Don't Leave Me
A/N: Have you ever heard the song "The Futile" by Say Anything? It reminds me of my writing methods for this. Yeah… So here's a basic set-up to get you going on this one. It helps if you give it a read.
This
all begins in an undefined time later in the series.
You can
guess that it's SEELE behind a large portion of the following
misfortune.
In a world filled with desperation and suddenly
attacked by the monsters of the apocalypse, some people will
sacrifice anything to find a way to fight back; including the lives
of the two remaining, NERV trained pilots.
Interlude: A Disaster?
Miles outside the glittering metropolis of Tokyo-3, a radio was turned up.
"Hello? Is this on? Am I on?
"This is Denny Iowan reporting breaking news for KWLS radio, your trusted local news station. Ladies and Gents, there has been a disaster…
"I can see from the window the burning remains of a great facility.
"NERV headquarters, with all of their robotics genius, has been destroyed.
"The last attack on this city was a surprise as usual, but we were not prepared to fight back this time. The red robot is scattered across the city and what looks like… blood! Rivers of it are crashing through the streets. There are pieces of the blue robot surrounding the station and there is no sign of the Monster.
"Military—I've never seen so many tanks! There is some military being sent into the remains of that underground base… probably to rescue survivors.
"Oh! What will we do if that thing comes back! I recommend getting the hell outta' here! Everyone, this is not a joke! Look out of your windows!
"Wait— ! I see some movement at the edge of the rubble… They appear to be evacuating some people by jet! Oh thank God, someone made it…wait.
"There is a yellow gas leaking from the rubble… the troops are retreating. Gas masks? Hold on…is that what it looks like?
"…They're blowing up the remains! What the hell?! Why would they—"
A frustrated listener shook his small radio to try and get back his lost signal as a distant concussion rattled his home. The station tower was suddenly struck with a missile from the retreating plane and was now nothing but ash…
Chap 1: Bruises
Without a single backward glance she ran; as fast and hard as she could. Over two fences, past barrack buildings, cracked concrete pads, strewn broken cables, and shattered glass… all of it streamed by in a streaking blur as she ran with her head down. She clenched her eyes almost shut; open just enough to see where she was going. Her breaths were sharp and cold as she breathed through icy teeth; grit in pain and anger. For almost twenty minutes she ran this way, in a straight line, pushing her limits, without a destination or purpose aside from escaping. The light faded as she entered a dark forest. Almost without warning, she tumbled forward and began heaving and sputtering.
Her exhaustion and oxygen deprivation fought each other for dominance as she tried to steady her breathing. She couldn't stop gasping and her vision blurred with tears from the helpless efforts. This sharp pain was exactly what she wanted but she couldn't appreciate this yet; because she had achieved it. She could feel nothing but pure, primal pain and bodily urgency. The needs and functions of her body overrode the psychological ramifications that cloud the mind. Everything was clear, sharp, cold, and clean for the first time in a long time.
Minutes passed before she could sit straight up, stop gripping the grass for support, open her squeezed eyes, and steady her breathing. Each slow, shuddery breath was frosty and hot at the same time. The sweat on her back grew cold and she shivered violently. She glared at the grey evening light through the treetops. I did it… I escaped.
A rustling sound startled her as she began to stand up. Someone was running towards her. She jumped up, alarmed, and weakly jogged deeper into the forest for cover. She would not be caught. The figure crashed along, only meters behind her. Her muscles burned as her lactic-acid levels skyrocketed. She was going to pass out. Black pressure crept into the corners of her vision and the rocky ground flew up to meet her as she tumbled once more.
She awoke in a much warmer place than where she fell. No! They took me back… They caught me… Feigning sleep, she made an effort to maintain her breathing speed and add the occasional appropriate REM twitch. If they knew she was awake, they would probably do something horrible to her for running away. Minutes passed but nobody approached her, and her panic began to prevent her from maintaining the sleep act. There was an unfamiliar crackling sound, and she was becoming increasingly aware of the dried blood on her forehead. Time to investigate… She opened one eye slightly. A fire… Grass… She wasn't back. She sat up confusedly and searched the surrounding darkness. Trees, a fire, moss patched ground; she was still in the forest. Nobody was there. She moved closer to the small fire for warmth and began to cough violently, her lungs still not up to the effort of deep breaths. It was extremely cold out tonight. Suddenly the figure appeared once more from the darkness, meters away. Her eyes widened in anxiety—
"Asuka," It spoke… It was him.
"Shinji?" she asked scratchily. He escaped too? How could they have missed both of us?
"What the hell were you thinking?" he abruptly shouted. "You could have been shot; they warned us about the security. And you didn't even—"
"Oh shut up," she interrupted. "You came too after all. Besides, they couldn't afford to shoot me and lose their precious pilot. Their 'security' is greatly compromised in an effort to remain so well hidden. I saw what was going on and got out as soon as I could." Her venomous response dissolved Shinji's aggression instantly, just like always.
