An Imperfect Ending
by Ayanami1167
WARNING: Potentially triggering content.
- o -
Asuka Langley Soryu, formerly the designated pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, lay naked in the bath, her body half-submerged in the freezing cold water.
The rising sun shone through the abandoned building's shattered window, and shafts of sunlight played over her body and sparkled faintly in her glassy, red-rimmed eyes, bitter tears spilling out to trickle down her sunken cheeks.
"Sync-ratio... zero," she murmured to herself. "I can't be the Second Child anymore." Her expression was vacant, her eyes unseeing. "I have no reason left to live... Nobody cares about me anymore... My father, my mother... nobody cares."
She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt truly happy. Happiness was something that, for her at least, happened to other people. People who, when she was able to find the strength to see them, were content with their lives, laughing about trivialities.
People who could never understand how, for her, every day was an unending struggle against the demons that had plagued her for all of her short life.
Everything had changed after the Angel had cruelly violated her, viciously brutalising her mind, bringing all those deeply-suppressed memories to the surface with terrifying clarify.
She'd been powerless to stop the unfolding horror in her thoughts. All she'd been able to do since that day was to endure those terrible events, over and over again without end.
Until she couldn't endure them any longer.
They'd all noticed that something was wrong. Misato, Ritsuko and the others... even stupid Shinji had been concerned about her.
They'd tried to talk to her, but as always she put up a brash facade to conceal the paralyzing numbness festering within her mind, eating away at her heart like a cancer.
So eventually, one by one, they'd given up on her.
It led her to realise that, if they could just give up on her, then she could do the same. She could give up on herself.
She turned the thin sliver of metal over and over between her fingers, so that it flashed in the sun like a broken shard of mirrored glass.
She wondered how things had come to this. She wondered how she had managed to come so far, only for everything to fall apart.
She wondered if she could have done anything differently. Whether anything in the world could have delayed or prevented this course of action to which she'd committed herself.
She glanced at her clothes, folded neatly on a broken chair nearby, and her lips were set with this final resolve.
Her body shivered as the razor bit into her flesh, but she gritted her teeth and cut deeper, opening up a long, straight laceration.
The water marbled with the thick, dark blood flowing from her wrist. She started to sob, trembling as the full force of the pain hit her.
As the bloodied blade sliced deeply into her other wrist, she comforted herself with the knowledge that it wouldn't hurt for much longer. Nothing would hurt for much longer.
All the pain she endured every moment of every day would soon be ended, along with her miserable life.
- o -
When, much later, they found her lying there, the cold water now tinted a deep crimson, the first detail they noticed was the expression written across her face. A sad, half-smile that nevertheless spoke of overwhelming tranquility and relief.
They wondered if they could have done anything differently. Whether anything in the world could have delayed or prevented this course of action to which she'd committed herself.
They would never know the answer to that question, but in their grief they tried to console themselves with the hope that maybe in this ending, imperfect as it may have been, she had finally found peace.
- END -
AUTHOR'S NOTE
If yourself or a loved one is suffering with suicidal thoughts, please don't suffer in silence. Call your local crisis centre or one of the numbers below.
UK - 116 123
US - 1-800-273-8255
AU - 1-300-11-13-14
WWW - www .yourlifecounts .org/need-help/crisis-lines/