THE RAILWAYS END—CHAPTER NINE
In which Old Ones sneak about the great ruins of London
Shinji drinks Death's tea
And Yui gets a visitor
White fingers gently dragged themselves across the sand of the face now taking shape. A pinkie traced the separation between lips above and below. Outstretched fingers cupped a new chin into being, and lightly dusted some more off to make it just right.
The fingers of the Dream King traced shallow coves and curves that made up the neck and shoulders. Without the slightest sign of hesitation, he cupped his hands and formed the breasts—of humble size. The nipples done, he slid his flattened fingers into the sand on either side creating slots that formed the separation between the arms and body.
Withdrawing his hands brought a small shower of sand against his plain white T-shirt and ever-present Dream-emerald, which was now reduced to the size of a quarter, hanging from a tight piece of black cord around his neck.
"Daniel?"
"Matthew? I do not recall summoning you."
The raven landed on the head of his lord, his feet settling in among the white curls. Dream took no notice, instead concentrating on creating a bellybutton with his right ring-finger.
"Delirium just arrived,"
"She has? I did not sense her arrival."
"Well, she was kinda scared. She thought you might be angry with her."
"Angry? Why?"
"Something to do with the incident two days ago, I suppose…"
"…I see. Well, I shall see to my sister," Dream pursed his lips as he began walking toward the castle, leaving his work to wait beside the waters of Nightmare, "Have you seen young Ikari today?"
The raven shrugged—in the manner that all birds shrug, by flapping their wings without flying—and replied, "I saw him moping around in the Library a few hours ago, I think he really just wanted to be alone for a while,"
"I see…"
It began atop Big Ben in the ruins of London. The two figures had come to the old clock tower—now submerged under water up to the roofs of Parliament—in a blue speedboat. When they got to the entry point, the more physically able of the two threw a dark brown tarpaulin over the boat, which covered the vehicle to the water level. The other—physically aged to a stage thirty years beyond that of her younger-appearing comrade, though in actuality he was vastly older than she was—had already climbed clumsily into the window and was now shining a hurricane lamp around as her companion hefted two bags through, throwing up great clouds of dust off the wooden floor in the process, before climbing in himself.
"How long we got, dearie?"
The red-haired man shined his flashlight onto his Rolex.
"About two hours, Hettie; you sure you've got everything?"
"Pish-tosh, my lovely; I may be as mad as the hatter but I ain't stupid! Let's head up,"
"Hold it," the man said as he stepped in front of her and tapped the stairs with his foot. A metal sound echoed through the tower. The man smiled at the "old" woman.
"Good old British steel; hasn't let us down yet!"
He bowed and made a sweeping gesture. Hettie curtsied and proceeded up the stairs.
After a short amount of time climbing up the winding stairway—both were in better condition than their ages would normally allow—past dusty floors where only bats and pestiferous birds now moved, the two arrived at the top maintenance floor. The man walked to the internal side of the clock face and opened a door that led outside into a short catwalk and then nothing.
Hettie began unpacking the two bags, pulling out a long object wrapped in a bag of its own.
"Was it hard to get this thingamajig, Hobby dear?"
Hob Gadling snorted. "Hardly; a few pounds here and there and they were offering me a bloody Ruskie tank. I swear; the bloody Americans were tossing these things around like rice at a wedding back in the eighties."
"Different times, dearie…"
"I s'pose…are you ready yet?"
"Gettin' started right now, lovey; can't rush perfection…" was the churlish reply as the artificial campfire was started, and the blood of a virgin doe was poured into a bowl.
The Dream King, now dressed in a loose white cloak and robe and having sent Matthew on an errand to the Island of Giant Things, found Delirium in his throne-room, twiddling her thumbs nervously. She wore her usual black leather jacket, along with some tattered jeans and a mesh-shirt. She seemed somewhat upset and her face was set in a tight frown.
"A good day to you, my sister; what brings you to my realm?"
"Um, iS tHe sILlY ShINjI mAN hErE? I wANTed tO…Um…tAlK To hiM?"
Dream sighed and ran a white hand through his equally snow-colored hair.
"I am sorry, my sister, but he is very upset. He has not spoken to anyone since your…visit…"
Delirium curled her lips inward and a tear the color of old book pages floated away from her right eye, "I-i-wANtEd tO sAy I waS SorRy. I dIdn'T kNOw tHAT tHoSE pEOple wERe tHErE, hONeSt!!"
