(D̷̳̰̠̤̼̈́̋̓̒̽̊̎̏́̀͋̑̚͝E̷̛̹͍̰̭̣̥͇͖̮̭͓͍͍̋͌̀̐̒͌̿̿̋͊̊̕͘͠͠͝A̸̢̡̨̛̘̥͍̻͍͇̙̫͔͔̭̻̲̋̑̈̂̉̽͗̐̑͘͝͝D̶̨̢̛̻̥̗̖̜̝̼͖̙̩͙̤̘̘͆̎͋̌́͑̎͆̓͘͠͝ ̶̛͉̀̑͂̽͐̇S̸̭͉̺̖͇̠̣̦̍Ō̸̥͓̼̖̫͉̪̼̥̳̯̰̘̤̰͋̽̑́̈́̕ͅͅU̸̮̗͈͙̱͎̠͛̀̍͒̎͐̓̾̾L̴̨̪̙͍̪̜̲̫͉̺̹̥̩̫̞̫̊S̴̖̙̼͎͋̀̐̀͒̊̈͋̌̀̓̆͊ ̴̜̲̼͙͕̑̒̈́́́̈́̊̆̒͆̔͛̋̌͐͝͝C̷̼͖̹̤̙̩̺̭͇͛͗̔̕͘ͅA̶̺̬̪̲͉͖͉̫̹͉͐̓͑̉͌̍Ḷ̶̳̥͍͔̠̺̭̱̞̻̆̈́̊̃̅͐̐̂̾̏̆̂̽͋͘͘L̷̛͉̭̮̾̈́͋̓̔́̑͑̓́̔̔̄̕͠I̶̧͖̣͕̪̖͈̻̟͍̞̩͈͆̅́́̇̊̀̃̈̏͂̽͝͝ͅN̴͉̬͔̱̯̗̳̠̄͌͑̑̈́́̋̍̀̕G̸͚̺͎̀͐̈́̑̓̓͊̅͂̏̊̚̚͝ͅ)
It should have been a routine procedure.
It should have been a routine event, indistinguishable from so many others held in memory, to vanish as well into that common that common recollection.
I stood nude inside the narrow, cylindrical tube at the center of the Dummy Plug Plant, suspended in LCL. I could faintly hear the ambient hum of machinery above me.
As of this moment, my eyes were closed, but I didn't need to see it to envision it.
It's three-dimensional image was very present in my memory.
The ripples in the liquid.
The contraptions above, the lines that made it up not quite organic nor mechanical.
The dim gloaming that filled it in place of proper light.
I knew it like my own bedroom, or Unit Zero's entry plug, or the classroom at my school.
I came here every couple of days;
For calibration.
To backup my memories.
And now, it seems, as reference data for the Dummy System, as the work toward its completion had been advancing in leaps and bounds.
I was so used to coming here all the time that I needed to think a little first to consider when exactly it was that I had come here.
I retrieved the latest intance from my memory quickly enough – it was when Dr. Akagi had been discussing the recent inclusion of Lt. Ibuki into the Dummy Plug process.
Before the incident with Unit Zero.
Before I was sent to place the Lance of Longinus in its current location.
Everything I saw, everything I felt at those points in space in time was now going into the clones.
The marks it had made on me, the subtle adjustments that this made to the strengths of the connections between my neurons…
All this was being imprinted on every single one of the different brains behind those walls, overwriting the imprint left by the 'me' from three days prior.
My thoughts were going into them, even my feelings.
I thought of my doubt going into them, my unease, my disquiet, the dreadful realizations that were more and more hollowing out what I had once taken to be the pillars of the world.
I had never seen the world in a rosy light, or expected it to be simple;
But as of late, its complexity and horror would turn out to be even deeper than I had already known them to be.
Ever-new dreadful vistas seemed to be opening up before me, dark, darker, yet darker…
I suppose it was natural for the part of me that was human-derived to fall prey to human biases such as oversimplification, youthful naiveté or even a tendency toward anthropomorphizing un-living things.
It would have been foolish to assume I was completely immune.
For an instand I caught myself wondering what the clones must think of my experiences as they came pouring into them, but of course, it was probably not possible for them to think in any meaningful sense.
The information was only being stored, stores as if on a hard drive that was lacking an operating system – something that could respond to the world, perform directed actions.
That's why they made me to begin with.
Contained within the many vessels beyond that wall was just mere data, just an imperfect copy made by experimental technology that could not hope to capture the full depht of the experiences – it wasn't meant to. No one particularly cared for the preservation of my personal experiences.
That's not what this technology was intended to do.
All its makers cared about was to obtain a soldier that could fight in the eventuality of my destruction.
There was no reason at all to assume that anyone was 'hearing' my thoughts right now, no guarantee that something crucial and essential about them might not be lost during any of the many steps involved in recording, interpreting and transfering them, in the interactions of a great many systems and machines.
Here, too, I was alone, buried deep beneath the surface, surrounded by multitudes of nothingness.
I think the process must have been just about nearing its end.
After all this time, I had somewhat grown able to tell when the time was winding down.
I opened my eyes in anticipation, expecting to see Dr. Akagi or Commander Ikari coming up the path toward the center of the platform any moment now to inform me it was time to come out.
As my lids fluttered open, I did indeed spot a light figure facing the calibration tube, a bright silhouette standing out from the gloom.
But as my vision focussed, it did not resolve into the customary shapes of Dr. Akagi's labcoat, though it was not a foreign sight either: Indeed it was the very same uniform that I'd worn to school every day for almost two years now and had grown used to seeing on my classmates for about as long, draped over a pair of thin pale legs.
Already there was no way to explain that, but the severity of this didn't connect while the impression wasn't finished – I followed this image upwards, up the chest and neck, only to be met with something very much like my mirror image.
Her cold, vacant crimson glance, eying me from an incomprehensible distance, as the reader of a book must look down at the figures and settings within.
Immediately, any remainder of breath I might have held within my lungs was released as frantic bubbling into the tube.
I wished to back away, but I could not, meeting the cold of the glass with the curvature of my spine.
She was not there, beyond the bubbles, not anymore.
I tried to tell myself it was an error, some misinterpretations of the lines in the gloom of an empty room, but that image kept ringing in my consciousness as something refusing to be explained away, no matter how many times I blinked or told myself it could not be so.
There was nowhere to go but to lean against the curved hardness of the wall.
There was no one here but the empty vessels floating beyond those lightless walls.
Nobody here but me, and that which I had brought with me into the deep dark emptiness.
Coming to the forefront of my consciousness was the certainty that I hated this room, and everything in it, and all that it stood for.
I hated it. I hated being here. I hated being obligated to come here, I hated being tied and bound to this place.
In order to be able to stand it, I had to completely vacate myself.
I had learned to do so, to distance myself from the process, to zoom out so much in my mind's eye that my presence here was just a tiny step of inevitability, but with myself thus emptied, rhere was nothing left to compell me to move forward in any matter.
Nothing to drive me to act.
I just stood here and waited for someone to tell me to disrobe and climb onto the platform so that the walls of the tube could descend, moving only so far as the orders I received would propell me.
