Chapter 14
Shinji finally felt strong enough to attempt a transformation, so he listened for the cry of the wolf in his mind. It was faint, due to the lateness of the nighttime hour. It was about one hour until dawn. Shinji transformed with an amount of difficulty, but he transformed nonetheless.
Not bothering with subtlety or secrecy this time, were-Shinji barged right through the hospital doors and straight for the E.R. Five orderlies attempted to stop Shinji, but he threw them easily to one side. He tried not to seriously injure them, but they were all knocked out cold as soon as they impacted the wall. Shinji wound his way through the halls until he reached the intensive care wards. From there, he followed his nose, tracking the scent of Rei's blood.
He came to the last room in the ward. Inside, Shinji found the blue-haired girl, surrounded by three doctors, one female and two male, and an odd number of nurses. Shinji burst through the door with a loud roar, scaring every person in the room out of their mind, and even causing Rei to emerge from her semi-conscious state for a brief moment. Shinji watched mute terror flash in Rei's eyes. It cut him deeply, but he couldn't waste time with self-pity. He could feel the werewolf slipping away from him as dawn approached.
"Everybody out of the room!" Misato ordered, coming into the room behind Shinji.
"And just who do you think you are?" the blonde, female doctor demanded indignantly. Shinji snarled and growled menacingly.
"I'm the only thing that's keeping him from tearing your throat out right now," Misato replied coolly, placing her hand on Shinji's shoulder. Shinji and Misato had quickly rehearsed this part in the car. She would act like Shinji's "keeper", and Shinji would play right along in the role of her "attack werewolf".
"Now," Misato continued, "does anyone else feel like sticking around?"
All of the medical personnel that were present in the room evacuated faster than Shinji thought humanly possible. Shinji saw them off with a throaty howl for dramatic effect.
"Shinji, stop clowning and get down to it," Misato said seriously. Shinji nodded and crossed the room to Rei's bedside in two steps. Rei, weak as she was, still found the strength to try and shrink away from Shinji in fear. Misato took Rei's hand gently and held it.
"It's okay, Rei, he's not going to hurt you. That's actually Shinji, underneath all that fur."
Shinji gave Rei the kindest smile that his wolf fangs could emulate. Rei still cringed in fear.
"Just do it, Shinji," Misato said, "We'll explain it to her later."
Shinji reached down and gently gripped Rei's head, pulled it to one side, and pulled off the pressure bandages that were covering Rei's neck. Misato held Rei still as Shinji opened his jaws widely and clamped them around Rei's neck. He felt his fangs break through Rei's already damaged skin. Shinji felt her blood flow across his tongue.
Shinji pulled his fangs out of Rei's neck. Next, he used one of the sharp claws on his left hand to tear open the skin on his right hand. Shinji saw his blood, thick and red, flow out all over his palm. Shinji placed this bloody hand on the fresh wound he had made in Rei's neck. His acute sense of hearing picked up a faint hissing sound as his blood contacted Rei's and mingled with it.
Rei's eyes fluttered closed. The monitoring equipment that was attached to her gave off a steady tone. She had flat-lined. Shinji, in his shock, lost his tenuous grip on the werewolf within him. He looked at Rei's heart monitors in disbelief.
"We were…too late," he said, his voice muted by his disbelief. He was already on the verge of tears. An already shitty night had just gotten worse, "No. No…we can't have been too late! Rei!"
Shinji took Rei's head between his hands and put his face down close to hers. As Misato watched, Shinji seemed to mumble something inaudible, and then put his forehead against hers. Tears rolled down the teen werewolf's face as his shoulders heaved with large sobs. Misato was almost to Shinji's side when he leapt up and raced out of the room.
Shinji raced to the stairwell and dashed up to the roof access. Up on the flat roof, Shinji collapsed into a heap and bawled. Sitting on his knees, Shinji looked up at the brightening sky and shouted:
"WHAT DID SHE DO TO DESERVE DEATH?! HUH?! WHY DIDN'T YOU FUCKING TAKE ME, INSTEAD?! Oh, god… Why did Rei have to die? WHY, GOD?! TELL ME WHY!!"
"No one can say for sure, Shinji."
It was Misato. She had followed Shinji, after telling the doctors that the monster was gone and that Rei had died.
"Why did she have to die?" Shinji asked again, pleading with Misato for an answer. His voice was choked by tears, and thickened by the fact that his nose was clogged with mucus. Shinji sniffed loudly. Misato walked towards him, intending to hold him and comfort him.
"I don't know, Shinji," Misato replied, "I do know that it doesn't seem fair. I understand that feeling, I really do. It was the same way I felt when my grandmother died. I was only thirteen, and I was still convinced that my grandma would live forever. I thought that God hated me, and that that was why he had taken my grandma away from me; to punish me.
"But look at it this way, Shinji," Misato continued, starting to cry a little, herself, "Rei was in a lot of pain when she died. You could see it on her face, couldn't you?"