"I believe you sister, and I am confident that Shinji knows this as well. But you must understand: Shinji Ikari came into my service under a most…unpleasant and unusual circumstance," he paused to collect the tear in a handkerchief, where it then gave off the smell of a new German car in the1960's, "He came into the Dreaming from a land where dreams have been shattered, where his life was destroyed when it had barely begun."
Delirium's lips scrunched up. She hung her head before speaking again, "WhY iS hE So sAd aLL tHe TiME? EvEN wHeN wE wERe hAVinG FuN hE wAS vErY sAD," she sniffed and vigorously scratched her head, "iT smELlEd lIKe lOnELy pLAygROuNDs wHeRE rUSTy sWiNGs sWAy fORwARd aNd bACk, tHeIR sQuEAks eCHoInG iNtO ThE CoLD NIgHt."
And the Prince of Stories gave his youngest sister—though indeed; she was vastly older than he was—the story of his newest servant, Shinji Ikari. At the end, his sister squinted into the night-sky that eternally hung over the Dream King's throne room.
"sO hIs mOMmy iS tRApPed In tHE sCARy pURPlE tHIng? AnD tHe pAPa lEfT hIM?"
"Yes,"
"ThAt Is vERy sAD; iT mAKeS mY sOCks cRY,"
"You are not wearing any socks, my sister,"
"I kNOw tHaT, DrEAm!" declared the youngest Endless, "I dOn'T wEAr tHeM bECAusE tHeY mIGhT gEt dIRty! tHeY'Re iN My pOCkET!"
And with that, she pulled a pair of patched up socks out of her right coat pocket and proudly presented them to the Dream King. The socks were dripping salty water and making sobbing noises.
"I see…"
"So dO I," declared Delirium as she stuffed her socks into her belly button for safe-keeping, "hIS mOMmY mUsT bE aS SaD aS tHe ShiNJI mAN iS. i'M gONnA tAlK tO hEr aND tELl hEr aLl aBOuT HiM AnD aBoUT FrEnCh FRieS aND BlUE pEns anD…uM," Delirium scratched her nose nervously, as if searching for words, "oH, aNd sOnGS tHAt bEGiN wITH tHe wOrD 'Fly' And tHe nAMeS oF aLL ThE mAGPiES iN BElgIUM!"
"Take care, my sister," said Daniel as his sister vanished in a prism of orange and blue light.
The boy was curled up on a chair by a fireplace that held nothing but slowly dying embers.
Dying, he thought, and frowned. I thought dying would solve all my problems. That I wouldn't be a burden to anybody when I was dead; that I couldn't hurt anyone…
He pressed his head into his legs, paying little attention to the approaching footsteps of the tall skinny man in elegant clothing that spoke of authority and supreme dignity. He only lifted his head when he felt the glow of a renewed fire.
Lucian tossed another log into the flames, manipulating it with a long black poker into a position where the flames could grow. The light cast a demonic glow against the librarian's face, and for a moment, Shinji thought that he could see the lines of Lucian's vast lifespan suddenly emerge on his face. After the fire was sufficiently roaring, Lucian set the poker against a nearby fire-tool set—one that was inscribed with the words "To His Majestie Henry VIII from the Emperor of Mars" in brilliant gold—and looked down gravely at the boy, apparently trying to formulate something to say.
"Shinji," the librarian began, "I was wondering if you could do something for me,"
"Huh? Oh, uh…sure…"
"Good," smiled the librarian. He produced a book from his coat and handed it to Shinji.
It bore a gold outline of a lion on the cover and the elegantly scripted title read The Many Passions of Sir Burnaby Fudge; the author was Roald Dahl.
"I need you to please deliver this to the Lady Death and to retrieve the other volume that she has finished reading,"
"T-to Death?!"
"Indeed," said Lucian as he removed his spectacles and began cleaning them with a small blue cloth, "I dare say, Her Ladyship has very little to read besides collecting a few…" Lucian shuddered, "…magazines…from grocery stores or newsstands. So we arranged to send her new books whenever she needs one. She has sent word that she has completed the last piece and requires another one."
Shinji nodded and walked towards the direction of a door, stopping when a thin hand grabbed the neckline of his shirt.