"You didn't let me finish, Asuka." He mumbled.
"Fine. What then?"
"You didn't tell me you were going."
Asuka Stared at him in shock. Of course she didn't tell him, she hadn't seen him since their arrival at the facility. There was no way she could contact him. What was he doing here with her? She opened her mouth to point this out but began to cough violently. Shinji stumbled over and hunched awkwardly beside her, afraid to reach out. She shot a glare at him for his cowardice but it was quickly broken by another fit. This time he didn't recoil. She clutched his arm for support as she dry heaved and coughed painfully. Without expression, he patted her back, hoping that it would help somehow. Finally she collapsed against him, gasping, and slowed her breathing again. "It's really cold…" She said weakly as she shrugged him off. He scooted away again nervously.
She really does hate me. She doesn't even want my help now. "I managed to grab a few things, but lost most of them climbing the fences." He held out a small, ripped bundle of cotton cloth. "I lost the food, but got a pot, a lighter, and some… oh crap.."
"What?"
"I lost the bandages too… It was so hard to get those…"
"Give me a blanket," Asuka said through chattering teeth. He handed her the bigger one, still too small to cover all of her legs.
"Sorry I lost the food…"
"Oh stop. You we're stupid to bring anything, it might have been the death of you, idiot." She hunched closer to the flames, trying to cover herself as much as possible with the blanket. Shinji sighed but didn't counter. He dropped the other blanket on her shoulder and walked back into the darkness. "Wait-!" she shrieked. Don't leave me by myself, dumkompf.
"I'll be right back. There was a creek or something over here somewhere." He waved the pot in explanation and weakly smiled. She cut her eyes at him for that, but stared after him anxiously until he returned with the small pot full of clear water. "Man, that water's cold…" He whined. She handed him his blanket. "Thanks."
"Hmm..." She watched him heat the water on rocks from the fire until it boiled. The pot held barely enough water for two people. "Where did you get that anyway?"
"From the staff kitchen at the facility's barracks. It was completely deserted after you escaped. Kensuke taught me how to boil the water like this when we used to camp out." He smiled at his own attempt to invoke a conversation.
"Hmm..." Attempt: failed. She just stared silently into the flames.
"Hey, Asuka?"
"What?"
"They stopped letting me ask where you were and how you were doing after the first week or so, you know… and well, your cough … I was worried, and you look really sick. What happened in there…? I mean, what did they do to—" She cut off his stammering concern with a glare. He slowly closed his mouth on the word and waited for Asuka to speak; and watched the cold fires in her eyes die down as she thought about what to say.
"They made me take dangerous drugs and toyed with my nervous system trying to find a way to maintain 100 synchronization at all times. They want to make the perfect dummy-pilot, a revised copy of a compatible pilot's nervous system and combat behavioral tendencies. One without emotional attachments…" Her voice was distant and quiet.
"So… like a clone? Or… a program?" he asked. Like… Rei?
"No, don't be ridiculous. They didn't want to create another being, just… alter an existing one. Like me for instance…" Her words were dripping with cold hatred as she shook a little with rage. They wanted to take everything from me and leave a shell.
"Oh," was the dumb response from Shinji as he realized just how stupid his question was. They were going to completely wipe her mind and emotions from the equation. They were going to…
"They never told me what was in the injections or tubes. I bet they didn't even know what they would do to me, but I took them whether I wanted to or not. They shuffled through my thoughts like files in a cabinet while I was so stupefied. Ever since they captured us and the evas, they've been running so many tests and simulations I lost track of where I was for a while… I don't even know how long I was in there, but I knew they were about to give up on me." She picked absently at the moss she sat on as the firelight danced wickedly in her eyes. "They still have the plug program, but without me it's pointless. If they finish one, they won't need us anymore; you know. They were probably getting close to finishing by now but…my vitals were too low or something… They kept pumping me full of so many drugs… I think I lost myself for a long, long time." Her eyes fluttered with exhaustion as she finished. Shinji's face had been slowly contorting with horror throughout her story.
They never experimented with me like that… I guess it would be pointless without my Eva but… They never even suspected me of hiding it. If I had told them where Unit 1 was…would I have been their choice for this new "dummy-pilot" program? Guilt was creeping into his consciousness like the frost that lingered a few feet from them, just out of the fire's heat. He rubbed his arms to stifle more than one type of chill.
