Chapter 1
On a cold shore, a girl awoke. She lay there staring up at the crimson-stained sky. Her body in intense pain.
Asuka Langley-Soryu has been in pain before, but this was different. This wasn't the pain of a fresh wound, rather this pain was internal. Her body was in complete agony. She couldn't move or speak. She attempted to look around to get her bearings but all she could see was a blood-red ocean and the sandy beach she laid upon. Suddenly memories came rushing back to Asuka. The Eva series she fought with to the death…her death… how was she alive? The last thing she remembered was being impaled through the eye and having her arm bisected. How was she now sitting on this beach? She glanced down at her arm to find it completely intact, with no visible damage whatsoever. Was it all a vivid nightmare?
Suddenly Asuka saw something move out of the corner of her eye. The figure got on top of her and pressed its arms to her neck, squeezing the already fleeting life out of her. Her eyes finally focused to reveal her assailant…Shinji. He pressed all of his body weight into her neck, squeezing the life out of her. Asuka was panicked, she didn't know what to do. She brought her hand up to Shinji's cheek and gently caressed it. Seemingly this caused Shinji's assault to falter, he released his grip and began to cry. Asuka gasped for air as she stared into the boy's eyes, the dull look they had while choking her was now replaced with a slight gleam.
The two stared at each other for a good while, not breaking eye contact for a second. 'Ugh, why did he… where are we? The sky is red and the air smells like blood…it's…'
"Disgusting…"
The redhead had finally managed to speak. Shinji finally broke the eye contact and rolled off of Asuka, curling into a ball and rocking back and forth. Asuka mustered enough strength to finally sit up. Immediately she saw the disturbing scenery, one of the Eva series reclined back with its arms out resembling a cross. Farther out into the ocean was a…body, a gargantuan rotting face lay seemingly staring into Asuka. 'Wait…is that..' To Asuka's horror the giant rotting mass looked familiar, it was Rei Ayanami. Asuka felt sick to her stomach, she looked away from the monstrosity no longer able to look at it without vomiting.
"W-what happened?" Asuka pulled herself up to her knees and looked over at the former pilot. "Shinji?" The boy was unresponsive, he was just rocking back and forth slowly with his head to his knees. "Shinji…what happened here…where are we?" Asuka reached a hand out to shake the boy, to try and grab his attention.
"It's all over…it's all over…it's all over" the boy kept repeating to himself as he rocked. Asuka realized she wouldn't be getting any answers out of him as she got to her feet. She looked around attempting to find anything familiar that could help her discern their location. The terrain was unfamiliar but in the distance, Asuka could make out a city. 'Could that be…Tokyo 3? I thought it was gone…' The city seemed to be in surprisingly good condition in comparison to the surrounding countryside.
Asuka once again tried to get Shinjis attention, she walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Shinji…we've got to get out of here. I think I see the city in the distance." Shinji merely kept rocking, usually, Asuka would be annoyed or angry with this reaction but something was different. She didn't feel her usual annoyance with the boy but instead worried about whatever had him like this. "Shinji…please…let's go." She grabbed his arm and pulled him up but he simply collapsed back down. Asuka sighed as she once again picked him up and put his arm around her shoulder, helping him to stand. The boy had an empty look in his eyes, that momentary flicker of life now gone. "Walk." Asuka said in a demanding tone. The two of them set off towards the city, Shinji putting little effort into his steps making it all the more difficult for Asuka to support his weight.
The trek was arduous but eventually, the two made it close to the city, arriving at the familiar overlook above the city, Asuka laid Shinji down on a nearby bench and then gazed down upon the city. It was…normal, in fact, the city was in even better condition than she last remembered seeing it if it could even have been called a city then. Apart from areas of the city that were flooded from the crimson sea it was in surprisingly pristine condition, but something was wrong. The city lacked life, it looked like a model city. Cars, buses, and trains all sat as if they were suddenly frozen. Where was everyone?
