YOUR HELL IS THIS

CHAPTER 4:

Ryan groaned on the floor, Asuka standing over him with a triumphant expression on her face. Absently, he notice Shampoo was still standing in the corner, apparently taking notes. At her feet lay an unconscious boy dressed in old jeans and a cotton shirt.

Ryan slowly looked him over, trying to distract himself from the pain.

No large eye's. Hair combed neatly. Modern clothes. No weapons of destruction hanging from the boys belt. Nothing remarkable at all, save the bruise on the front of his head.

Real kid then.

"If I don't exist, then I couldn't have done that" Asuka said smugly, bringing his attention back to her.

Shinji nervously looked at her again. "Um . . . Was that really necessary?"

The girl glared at him. "Of course it is, idiot. He's saying we don't exist. I had to prove him wrong, didn't I?"

Ryan slowly got up, whimpering softly.
"But . . . But you can't exist.

"Alternate universes" Asuka said, smirking.

Ryan sighed, and sat down gingerly.

"You fight in two hundred meter tall robots for gods sakes. That's just not possible.

Not to mention that you would only be about three years old."

Asuka scowled, lost for answers.

At this, Rei stepped forward. "It is time."

Asuka glared at Rei. "Yes." She pulled her face close to Ryan, turning her glare towards him. "Time you got what's coming to you"

Ryan stared back, somewhat unimpressed by the fourteen year old girls attempt to intimidate him.

And then the floor disappeared. One moment they were all standing on carpet, the next they were standing on... blackness. No texture, no color, just... blackness. Asuka looked down and groaned. Ryan just sat their as the dial on his weirdness meter climbed a few notches, and Shampoo 'Eeped', before hurriedly creating a portal and dragging the unconscious boy through.

"It has begun" Rei said, turning everyone's attention back to her.

Rei on the other hand, spoke solely to Ryan.

"This is the place where there are no restraints. This is the place where anything you want can happen. Here, the only limits imposed are by yourself

Ryan looked at her. "I have watched episodes 25 and 26 you know."

Rei ignored him. Around them, the remaining walls and ceilings faded into blackness. Now nothing remained but blackness in all directions. Ryan looked at it critically, then concentrated for a second.

The blackness changed to white. "Better" he said.

Rei spoke. "You begin to understand, but you do not." Ryan snorted.

Asuka appeared behind him. "This is not the world you know. This is not the world you think it is. Ryan remained unimpressed. "Right. I know all this. I watched the last two episodes so many times it's not funny. I understand it all."

Rei just stared at him.

Ryan looked back. "What?"

Rei faded out of site, disappearing into the same blackness which surrounded Ryan.

"YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND?" Ryan looked around. "It's true. I do understand it."

"REALLY?" The voice seemed to come from everywhere.

Ryan looked sideways. "Well... most of it."

"REALLY?"

Ryan looked exasperated. "Ok. So I don't understand ANY of it. Does it matter?"

Two figures appeared in front of him. Kaji and Shinji. Their lying on futons on a small patch of floor which has appeared beneath them. It's as though their in their own little bubble of reality. Rei appears besides him, observing the scene. The two on the futon seemed to be talking. Rei gestures, and their words start to come through. "...Been asking around about your father?"

"I just... havn't been around him much"

"So – You really don't know him."

"But I've learned a lot about him lately. I've learned how he feels about his work. About my mother..."

"No your wrong Shinji. You only believe that you've learned. But people can't really understand themselves much less each other. Understanding one hundred percent of anything is impossible. That's why we spend so much time trying to understand our own motivations and those of others. That's what makes life so... interesting"

There small bubble of existence faded, and another came into view. A larger bubble this time. A hospital room, and a corridor. Only one person in the room, a middle aged woman dressed in a sterile hospital gown, and rocking a doll back and forth, in her arms. And a young girl looks at her with a stony expression from the hospital corridor. Behind her are a man and a woman talking. They don't seem to be aware the child is there.

Once more, what their saying becomes audible.

"... Feel your grief"
"It's like... looking at porcelain figures of a mother and her child. Perhaps there isn't much difference between humans and dolls."