"Stop! Young man, do you even know how to get to the Sunless Lands?"
He looked back at the tall librarian, confused.
"The what?"
"The realm of Death of the Endless. You don't know how to get there, I take it?"
The boy's head twitched sideways.
"I see; well, it is actually very simple: go to the Lord's Gallery and face the sigil of Death—the ankh—and ask to enter her realm. If she is there and she wants you to come in, then she will bring you into her realm. If she isn't there, come back here. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir,"
"Please, Shinji," Lucian smiled, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder, which froze at the contact, "Call me Lucian. But, there is one more thing…"
"Yes…uh, Lucian?"
"Do not, under any circumstances touch any of the sigils yourself; it is forbidden for anyone else but the Endless to touch them. Do you understand?"
The former Third Child blinked at that, and nodded.
"Good; off you go."
The boy left through the door, walking in the manner of a half-hearted clerk.
Lucian, after regarding his glasses again and apparently approving of their condition, placed them back on his nose and drifted back into the eternal stacks of books.
A satisfied smile—hinting of relief—was on his face.
This week, the throne room was to the left of the Chamber of Dust and the right of the Museum of Broken Statuary. In the weeks since his arrival, Shinji had unintentionally impressed others with an "unusual" gift of finding the throne room with little aid. He supposed it was a skill learned walking through the eternal tunnels within NERV towards one destination or another. But still it was impressive considering that Dream's palace was substantially larger than NERV, encompassing vast halls and rooms, massive gardens and zoos filled with extinct animals that Dream had shown benevolence upon and allowed to live on in dreams.
The first time he had walked into the throne room, his mouth had hung open like a dead fish. The room was so…imposing, was the only word that the former pilot could come up with. A black-and-white checkerboard floor stretched out to football-field size, leading into side nooks with some doors here and there. Various statues standing on pedestals lined the room, dwarfed by huge windows depicting one scene or another. The entire room lay beneath an endless night sky, with stars and moons scattered hither and yonder. Every now and then, a comet would streak across the blackness, and the moons would go through the usual phases, but otherwise the expansive thing remained dormant.
It was the windows that gave Shinji pause; whatever form the throne room took, the windows were there. He could actually see them moving if he watched them for some time.
The center of every throne room is—obviously—its throne. It too took on various forms; when Shinji first saw it, the thing looked like an ancient Roman throne—no back, silver with a green cushion, and grand in its simplicity.
He peeked into the room first—he found himself doing this often in the Dreaming, having once accidentally come across Ruthven (a sharp-toothed white rabbit in elegant clothing) and his sweetheart (a human in equally elegant clothes) in a rather intimate position when looking for Lucian to ask a question. The rabbit and the woman laughed it off, but Shinji decided to be safe rather than sorry.
The throne room was empty—and white marble today. The throne—its seat flanked by griffins and a silver sun rising over its back—was at a low level, and one of Matthew's feathers could be seen at its side.
The sound of white sneakers echoed through the vast room, and the boy passed a giant clock in the shadows of the left side of the throne room before going through a portal and walking down a flight of stairs.
The Gallery was another imposing chamber; its finely crafted furniture only a sideshow to the real purpose of the room's existence. The sigils of the Endless seemed to glow with an unseen power all their own; Shinji almost swore he could feel eyes hidden behind the book, the ankh, the heart, the ring, and the mismatch of colors watching him. He shook away his inhibitions and faced the ankh.
He happened to glance to his right—and saw a mirror right beside the ankh.
Shinji frowned and looked around the room again; this mirror was the only one in the entire room. Why did Dream put it in the middle of the row of his sibling's symbols?
It was then that he noticed the empty frame, further down the row away from the mirror. It was made of crafted gold, but held nothing but black space within. Warily he approached the thing and examined it closely. It appeared that the frame was not meant to hold anything in particular, and indeed…
He frowned and he reached out with his hand toward the blackness in the frame.
Nothing. Not even a wall beyond the "back" of the frame. His arm waved about in the darkness for a few seconds before he withdrew it, amazed once again at the oddities of his new home.
Shinji quickly made his way back to the ankh, the Gallery suddenly proving too mysterious for his taste.
He paused for a second, and then said in a raised voice: "Lady Death? It's me: Shinji Ikari. May I enter your realm?"
At first nothing happened, and Shinji was beginning to think she wasn't home.