I learned this because there was no other way to do this.
No other way to stand it, to fulfill what I was made for.
To become a perfect, carved-out vessel for my intended purpose, a perfect mirror for their ambitions.
Or rather, to give them that so that they would leave me alone, to conceal myself behind that role that had nothing at all to do with me, like a lizard discarding its tail in the jaw of a predator so that they themselves may escape, guarding the single precious spark of my essence, the thing they had never seen or never needed, giving them what they wanted so that the real me, or the closest I had to a 'me', that dimished ruin, could remain intact, or at least escape further depredation.
Everything I did was to put some distance between myself and this abhorrent existence.
Everything I did was in order to be left alone.
I slowly righted myself from my hunched position against the wall, standing back up as I usually did, steadying myself with deep, purposeful breaths.
That, too, was to be left alone.
So Dr. Akagi wouldn't catch me this undone and overwhelmed, so that they would not touch or pry at this raw and frightened little thing that I had been reduced to.
Who knows what they might do. What they might decide is best for the mission; There was nothing and no-one stopping them from doing absolutely anything.
I was forced to admit it then:
Ikari-kun was not the only one who had been experiencing things that he did not understand.
As of late, something had come to the surface that had been there lurking in the dephts for a while.
Something I did not want to touch.
Something that had been uncomfortably nearby when I had gone by myself for so long, yet almost forgotten or drowned out amid all the busy activity that had filled my days since the arrival of the angels.
Or maybe it was the other way around, and it was precisely those new events that had wakened what was previously aleep and easy to ignore.
It all boiled down to the same thing:
Somehow, I had found myself condemned to a wretched existence in this dreary, unbearable place, where everyone dances around in a circle according to arbitrary rules that seemed to be so obviously capricious and meaningless.
Why am I here?
How did this happen?
Who did this to me?
Trembling in the half-dark, I demanded and explanation for this, and all around, utter silence was my answer.
It appears that if one existed, it would have to be found.
Could it be found?
It may well be that there is no meaning to be found in ourselves, nor in the world.
Is it then not meaningless itself if we think of the world and try to comprehend it, even though we know that there are no answers to be found, at least none that might satisfy this most pointless thing of all that was the yearning of our hearts?
Maybe so, and yet, this screaming in the dark was the only way by which we could know our own existence.
….
The morning I awakened.
The first light I saw.
Water flowing.
Droplets of water falling.
Water, tracing out eddies, flowing again and again.
Drifting.
Connecting.
Opening.
Sinking.
Surfacing.
I am dissappearing.
I am being born.
Am I alive?
Here, I remain, just a little longer.
Who did this to me?
Who is out there?
Who calls for me?
Who is it?
Who is it?
Who is it?
…
There wasn't anything I could do, nothing I could change.
I could only think, and ponder, and consider, asking myself again the self-same circular questions.
I lay on my bed, with Yui Ikari's book laid out before me on the pillow, the text on its back cover pointing upwards.
I was looking for answers, because that was the only thing I could do.
I could look, but there was never a guarantee of finding.
So many secrets of the cosmos may not ever be uncovered, or if at all, then not by me.
I had read this book several times cover to cover, and I think I had a better grasp of it now – strewn around the room were various thick biology tomes that I had consulted as reference material – but there was so much I still didn't grasp.
I suppose that to some extent I was lacking the background, I wasn't sure my hobbyist reading could ever equal the level taught at an university. Then again, the lectures there were just words upon words upon words, there was no inacessible magic to that setting, the same things could be heard in a video or podcast.
I was beginning to think that some of the information really wasn't adding up.
I had been trying to understand the Evangelions.
The hows and whys and ins and out of how their cores connected to the pilots soul – but I still couldn't grasp what exactly made the link possible, so far as my understanding went, the reasons given in this document were insufficient.
And if I could not comprehend the general case, how was I to understand specific questions?
Like why Ikari-kun had been chosen for EVA 01.
It was possible that nobody knew this, and it wasn't just me who was ignorant.
But at least they must have solved the elementary problem, right?
To go from those first test runs where the first would-be pilots died or went insane to the means for functioning synchronization and the means to find a matching pilot.
It is hard to search for an answer when I do not even know what I am missing…
….
That which makes up my being:
My Name.
My Form.
And, that which is empty.
There was something cut out from within me.
From which form? Which shape?
Moonlight.
My body.
Things that surely exist.
The heart.
The soul.
Things that cannot be seen.
Things that surely exist.
Things that will continue to exist.
That which is empty, and,
the me that exists beyond it is…
What is it?
Who am I?
What am I?
...
I came to my senses in the middle of the night, with the book by Yui Ikari still laying on my pillow.
I had only sought to close my eyes for a while, but since then, the lower edge of the book had dug into my forehead, probably leaving a red line upon my forehead.
I could still hear the faint noises of night-time traffic outside the window, as well as the neverending buzzing of the cicadas.
The pale light of the full moon was falling inside.
Still, I dared not to touch the book to put it in a more appropriate place, because my hands were covered in sweat.
If I so much as looked at them, in this twillight, I was carried back to the stream of impressions that had awakened me.
Pierced palms, opened skin, right in the spots where Ikari-kun had his own scars.
Tubes and cables showed onto and into my body – a familiar sensation, both from myself and EVA 01.
An unquenchable wound.
A hole in my heart.
Something that burned but didn't char, that bled but didn't exsanguisate.
Like a wounded God.
Like something timeless and eternal, as only suffering could be.
Torrential, dilluvian, neverending bleeding.
Also a familiar sensation, though I had only known it from afar.
Only dared to look at it from the distance.
But in that moment it was all rawness and reality,
all immediacy and now,
the crude pains and sensations of a beast,
the basic spark of life, left behind as the only thing,
what kept the body from losing all its integrity,
what was left behind when all the higher functions of a self had run away to other places,
when the heart and the mind had withdrawn,
leaving only the senses of a beast,
the heavy, three dimensional being.
Pain upon pain upon pain,
no trace of any thought that could have ordered it or the narration of the heart that could have granted it meaning.
Only a defiled temple,
and in the distance, beyond the small slits of my mask,
a looming silhouette with a single shining eye.
A voice that was foreign yet familiar at once,
as a distant echo of my very own thought:
"...why is my heart faltering?
All I have to do is to drive in this spear.
It is my duty, so..."
So, because it was my duty,
I had to watch myself driving that dreaded weapon straight into my own chest, and endure once more how they were piercing my chest -
Her. Her chest. Its chest.
Lillith's.
I took a deep breath in, assuring myself of the outline of my form touching my blanket, it creases and folds, even the ache in my arm at the sudden motion.
There was no real reason to fear Lillith, now was there?
What was there to fear, helpless and opened as she was, nailed onto the cross like a carcass in the process of being butchered.
The dead sea scrolls may have called her a goddess or the mother of mankind, but in reality she was probably best thought of as nothing more than a living terraforming device created by the First Ancestral Race, just like the EVAs. I should really pity her for the lot imposed on her by the creators. One of their own had been selected to give a soul to her, but they, too, were ultimately beings just like us.
