The nature of this life, both endless and short, is perplexing. One can't help but wonder how much of what one sees is the truth. In the darker moments of our lives we grasp briefly that we truly have little control or any at all. So then, why are we? Why then, must we find our own reasons? An external answer is one option; we live for another or some other. The other is we live for ourselves and our own purposes. Neither is whole, both are complete.
Do you exist? Ask yourself seriously now! Come on, you can do it. Are you? Do you? How judge it to be so, how does one grade the experience? You might think "I am as real as this table I have my hand on." And then you would be right. Then realize as surely as you know, as you have been taught…there is so substance to said table. It doesn't exist; it is merely a vagary of light. Waveforms acting in a prescribed fashion, like moving pictures on a screen. This is your world, stop and take a look at it.
Where are you in all this?
It's not so easy is it, to seriously ask these questions. Nothing is so horrifying to the soul then to question ones existence, in a serious nature that is. For this reason, there is a measurable disconnect between what we intellectually know, and what we believe. It's all right for black holes but not for man. Quantum physics are wondrous to describe, but not in describing the flesh of your hand.
Before you accuse me of asking existential questions for which there can never be an answer, I say to you… Wrong! I say man can comprehend the world around him. It is not beyond us anymore then counting stones. I say the first step in all this is to stop trying to grab a hold of those metaphorical moving pictures. Grasp the total unreality instead. The world is not solid. It is not carved in stone, brick or wood. We live in a shadow of light. All of this...All of our universe… Is a shadow stretched overlong. All of its gradients, all of its measure, relative only unto itself.
Suddenly, this endless, infinite universe doesn't seem quite so daunting does it?
The distance between galaxies? A relative thing. The mass of the sun? A relative thing. One value is as much as the other, so long as you have value.
What is the underlying truth of a relative thing? The truth and beauty of absolute relativity is that it allows for absolutely anything. There is always a way, because there must always be a way. Find the backdoor, and suddenly all things become possible.
We are those who have crossed that threshold. We are those who have fallen through realities cracks. It is we who have become sundered and are now lost, left to wander as shadows in the sun. We are the Unreal, this is our curse.
Gods, Demons, Titans…Whatever names you give us, they fail to describe. We are as varied as snowflakes, dissimilar in strengths. Yet we are no more perfect then you, we are the false Gods.
There is one among us who is not. One and only one do I name as such. One who came among us, but is not of us… the only true Unreal. The one known as the Lord of Powers... Valthalion Pallar.
In turmoil he came among us. For the unthinkable was upon Pantheon, the gathering place of we poor stragglers. No one foresaw the coming of the Shardlings, fragments of a consciousness far greater then our own. None could withstand them, and the undying found themselves faced with death.
When the ashes were cold and the dead counted, we had lost half our host. The halls had been stained red, and those among us who had yet the power sought order. Athena, called Goddess by many, tried to fill the power vacuum but failed. Her long machinations and blackmails availed her not as only Valthalion could defend them from further incursion.
The second assault was worse, or would have been, as the Shardlings spilled through gaping tears in the borders of Pantheon. Valthalion would not retreat. What he showed us then, and learned for himself there his connection to all the Shards.
He met, on those very doorsteps…Arimas, and the Shards were between them. Arimas had learned to impress his will onto shards he had gathered, prompting those not yet awakened into becoming his minions, and sending them forth to conquer.
The first meeting of Arimas and Val was well beyond cataclysmic. Pantheon itself was unscathed, yet the battle fought in the voids between worlds caused the total destruction of entire universes.
Long was that battle, longer then I will tell, they fought till at long last they realized the truth of themselves… or rather them self. They were both connected to whatever source their powers derived from, but that Arimas's power could only match those Valthalion himself put to use!
That was the end of Valthalion as prince among the false Gods. As the weight of the truth and guilt of those lost enveloped him, he set off alone into all that is; to deny Arimas any more power then he had so foolishly given to him. Bereft of the crutches of his seemingly endless powers, he was little more then a child. However, beyond enabling Arimas he had fear of one more thing.
In the airless blows of lifeless worlds, Valthalion started to fade. He began to pass out of space and time, his sense of self dangerously deteriorating. Had I had not found him in his self imposed isolation, he may well have succumbed to the only death he may know. Forever since the fear of fading away into the winds has haunted him.
I carried him to a world that knew not the Pantheon and nursed his mind back to health. Simply healing him would have been one thing, but soon guarding became more and more difficult. Arimas had sent forth legions to feel him out among the endless spidering realities. At length we moved far away enough from the prime realms that we no longer felt Arimas's breath down our necks. We have been in hiding of a sort ever since.
Now at long last I feel Arimas has caught our whiff, and soon this tragic world will be the new prime realm. A storm this world cant hope to contain is gathering in all directions, I feel it. I can only hope to contain the damage. Will there be anything left I wonder?
Asuka sat shivering in her entry plug. The angel of shadow had come, and Shinji was seemingly lost. No one had come up with a plan, a plan to save him. He was going to die and they were going to kill him. Frantic and silent she rubbed her shoulders, feeling the cold that she knew he must feel. Panic and rage and things long buried surfaced in her mind. A conversation, an exchange was about to take place whose consequences would range beyond the scope of dream.
It was all wrong, terribly terribly wrong. He was supposed to stay, to be at my side, ever at reach. Why did he get so full of himself? Why didn't I stop him? Put him in his place. Now he is lost in the black. Now I'll never see him again…
Long in the shallows of your mind
Where do you drift?
Through the tide pools of memory
Along the shoals of time
Are you not here endless?
Against the tide.
Have I finally gone insane?
Do you, dare you, seek my counsel?
Do you, dare you, seek my aid?
To call upon the tip of ones own terror…
Risk your mind and wet your blade?
I am the shadow of your mind…
I am the you that is not.
Borne of the chance, dangerous and full.
For of you there is many, of I just one.
Awaken, oh child, heiress, and reign.
Misato had never, not even with her father, felt such stark terror. Her plans shattered, her charge all but lost… and now Asuka walked plainly toward the edge of the shadow.
'Please no!' She screamed through the view screen in the control van, but Asuka kept walking. She screamed to halt the countdown, she screamed for section two as a dagger of ice shot through her heart…and on Asuka walked.
I am insane
I am insane
Broken at last
I am insane
You are now whole!
We are one and the same.
I am power by right yours.
You may do anything.
Asuka Finally reached the very edge of the angel, and all became still. Misato was shrieking, running behind her fast. Yet even she became still. Fist clenched and eyes screaming, Asuka spoke her command 'Release him'
Earth and shadow cracked and split, the towers shook and heaven rent. Eva-1 was free again.
She looked to the angel, justice at hand, her tear only one and she spoke her command 'Now burn in your hell'
As if forced by a great hand, the angel enveloped itself, screaming against fate. It died as it began a shadow mote too small to light.
A half dozen people awoke from a nightmare. Only one understood that it wasn't.
A knock on the door.
Shinji stumbled out of bed to find Asuka at his door. He looked to her and she looked to him, nothing was spoken but much was said. Mere moments, an eternity, and ever so slowly, she held him in a hug. Then, even more slowly she went back to bed.
Valthalion awoke, clasping his heart. The drain, the drain he had felt! Something was very very wrong. The dream… was no dream. He steeled himself before his bedroom mirror and he knew… the shadow angel would no longer come.