"Sure!" chirped a voice from beyond the ankh, which was now showing a glare off of one of its corners, "Come on over, kiddo!"
Shinji Ikari found himself floating and moving—moving towards the ankh, beyond the ankh, and through a dark tunnel, at the end of which was a door with a cheery "Welcome" mat at its feet…
She had gotten used to the darkness long ago. Though its cloak covered everything about her, she remained lit—a firefly of human skin and red-brown hair in a sea of black.
Every now and then, Yui Ikari would manifest in the eye-scopes of the purple behemoth she inhabited, hoping to catch a glance of her baby—for that was what Shinji had been, and for a mother with one child, it often remained that way.
But he hadn't appeared for some time now—she didn't know how long, having lost all sense of time years ago. And so, she would return to the darkness with her human body and nothing else, the body itself crafted to remind herself that she was once—and hopefully would be again—human.
She worried—you know how mothers are. She had worried since the very first day she found a girl with pale blue hair, white skin and red eyes being injected into the "Monstrosity", as she now called it. The girl looked exactly like her in many ways, and Yui was confused and frightened by the thing now trying to make the Evangelion move. Yui blocked the girl (though, on afterthought, Mrs. Ikari realized that the poor thing wasn't doing all that well at synchronization anyway) because the creature frightened her with images of what might come if the blue-haired albino succeeded.
When Shinji suddenly came to her—nearly grown up, and as handsome as she knew he would be—that day of her first battle, she was overjoyed. Her little baby was finally with her.
But he hated her—no, not her; the thing she inhabited. She could feel it each time he entered her in the plug, and the waves of despair she felt off of him made her cry, the tears absorbed by the uncaring darkness.
But where was he? For all the fear that he showed, he always came to her.
And then, Yui Ikari saw her: a girl in tattered clothing and bizarre hair. The stranger was approaching, at first a white speck, as far as Yui could see, and then suddenly right beside her. Who…?
"hELlO," the voice echoed, and as it did so, Yui thought the darkness rippled, quivering like dark water before the voice, revealing flitting pieces of color.
The girl looked with mismatched eyes up at Yui, clearly expecting a response.
"Uh…hello…"
The strange girl smiled grandly, flipping back a long piece of amber hair—wasn't it just dyed purple?
"I…I am Doctor Yui Ikari," Yui bowed awkwardly, out of practice for over ten years in her introductions.
"tHAt iS yOuR NAmE?"
"Yes; why?"
"WoW, tHAt nAMe Is a nICE oNe; MUcH bETtEr tHaN MinE."
"Which would be?"
"uM…Is tHEre a WoRD FoR wHEn sOMeOnE pROmiSeS tO Do SoMEtHiNg, bUt hE dOESn't CoME aND eVERybODY cOMes lOOkinG FoR hIm aND hE Is lOoKIng fOr PuRPlE fLYiNg SnAIls iN hIs AtTIc?"
"…I don't think so…"
"oH. wElL My nAMe iS DeliRIuM…yEs, Delirium of The Endless,"
Yui frowned at the name. It seemed to affect the world around her, creating fear and confusion in the darkness.
"So…what are you?"
"i aLReaDY tOlD yOu, SiLLy," giggled Delirium in response.
Yui sighed in exasperation. She had now figured out that this was going to be one of those bizarre conversations.
Well, better than none at all…
"I tHInk sO tOo,"
Yui's eyes widened as she stared at the stranger.
"Did you just read my thoughts?!"
"hMmM?"
"Just now: I thought that having this talk rather than none at all is better than nothing and you just told me you agreed."
"nO, yOu diDN't aNd I dIDn't,"
"Yes I a-and you did!"
Delirium shook her head, replying, "No, YoU tHOugHT: 'Well, better than none at all' aNd I sAId 'I tHInk sO tOo'. yOu jUSt sAiD sOMEthIng cOMPlETelY dIFFerrEnT."
The woman's mouth hung slightly open. Not only had this…girl corrected her, but had done so in Yui's own voice.