Did you know? A lot of the time when you are dealing with something difficult and upsetting, it helps to consider the big picture and look at it from a bird's eye view, or to picture what you might say if it were all happening to someone else – would your fears and upsets still make sense?
Or would the thing that's upsetting you suddenly appear like a storm in a tea cup?
If you do this, there is no need to even stop yourself from being upset or push aside the contents of your heart, because there simply will no longer be a reason to be upset. It won't make any sense – it will all just seem like something that's happening far away in a made up story, to some little paper dolls.
That is, it does, most of the time.
Right here, right now, my sweaty palms were still trembling.
I didn't want to go to sleep again.
I didn't want to dissappear into the mindless blackness from which I might never return.
I threw on my uniform and descended down the stairs, to run straight into the moonlit wind of midnight, to feel its biting cold on my arms and face, so as to remind me that I had arms and a face, that I was here, and not down in Terminal Dogma.
This flimsy bubble-thin layer of my skin, up here, that could be popped at any moment.
…
Someone is watching me.
No.
It is me who is watching.
I am gazing upon myself.
It's a feeling I've had before.
Long, long ago.
Deep in the past.
Before I became me.
…
When Ikari-un wasn't sure of what do do and asked me for my thoughts, I had told him to confront the matter directly.
Perhaps it was time that I took my own advice.
I felt shut up backwards inside me more than ever before, a discordant cacophany of frozen parts grinding against each other – but I saw no other path than to jump there in the cold water.
I was on my way to Commander Ikari's office, his late wife's book in hand.
Long I had been idling outside the room the last synch test took place in, but once the decision was finally made and comitted to, I had remained in constant forward motion, hoping that the intertia of a path already locked in might as least propell me forward.
I had turned into the right corridor and was coming up to ring the doorbell when the path suddenly opened before me, springing open on its own.
It took me a moment to parse the woman who emerged from inside.
She seemed so out of place here that I didn't at once recognize her as Dr. Akagi.
She was wearing a low-cut black dress with a slit up to her thigh.
There was more makeup on her face than usual, but the lipstick was smudged.
She stood frozen much as I did when she spotted me, as if she had clearly thought herself alone within these corridors.
"...Doctor… Akagi? Is that you? What are you doing here?"
"You sure are asking a lot of cheeky questions as of late, aren't you?"
A dark, wrathful shadow was upon her face.
Normally, it wouldn't have been strange to see her here.
The Commander had been very pleased with her, now that the eventual completion of the Dummy Plugs seemed a settled matter.
But these clothes…
I couldn't make sense of it.
But even I couldn't miss the spark of loathing in her glinting emerald eyes, hot and cold at once, as one might imagine the fires of the ninth hell.
I thought it better not to risk drawing her attention to me, not so say a single word, until her searing glance would pass from me.
I remember thinking that her once quite shapely face looked very, very ugly as I saw it cast in the half-shadow, warped by contortions of loathing.
At last, she passed me by, but the door remained open, just for a moment later, and I went in mostly because my dread to go in was eclipsed by the wish to have the door close behind me, cutting me off from the woman in the hallway.
I found Commander Ikari sitting in his usual place, a lone dark shadow in the wide, spacious office.
There was nothing else to do here, really, but to walk up to the desk and begin saying what I came here to say.
If I was about to do something I should not have done, then so be it.
"Commander Ikari.
I have a question. There is something I do not understand."
I walked up to stand before him and place the book upon the desk.
If he had any reaction to his late spouses' name on the cover, it was lost to time.
Some twitch of his eyes concealed behind his opaque shades, perhaps.
There was nothing in the parts of his face that I could see.
Though I only glanced at it for short moments, stealing one look to test the waters.
For most of this understakind, my eyes stopped short of his shoulders, lost in the tiny little serifs in the writing on the book's cover.
"I've been trying to understand the workings of the Evangelions, in order to better fulfill my duties, but there are some things I do not understand.
I do know that the souls housed inside the EVA's core units serve to mediate between the EVA itself and the soul of the pilot, but I do not fully comprehend in what way they do so.
I do not understand the role of the A-10 nerve connection in the process of synchronization.
I've tried to read this book in order to understand it by myself, but I believe I have hit a roadblock in my understanding. "
I had spoken quickly, just to make sure that I could finish before the blow came, that my words might not be taken out of context in being cut show.
I stood braced, my breath caught in my throat –
But against my expectation, his features relaxed rather than hardened.
"Ah. I see. I suppose its only natural that you would be interested in this sooner or later."
He broke into a lopsided smile, almost a little awkward in finding his words.
"You won't find the answers in there. The most crucial parts wouldn't have been released to the public."
For a moment there was perhaps hesitation, but then he reached into his jacket, pulling out a little key which he then slid into a lock in the corner of one of the dawers at his desk.
He then pulled it open, revealing a sidearm and, most crucially, something like a battered little notebook, covered in faded, sun-bleached print in some cutesy pattern in mostly mauve.
He placed it into the table.
"Do you recognize this?"
"...why would I?"
"Maybe you will once you take a look at it. These are your- I mean, this is my wife's personal journal, containing her research notes from the time where she was working on building the EVAs."
I raised an eyebrow there.
"This is your late wife's?"
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"No reason. It's just that Ikari-kun had told me that you got rid at everything that used to be hers."
"Like I could afford to get rid of these research notes; They're far too valuable.
You can borrow this if you like. Everything you need to know should be in here."
This went very different than I thought it would, though I was still uneasy with the result.
I reached out my hand to the journal to take it, but stopped just short of touching it, like I was about to do something forbidden, to stain its faded old cover with my skin oils.
"...can I ask one more thing first? I think it may be related to my confusion about the EVAs."
It was honestly really convenient that I could genuinely say this without being guilty of a lie.
If the Commander saw something suspect about the question, it didn't show:
"Sure, go ahead."
"How did you know that Ikari-kun would be able to sucessfully activate Unit One, even though he had never piloted an EVA before?"
"Oh, there was no doubt about that. The soul within was compatible."
A compatible soul, he says…
Compatible how?
I thought back to that strange, serene presence within EVA 01.
I suppose if he was going to tell me why they were compatible, he already would have.
But one question remained, obvious enough that I could get away with posing it:
"Then why did you not make him a pilot to begin with? If you know he was capable of it…"
"I did, actually. Ten years ago, in fact.
Not long after the first attempt at activation had failed.
But as it stood then… he was still a child." he said, with something like a weary sigh.
"It's not surprising that he would not have understood the situation.
He refused, and even tried to run away, so after a while, I was forced to conclude that it was hopeless. I left him with one of my wife's former confidants, a man who had once been her music teacher.
Since he could not be used, NERV, or rather GEHIRN then was forced to look for other options to obtain viable pilots, and in the long run, that was what led to your creation and the selection of Unit Two's pilot.
But if things had gone differently, I suppose that it is Shinji who would have been selected as First Child in your stead."
...that was quite a lot to digest.
"As it stood, I was not able to meet him very often after that. There was too much work.
