Yes, everything was white, and I was there, but Mother's shape wasn't. It just wasn't. A voice was slowly murmuring something I couldn't understand, but the voice sounded like Kaworu.

"K-Kaworu?" I tried to visualize myself saying. But I was still just standing, staring blankly at the white infinity in front of me, inhaling and exhaling, and finally I heard a response.

"Why are you scared of everything?" he asked in the usual calm tone. Despite his kind voice, this vision was disturbing me, so I opened my eyes. At least, I tried to open my eyes. I ended up just frustrating Kaworu.

"Why are you scared of everything?" he asked again. I tried opening my eyes again, remembering that it was all just my mind's creation, but still nothing happened. I started to panic.

"I said, why are you scared of everything?" he asked with an edge to his voice.

Too frightened by Kaworu's anger to keep worrying about this strange nightmare, I responded with a quivering

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do. Think long and hard. What exactly are you afraid of?"

"Well, I'm not really afraid of anything now, except the usual junior high things like quizzes, tests, crushes, finals, and friendships. Everything's the way it's supposed to be, so I'm not scared anymore. The only thing haunting me is bad memories, but I rarely get those. I'm just fine.

"That's a lie. It's just a lie that you tell yourself feel better, a little untruth to build up your ego."

"N-no it's not!"

"I know it is. You're afraid that all those memories will become realities again, that you'll be forced to witness the deaths if more people you love, and risk the lives of everyone around you. You're afraid that things will go wrong again and that you'll be forced to witness more destruction, even if you're just a bystander," the Kaworu's voice stated with a somewhat taunting air. I didn't know what to say to that. I knew it wasn't true, it was completely wrong, but my brain still couldn't form anything sensible in response, so I spat out a

"That's wrong!"

"No, it isn't. Think." The voice faded slowly as it released the last word, leaving me alone in my white endlessness. I still couldn't wake up. Frustrated, I threw myself on the "ground". I decided that, having nothing better or even mildly significant to do, I would consider Kaworu's remarks.

Maybe I was a little afraid, but I wouldn't say I was 'scared of everything'; that was a huge overstatement. I was a little traumatized by what I had seen, that was only normal, and of course I was a little afraid something similar would take place, but that was also normal. Or was it? Maybe I was being paranoid? I wasn't the kind to worry though, I couldn't remember the last time I was actually worried for my own sake, so what Kaworu said couldn't be true, could it? Then again, I reminded myself that this was all created by my own mind, so somewhere in the back of my head, I must have believed it, or else I wouldn't have thought it up. Or maybe I didn't, maybe this was reality. No, it couldn't be, even in the strange times I had lived through. I was suddenly able to open my eyes for real this time. After a while, I fell asleep.