"It's going to get dark soon and we are still quite a ways out of town, I don't think we'll be able to make it to the apartment." Asuka glanced at Shinji to see him still curled up, unresponsive to what she was saying. "Ugh…let's go." With that Asuka once again pulled Shinji up and they began walking into the desolate city.
When the pair eventually arrived in the town the sun had begun to set, the darkness setting in doing nothing to help the empty feeling of the city. "I think there's a store somewhere around here, we can stay there tonight and head to the apartment in the morning." Asuka was tired, she was already exhausted when she awoke on the beach, and dragging Shinji into town only made it worse. Carrying the boy into the store she dumped him near the entrance and began scanning the shelves.
"Hmm…everything is fully stocked. At least we don't have to worry about food." The girl walked the aisles looking for food. Canned and perishable goods sat on the shelves in perfect condition, it was as if they'd just been stocked. She grabbed a few canned goods, mainly meat, and vegetables, and looked for something to cook them. The freezers at the back of the store were shut off. With no one around to work the power grid, the city had no power. With some luck, the store had a small camping section. Lamps, portable stoves, fuel, and even blankets. She gathered them all and brought them to the front of the store. Setting up the lamps and stove she began dumping the canned goods into a cooking pot. She never was a cook but she didn't care, she just needed something in her stomach. The brown soup of meat and vegetables she managed to throw together wasn't very appetizing but she tore into it as if it was the best meal she had in years.
Asuka glanced up from her food to see Shinji still in the same state he's been in since the beach. "You're not going to make me spoon-feed you on top of carrying your ass all the way into town, right? Please just eat…"
"I'm sorry…I'm not very hungry…"
The boy had finally spoken. Of course, the first words out of his mouth were "I'm sorry" but Asuka was glad the boy was finally responsive in some way.
"Bullshit, we've been walking for hours. There's no way you're not hungry, even if you did have me doing all the work. Eat."
Asuka grabbed a second fork and jabbed it into a piece of meat, she held it out to the boy waiting for him to take it. Shinji's hand meekly moved to grab the fork and he began taking small bites out of the chunk. Asuka thought he looked like a frightened mouse with how he was curled up nibbling on the food.
"Shinji… I can't do this alone; we might be the last people in Tokyo-3, hell, maybe the whole world. You need to tell me what happened after I died."
"I…I don't know if I can."
The boy curled up tighter into a ball and began rocking back and forth once again.
"Please Shinji, I know it's hard but you can't just shut me out. If we're going to get through this I have to know what happened"
Asuka reached out and placed her hand on the boy's shoulder. The caring hand on Shinjis shoulder provided him some comfort, enough to unfurl from the fetal position he was sitting in and turn to face Asuka.
Initially struggling to find the words to describe the cataclysmic events Shinji began describing everything that led to them waking up on the beach, Instrumentality, and the third impact. What little he could remember or even describe he told to Asuka.
"What the fuck…"
Those were the only words Asuka could reply with as she tried to wrap her mind around what Shinji told her. She let the fork fall back into the pot as she had lost her appetite.
"And that giant corpse in the distance…is it…Rei?"
"I don't know… I don't want to know… I think I just need to sleep."
Shinji tossed his meat chunk back into the pot and laid down on one of the camping blankets Asuka had brought out. He rolled over to face away from Asuka and wasted no time falling into unconsciousness.
Asuka simply stared at the boy as she finished the stew she had made. She stood up and packed away the portable stove and a few cans of food into a backpack she found in one of the aisles. She pulled out her blanket and laid it near Shinji. She didn't know why but she wanted to be close to the boy, perhaps to provide some sort of comfort to him… or maybe herself. She had no idea why her usual hotheaded nature was gone but whatever they'd been through made Asuka feel sympathetic towards Shinji. Asuka no longer felt annoyed or angry at the littlest things the boy would do, instead, she wanted to comfort the boy and make him feel better. instrumentality had changed her.
'Ugh…I've gone soft…' the girl thought to herself as she fell asleep staring at the back of the sleeping boy's head.