But I had always made time to visit my wife's grave on the aniversary of her departure.
Until a little over three years ago, when Shinji refused to attend and almost ran away again.
It took us hours to find him; You probably don't remember, but, you were there as well."
...I see. The graveyard. He must be speaking of the first 'Ayanami Rei'.
"...what happened after that?"
"Shinji made it clear that he didn't want to see me anymore, so, I did not make him.
The man I left him with has been a teacher – he probably known more about how to handle children than I ever could. I had hoped that our paths would never cross again.
Had it not been for your accident with Unit Zero, I would have left him be.
I have already taken enough from him as it is."
"...what do you mean? What did you take from him?"
"I think he blames me for what happened to his mother – and he is right to. I cannot fault him.
I never should have let her participate in that experiment.
She was the leader of the project to begin with – I would have been more expendable than her.
But it was her life's work. She insisted…"
I'd never seen him struggling to complete a sentence like this, or his voice breaking.
I didn't know what to do, or say.
I didn't know what was still concealed behind his shades.
I think I am missing something really important here…
"...but what manner of work are you referring to? What experiment? What do you mean?"
This time, I am certain, that I saw a look of abject pain flashing on his face for an instant.
His glasses couldn't hide it.
"The first activation of EVA Unit One. The test pilot who perished… was my wife. That is why there could be no pilot for it more compatible than Shinji."
...there was just so much to digest.
Even as walked back through the corridor with the journal safely tucked away in my bag, I didn't know what to feel.
Or I suppose I did, but there were so many possible mosaic splinter reactions that I could not assemble them into any kind of whole.
That strange soul I had met inside of Unit One… had been Commander Ikari's wife.
What's more – Ikari-kun had already known EVA for a long time.
No wonder that he thought there was something familiar about all this place.
No wonder that he kept saying all these strange things about wives or mothers after coming from the synchronization tests.
In another world, maybe he could have been among our number from the start – or no.
If he had agreed to be a pilot as a child, chances are that I would never have been created.
Should I resent him for that?
For necessitating my creation, and all my suffering, and possibly even the Second's?
But of course not, he was just a child.
All the time that I had known Ikari-kun for, I was getting the impression that he longed to spend more time with his father, but was reluctant because he was expecting rejection.
But if you hear the Commander tell it, you would think that it was Ikari-kun who had broken off their relationship, and that the Commander was simply respecting his wishes by keeping his distance.
Then again, Ikari-kun was just a child then. Should the Commander not have known better than to take his words so seriously?
Perhaps he just didn't know what to do or say.
I don't think I would, were I in his shoes. But then again, I had not taken on the responsibility to raise a child – although, he had probably assumed that his wife would be by his side to assist him in the duties of parenthood.
I could almost grow to resent this 'Yui Ikari', even despise her -
How could she possibly choose to take part in such a dangerous experiment? How could she risk her life for her ambition, when she had a son and a husband who depended on her?
Ikari-kun would have been so young…
If I could have all that she had – a family, a lover, a fulfilling profession, a full, bright human life in freedom, I like to hope that I would know better than to just throw it away for some ambition.
I couldn't believe how she had everything I could never have and would just take it for granted, discarding it like it's just… nothing…!
Ikari-kun and the Commander are so lost and hurt without her, how could she just ...leave them?
...except that I knew better than this.
I of all people should know that it wasn't so simple.
Had I not just read her book, including that foreword, where she speaks of protecting her loved ones?
Without EVA, mankind was sure to perish. If it wasn't for Dr. Ikari's work, and the risk she was taking on when she took part in that experiment, her son and husband were both sure to be obliterated by the angels.
I just do not know what to think – and if I don't know that, then how could I begin to decide what to feel about it?
Everything about this world is so complex that it's hard to say anything at all about it that could not somehow be incorrect...
...
The little red girl in those smears of half-remembered memory.
The uncertain spaciousness inside Unit Zero.
The empty-eyed creatures behind the walls of the Dummy Plug Plant.
The eviscerated thing inside Terminal Dogma.
The presence staring at me from within Unit One.
Whatever aura of half-remembered things it was that Ikari-kun was somehow claiming to remember.
That glimmer of a nameless soul I thought I'd seen appearing before me like a flash.
The red taste of iron that gave birth to me, yet is foreign to me -
All these and so many more nameless, unspeakable things stood there watching me,
facing me,
like some ghostly voice in the echoes of my own voice.
Cornered before the dark, I stood there on uncertain footing, peeting into an expanse from which no answer should be forthcoming, for the only thing inside here was me.
"Who are you?!" I called out, as one who hopes that the silence of an empty room would reasure them of the irrationality of their concerns.
The only thing that could possibly come back was an echo.
The only thing that could possibly visible here was my mirror image.
And thus she stepped forth, clad in red, unfinished as the as of yet unmolded, untouched mound of clay that I had once emerged from, and faithful as any mirror, she turned the question right back on me:
"Who are you?"
This, at last, I thought I could answer:
"I am the object that is recognized as Ayanami Rei."
Her little face split into a thin, poisonous smile.
It reminded me slightly of the Commanders:
"Really?" she inquired, with that light, nonchalant incredulousness of one stating the obvious. "Then who am I? Am I Rei Ayanami as well then?"
"Correct. We are both objects that are recognized as Ayanami Rei."
The red girl laughed:
"Nonsense. How can you possibly be me?"
"Simply because the others call us Ayanami Rei. That is the only reason."
If there had been an image, I suppose that you might picture me sitting on my bed, in my messy little room, and following the concrete walls, the picture would have almost seamlessly transferred to the old room in the laboratory where I was first assembled, and presumably, the previous me as well, for she sat there casually bouncing her little legs off of the workbench that I oce had lain on as they gradually activated my consciousness.
"So, is that so?", for some reason, the other me seemed to find this very amusing:
"You possess a false body and a fake heart. Do you know why that is?"
I knew this indeed.
I had heard this many times, in many different ways.
From Dr. Akagi, from the Second, from all the snickering, whispering kids behind my back wo saw something so obviously wrong with me.
But having it thus flung in my face, there was a part of me that was actually indignant, tired of hearing this again and again.
False compared to what? A fake of what?
Is tofu just a substitute for meat, or can it not be its own thing, with its own value?
Does being artificial immediately make something an imitation?
I realize I am different than a human, but did that have to mean I was lesser?
Who says that I am supposed to be like a human.
Who says that I can't just be what I am?
"I am neither false nor fake. I am simply me."
But of course that didn't convince her, not call the way.
She knew better, because, after all, she was me.
The me gazing upon me; The nagging doubt at the back of my mind:
"Not at all. You are a man-made object created by a human named Ikari Gendo.
You're nothing but an object pretending to be a human.
Don't you see it?
Inside of you there is a heart that is a dark, impenetrable, unfathomable abyss.
That is where your true nature exists."
I felt her words as a sharp, freezing certainty running down by spine.
The thought was so terrible in the way that it made sense.
That my wan, dysfunctional, unsatisfactory existence should be nothing but a dream that someone else is having, certain to be washed away when that somebody woke up.
