Summary: The sea of LCL should have been neutral and unobtrusive, yet she could swear it was trying to touch her, trying to pull her in and make her a part of it. Post-End of Eva.
Warning: Spoilers for the film End of Evangelion, obviously. Potentially triggering implications, also obviously.
Disclaimer: Boy do I WISH I owned Eva. I'd be set for life.
A/N: An old drabble I unearthed, written for a writers' forum that no longer exists.
Nothing from Nothing
Why do I stay here?
The sea of LCL should have been a soft orange, should have been transparent and unobtrusive, like it always had been in the entry plug of her Eva.
My Eva... She (no, no! It, not she, it! Don't go trying to make it a person like Wonder-Girl would, you're better than that!)... Where was I anyway? Where am I now?
But the LCL that filled this endless ocean, that stretched from one horizon to the other, that kept lapping at their shore like there wasn't enough room for it though it had the whole rest of the world to stretch out in... this was different from the stuff that filled her entry plug a lifetime ago. This stuff was thick and cloudy, nearly viscous and far from neutral – and maybe it was just the dark of the never-ending night or the stripe of red that stained the moon that made this alien ocean look like congealing blood, but Asuka didn't care to test that theory.
Why am I still here, when everyone else is..?
Besides, when she touched the LCL she could swear she felt it move, like it wanted to touch her too. She could never seem to get her hand clean enough after that first time.
I stay here, even though my Eva was torn apart, even though I should still be lying dead inside it. I shouldn't have a body, I shouldn't even be part of this goop...
The sea began creeping up the shore toward her bare feet, and Asuka fell backwards onto the sand. She scrambled up the beach in a near panic, because she really couldn't tell if the motions of the tides were natural and random or if the stuff was trying to touch her again, trying to pull her in and make her a part of it, a part of everything and everyone that had ever existed on the Earth.
I don't want to be part of anything! I should be dead, I should be nothing, I shouldn't have to stay here any longer!
But even on the beach she was a part of something – a tiny part of what was left of the human race. She and Shinji were something, and she was half of that something, if not a third.
That doesn't matter. Shinji's practically nothing anyway, so if being something with him is as close to nothingness as I can get... I'll live with that.
Only she wasn't sure how they would continue to live anyway. The beach was barren – no plants, no animals, no waters left untouched by that always-undulating, breathing sea – but somehow here they were, still alive without eating or drinking. Still alive without sleeping, too, in Asuka's case. How could she be expected to sleep anyway, when Shinji and that damned primordial blood-sea were always after her, always trying to pull her closer?
Why can't I just die and leave all this? I only want nothingness, but where is nothingness? All that exists is me and Shinji and the sea – nothing else is left of the world now, not even nothingness itself!
Something kicked inside her stomach, and she screamed.