Between Versions of Me
Fandom: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Author: Unanon
Rating: PG
Notes: Rei Ayanami introspective. Originally written as a bit of a gift for
perch_and_creep who got me into Evangelion in the first place.
~~~~~
Second, third. Which am I? Does it really matter in the end? Is there ever anything beyond this room, this city, NERV, this glass of water resting on a surface half-empty or perhaps half full?
I am Rei. That is who I am, what I always have been, has it not? No matter how many times I return to this room, familiar yet new, I remain Rei.
I know I have never been here before today, but I know this bed, these sheets, these small artifacts that mean nothing and yet carry so much meaning.
A glass. Broken glasses in a case. My body. The bed. All so familiar, so comfortable and true, yet also alien. I am not frightened. There is nothing that can harm me here.
Nothing.
The walls are gray and bare. Desolate. I can't decide whether or not their starkness is beautiful to me. Beautiful. What is beauty? Is it in the glass, the ancient bloodstains on the pillow? This place is old yet new to me. The clothes in the closet are my clothes. They smell how I smell. They are familiar against my body.
My body. I will not think about my body now. My limbs remember things that my mind knows they have not experienced. No, not this flesh. But the sensations lie within my memory, phantomlike.
The man, the boy. Mirror images with similar desires. I remember feeling for them. For him. I feel, but don't recall exactly why. They are the same but not. Not like me.
I know I'm not the first. Who was the first? I am the first and yet I'm not. The first, my childhood. Fingers at my throat.
Perhaps I should not think on the past.
But what of tomorrow? Will I remain me? Will there be a third, a fourth? Am I the third? Will what I do now, in this body, in this version of me.will it matter to them, these others that follow? What remains? What will remain? Will I persist?
Will I want to?
~fin~
Second, third. Which am I? Does it really matter in the end? Is there ever anything beyond this room, this city, NERV, this glass of water resting on a surface half-empty or perhaps half full?
I am Rei. That is who I am, what I always have been, has it not? No matter how many times I return to this room, familiar yet new, I remain Rei.
I know I have never been here before today, but I know this bed, these sheets, these small artifacts that mean nothing and yet carry so much meaning.
A glass. Broken glasses in a case. My body. The bed. All so familiar, so comfortable and true, yet also alien. I am not frightened. There is nothing that can harm me here.
Nothing.
The walls are gray and bare. Desolate. I can't decide whether or not their starkness is beautiful to me. Beautiful. What is beauty? Is it in the glass, the ancient bloodstains on the pillow? This place is old yet new to me. The clothes in the closet are my clothes. They smell how I smell. They are familiar against my body.
My body. I will not think about my body now. My limbs remember things that my mind knows they have not experienced. No, not this flesh. But the sensations lie within my memory, phantomlike.
The man, the boy. Mirror images with similar desires. I remember feeling for them. For him. I feel, but don't recall exactly why. They are the same but not. Not like me.
I know I'm not the first. Who was the first? I am the first and yet I'm not. The first, my childhood. Fingers at my throat.
Perhaps I should not think on the past.
But what of tomorrow? Will I remain me? Will there be a third, a fourth? Am I the third? Will what I do now, in this body, in this version of me.will it matter to them, these others that follow? What remains? What will remain? Will I persist?
Will I want to?
~fin~