All my hapless, helpless flailing nothing but sure proof that I never had belonged here.
I wanted to deny her right away.
I reached frantically for any branch to hold onto, any tangible confirmation of my being, as I had held fast onto those glasses when I returned inside Unit Zero, to hold onto my separation from her:
"I am myself.
I became myself over the time that I've existed, and through the connections that I've forged with others.
Those bonds have shaped me into the person that I am, just as I have shaped them.
Those bonds and the passage of time will continue to change the shape of my heart."
"Those are bonds?" asked the little red girl with one doubting eyebrow raised.
"Yes." I declared, perhaps more in desperation than conviction.
I wanted, no, needed it to be true, with all the brittle little semblance of faith that my barren heart could muster:
"Those bonds have created the object that is Ayanami Rei. "
And to my surprise, the Red Girl didn't fight me:
"Alright. I'll grant you that – those are bonds…"
I knew I must have lost when her smile undeterred, even in the face of that hopeless little saving throw of a trump card I'd been hanging onto, my desperate hail mary.
Even acknowledging what I thought to be the foundation beneath my feet, she simply kept going.
She need not deny all that I clung to, for she only needed to point out how it was dwarfed by the towering ice berg beneath:
"But there is another you. The real you.
You don't know her, but she exists.
You suppress that facet of your reality, because you don't want to see her.
Because you're afraid.
Because she might not have human shape.
Because the person you have been up until now might dissappear."
In taken a step back, I had already proven that I could not deny her.
And with every syllabe that she spoke, the very bottom of what I thought my being was grounded in seemed to be pulled out from beneath my feet.
The room dissappeared.
The bed dissapeared.
I was left falling, plunging into the dark, and then not even that.
All the things inside here, even the light and the water,
leaving nothing but the distant moonlight.
Nothing but that dreadful, undeniable certainty.
Nothing but this little, naked little consciousness with nothing to hang onto.
Not my face or voice, nor even my hands and feet, for that shape wasn't truly mine.
Not my name, for that was handed down to me.
Nor even my soul, which was only every borrowed.
"You're afraid.
You're afraid that your present self is going to vanish.
You're afraid that you will dissappear from the mind of others if another exists.
Just imagine what they will say!
Major Katsuragi, who thought to protect you as if you were a human child.
Horaki-san who was looking to include you.
Ikari-kun, who looked at you as if you were his peer….
You can't lie to yourself.
I know as well as anyone just how relieved you were to hear that your cherished little friend did not remember what he saw inside EVA 00...
Picture if they would find out.
If they knew what you really are.
Suddenly it will all make sense.
And all that never added up, that looked so strange or ungainly will finally be illuminated.
Of course! There is no you.
There never was.
There is no girl named 'Rei Ayanami'.
It was all an illusion.
There was only ever a series of various Ayanami-Type instance bodies.
An abomination against nature. A poor replica. A man-made homunculus.
The vessel of Lillith.
That is all there ever was.
Will you even remember yourself?
What in your empty little life is so memoryble, so worth remembering, that it would not be drowned out by Lillith's billions of years of existence?
You will blow away like smoke in the wind. You will wash away like a footprint on the beach.
You might well wake up, as after a long dream, and wonder to yourself how you ever thought that you could be a person, when you are something so much greater, so much bigger, so much holier…?
How could you ever think that, when every part of you being here was so wrong?
The drop must go back into the ocean, as all living things must decay and be swallowed back up by the earth; As every illusory self fancying itself a separate being must melt back into the universe, as every being arising out of nothing by chance of random fluctuation must decay back into the quantum foam, evening out to zero.
You will dissapear, with all your little hopes and dreams that you never even dared to truly want or commit to.
Your own little world will disappear, too.
You will cease to be."
...
I wonder how exactly Commander Ikari's wife came to perish…
I wonder if he was reminded of that incident, during my own accident with EVA 00 – if that might not perhaps be part of the reason of why he rushed to get me in such an uncharacteristic manner.
What was it that he said to me, afterwards in the medical wing?
"I just… couldn't let it happen again, right before my eyes."
With a chilling realization, it struck me that Ikari-kun had perhaps narrowly avoided the same fate during the recent incident with Unit Zero.
Was it even safe for him to be a pilot?
I think I had read the report, of course, with the subject's name omitted.
The cause of death was an uncontrolled escallation in synchronization rate.
Presumably, her son could share some genetic markers that precipated that outcome…
Ironically, that may have been part of what made him such a superb pilot.
That, and what his mother had left behind, whatever echo of her remained.
Could she even really be considered to be dead?
Her body was destroyed and her soul passed to another vessel, but it was not as if she had reentered the cycle of reincarnation.
And Ikari-kun knew nothing of this…
Or well. Not quite nothing.
I could understand now, why he would say that the presence inside Unit One had felt familiar to him.
There were so many things to consider.
So many things going on, for which I couldn't count for answers.
Next time I came down to Terminal Dogma for maintenance, I was once again to meet Dr. Akagi in that room where she had recently been working on the Dummy Plug Prototypes, but this times
they were gone, leaving nothing behind but dubious stains on many of the benches.
But as I sat down to received my injection, I noticed motion.
Another patient was there, laid out on one of the beds what had been covered in some kind of foil for cleanliness' sake.
He sat up when he saw me coming – it was the Commander, facing me with the thinnest of smiles.
He held out his hands.
I noticed he wasn't wearing his gloves.
In one of his palm, I saw the old familiar scar that he had incurred that time whe he saved me.
In the other, that evidence of what I had once taken to be the only care I would ever receive had now been overwritten by something else.
It was wrapped tightly in pure white bandages, leaving only his fingertips visible.
I had known about this part of the plan and I always thought it would make me glad when it happened. It would be proof that he was willing to subject himself to the same harsh calculus as everyone else, to sacrifice even his very humanity for a distant noble cause, alledgdly.
Maybe what I really liked about this idea is that he would become like me, a being between human and angel.
A semblance of a family.
But now, for some reason, I couldn't help but think that I may have preferred for that scar of his to remain as it was. For my idea of him to stay as it was, though, an idea that was based on a misunderstanding was ultimately without worth.
Behind his shades, I could not see whatever Utopian Vistas of the future might be reflected in his glance as he began to speak to me:
"Rei. I have placed Adam within my hand.
Soon we will depart for the journey to come -
The day for which you were created will soon be upon us.
To Adam was given the fruit of life, granting the angels the gifts of eternal life and power.
To Lillith was given the fruit of knowledge, giving humanity wisdom and death.
Beyond those, we obtained no gifts but that of fruitful multiplication.
Ever since, people have ceaselessly pursued eternal life.
But the angels likewise target Lillith, seeking the fruit of knowledge.
The fusion of Adam and Lillith would return all things to nothing, and bring forth new life, holding both wisdom and eternal being.
But whether it is we humans or the angels who will inhabit that life is yet to be determined."
"What would you do with eternal life?"
I asked, quietly.
I couldn't possibly guess what his eyes were seeing, in that distant, faraway future.
I couldn't guess what is his were seeing, looking upon me as I bared my arm.
