Confusion hit first, then disbelief.

He knew Asuka had seen everyone else coming out of the sea. She spoke to him about them, right?

"What do you mean by that, Asuka? You and I talked about it," Shinji knew they did. He was waiting for them to leave, and she came over there with a few words to say, so why didn't she know?

"Shinji, I know I call you an idiot a lot. I know that you know you are one, though. There never was anyone else here with us. Wait, when was the last time you ate or drank anything? You can't just keel over and die yet."

What the hell was going on? When was the last time he ate or drank anything? Could he have imagined it? Everyone coming back…he couldn't be losing it this bad. A couple of days alone, and his mind is gone?

But she had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe, she was right—some food and some water to help him calm down and think things through.

Thankfully, he was already at the stockpile and didn't have to move far to get what he needed.

Laying back in the sand and chewing on some salty snacks with some water was calming. The grains modded to his back, making a comfy but firm floor.

His peace was disturbed by a certain redhead a few minutes later.

"You feeling better now, idiot? I want to get settled into the house we found today, and I'd hate for you to ruin something else we have that's going good."

He found a house they could stay in. For now, a real bed was tempting, and the sand wasn't as comfortable as it initially was.

His blanket of food was still around, which would make the trip easier.


Following his other two sets of faded tracks led Shinji back to the intact house. Dividing the rooms was easy. Asuka took one of the first floor rooms, while Shinji took a room at the end of the hall. Of course, he had to hop around the hole to get to it.

It was either the master bedroom or just a huge bedroom because Shinji had never slept on a bed that big. There was a little guilt at using the bed of someone he had a hand in the death of, though.

It wasn't even a full day before the next issue reared. It was bloody cold in the house at night.

Asuka didn't complain, but Shinji was willing to bet his only blanket that it was more out of a sense of pride than actually not being cold. Shinji didn't know how but this house felt colder than the beach they slept on.

So while shivering himself awake, Shinji thought to himself.

About the future, the past, and everyone he thought he saw.

What did it all mean? Shinji wouldn't know. He was just a stupid child. Everyone would say that to him right now if they were here.

Shinji could hear creaking through his shivering, at first faint, but it grew in volume. Someone was climbing the stairs.

Maybe Asuka's pride wasn't enough to keep her warm.

The creaking of floorboards stopped, and there was silence for a while, then a bit of muttering before it returned to what it was previously.

Silence, Shinji hated that familiar empty quiet recently.

He decided to be the one to end it early, but he couldn't even do that before a voice interrupted him.

"SHINJI!"

She needed his assistance if she was willing to wake him up for it.

He was already in the process of getting out there—no need to keep her waiting.

Wrapping the blanket around his skinny frame, Shinji shuffled to the door and pulled it open, not surprised to see Asuka down the hallway across the hole in the floor.

She, too, was shivering, but she didn't have the blanket with her. If she was shivering, why didn't she use the blanket?

"Come help me find some stuff to get a fire going. We're going to freeze to death at this rate," this showed that, yet again, Shinji didn't understand Asuka. He was happy that he would get to keep the blanket, though.

Returning to his room to throw the blanket back onto the bed, Shinji made sure he had an extra layer on to keep warm. The previous owners had some jackets that, while too big, would keep him warm.

Traveling back to where Asuka was, Shinji jumped around the hole in the floor, and he needed to fix that whenever he ever got that chance.

It was an if because when Shinji made the jump, his foot slipped, and he fell right through to the floor below.

While that would have been a cause for concern alone, that wasn't what did the damage to Shinji. It was the fact that Asuka had tried to reach out to him while falling.

He tried to reach out as well, and while their hands had been in line to grab each other, they had passed right through one another.

These were Shinji's thoughts in a fraction of a second from fall to thud on the ground.

He had hit his head when he fell; whether it was the final thud or on the way down, he didn't know, but it wasn't relevant.

"ASUKA!"

His sanity was more relevant at the current moment.

Getting onto his own two shaky feet, Shinji ignored the wetness he felt when touching the part that hurt on his head. Finding Asuka was something that had priority.

They were all fuzzy right now, taking a step in any direction. Shinji moved forward; he had to find her. She was real, and he knew she was.

"Asuka! Where are you!"

She was here with him, and he knew she had been!

