Exposure

Once Shinji started piloting EVA, his dreams changed. Not the themes of them, but the content. There were still the good ones, the bad ones, and the ones which kept him awake at night, but the new dreams seemed sharper than the ones he used to have.

Piloting EVA was such a new experience that his unconscious mind seemed to constantly dwell on it, as if trying to sort out his EVA interactions while he slept.

The first dream about EVA occurred several days after his disastrous first attempt at being a pilot. The nights prior to the dream he could not remember dreaming of anything else.

In the dream he sat in evangelion, in the midst of Tokyo 3 as he waited. He was not sure what he was waiting for and as the minutes slowly passed by, Shinji studied his surroundings. Through the video screen he could see the taller, movable buildings of the city, which were currently tucked into the ground. The sky was a hazy gray color from the endless summer and the endless heat. As he studied the sky, Shinji tried to remember what color it had been before the constant heat of summer. He was quite sure that the sky had been a much more brilliant blue than it was now.

Some birds darted across his line of sight and his thoughts about the color of the sky scattered. He turned his head in order to watch the birds fly away and was shocked to find that there was something almost right behind him.

Shinji's heart started to pound painfully as he realized the creature waiting behind him was an angel. He tried to suck in a deeper breath and started to cough as he drew in too much LCL. After the initial shock of finding the angel right behind him, Shinji tried to quickly turn around so he could face the angel instead of having his back to it.

When he tried to turn around, his movement and the EVA's movement seemed out of sync and he tripped over his feet. The EVA fell slowly to the ground.

With agonizing slowness, Shinji lifted his head up to see if the angel had moved. It had not moved at all and this made him even more afraid. As his heart continued to pound erratically he frantically willed the evangelion to get up and move but there was no response.

While Shinji was trying to make his EVA move, the angel had changed positions and now held one hand out with the palm facing the evangelion. Shinji had not noticed this new position and was still desperately trying to get up.

Shinji did notice the angel when the armor started melting.

The armor on the hands was the first part which disappeared. It melted off the EVA like wax running down a candle as the other pieces of armor also started to melt. By the time the armor plates on the shoulders started melting Shinji had observed the damage to the hands and could only shake in fear as the rest of the armor rapidly melted.

When the video screen went blank there was no more light in the capsule and the only sounds Shinji could hear were his thudding heartbeat and swish of LCL as he shivered.

His mind screamed at him to move or to somehow escape the EVA, but he was locked in place by his fear. When a pinpoint of light appeared near his feet he knew that the angel had melted the EVA all the way to the core. The LCL started to drain out as the point of light became larger and larger.

Suddenly, the angel was right in front of Shinji as a huge, gaping hole in the EVA opened up where all of the armor had melted away.

The angel started to slowly reach out towards Shinji.

Just before the angel was within reach of Shinji, he woke up.

He bit his lip to contain the scream that wanted to escape him as he shakily gathered up his blankets from where he had kicked them to the end of the bed. Even though it was hot, he piled the blankets on top of himself and scooted as close to wall as possible.

He felt so… exposed.