Interlude.
~ the forgotten child ~
The elevator is falling. The lights on the side of the elevator shaft are flung upwards, glowing like dozens of falling meteorites. NERV is sound asleep. I am in the falling elevator. A dreadful silence washes over the entire universe.
The elevator is falling, but the glowing digits on the panel is counting down. Twenty fifth floor. Twenty four, twenty three, twenty two. Like there's no tomorrow. Rising into heaven or falling into hell? I'd rather stay in between.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen. I glance at my watch. The second hand is spinning fluidly, but that doesn't mean anything. The remaining two hands sits still, as if weighted down by mountains. Time has frozen.
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen. The elevator dives into pitch blackness. I have gone so deep that there are no more meteorites. Where is my destination? Why am I here?
Someone has called me here.
Who...?
I put my palm against the glass. Twelve, eleven, ten. My heart is shivering. The judge is dead. There is no warmth anywhere. But isn't this what I wanted? The naked glass viciously absorbs all the heat from my palm, and a thin film of frost suddenly wraps itself tightly around my skin. Shocked, I pull my hand back in panic. The ice tears a piece of my skin off my palm, and I shout a soundless scream. My palm is crimson red, but the blood has become frozen solid before it even gets a chance to escape. I clenched my hand in pain.
I'm so cold. So cold. Time has frozen. Six, five, four. The shattered films of ice becomes pieces of aerial diamonds, glimmering in the air, but only for a moment. Then they fall, and shatter again. Minute pieces return into the air. They will too fall, and break. The process repeats itself until nothing remains. Each impact sets off a nuclear bomb of absolute terror in my mind, decimating any last pieces of reason left intact.
Please. I want to get out of here. I want to get out of here.
Three, two, one. The glowing light on the panel hesitates on the first floor.
one.
one.
I crouch down in a corner of the elevator, body trembling from the extreme cold and fear. I dare not cry, for my frozen tears may simply rip my eyes out of their sockets. The light on the panel disappears, but the elevator does not stop. It hurries on, undisturbed.
It keeps going.
Determined to pull me down into the deepest hell of the NERV headquarters.
