelves filled with Anime Figurines and Merch. His playlists had anime soundtracks. He cried like a child at emotional finales. And above all, Attack on Titan was his sacred text. Not manga, a series, he had devoured not once, not twice, but seven full times.
And his favorite character?
Levi Ackerman.
That short, stoic, deadly, sharp-tongued man in a cravat. That man who moved like lightning, spoke like thunder, and carried the weight of the world in his tired eyes.
“God, I love him,” Sebastian would say casually during anime nights with friends. And nobody batted an eye. “Loving Levi Ackerman is a universal experience,” his best friend Kay would reply, nudging him with a grin.
Because loving a same-gender anime character isn’t gay.
Right?
But sometimes, Sebastian caught himself staring too long at Levi during a scene. Rewinding that moment when Levi cleaned a room with obsessive precision. Or the way he gritted his teeth in battle, not because he was angry—but because he was hurting.
What if... just what if... that character stood in front of him?
Would he still be sure of himself?
It was 2:13 a.m. on a Friday night. The sky outside was a violet blur, and the only sound was the soft hum of his laptop fan.
He was watching Attack on Titan again—for the eighth time.
Blanket tangled around him, his sketchpad forgotten on the floor, a cup of lukewarm coffee balanced on his desk—Sebastian had just reached the part where the walls still stood. Where peace still reigned. The very beginning.
He didn’t realize when his eyelids drooped, when the room began to flicker with light not from the screen but from something... warmer.
Something older.
Something wrong.
When his eyes opened again, there was no laptop. No dorm. No music.
Just the sound of seagulls.
The scent of salt and dirt.
The rumble of cartwheels against cobblestone.
And walls—massive walls, stretching into the sky.
“Wha…” he breathed, spinning. His clothes weren’t his own. His hands… slightly larger. His body, taller, stronger. “What the—?”
That was when it hit him.
The architecture. The air. The sky.
Shiganshina.
No. No. No. No. This—this isn’t real.
He ran. Fast. Breathless. Eyes wild.
Children played in the alleys. Merchants argued in the streets. A baker handed out bread, completely unaware of what was about to fall upon them all.
Sebastian’s feet stopped just outside a modest house with a blue door.
Eren Yeager’s home.
His heart thundered. “I’m in Episode 1?”
The Attack on Shiganshina. The day the Colossal Titan appeared. The day the walls fell. The day chaos began. The day Carla Yeager died.
Sebastian’s stomach twisted.
“Should I… save her?”
His legs moved toward the door.
“No—no, I can’t. That changes everything. If I save her, Eren doesn’t… He doesn’t become... him.”
He staggered back.
“But if I don’t… I’ll have to watch her die.”
His vision blurred. His mind raced. Too many memories. Too many deaths. Too much pain. This world wasn’t built for softness. And Sebastian Whitlock—he was soft.
“I’m not built for this,” he whispered.
But fate didn’t wait for him to decide.
Somewhere behind the walls, a distant rumble echoed.
Like thunder.
Then came the scream.
Then came the shadow.
The Colossal Titan had arrived.
And Sebastian Whitlock was no longer in love with an anime.
He was inside it.
