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Cross

The two of them stayed up all of that night waiting for the sounds to subside before they could sleep peacefully. Asuka hated living this way, in constant fear, unable to do a thing about it but run. They had no names to call the abominations that hunted them like animals, however, they had figured out why there were being hunted.

"They want to completely rid the Earth of humans and start anew," said Asuka, staring miserably at the wall with her head resting on her knees, "I don't think we were meant to survive instrumentality. Someone did something they weren't supposed to do… and now we are a blemish to this new perfect world."

Shinji could only nod in agreement; there was nothing he could say to deter that idea. He found his way to the supplies and withdrew a small canister of honey from one of the cases and brought it down. He sat beside her and opened it tilting his head back and taking in the sweet contents. He handed it to Asuka who swatted her hair behind her shoulder and began to drink too. She licked her lips, her hunger subsided, at least they had found food, she thought.

"What do we have to do today?" he asked her, he often resorted to asking her the agenda. She had more of an idea of what they need to do, "We have food for a while and the electricity came back on."

Asuka stood and lifted a small hatch exposing the outside world to her, she peered out.

"I want to get guns," she said.

Shinji stared not sure how to make of it.

She looked at him, "We can't keep running away, we have to defend what's ours."

"But Asuka, where are we gonna find anything like that. You need to maintain weapons, oil them, and replace their parts. Probably nothing works now. Even if we find a working rifle we have to worry about ammunition and whether or not they are in stable enough condition to shoot. Not only that we have to keep looking for them and that can take the time out of scavenging for the necessities to look for them. I don't think we can afford that," he said.

She ignored him and went up to the supply deck and found her cloak, she donned it and returned to the first floor approaching the metal doors.

Shinji stared, what was she doing?

"I'm going back into the city, there's bound to be something we could use to ward them off," she said.

Shinji shot her a look of alarm, back to the city? That was close to entire day of walking, there was nowhere to take refuge when night came. It was pure luck they even got this far, she was tempting fate. He jumped to his feet and placed himself between her and the doors.

"No," he began, "I can't let you."

Asuka ignored him. "You and I both know it has to be done, we can't live without some kind of protection."

He shot back: "We have enough; they don't know we are here. We are lucky they decided to not swarm the place. All we have to do is lay low and we'll be fine. Asuka, you can't risk getting killed out there. It's hard enough I have to let you go by yourself to salvage."

She looked at him; he began to pull at her heart strings.

"I don't want to live in fear anymore, Shinji." – The young man froze, her use of his name a rarity and a form of solid discussion—"I don't want anyone who comes along to feel afraid. I made too many damn mistakes in my life and letting this continue will be yet another. If you're so cautious, come with me," she said.

He stared at her.

She stared back.

They left that morning; Shinji filled a spare bag Asuka had sewn with food for several days. They grew accustomed to rationing and thusly their bodies adjusting. Asuka walked ahead of him, she often liked the position of leader and he was content with obliging. Her limbs were skinny and her hair long since lost the bright fury red hue it once harbored proudly. She was older now reaching seventeen granted they had no real sense of time so they made it a habit to count the days.

He loved her, he couldn't help smile because of it. He remembered after Instrumentality their reunion. How unpleasant it was. He felt a pang of guilt; he remembered choking her, the rage he felt inside…

… Disgusting…

They were at complete odds for months, ignoring each other, purposely sabotaging each other to comprise their survivability, stealing, anything they could to completely demoralize the other. Then, he remembered, stumbling on Asuka… crying. Guilt had never enforced its ugly grip on him until then. He swallowed what little pride he maintained and offered to pursue their lives, she didn't agree at first but once she came to terms that her life would depend on their communication she reluctantly gave in.

It took another few months to fall in love.

He wasn't sure if it was because he was the only other person alive or that she deeply held feelings for him, it didn't matter. He loved the feeling and her affection in return. Their relationship developed slow, ushering in different stages of kindness and affection. She still maintained her old ways, calling him names and sarcastically commenting on his work but it was only the shadow of what her abuse could've been.

They followed an abandoned highway to the city; the once paved roads were nothing more than an organized pile of rubble heading towards the urban landscape. By mid-morning they reached a checkpoint, they could tell by a pole that stuck out from the Earth. Asuka had planted it there many months ago in case they ever decided to come back in the same direction. The pole stood before a vacated home, they made refuge here the last time they had came across it.

"You think any of the things we left here made it?" asked Shinji.

Asuka glared at him. "Who else would try to get them?"

"You never know, Dawn Runners are always looking for food," he said.

Asuka nodded. There were two types of creatures they tried to avoid. Dusk Runners and Dawn Runners; both frightful in their own rights and both bloodthirsty. In theory, thought Asuka, both were constrained to the nighttime but made certain appearances at certain times. Dawn Runners were scouts; they would search for their scent in the morning and try to pinpoint their location while the Dusk Runners would go in for the kill that same evening. One did the planning, the other executed. She assumed it was a Dawn Runner that followed the leaking trail of honey yesterday, she thought, they were going to have to be more cautious. They couldn't risk another alert like that.

"God drowned the Earth, forcing humanity to start anew," began Asuka, "We survived his second attempt and now he's pissed… so he's sending someone else to finish the job."

Shinji always felt eerie when Asuka prophesized, for some reason, he felt whatever she said was fact rather than her own personal answer to the situation. They entered the small home; everything was exactly the same since they left it.