"I had no idea, Asuka. I was confined to my room, told you were being re-trained or something… I would have never been able to slip out of there if it wasn't for the confusion your escape caused. They were scattering all over like roaches when they heard you were outside the perimeter. " The barbed-wire scratches on his arms began to itch at the thought of his lucky escape. "They said that someone killed my fa— Gendo, you know. They never answered direct questions or anything; but I could eavesdrop on the guards from time to time. I don't know much English, but at least the fact that they spoke English gives us clues to where we are." Too bad I was unconscious for the trip here. "So even though I wasn't allowed to ask about NERV or Rei or anything to do with the Evas; I'm pretty sure Seele is running everything now." But… they still don't have unit one… He clenched his fist around a handful of cold dirt. "We were there for two and a half months at least, Asuka."
"Seele…" She spat the word out as if it were disgusting, even to the taste. "I was only able to escape because of some meeting the scientists went to about Seele and deadlines or something. I guess they assumed I was too weak to need restraints at this point. It was a stupid assumption."
"The dummy plug system... So we become nothing but mindless tools, property to them after the plugs are perfected." Asuka shrugged and reached up to feel the cut above her eyebrow. The blood was crusty and cold. "Here," he said, scooting closer with the water. "That's what the water is for." Shinji ripped the corner off of his blanket and dipped it in the pot. Ouch that's hot… She closed her eyes and submitted to his doctoring with only a moderately perturbed expression as he cleaned the cut and wiped the dried blood from her left eyebrow.
"Done yet?" she asked with instinctual aggression. She knew he wasn't done but the contact was infuriating for some reason. He mumbled apologies and began to back away from her. She caught his arm. "Sorry. Thank you. That feels a lot better." I have to stop attacking him like that. I can't deal with his emotions out here… There's nowhere to retreat to.
"It's no big deal, really," he said nervously, glancing from her eyes to her hand.
"Well fine then, but thanks anyway…" Suddenly aware of her death grip on his small wrist, she loosened up and tried to pull him down to sit beside her again and finish; but he flinched and slipped away to re-wet the cloth. She coughed a little more and had to lie down while he wiped away the rest of the crusted blood.
"I-I don't think it will scar." He said, breaking the silence. "It looks like you hit a rock when you fell. You run faster than anyone I've ever met, by-the-way. I escaped only ten minutes or so after you were reported missing, and still couldn't catch up. They were so busy trying to find you that I was overlooked almost entirely." Aside from that one guard. He grit his teeth as he remembered crashing his plastic food tray into the back of the man's skull.
"I was going to outrun them or run myself to death trying." Anything to spite them after all they put me through. "It helped to purge my mind of the drugs for a while." She noted that the fuzzy, muffled feeling was fading to be replaced by a sharp awareness of temperature.
"You probably sweat out a lot of them." He watched her shiver with sympathy. "Um…Want my blanket?"
"No, you use it. I'm perfectly fine." Keep your pity to yourself. A shiver revealed her bluff.
"Here." Shinji covered her legs with the small scrap before she could rebut. Her clothes were unfamiliar to him and uncomfortable looking: A grey and white one piece body suit, similar in design to their plug suits but with detachable boots and elbow-high gloves; and without a vacuum mechanism. There were all sorts of strange, ripped wires hanging from the center of her back and neck that he could only guess the function of. He glanced at his own attire guiltily. His cotton, plain grey pants and over shirt with a black undershirt were much more suited to the climate than her leathery jumpsuit. He noticed that it wrinkled loosely on her thin frame. "What are you wearing? That doesn't look like a plug-suit."
"I don't know what they called it back there. It's thicker and stiffer though, and it's all they let me wear. There are a lot of holes in it for needles and iv's" She held out a bruised wrist for him to see. Even that effort seemed to drastically add to her encroaching exhaustion.
"Oh god, that looks horrible!" he whispered. Carefully, he held out her thin arm between his fingers as if it might strike at him at any moment. He examined the bruises through several circular, metal-rimmed holes in the material. He felt tears and guilt rising from somewhere at the sight of the splotches. There were so many needle holes and fingerprint-bruises; and she had lost an awful lot of muscle mass. This would be me, not her, if I had told them where I hid the Eva. Shinji blinked back tears with horrified eyes and shot a glance at Asuka's face. I can not cry in front of her. She was already sound asleep. Shinji watched her shiny eyelids twitch and noticed for the first time just how tired she looked. Her cheekbones were strangely visible under darkened eye sockets and above chapped, cracked lips. He was grieved to see her this way, without her mask of overconfidence and prideful glow. She appeared to be the ghost of her former self, barely hanging on to this world.
With bomb-squad caution, he gently pulled off her detachable gloves, sticky with old blood; and wiped his stray tear off on his shoulder. A rainbow of horrible handprint bruises tattooed each arm where she was held down, pulled, and grabbed. She fought back. He tucked her arms back under the blanket and curled into a ball on the other side of the fire. The gloves gave off a sickening smell as they burned.