Yui reached out carefully and touched the girl's leather jacket…
HATRED AND LOVE ALL AT ONCE WHY CAN'T YOU LOVE ME I'LL KILL YOU SO YOU CAN BE SAVED AND WHY CAN'T WE JUST GET ALONG WHEN WE COME DOWN EIGHTY-SECOND I'LL SLIT HER THROAT AND THEN I'LL CUT MY WRISTS AND WE'LL BE HAPPY FOREVER AND EVER IT'S ALL MY FAULT IT'S ALL MY FAULT I'M SORRY I'M SORRY WE SHALL HOLD OUT OUT THERE WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE
She pulled her hand back violently and fell backwards onto her rear—which should have been impossible since there was really nothing here for her to fall onto. But the girl before the astonished Yui Ikari was already affecting the world around her, shifting and changing it unconsciously.
"What are you?" breathed Yui in awe—nothing that the Angels or Eva wielded held such power like this young-looking girl.
"I ToLD yOu. yOU aRe a SiLLy wOMaN, lIkE ShINjI,"
"Shinji? You've seen him?" Perhaps this strange creature could help her somehow…
"oF cOUrsE i'vE sEeN HiM," sniffed Delirium, looking somewhat insulted, "I'vE hEArd hIm AnD sMELlEd hIm tOo; hE Is vErY SaD,"
"I know," she sighed, "Where has he been?"
"hE iS WiTH My bRotHER,"
"And that is?"
"DreAM, mY bIg bROTheR," Delirium stopped and slipped a finger into her mouth, "aCTUalLy, hE's noT mY BroTHEr BuT He ReALly iS; hE dIeD a wHIlE aGo, aNd ShiNJi iS hIs sERvEnT nOW."
Yui had stood up and was looking around—psychedelic waves were appearing out of the darkness as Delirium continued talking—but quickly snapped her attention to Delirium.
"Wait; how did Shinji become your…brother's servant?"
"oH, DrEAm dOeS tHAt eVERy nOW aNd tHEn, bUt ThEY hAVe tO Be dEaD bEFoRe He cAn gET ThEM,"
Now, Delirium is not as foolish as everyone thinks…well, let's just say that every now and then she produces a thought that is useful and leave it at that. And now she realized what she had just said.
He's dead he's dead my baby is DEAD!
Yui fell to her knees, her hands moving forward to support her as she leaned over and took a deep breath.
No one told me…why didn't anyone say anything…why didn't HE say anything?
"wHo?"
Yui didn't bother to look up into Delirium's face, didn't bother to answer the question.
Yes, she knew. She knew it: he screwed up again. She knew that Gendo couldn't face her now, with his failure.
Deep in her heart, she'd known, a long time ago. The late nights working at GEHIRN—she had a son to take care of and always managed to finish her work at an hour where she could go home to the little boy. But he—HE would stay up and work nights, coming home at a late hour when she was drifting off into dream-land.
It infuriated her—not only that he was cheating on her but that he thought she had been too goddamn stupid to figure it out. He came home with perfume on his clothes, and carelessly left them in her path when she would get up to go the bathroom. He would sloppily try to wipe the lipstick off of some article of clothing and—when the stuff had been deluded to a pinkish smear—he would dump it in the hamper, uncaringly.
A disloyal, uncaring husband who did such monstrosities—what had she seen in him?
And now, the little boy who at least had loved her for sake of being the only kind influence in his life was dead.
It wasn't fair.
It couldn't be fair.
She cried there, in the darkness, as Delirium watched with sympathy.
"Hi, Shinji!"
He still could not believe that the pale woman dressed in a black exercise outfit was Death. He looked around the room he was in, and found himself thinking something he never thought he would use to describe the dwelling place of an immortal, all-powerful being: It looks like someplace Misato would live in.
"Uh, hello, my la—," the boy stopped his salutation when he saw her look, "Uh, Death,"
The woman waved him further into her apartment, and he looked around while doing so.
The whole place seemed rather drab, with a few different colors here and there. A television tucked into a corner showed a Tae-Bo program with Billy Blanks (Blanks had died during Second Impact) working out with who appeared to be Marilyn Monroe, Rudolph Valentino, and an extremely sweaty Chris Farley and Sam Kinison cracking jokes just behind a dancing—and apparently very confused—Ronald Reagan. A light blue exercise mat lay before the box. A coffee table bearing a few magazines of varying size and a bowl of peanuts stood before a gray couch that had a few pillows and a teddy bear sitting on it. The entity had walked into a cozy little kitchen while Shinji was gazing about the apartment, pulling out two coffee mugs while reaching out for the pot that was sitting on the stove.
