-SIX DAYS AFTER THIRD IMPACT
UNKNOWN PLACE
When Asuka Soryuu Langley opened her eyes, she was surprised to find herself completely naked and floating in some kind of void, but the initial surprise soon faded. Instead, she slowly realized that she was expecting it all along, and had known about it for quite some time.
Shinji, she thought. Her lips moved, but the only noise she heard was a dull, comforting throbbing that seemed to come from all around, like a wet, soft whooshing coming from everywhere and nowhere. Shinji, she thought again, and wondered why it was his voice that came to her.
"Now, now, Asuka," someone suddenly said. Asuka turned her head all around but could not find its source. Instead, she looked towards the dull bright light above her that seemed to slowly grow in intensity with each passing moment. "Be a good girl, Asuka. For mommy."
Her eyes went wide, and her arm rose towards the light. "Momma!" she cried voicelessly.
Images rushed in to fill the void. Memories, long ago thought lost. Her mother, her real mother, spooning food into her mouth. Asuka couldn't recall her entire face, just glimpses here and there that seemed to jump from one feature to the next as soon as Asuka sought to memorize or scrutinize them for too long. Her mother's eyes creased at the corners and her lips pulled back into a smile, her deep reddish hair pulled back into a still-youthful ponytail.
"That's right, darling. Eat it all-- isn't it good? Be strong for momma. Grow big and strong." She smiled once more, the visions still blurred and almost frenetic. "You're really a good girl, Asuka, you know that?"
"Mother! I'm trying; I really am!" Asuka clenched her teeth, wanting to hide and cry, but there was no avoiding her memories of her mother, and there were no tears for her to shed.
"You're truly one of the lucky, blessed ones, little Asuka," her mother continued, her smile more subtle now. "So many....simply gone. Men, women... even helpless innocent babies like you. They're blaming the incident on a meteor in Antarctica, but we know better-- I even signed some of the forms that authorized the forging of those photographs. All it took was that one little lie to explain away the death of half the world, and the rest of them thanked their gods that they were spared.
"Including me. And you, too, darling," her mother said. In the void, Asuka saw her mother place the baby food down, away, and rest her head on the table. "And your father," she began to sob quietly, away from her daughter's eyes, "wherever he is now."
"Mama! No!" Asuka's mouth opened and closed, screaming wordlessly. "We go on! We continue! Everyone's okay!"
"One little lie...," her mother said again. Baby fingers opened and closed, outstretched but never reaching, to reassure her.
Asuka clamped her hands over her ears and clenched her eyes shut. Her slow hovering rocked violently, all of a sudden, as though ripples were stirring in the void that held her aloft. "No! My mother's dead! They told me that she went insane after an early synchronization test! They told me that the Evas did this to her! It's too early! She wasn't crazy yet! Did they lie? This isn't--"
Silence.
Asuka froze as she realized that everything had gone black around her, and that she was alone, dressed in her red, snug-fitting plug suit. Her arm was tightly bound with bandages, and the left side of her face was covered with an eye patch and several layers of gauze. She blinked and looked at her gloved good hand, wet with the tiny shimmering beads of her tears.
"Did they lie to me?" she asked herself again, finally hearing her own voice. "Did they cover-up again what happened, just so mother would continue working on the Eva project?
In spite of herself, Asuka smiled and scrubbed the tears away from her face with her forearm. "All this time, I wanted to be the best Eva pilot. For the attention, maybe, but also to beat that which defeated my mother." Asuka looked down at her tear-stained hands once more, and clenched them into fists. "I will beat Eva. I'm not done yet."
Suddenly, she doubled over in pain, her eyes wild and frantic. "What the hell?" Her chest seemed to buck and kick as wild cough after cough tore her chest apart. She fell to her knees, clutching her stomach with one hand as the other covered her mouth. The coughing fit seemed to last for ages, but was over as soon as it came. When Asuka withdrew her hand, she stared at the blood in her palms.
"You deserve it, you know," came a child's voice.
Asuka's head whipped upwards, only to stare at a young girl, perhaps five years old, with bright red hair done up in pigtails on either side of her head. She wore a bright yellow dress, and clutched a stuffed monkey in her arms.
She wiped her hand across her stomach, leaving a bloody trail. "Who are you?" she demanded, though she thought she knew the answer already.
"I'm not you, if that's what you're thinking," the girl said solemnly. She clutched the monkey tighter to her chest. "You deserved it," she continued, pointing at the bloody smear. "You killed your mother, you know."
"What did you say?" Asuka gritted her teeth as she held herself back from strangling the young girl. Asuka remembered only all too well how she ran into her mother's hospital room, only to discover she'd hung herself from the ceiling fan. The memories made her shiver. "Who are you anyway, if you're not me?"
"You'll find out," the small child said, as she disappeared as quickly and as mysteriously as she arrived.
Asuka stared at the spot where the young girl-- herself, she convinced herself, no matter what the child said-- had stood just a moment ago. When she looked away, she sometimes thought she saw a glimmer of the stuffed monkey laying there, its stuffing torn from the side of its head and one of its arms missing, but as soon as she turned her head back, it was gone.
After several minutes, Asuka looked up and all around her, and walked away silently, having decided enough was enough.