"Mankind creates dolls in our own image. If god exists, perhaps we're all just a bunch of dolls to him."

"Hearing you say something like that makes it hard for me to believe that you're a modern physician"

"I may be a doctor, but I'm a human being, and a woman first." The voices faded, and with it, the scene.

"This is the image of me which resides on the inside of your mind, Ryan" Shinji said.

Ryan smirked. He knew this one.

"Yet at the same time this is the me which exists in your mind, isn't it Shinji?" he asked.

"No." Asuka stated, standing behind him.

"You are also a image which resides on the inside of your mind." She said, leaving Ryan just a little confused. No one was following the script.

A thought occurred to him. "What's with all this crap anyway?" He turned to Asuka, to find she and Shinji had disappeared, so he asked Rei instead. "Is this my 'punishment' or something? You put me through instrumentality?

"This is not instrumentality."

Ryan looked around. "Sure looks like it to me. Disappearing people... Check. Disappearing surroundings... check. All-powerful voices? Check. This Has to be instrumentality.

"Incorrect"

Ryan turned around, already knowing who it would be. Sure enough, Gendo sat behind him, head resting on his arms, shades making it impossible to see his eye's.

"This is not instrumentality. This is a world created by you. You wished for a world where you could co-exist with characters from an Anime. This world is a result of that wish. All you see here is what you wished for. Me. This room. Even you. All these things are as you wished them to be. You chose this fate."

Ryan stared at him. "Riiiiiight." Once didn't quite seem enough, so he said it again. "Riiiiiight." He sat down. "This is all starting to make sense." He looked up. "None of this is real, is it?" But Gendo was gone. In his place sat someone else, in much the same pose. He could have been Gendo's bigger brother. A much bigger man, heavily built, wearing all black, and sitting in a faded red armchair.

"You are right. We do not and cannot exist. Our existence is a lie, our universe a sham, designed to pull peaple away from the reality that is." As he spoke, a old TV set appeared in front of him.

Ryan sweatdropped.

"And why? Why are people's interest being drawn away into worlds which cannot exist?

To make the creators of these worlds a whole lot of these" Morpheus said, waving a wad of hundred dollar notes. I didn't believe it. Not until I saw... Morpheus stared at the eight year old blue haired girl which had just appeared in front of him.

Chibi Rei turned to face Morpheus, and spoke. "Really?" it spoke in a neurotic voice. "Isn't it peace of mind..." it looked confused. Morpheus silently pointed at Ryan. "Sorry, sorry." It turned to face Ryan, and thought for a few seconds. Finally, it looked up, huge soulful eyes staring at him. "Don't you want to be with your father?" It said, wide eyed. Ryan just looked at her, confusion spread across his face. Chibi Rei looked around frantically. "Uh.... hang on a sec." She vanished as quickly as she had come.

Morpheus paused to gather his thoughts, then continued.

"None of this is real in the true sense of the word. This world. Me. You. It's all little more than a construct in someone's mind. Someones dream.

Ryan paled further. "You mean I'm not real?"

Chibi Rei appeared, facing Morpheus. "No more...."

She sighed, and turned to face Ryan. "No more real than I am."

Ryan thought about this for a few seconds. "So... if I'm not real... I can be whatever I want to be, right?"

"No. You cannot. You can only be what the author has made you. The author has no restrictions. But you as a character, do. Your restrictions are whatever the author has written them to be.

Ryan thought about this for a few seconds. "I see."

"But if none of us are real, does anything we do really matter? If all we are is figments of someone's imagination?"

Morpheus was gone, and Kaji in his place. "No. This world is as real to us as the world which created us. Here, we are real. Here, we do exist. Everything that happens here is real. But it's only real here. In the world which created us, this entire world is nothing more than entertainment."

Ryan thought about this. "I see. So even though we're all just the construct of someone's imagination, we still exist."

Someone smacked him against the back of the head.

"Has it taken you this long to figure that out?" Asuka, the room of black, and all the other characters faded.

To Be Continued?