A picture that hung on the wall attracted his attention, and he found himself astonished by the scene within the frame: all of the Endless, including Dream, were apparently posing for a photograph. Destiny stood to the right in the back, his face hidden within the shadows of his hood, looking aloof as when Shinji first met him; Death and Dream stood on either side of Delirium—upon closer inspection, he discovered that the two had put their hands on both of Delirium's shoulders. Desire and Despair were in front—Desire with its coy smile, Despair with a slightly pleasant glare at the camera.
"It's a fake, you know,"
He turned to Death, who had come up behind him with a tray laden with a teapot and two coffee mugs. She was still smiling, though a little less enthusiastically then before.
"E-excuse me?"
"The picture; it's a fake," she said, setting the tray on the coffee table and beginning to pour, "I created it a couple years ago, so I could get a family portrait; the truth is that I'm not sure that the family would get along all that well if we did try to get a photograph,"
"Oh…that's too bad…uh, can I ask you something?"
"Maybe," she replied, a gleam coming off her ankh as she answered.
"Well," he began, breathing in deeply and looking at the picture again, "I notice that you have brothers and sister, but no parents…" he trailed off, looking back at the not-quite-so-grim reaper. Her face betrayed no emotion as she looked at him for what seemed like an eternity.
"We're not humans, Shinji," she said finally, "We're not gods either—or what you call Angels—we're beings who have existed since the dawn of time. We are manifestations of what makes you mortals who you are…let's leave it at that…"
Shinji nodded—having learned from others that it was best to not question the advice of the Endless. He was about to ask another question when his eyes fell upon a black framed picture on a small table across the room.
The boy soon covered the distance and picked up the picture. He gazed into deep black eyes with two points of light acting as pupils in the middle of them. The figure was dressed in a long black coat, black jeans, and a black shirt, creating the effect of a man clothed in shadows. Long black shaggy hair gave the boy the impression of a dark lion surveying its realm. The man's face was lined with the marks of care, worry, and angst.
For all the differences, Shinji knew something from the first second he was examining this picture: the dark man could have been the twin brother of Daniel.
Well, an older twin brother…, the boy thought, remembering the youthful look of the white-clothed Dream.
"That's Morpheus,"
Death had come up behind him. All traces of a smile were gone as she gently pulled the picture out of the boy's hands and held it to her breast. Her eyes seemed to stare into nothing as she continued speaking.
"I guess I shouldn't have this—or keep it out here—but he was...my brother for so long I just can't forget him that easily.
"I was probably the only one who treated him like my little brother…everyone else respected him. Either that or feared him; he was always the most visible of us, and he wasn't above spreading that big cloak of his and scaring the shit outta somebody."
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and gave Shinji a small smile.
"I see a little of him in you," she said softly.
"You do?" asked the boy, a little confused.
"Yeah," she replied, setting the picture down, "He was a little afraid of socializing too, afraid to open up to others, just like you…"
She guided the former Third Child back to the couch and handed him a cup full of tea.
"I heard you had an interesting experience the other day, with Delirium…"
He looked down, "Y-yes…"
"Can you tell me about it?"
Shinji sighed and did so, if nothing because he felt he had little choice from this being.
Death calmly picked up a cube of sugar and dumped it into her tea as he finished.
"So Del knocked Hikari down, you ran, Asuka saw you behind a bush, and you knocked Rei down…again," she paused to take a sip of the tea, pursed her lips and reached for another sugar cube, "Then you went back to my brother and begged to be killed. Am I on the right track?"
The young Ikari nodded, uncomfortably. He then got up and headed towards Death's gallery.
"I-I sh-shouldn't have stayed here this long," he said nervously, "Lucian…h-he probably…"
"Come back here and sit down."
And Shinji was back on the couch. Death stared at him.
"What's wrong?" she demanded.
"N-nothing! Th-there…" he stuttered.
"Like hell," said Death, "You can't hide things from me, Shinji,"
He cringed a little, and then looked down again.
"I…I guess it's because of Rei and Asuka…Hikari too,"
"What about them?"
The boy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "I'm supposed to be dead, right?"
Death didn't reply.
"Well, imagine if your friend just died. You're walking in a park, and suddenly you bump into your friend. He sees you and he runs away and disappears. Don't you think that would be upsetting? Wouldn't all the hurt you felt before suddenly reappear?"
