Chapter Eight: Taking Over Me

          Morning.  Every day that unwelcome visitor forced its way into Shinji's home, and every day he wished he could just throw it back out the window.  For the first few seconds of consciousness, it seemed today was no different.  Those brief moments where nothing was wrong and everything was just as it always was, a clean slate ready to be filled...they were the best moments of Shinji's otherwise tumultuous life.

          But then, as they would do for the rest of his life, the memories hit him like the bullets they were.  One shot into the part of his mind that held the records of those times when he was close to Rei.  One entered just below his thoughts of the future and ripped a deep wound into all his thoughts  of the past, thoughts of rare happiness with the "first child".  Shinji laid back and let it bleed.

          All these memories left him with no room for any other activity within his troubled mind.  Shinji had one constant defense against overwhelming situations like this, and that was to collapse into himself and sleep.  And so he did; melting the swirling images together, Shinji forged a new one, one of Rei.  Soon, though, he realized it was just a dream, and with that realization came another: Rei is gone, and she's never coming back.  Even as he returned to the real world, his eyes shut tighter and shed the first of the day's many tears.

You don't remember me but I remember you

I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you

But who can decide what they dream

And dream I do

I believe in you

I'll give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you

To live, to breathe

You're taking over me

          The house was empty.  This confirmed, Shinji took a seat in Misato's living room chair.  Noticing the remote on the armrest, he turned the TV on and searched for something to get his mind off...well, off everything.  A news show here, old sitcoms there, but it all ran together into one blurred series of images.  After a while, the sound ceased to be a useful distraction and became merely irritating noise.  Shinji pressed the power button and the television went mercifully silent.  He still stared on at the screen, where his reflection sat disconnectedly staring back.  Its eyes lowered shut, and Shinji found himself drifting away again.  And again, he enjoyed it.  His escape.

          When those eyes opened again, the room had changed.  It was more like NERV, like one of the labs there.  But like his home, back in reality, this too was deserted.  The lights were turned off; the whole place seemed empty, as if the hundreds of employees had all decided to abandon their posts at once.  Shinji looked down and saw he was sitting in the kind of chair he had been in when Misato had reluctantly told him about Rei.

          He froze.  A noise, almost imperceptible, drew his gaze to the left side of the room.  Nothing there but a row of lab tables.  And the right side...no.  Nothing there either.

          Shinji sighed and leaned forward, holding his head in his hands.  Of course she isn't here.  She's gone.  And then his words hit him.  Gone...even from my dreams.  I've lost her forever.  And once more, the tears came.  Rei...please don't leave me...

          Suddenly another hand reached around him and gently grasped his own.  Startled, Shinji looked to see who it was.  Five pale, albinic fingers laid enmeshed with his quivering palm.  A timid albeit joyous smile rushed to his face as he turned to find...

          The living room.  And no one else.

Have you forgotten all I know and all we had?

You saw me mourning my loss for you and touched my hand

I knew you loved me then

I believe in you

I'll give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you

To live, to breathe

You're taking over me

          An hour later, Shinji still hadn't moved from that chair.  He hadn't eaten since he heard the news nearly twenty-four hours ago.  His appetite, it would seem, was in shock as well.  The effect was beginning to show; he had grown thinner and increasingly lethargic, not moving at all for hours on end.  And so he sat, sinking deeper. 

          A sound outside caused him to twitch a little and, finding nothing more than a bird on the ledge, look back to the reflective black screen of the TV.

          What the hell?  He blinked, and it was gone.  That looked like Rei.

          Everything looked like Rei at that point.  And everything always would.  Such were the thoughts of the boy who, in a mere twenty-five hours, had learned of the death of his only real friend, stopped everything to mourn the loss of his future, and dreamed up three successive reunions and woke, devastated, from them all.

          I'm alone now, he thought. Without anyone left that cares.  Without a friend, without a future, with NERV's techs as the only people that really needs me…

          …Just like Rei.

          The sheer overpowering empathy towards the girl he had barely known was enough to jolt Shinji out of his sluggish state completely.  This was Rei: her life, her every day was just like this.  She was more alone than anyone had ever been, and so much more than anyone should have been.  Her only real relationships had been with Commander Ikari, who only wanted to use her for his own selfish goals, and…  …and me.  I was her connection to the world.  Which means…which means that whatever she did, she did because of me.  Rei is dead…because of me?

          "No…"  Shinji whimpered.  "Don't let that be true.  I…never wanted to hurt you.  Never!  I would have died for you!  But not the other way around.  You were never supposed to die.  You were supposed to…to…"

          At a loss for words, Shinji burst into tears.  His entire body was racked with convulsions, his face wet with the rivers flowing from his tired eyes.  Choking back the screams of rage and sadness that strived to erupt from within, Shinji managed to utter a few more words before he could speak no more.  "Rei…I'm so sorry."

I look in the mirror and see your face

If I look deep enough

So many things inside that are just like you are taking over

I believe in you

I'll give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you

To live, to breathe

You're taking over me