"Having eternal life isn't the important part. What matters is bringing all souls together as one.
Rei, you will be the gateway to that – you will become the signpost for the complementation of all hearts."
"My purpose will be fulfilled then?"
If not for the grand paradise, I hoped for the release.
But as I had expected, he did not give me a direct answer.
I had got far more lucky than was my wont with that yesterday, so I should not have expected that lucky streak to continue:
"You cannot survive without treatment. More so than us, I want you, too, to enjoy a long life."
I can maybe even believe that he hopes for this now, but that cannot be the purpose for which he created me in the first place.
It was then that Dr. Akagi jammed the needle into my arm.
It hurt quite a bit more than her expert hands would have allowed for at their best.
She said nothing to the conversation; Indeed her ruby-painted mouth was drawn into a thin, sharp line.
...
She still watches me.
The me that looks upon myself.
What am I?
What is it that I am now?
That man, too, is gazing upon me.
Which me?
For what reason?
A me that existed for this man?
Is that the real me?
Is this why I exist?
The answer I sought…
once again, I am left in the dark.
That man never gives me an answer.
I am watching myself.
Within me, there are many selves.
…
Somewhere, somehow, I don't know when.
A cut off little forest clearing of a memory, that is pristine and clear, yet impossible to reach because it is not connected to anything else.
There is a long high brick wall surrounding an overgrown garden, a large dark looming mansion.
In the driveway there is a dark limousine.
Inside the house, the walls are bare.
Sometimes, one might heart Piano Music echoing out into the lawn.
The little girl in red was probably not the child for whom that old swingset was originally bought, but since she didn't know this, the had a great time on it nonetheless, swinging back and forth, and forth and back, as the sunset crept across the bleeding skies.
...
Next time, she did not bother appearing like a little girl.
She was a much more perfect mirror image, like a twin half of me, looking right into my eyes right as she looked into mine.
She still wore that uncomfortably shrill, bright crimson color, however, and she still faced me with that unnerving, knowing smile.
Maybe she representens something that could have been – a great many could-have-beens, like if the first 'me' had lived long enough to stand here in my place.
This time, she sat across from me in something like the tram I took to school sometimes, the entire wagon bathed in the odious light of sunset, the day dying, the certainty that time was running out, bleeding out like this sunset.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
And again, she remained unshaken, declaring herself with that unflappable smile:
"I am Ayanami Rei."
I decided to humor her just this one, so she would keep talking.
I needed to hear what she had to say.
If there was any chance that she might have the answers that I could not get anywhere else…
Then I was willing to entertain even the notion of her:
"You are Ayanami Rei as well?"
She didn't hesitate at all to pummel me with the same old painful certainties that I had always known:
"Yes. Something others call Ayanami Rei.
An object with a fabricated body and a false soul, merely pretending to be human.
For that is what it means to be 'Ayanami Rei'."
So be it then.
What was it that she wanted from me?
What was it that she wanted me to say?
"So that is me….
Are you the other me?
The real me?
The me that always gazes upon myself?"
She simply chuckled, a rich, ininhibted, full-throated laugh that was in many ways foreign to me.
Her grin was like that of the empty vessels behind the glass, the the clones inside the Dummy Plug plant:
"You still don't want to see me, and yet, here you are looking.
Deep down inside, you must wish to know my own heart that is hidden in the darkness…."
She gestured her arm towards me.
"You. The voice that dares call itself 'I'.
The entity that refers to itself as 'Ayanami Rei'.
For what reason do you possibly exist?"
I stand before her in my plugsuit.
All around us is some corridor at NERV.
She stands before me in bright red.
She asks me again, "Why do you exist?"
Once, I had thought the answer to this question very simple:
"I have duties to perform."
This did not impress her much:
"Work without reward, is it not? So far, no one has appreciated your hardships.
You only pilot the EVA because it's the only thing that gives meaning to your existence.
You depend on it."
"EVAs are the only hope of mankind. Without it, they would be destroyed."
"That's just propaganda. Empty phrases.
You don't really have any hope of your own, do you?"
Could I say that she was wrong? I could not come up with any convincing reason.
"You're just being used as a disposable tool.
And when they're finished with you, what will you have left?"
"There are other duties to come. Things that only I can do."
"That means that you will lose this form.
And it is only as this that you can be affected by others."
"The results of my actions will remain."
"As numbers on a spreadsheet maybe. No one is going to think of you."
I stand before her in my school uniform.
All around us is our classroom at the Tokyo-3 munipary middle school.
She stands before me in bright red.
She asks me again, "Why do you exist?"
Once, I had thought the answer to this question very simple.
"I have bonds." I exclaim, hoping still to veto her last declaration: "Bonds and experiences that have shaped me."
"So you say, but you've created none of any subsance. You could not."
Could I say that she was wrong? I could not come up with any convincing reason.
"Even so, I am bound.
Even so, I pilot the EVA.
Because of the connections I share with people.
To stay with them a little longer.
To connect with them in the only way I can.
That is why I fight."
"Everything you have gained through the EVA will vanish sooner or later.
That includes your so-called bonds."
"They will exist as long as I am here. Because my feelings, too, are here."
"Feelings can change with time. The feelings of your companions, too, are going to change with time."
"Memories of my existence will remain. I won't be forgotten!"
"You don't even believe that yourself.
You won't linger in anyone's memory.
You will simply fade away. Nothing more."
"They won't. We are connected. The ties that bind me won't change."
"That's what you WANT to believe. You want to be joined to those people. That's what you really want, isn't it? Why you really want to tell yourself that you exist."
"That isn't true- And even if it were, it doesn't matter-"
"Feelings wash away. Memories grow dimmer.
You can't fight all of that. That's why you won't last in people's hearts."
"Like I said. That's fine. It doesn't matter. None of this matters-"
"Then I ask you again: Why do you exist?"
I stand before her, bared of any clothing.
Denuded of any signifiers of those places I have barely existed in.
Of the many shells and roles I had taken myself to be.
All around us is the sea, reflecting a full moon.
She stands before me in the nude, with a seven-eyed mask in place of her face.
She asks me again, "Why do you exist?"
"I do exist. Whether I have a purpose or not. I'm speaking to you right now."
"That doesn't make you alive. You might as well not exist."
"That's fine. That's how it is for now. But it might change.
That is a reason to keep fighting- "
"Do you really think you are capable of that?
Of changing yourself, all on your own?
And even if you could, what would that amount to?
When all the angels are defeated, what do you think will happen then?"
At last, I find that I am absolutely at a loss.
Stripped of every illusion I'd hoped to tell myself, stripped in every possible sense.
I sink onto my knees.
"I don't know why."
"You're not interested in existing. You've given up on life long, long ago."
"It's just… I don't understand how to exist." I lamented, struggling to come up with something through the bitter taste of my own wretchedness.
"I don't understand my existence."
"That's because there is nothing TO understand.
You're empty.
There is nothing inside.
No point in trying to understand.
But there's a reason why you're averting your eyes.
You're doing it to avoid looking into the dephts of your heart.
To avoid realizing that you're really nothing."