Death shrugged, but he didn't notice as his hands went up to his face.
"All the time I was in Tokyo-3, I hurt people. I hurt Touji's sister, I hurt god knows how many people when I made a wrong step or fell in Eva-Unit 01. I was a friggin' menace…and then I died. I thought it would solve all my problems, you know, maybe some other problems. But it just began again," Shinji looked up again, "I…still see them…when I sleep. People crushed by buildings, missing arms, legs; I can see…an eye," the blue eyes became dead and hollow; "When I came to Tokyo-3, after my first battle Eva-01 was badly damaged. One of its eyes was destroyed…and then it just…remade itself and blinked at me. That thing was a nightmare…and I made it move and shoot things and knock down…" he choked on the words a little, "…apartments and hospitals and stores and places with people in them and…and…"
A light glared off a corner of the ankh as Death spoke:
"And your father didn't care."
The tears came, unbidden.
"I was so scared…so scared…" he whimpered as two pale arms went around his shoulders.
"Scared of what?" asked Death of the Endless softly.
"That they…would make me go back…to him…"
Death said nothing as the boy cried into her shoulder. Nothing as he slowly gave in to exhaustion and dozed off.
She didn't say anything even when she saw the glow of an emerald beneath two stars blazing out of fathomless, black eyes…
"Here comes the bugger now,"
Hob Gadling stepped back from the opening and shined his light around the beams of the abandoned tower as he walked towards the old woman worrying over the concoction she had spent the last two hours creating.
"Are our little friends ready?"
"Just a second, lovey; then it'll be good and done and we can get some tea."
"Jolly good," he replied, looking up around at the creatures milling about on the rafters, "Good God, how many of them do you s'pose there are?"
"A couple thousand…ah, here we are!"
It was a red colored liquid, and Mad Hettie scooped out some small round pellets from the stuff with a straining spoon. The pellets were a purplish hue, with no special glow to them, nothing to indicate their purpose.
She tossed them out onto the dusty floor, and the pigeons flew down to them, the birds they are. Within a few seconds the pellets were gobbled up and the pigeons remained still, like small feathered statues. They were soon joined by more and more of their brethren as Hettie tossed out more and more of the pellets.
Hob looked at the gathering army of pigeons and smiled approvingly…
"Fly slowly over this place,"
"Very good, sir," the pilot replied, knowing better than to argue with his boss.
Sir Alexander Chesterton—otherwise known as SEELE-05—was eighty-two years old, and an important British industrialist. He adjusted his seat so he could look out upon the fallen city that was once his country's capital. Chesterton sipped a glass of wine as he sighted Big Ben, and he leaned even closer to the window.
Too bad for the old city, he thought to himself, but its all for a good cause…paradise…
A paradise where he wouldn't die and have to face the justice of a distant God. Where he would not be called to answer for smuggling Nazi's around the world, carrying on his father's legacy in doing so. Where he would not be judged for his finances to Holocaust 'revisionists' and his funding of racist movements.
Well, it won't be a perfect paradise, he thought to himself, the niggers will be there too. Ah, well…
It was then that he noticed a cloud of small white shapes emerging from Big Ben. Pigeons. Hundreds of them, all coming toward them. Not to worry, he thought to himself, surely they will fly away as soon as they get closer.
The cloud came closer, and closer.
SEELE-05's right engine spat out a glob of blood, feathers and bone; all that remained of the first pigeon to reach them. Fights seemed to break out between some of the birds as they raced toward one engine or another.
The plane bucked, like a wild stallion. Sir Alexander Chesterton could hear the pilot screaming…screaming as they began to fall…screaming just before they met the water.
The next few moments went by in a flash for Chesterton; he saw a pale young woman dressed in black clothes hold out her hand and he took it.
He spoke to her for a few moments before she vanished, and he found himself in the middle of a field filled with dead grass. He saw a dead tree that had a hole filled with sharp teeth in its trunk grab a passing naked person and stuff the poor fellow into its mouth.
"Welcome," said a soft voice from above him. He looked up and saw a handsome young man with golden hair hovering above him, silver wings stretching like the rays of a rising sun.
"You have come here from a life of sin and hate; but the refining fires of Hell will make you into a better man than you were before…"
He looks just like an angel was SEELE-05's last thought before a red-hot barbed spear was plunged up his rectum and up through his neck.