Everything was so fuzzy in his vision; it was all dancing, but he held onto something to keep upright. Everything was becoming so-so heavy right now that he could fall asleep.

"Please, Asuka! I need you!"

He couldn't sleep now. He had to-he had to.

He couldn't do anything anymore. The wall he had managed to keep himself standing with had proved doubly valuable for being what he slid against to the floor, unconscious.


Awaking slowly and painfully, he felt the aching pain at the side of his head before completely ignoring it and whipping his head around in search of the only other person in this world.

The head pain that came from this was irrelevant, and he had to find her.

Searching around the house, he panicked.

She was real, and she was with him at the beach. She was with him when he broke into the big store because he was hungry and needed to get them food. She was there when he knocked himself out by breaking into that store, but she didn't wake him up because he needed the rest!

She was there when everyone else came back, even if she didn't know what he was talking about. There was also the fact that she rarely ate any food, so there was always enough for him.

Asuka also never let him touch her, but that was because he did that thing in the hospital room, right? He also never saw her pick anything up.

But she always told him what he was thinking but was afraid to do.

He was thinking about getting those blankets. He was thinking about breaking the door to get in.

What had she done to be real?

He hadn't realized it, but by the time he realized that no one in these past days had been real, Shinji was already outside the house.

He had to go back to the beach. He could go back to the familiarity of laying on the beach and staring at Lilith. That was real.

Limping his way back, he had nothing to give when he looked at the prints that led to and from the house. There were only his footprints, not hers.


This peaceful beach scraped away at his sanity, everything about it.

The sand held only memories of people his head made up to talk to, and the quiet reminded Shinji of everyone that used to be here and the sea washing up only let it be heard where everyone was resting right now.

Nothing had been real, it was still a haunting fact, but he could not refute it.

So he stayed there, waiting for something.

That something came in the form of Rei. Shinji knew this was Rei because of the hair.

Rei, floating over the sea, watched him, pitying him. He knew it. Who wouldn't pity him right now?

She was there for only a few seconds, not enough to form a thought and shout it but enough to understand her expression.

'You're fake too.'

Shinji had no natural way to tell what was and wasn't real anymore, so he didn't bother to try.

Laying back down, he let time pass. At first, only seconds dragged on, then minutes, and those turned to hours.

So transfixed was he that Shinji ignored the wave that washed up to him.

However, he was not transfixed enough to ignore the body next to him. The bright red of what she was wearing wouldn't allow for that.

Looking over, he saw who it was, and his eyes froze.

He knew she was fake, and there was no reason for her to be here. His mind already showed him that.

He couldn't-wouldn't go through that again, so Shinji decided he would take matters into his own hands.

He had already killed everyone else before. He had already done this to Asuka once before.

So he got on top of her and forced his hands around her neck. There was no movement. Still, her deep blue eyes stared at the sky as he had already been for hours.

That was only more evidence she wasn't real. The fact that Shinji felt his hands actively holding her didn't matter. Maybe his mind was just making this up too.

Shinji squeezed. It wasn't a light squeeze either, he was trying to remove what his head was tricking him with, and since she wasn't fighting back, it only added truth to his thoughts.

Shinji missed the bandaged hand claw at the sand. He didn't see the arm move, lifting itself to his face.

Had he noticed the hand, there was the chance he might have realized that this wasn't a lie made up by his head.

The contact from the hand didn't change anything at first, simply because it didn't register. Her eyes hadn't changed after all.

When it caressed his cheek in such a caring yet foreign way, it made him realize what was going on,

He wasn't squeezing to rid himself of the guilt he had personified anymore. Now, he was holding her neck to prove to himself she was real, not to get rid of her.

She was real, and he almost just killed her…again.

It was there now, tears that he had held back when it was just him behind his eyes.

He held those tears back because there was no point in crying when it was just you, and maybe he knew deep down subconsciously he was alone the whole time.

That face he had always hated, admired, feared, anticipated was being stained by his tears now.

No longer having the strength to keep himself up, Shinji made sure to move his hands from her neck. However, he didn't hold back his sobs or gasps of air. His head dropped all the while slowly.

As she looked down at Shinji curled up on top of her body, the only other person in the world finally spoke.

"Disgusting."


Id like to give thanks to Chad commander for helping me with this, he writes excellent fics so i recommend reading his work too.