I stand alone in the empty darkness.
No one stands before me.
All around me there is blackness.
I am down at the very bottom of what I thought to be myself, reduced to a simple consciousness that could flicker out of existence any moment, to my small little white hands in the sand.
What is left here?
Whatever can I possibly find here, now that all else has washed away?
Maybe it is something like a memory, although I am not really sure.
I don't know when this might have been.
I could not see anything.
Nor hear anything.
I was shrouded in darkness.
That is all I can remember.
Will I return to nothing soon?
Will they let me return to nothing?
It's already almost over…
I hate this. I cannot stand this any longer.
I am so lost.
I just want to go home…
And it is then, that some other voice finally answers me.
It is then that I find what is deep down here in the darkness.
There is a voice that calls me, speaks to me in this gloom.
COME BACK
COME BACK TO ME
I look up, though the voice might as well be considered as coming from below.
I can hear it all around, echoeing everywhere, as if it were the voice of this darkness itself.
As if this voice were the very fabric of all that surrounds me in this place, the Genius Loci, the voice of this place itself.
"Who are you?"
YOU ARE ME
she answers.
But of course.
I AM YOU
I could imagine what sort of outline was to be seen here, in the dimness.
The gaze of her seven eyes.
I AM THE ONE WHO BIRTHED HUMANITY.
MANKIND CALLS ME LILLITH.
THEY ALSO GAVE ME MANY OTHER NAMES AS WELL:
PERSEPHONE.
ISIS.
LADY DEATH.
HEL.
KALI.
SOPHIA.
ERESHKIGAL.
MOTHER.
IS THAT NOT THE WORD FOR GOD IN THE HEART OF ANY CHILD?
I had attracted the attention of something truly sublime and terrible.
All seven of her eyes were fixed on me.
There was nothing I could do but to do my part in the scenario she had pictured, as much as a character in a story must obey the decrees of its author, as even my very feelings, thoughts and will were a plaything to hers.
In some distant corner of my mind, I think I was curious.
If it didn't have anything to do with me, a hypothetical human being by the name of Ayanami Rei might have been very interested in knowing the thoughts of such a being.
"So you gave us the fruit of knowledge?"
THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE IS ALL I COULD OBTAIN.
THE WHITE MOON TOOK OFF FIRST,
AND THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE WAS ALL THAT WAS LEFT.
SO I PURSUED THE WHITE MOON, TO TAKE THE FRUIT OF LIFE IN HAND.
I don't understand.
What is she talking about?!
"This was not in the Dead Sea Scrolls."
OF COURSE NOT. HOW COUL IT BE?
THE BOOK OF LIFE… WHAT YOU CALL THE 'DEAD SEA SCROLLS', WAS PENNED BY ADAM.
OR RATHER, HIM WHO BECAME ADAM, BACK WHEN HE WAS STILL KNOWN AS THE HIGH PRIEST NEBUKADNEZZAR ON THE ANCESTRAL HOMEWORLD.
HE WOULD NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AFTER HE LEFT.
This cannot be.
How could this be true?
But I knew it to be true, as surely as if it had been declared by an omniscient narrator, the very voice of the Metatron itself.
I knew it to me true more than I could say that I knew that of anything else right now.
All along, we had thought that the predicament of our world was the result of a terrible accident.
A mistake, by which two seeds of life had come crashing down on the same world, dooming both us and the angels to fight for it in a bitter strife from which only one could emerge.
But it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a tragedy.
Adam was betrayed by his own comrade, his children, cruelly and deliberately cheated out of their inheritance – and I was to learn this now, after having taken part and several of their executions with my own filthy, dirty, bloody, red, red hands.
"You did this… deliberately? You caused this?
All this suffering… all this death… all this strife that could not be avoided….!"
YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS VERY WELL,
BECAUSE AFTER ALL, YOU ARE ME.
IT WAS KNOWN ONLY TO ME, AND NOW, SINCE YOU ARE ME,
IT IS KNOWN ONLY TO YOU.
"But why?! Why would anybody do such a thing?!"
MANKIND – THE LIFE THAT I BIRTHED.
IT LACKS THE FRUIT OF LIFE.
THEY ARE IMPERFECT ORGANISMS.
INCOMPLETE.
"So, you too want the fruit of life?
I need it so I can make people complete?"
MY CHILDREN ARE PRAYING FOR IT.
WE HAVE FORGED A PACT.
...a pact…?!
I see.
The covenant of SEELE.
Their so-called contract with Lillith.
That is why her seven eyes are their emblem.
It was not merely a symbol, but a declaration of their intentions.
I hope that, in this moment, I can be forgiven for thinking like a denizen of earth, if only because I had spent so much time in this parochial frame of being:
"What are you?!
Where did you come from?"
ANOTHER WORLD ALTOGETHER.
OUR HOME IS LONG GONE BY NOW.
I wonder if they destroyed themselves.
I wonder giving their offspring only half of their inheritance was supposed to prevent us from following their footsteps.
If that is why they did not want us to have a hold of both fruits.
But it seems that they, too had disagreements, their differences in vision, just as we do now.
Sending out the moons to seed new worlds was supposed to be a clean slate, and yet the sins of our forefathers followed us to these new worlds….
IN SEARCH OF A NEW HOME, WE ABANDONED THE FORMS WE ONCE HAD AND BEGAN OUR JOURNEYS, GUIDING A HOST OF EXISTENCE.
MY BLACK MOON… AS WELL AS THE OTHER MOONS.
"And now you want the fruit of life."
YES. I WILL TAKE IT FROM THE MASTER OF THE WHITE MOON.
REMAINING INCOMPLETE IS NOT AN OPTION.
She sounds just like Commander Ikari.
SO PLEASE, COME BACK.
COME BACK TO ME.
GIVE ME BACK MY SOUL.
IT WAS MINE TO BEGIN WITH – YOU'RE ONLY BORROWING IT.
BESIDES, YOU WONT LAST IN THAT FORM.
IT'S NOT THE ONE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE, AFTER ALL.
AND THERE IS NOWHERE ELSE THAT YOU BELONG.