"We can rest here for an hour," said Shinji dropping the bag he carried, "Hopefully we can gather some supplies we left here."

Asuka sat herself on the dirty old sofa; she could feel the damp surface give way to her weight. She waited until Shinji disappeared into the other rooms before she pulled her book out from under her cloak. She managed to clear the grime off the cover and dried some of the pages allowing her to read more. All of the information was so foreign; having no mother of her own for the most of her life she could not understand much of what the pages were trying to tell her but an internal instinct forbade her from totally misunderstanding. She wondered how it would be to have her own child, although the idea was farfetched and somewhat prohibited, she still imagined having a small person resembling her, watching her every move and mimicking her with incredible accuracy. Then something happened that caught her completely off guard.

She smiled.

She shook her head and tossed the book behind her, no, she thought, this was unlike her. She didn't want a kid; she didn't want to be a mother. It was difficult enough surviving with an absent minded guy let alone with a child. Then something clicked in her head, who would she have a kid with?

Shinji…

She busted out laughing.

Shinji wandered into the room staring at the girl who was now writhing on the floor in an uncontrollable burst of hysterics. He wondered what brought on this bout of humor.

Asuka and Shinji discussed their next course of action. They decided it was too dangerous to try to continue their pilgrimage back into the city without hitting the next checkpoint. The walk to the next marker would force them to travel in the dark so it was best to spend the night at their current location until the morning. Shinji found old linen sheets they had left here several months ago and laid it out in the attic. Runners in general were not incredibly intelligent and would bypass anything that would force them to use their motor skills, case in point anything to do with switches, levers and knobs so they wouldn't go through the trouble of unlatching an attic door. Night was approaching, a tense of time for the both of them. They sat together on the sheets in conversation; they had found talking eased their anxieties. It wasn't until the topic of food came up was when Asuka said: "Damn, we left our food downstairs."

She got up and unlatched the attic door and climbed down. The broken walled hall remained still and dark but she managed to remember her path back to the first floor. Their supply bag sat in the dining room and with a wave of her hand her fingertips caught the hem and pulled it towards her, the sound of jars and random supplies echoing softly into the room.

A low growl hummed nearby.

Her body froze, the hairs on her neck stiffened and stood. She tried her best to hold back her tears and gasps. She tried to detect where the sound was coming from. Was it outside or even worse inside? She stood perfectly still straining her ears in order to get a good idea if whether or not she should try to flee. Suddenly she could hear footsteps approaching and she wanted to scream, her heart kicked up and her legs were trembling to the point they felt as if they were to give out.

"Asuka, you alright?" whispered Shinji. She extended her hand to the voice and found Shinji's arm, she pulled him in.

She whispered frantically: "There's a runner… somewhere…"

She could feel his heart within his chest, he knew what that meant.

"Is it in the house?" he whispered back.

She couldn't say for sure but just then another hideous growl slithered in followed by a creak of the wooden floor. She whispered in his ear: "Inside,"

Shinji took her hand and carefully planted himself to the wall making sure his feet didn't hit any wood that jutted from the floor. Asuka followed holding their supply back over her shoulder; despite the darkness she could feel herself forcing her eyes to pierce the darkness in order to locate the beast. They reached the step ladder that led to the attic; Shinji pushed Asuka forward allowing her to climb first.

Then they were caught.

Shinji peered behind him, the pitch black interior of the hall lit up with several pairs of hellish red eyes. His own eyes widened as he used his strength to push Asuka up and into the attic. He felt a sudden gust of wind behind him and the rapid stampede of his impending doom. They're coming, he thought! Asuka's heart fell when the sound of several horrifying screeches bellowed from below, she threw the bag into the corner and reached down to grab Shinji who had just begun his ascent. His bony but strong hand clutched her forearm and with all her might she pulled. The ladder was engulfed in a sea of eyes, all red and all crying tears of blood, a blackish smoke rose through the attic opening like snakes slithering to catch its prey. Asuka noticed the hellish presence beginning to surround her, her heart slammed itself against her chest; she pulled using every muscle in her body. Shinji fell onto the attic floor and he could hear the hatch close behind him. He turned to see Asuka lower a metal pry bar into the slot that bound the hatch to the floor sealing it from within. Both of them heard the lower floors being ripped apart and suddenly the fear of the house collapsing became real. Sickening snarls and cries echoed into the night and just as it came, it went.

It took Shinji a moment to realize he was panting rapidly, Asuka faced away from him seemingly hunched over in exhaustion.

He was afraid to speak but his gut felt something was wrong, "Asuka? Asuka what's wrong?"

Her body suddenly fell backward hard exposing a deep, almost blackish, wound on her chest. She looked wildly at the ceiling coughing and panting, her limbs contorted, blood spilled from her thin lips, her back arched in pain. Shinji immediately hovered over her, his eyes brimming with tears unable to figure out what was happening. Her arm shot out from her side and gripped his collar, pulling him down Asuka stared directly into his eyes. It was if he wanted to say something but could not. He peered at the wound; it was two deep gashes layered over one another. He gazed at it and suddenly it resembled that of a cross. He took the sheet he laid earlier and covered her wounds applying enough pressure to stop it.

"Don't…," he began, his tears falling like rain from his cheeks, "Please… don't die,"

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