A drop of water, mother. Shinji awoke. The same ceiling? He sat up abruptly in his bed and glanced to his hand, studying the way it opened and closed. Then he remembered.

"Where am I?"

EPISODE 000 - AIN - a (new) beginning

Later during the walk to school Shinji felt strange. The skyline seemed to become detached from reality and began to bob up and down with each step, moving separately from the rest of the world. The sun's corona more visible than usual, though the sunlight felt hazy and far away. The traffic lights changed from a fine red mist to an ironically beneficial green aura moving overhead as a bird cawed in the distance. Tokyo 3 was alive but his separation from all of it had a deeper rooted feeling of contempt than he was used to.

When he got to class his dissociation didn't ease. The vast chasm between self and other was wider than it was before the day began, everything seemed like a play. Bad theater, he thought. He wondered if this is how Rei felt all the time. She sat adjacent to him, looking down at her pen. He imagined what she could be thinking, then he remembered what Asuka had said to him. Just a toy. Was it all a play? Nothing felt real anymore.

"The devastation caused by Second Impact had immeasurable physical effects on plants, animals, and much of civilization as well as the intense psychological duress that we find ourselves struggling to overcome to this very day. Please get out your textbooks and turn to chapter 23."

Discord, breaking apart. If heaven and earth cannot make things that are eternal, how is it possible for man?

Another drip. Rei was staring at him. When she did that at some gut level he always thought she could hear his thoughts. The eyes are the gateway to the soul. Ayin. Ain. Nothing. He felt nothing.

Something else was different too.