I should have just told them… This never would have happened to her if I had given them what they wanted. They wanted my Eva, not hers. She was a last resort. In his mind, those bruises were his fault. As if he had put them there himself, he felt responsible…
Hours before dawn, Shinji fell asleep and the fire went out. Asuka awoke to another painful coughing fit to see a note written in the dirt beside her.
Back in a minute, went to get more water.
She stood up slowly and shakily, brushing off leaves and dirt. Her legs hurt, and her abdomen was sore from coughing. We will have to find shelter and food soon if we're planning on surviving this. With a disgusted look, she stared at her bare bony arms and their bruises. He must have taken off my gloves while I slept. That was… nice of him. What was left of them had been stirred into the ashes of the fire.
Suddenly, bursting into the clearing, Shinji ran towards her with a wild look in his eyes. "They're after us!"
"What?" Asuka moaned at her weakened state. There was no way she could outrun the dogs. Shinji grabbed her arm urgently, causing her to shriek at her bruises.
"Oh god, I'm sorry!" He recoiled in horror and gripped his hair. Panic caused him to seize up and freeze there, unsure of what to do. "Sorry, sorry, sorry…" he mumbled strangely.
"Shut up, let's just go! She said while squeezing tears out of her eyes. Shinji held out his hand this time and she grabbed it fiercely and began to run, leaving their few supplies behind. They tore through the trees as quickly as possible, but he was practically dragging her the whole time. The howls of sirens and dogs fueled their terror and gave them the strength to speed up; running with no direction once more, deeper into the unfamiliar woods. In minutes, they could see a wide river-bank ahead of them and the dogs close behind them.
Suddenly, at the worst possible moment; Asuka tripped and her hand wrenched itself from his. He spun around as quickly as he could and hoisted her to her feet. Her eyes were cloudy and unfocused as she struggled to catch her breath. Shinji glanced in the direction of the approaching howls one last time before bending over, grabbing her around the waist and slinging her over his shoulder. The adrenalin was roaring through his veins. There was no protest from her.
More quickly than he would have imagined was possible; Shinji waded across the waist-deep water toward the thicker trees on the other side. Asuka clutched his shirt and struggled to hold her face away from the icy water. Half-way across Shinji lost footing and slipped under the fast moving surface with a shout. The current wrenched her away from him as well as his over-shirt before he could regain his balance. He broke the surface of the water with a scream. "Asuka!" She was nowhere to be seen in the white, swirling chaos. He clutched a rock and searched for her red hair frantically. Please don't drown! Oh my God, please don't drown…!
"Shinji!" came her cry from a few meters away. He saw her just before she was jerked back under the water by a rapid. "Help!" She clawed at the rocks as she raced by them, but her weak arms wouldn't hold her to them for more than a few seconds. She winced as she felt a fingernail break against one of the rocks, sucking in water in the process.
"Asuka!" He pushed off his rock towards her bobbing head. She kept trying to call him, but her calls were drowned in the roaring water. He bumped into rock after rock, like some sickening pinball as he tried to follow her. Finally Asuka was able to grip one of the slick stones. He aimed himself towards it, reached out, and… got it! His fingernails scraped desperately for a moment and then; he was right there with her. The water was slower here but over both of their heads. "Hold on to my shoulders!" Shinji shouted above the roar of the nearby rapids. She clawed into him and he swam desperately for the pebble bank, about fifteen meters away.
Gasping and drained, He dragged himself ashore with Asuka still on his back and lay there. For almost a minute, he completely forgot the initial danger as they sputtered and struggled to breathe. She could feel his heartbeat through his back and her own, slower pulse pound against his. He gently turned over and let Asuka roll off of him onto the cold pebbles. Shakily, he helped her to her feet and began examining himself for injuries. His legs were bleeding from his fall and his back from her nails. He held her out at arm length and looked her over as she coughed and swayed. She was deathly pale with bluish lips.
"We have to keep moving, come on." She said with as much force as possible. He nodded and wrapped her arm over his shoulder to help her walk. Pitifully slow, they trudged, shivering, into the trees.
The warmly dressed officer gripped the dog's leash firmly as it paced back and forth along the river bank. He frowned angrily and pulled at his mustache. The pilots' chance of survival in the river at this time of year was not good. Not good for him especially. Another warmly dressed officer trotted over to him with a soaked scrap of grey cloth. "It's the male's over-shirt sir. Ripped off, found 200 meters downriver. No other signs of them have been picked up by the dogs. They probably…"
"Silence. There is still a chance they are out there, injured and cold. If they die of hypothermia or bleed to death it will be our fault, and I will not be explaining our failure to follow through on this search. If they have drowned; nobody sleeps until we find the bodies." A snarl emphasized his urgency and agitation.
"Yes sir"
"Tell all of the men to meet here for orders in sixty minutes. They won't get far…"