"Y-…yes," Shinji hiccupped.
"Don't you think that a person who was in as much pain as Rei was deserved a release from that pain?"
"Yes," Shinji said softly, his head falling to his chest, "But she also died in terror, Misato. You didn't see the way she looked at me. She was horrified of me and she died before I could make things all right. I have to apologize to her!"
"Shinji, you can't. She's dead," Misato said, "You'll have to make your peace with her in heaven."
"Then I'll go and see her immediately!" Shinji said, suddenly animated. He jumped to his feet and dashed over to the edge of the roof. Misato tried to run towards him to pull him back, but Shinji held her at bay by saying:
"You take one more step towards me and I'll jump right now!"
Misato froze.
Cut to Rei's hospital room
The doctors that reentered Rei's room found no trace of the gigantic wolf that had menaced them a few minutes prior. What they found was a girl, lying in a hospital bed, with all her heart and breathing monitors flat-lined. They tried CPR and a defibrillator to revive her, but to no avail.
"All right," the lady doctor said gravely, "I'll call it in. What's the time?"
"6:32 am," one of the nurses answered, looking at her watch.
"Get her unhooked," one of the other doctors ordered.
If they had left the heart monitor hooked up to Rei for just another thirty seconds, they would have seen a weak, almost non-existent flutter begin. Any person, including a doctor, might have passed it off as nothing; merely a glitch in the machinery. What wasn't a glitch, however, were the weak, shallow breaths that were beginning to make Rei's chest rise and fall. One of the nurses noticed Rei breathing and called for the doctors.
"She's breathing!" the nurse exclaimed, pointing to Rei as the doctors came dashing down the hallway, "Dr. Akagi, she's still alive!"
"That's…incredible…impossible," Dr. Akagi breathed as her colleague examined Rei.
"You want incredible?" the doctor who was examining Rei asked, "Well, get this: the wound on her neck is closing; fast, impossibly fast! It's doing weeks of mending right before my eyes. Look!"
The other doctors and nurses crowded around the unconscious girl and watched as the wound on her neck got smaller and fainter. Finally, the wound that had once left over half of her neck open was reduced to nothing more than a faint scar on one side of her neck. Rei's breathing got deeper and steadier, until finally, her dusky, red eyes opened. She looked around at the group of gawking medical staff and asked:
"Where's Shinji?"
"Who, dear?" one of the nurses asked.
"He was the one who saved me and brought me here," Rei said, "Where is he? He has short, dark brown hair and blue eyes. His girlfriend Misato Katsuragi should be here with him. I remember seeing her here."
"The lady with the purple hair?" the lady doctor asked.
"Yes, that's her!" Rei exclaimed, sitting up, "Where are they? Do you know?"
"I saw a lady with purple hair head for the stairs leading to the roof," the third doctor, an older gentleman with gray hair said, "She was saying something about a Shinji being up there alone."
"Where are these stairs?" Rei asked urgently.
"Oh, no you don't," the second doctor said seriously, "You're not going anywhere until we've examined you thoroughly. We want to understand why or even how you're alive."
"There's no time for that now," Rei said, her voice still urgent, "I have to—,"
Rei was cut off by the sound of a bellowing voice. It sounded like the wrath of the Almighty, echoing through the normally quiet hospital corridors. Rei leapt out of her bed and pushed through the doctors. She knew the sound of Shinji's voice, and he sounded like he was in terrible pain.
Rei's legs were still shaky, but she wound her way through the hallways as fast as she could and started up the stairway to the roof. She reached the roof access door, panting and out of breath. She also felt light-headed from running up three flights of stairs in a weakened state. Rei took a moment to catch her breath before she pushed open the door. She saw Shinji dash to the edge of the roof. Misato followed him, but he shouted at her:
"Stay away or I'll jump right now!"
Cut back to Shinji's perspective
"Shinji, don't do it!"
Shinji looked across the roof, peering through the pre-dawn twilight to identify the speaker. Shinji looked aghast when he saw Rei, leaning on the doorway, still in her bloody hospital clothes.
"But…you're dead," Shinji said, looking at her in the kind of horrified disbelief that shows when someone sees a ghost, "I was in the room when you died! I saw it with my own eyes!"
"I'm not dead, Shinji," Rei said, walking out onto the roof, "Take my hand, feel my pulse. I'm alive!"
Shinji stood stock still, as though petrified. The blue-haired girl strode over to the ledge where Shinji stood and took his hand. Numbly, Shinji followed her gentle guidance until he was safely back on the roof. Suddenly, Shinji's equilibrium came back and he collapsed into Rei's arms, weeping uncontrollably.
"Rei, I'm so sorry," Shinji sobbed, "I'm sorry that I scared you like that. I'm sorry for even letting this happen to you in the first place. It's all my fault!"
"What do you mean, Shinji?" Rei asked. Shinji couldn't answer for how hard he was crying.
"Shinji's…" Misato began hesitantly, "He's…a werewolf…Rei."