I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Cyanobacteria: Of Red Seas and Suffocation
Posted May Twentieth, 2008
Inhale. The scent of frigid waters, the cool sand that slides noiselessly between his toes, the faint wind that rustles his clothing and brushes his hair into his eyes. His mother's voice has left him, now. There is nothing but the view ahead of him and the pendant that dangles lifelessly between his fingers by a worn and bloodied string. It hasn't become meaningless, yet.
Had he died, back then? Formless: a tepid and sticky mass, grotesque flesh oozing in and out of what he knew to be his body. Membranes dissolved. His thoughts. Her thoughts. Their thoughts. Amorphic, with no end and no beginning, she had been a part of him, yet…
The ocean is wide, so wide, and it lacks the calling of the gulls. There is no sound here, after all. Only waves, and the soft lull of repetition. The endless lapping against the ground, the push and pull of water at his feet as it swirls the sand into mud, into dust that is whisked away by the sea. Dusty pink and scarlet red, mixing with a white that... Strange sensations. Before, there was less sand than stone, and his feet hadn't even touched the shore before he had heard the (first notes to a song he could - )
And there had been the soft lilting of a voice, calm. He had accepted it, perhaps. The words, isthisbetter -
Exhale. The sea is only a background noise. And Shinji rolls up the cuffs of his pants, the fabric already dragging on the ground and touching red, red. The edges are wet, dripping reminders down his skin, and he retreats from the waterline in apathy. There is nothing for him here. He can't swim, and even if he could, where would he possibly go?
He needs something. He – he wants, something. He fumbles for a minute, searching in his pockets, and then remembers, and then walks towards the only landmark he can see.
And, he is the only one left.
This girl, this – disgusting, she -- and, bandages unraveling from her arms, from her neck. Eyes aquamarine: a brilliant, violent, blue. Pupils. The gauze is soft and light to the touch, dirtied with the sand that rests beneath her, and the air is still because her chest lays still and her feverish gaze, that too is still. Everything, still. The only thing that moves is the slow, slow intake of his breath and the calling of the seashore and the pooling of the blood.
He heard them, once. Twice. I love you. Garnet, garnet. Shinji can lie down and look at the sea, look at the milk-white that surrounds him, and he can feel his fingers moving. Can feel the weight of it. When he's been looking too long and his eyes start to water, he can see him and somehow, maybe...