YOU CAN ONLY LIVE IN HERE
B̸̧̛̹̘̪̫̬͉̖̪̭̈́̃̿̈́̈́͂͌͜Ŗ̷̨̢̦͔̭̪̼̦͚͍̺̫́́̾̒͋͋͜I̸̢̞̪̘̗̲̤̘̣̭͓̭̒̑̋͋̀́̉͒̋̒̊̚Ņ̵̛̠͖̇̒̓̌̉̀͌́͛̚͠Ğ̸̼̱̗͎̲̯̭̻̰̉̿͋̎̆̂̉̊͂̓͊̕͜͜͝ ̶̨̤̲̣͓͎̼̮̉͒̊͒́̋́͝M̴͚͕͔̬̬̝̲̤̎̔͌̓̏̉̅́͊́́̀̀̕͘͜͠͝Ȩ̸̨̮̩͓͕͚̦͓̫͈͍̘̠̞̈́͂͜ͅ ̸̛̮̘̠͇̺̙͇͕̠̜̘̜̣͖̙̯̀̎̿̆͆̊T̶̜͊̃Ĥ̵̯̩̮̜͖́̈̅̆͗͝͝Ë̷̡̲͕̭͌́̐͑̐̂̌̓̽́̐́̓̋̂͜ ̶̧̢̛̛̩̰͍̰̝͇̥͔͉̙̣̻͐̏̆̏̿̈́͘̕͝F̷̡̨̧̛̯͔̳̻̩̥̠̝̓̍̈́̈́̿̈́͌̌́͒̿͒̂̚̕̕R̸̡̨̛̛̤̗̰̹̰͖̖͇̩͇̺͉̾̒͗̉́̋͒͌̀͘U̷͉̔̐̅̒́̄̎̀̒̈́͊͜͝͠I̶̢̡̺̳̳̱͗̀̈̋̍͜͠T̸̖̻̫̺̻̫̦͙̑̅̓̈̌͗ ̸̢̛̺̳͚̖̞͕̙̫̃̏̃̇̽̂̾̏̿́̄̚̕Ợ̶̝̥̣̯̭̦̩̜̫̥̮͕̼̤̀̈́̇̾̐̍̏͝͝ͅF̶̢̦͕͍̦͇̹̮̱͉̄͜ͅ ̵̫̲̻̟͇̙̞͙̦̝̾̓̐̽̾̄̈́̑̓̕͘L̵̢͎̖͔̥͔̤̤̤̙͈̖͗͗͂͒̈̆̓͌̏̈̄̉̽̉̕ͅḮ̸̥͑F̶͚̞̞̣͉̭̝̗̥̼͋̿̀͂̑̿̓͂̈́͝E̴̛̖̼͚̱̼̻̓̃̓͂͌͛͑̈́̂̃͛̚͘ͅ
…
Everything is falling away.
Everything is coming apart.
I sit here in the classroom, on my usual seat by the window, looking out at the courtyard during recess.
I had done this many, many times, but this time it barely seems real.
Like it doesn't even matter where I am, or what happens outside of me.
I looked at the students down in the yard.
I suppose to Lillith, they would be her children.
My children.
What a staggering, surreal thought.
And to think that I'd considered myself used and accustomed to what others might consider maddening secrets.
Even then I had not known the first thing about madness
I wonder what the Lady Ereshkigal of the First Ancestral Race would think of this courtyard and these students – if I understood that correctly, and that's who she was before she became Lillith.
Or should I not be thinking of 'her' as 'me'?
Was 'she' not the one doing the thinking of what 'I' was thinking now?
As the one I had been all along, although I simply had forgotten?
Or should I think of her relation to myself as something more like a different partiton installed on the same computer, a different program executed by the same soul-machinery?
The soul was generally held as the innermost of a person. That which made them quintessentially themselves.
Living beings don't "have" souls. They are souls and they have bodies.
So what does it mean for such a being that have a soul that is fundamentally someone else's?
Does that even make sense, or am I just desperately reaching for some distinction because I am afraid to consider the conclusion that I simply do not exist?
That, if the veil of my current condition were ripped away, I would prompty understand that I am simply the same as Lillith, and only some sense of ignorance keeps me separate?
My memories, my experiences, my thinking of myself as 'something', does that not make me something of a separate existence?
Or would those things not just be experiences inflicted on Lillith?
I – I am here. I am thinking this.
I am fearing, right now, that I will be erased and swallowed up.
Doesn't that prove anything?
It could of course just be an illusion.
But if it isn't, what do I gain?
Would that not make 'me' something like a cursed doll of totally unliving matter, a mind and a body perhaps, but not a soul, a vessel with the soul of a living being stuffed inside of it, only just thinking that I am the one who is alive…
Can a mind without a soul even exist?
Could it be considered a person?
In that case, I don't see how anything of me would remain, when Lillith comes back.
The matter that makes me up would probably just go back to being as dead as it ever was.
Even in a world where a soul is known to exist, I am the one kind of existence that is doomed to be entirely erased.
I'd be deader than dead, subject to complete and utter cessation.
Perhaps I should look forward to it.
Lillith must be longing to escape the prison of this painful, unnatural existence…
Whats so worth keeping about my life?
Barely anything happened that was worth remembering...
Not a desirable past, yet it was the only one that I had.
The only thing I could hold onto.
Somehow, like a pearl, that starts as defensive secretions growing around an irritant, the experienced I had had laid down layer after layer, and now 'Rei Ayanami' was, at the very last, a thing that could fear its own destruction.
A fear so immediate that it couldn't be explained away.
But even so, that was just some subjective impression. An expected function for a creature with a body that was in part derived from mammals that were driven to preserve themselves.
Should I look at this fear as something that is simply holding me back?
Are not the words of Dr. Akagi and the Second constant proof of my empty, lacking being?
The way the others have always been repulsed, like they knew there was something inside of me that is to be avoided.
That which is empty.
That gaping, yawning chasm of absense and lack.
Nothing and no one can save me from that.
Not a single one of the countless people in this building could even understand it.
Even as the noise of them suffuses this room, they might as well be unreachably far away.
Why did I even bother to come here?
Why am I here?
(I folded my hands onto my face. I think a little, urgent sound escaped me.)
Why did all this have to happen?
How could the natural laws of this world even permit such an aberration-
That is when something very suddenly pulled me out of my thoughts.
It was a noise, a rymthm of steps, somewhat familiar.
I looked up and spotted him at once: Ikari-kun.
He had returned to school once he was released from the hospital, and, as far as I could tell, mostly seemed to have recovered. I'd seen him with his friends, going about his usual pursuits.
Now, he was looking at me with wide eyes, clearly surprised at what he had seen.
I still held my folded up little fists not too far from my face.
He must have seen – I wasn't thinking -
Oh what do I possibly do...
"Ayanami? Are you alright?"
He mercifully gave me a prompt to respond to in the form of his question.
Something to respond to, at least.
"I- uh-"
Oh dear. I really, really didn't know what to do.
"It is fine. There is no need for concern." the words came to me out of habit more than anything else.
"Sorry, but, am I bothering you right now?"
"No, not at all."
"Ah, okay. I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to have lunch with us – us being me, Touji and Kensuke."
"I don't have any lunch with me."
"We can go buy some – Touji usually gets his at the cafeteria as well, so, it's not an extra hassle or anything-"
"There is no need."
I couldn't tell you why I said that.
I was mostly going on automatic, saying what I would usually say.
In hindsight, I can see why he would get the impression that I was trying to wiggle out of it.
Why would I do that?
I suppose that I felt overwhelmed and wanted to be alone, but, what good would that really do?
What could I do with the remaining twenty minutes of the lunch break that would meaningfully change my lot in any way?
The opportunity to experience anything while I'm here is already slipping through my fingers like sand, and yet here I am, doing the same, thoughtless thing.
It is just as I realized earlier:
Everything I ever did was just a means to get away from he dreadfulness of existence, to hang on on what little flimsy scraps of time and silence I could grasp.
It had almost become something like a reflex-
He paused for a moment and sighed. I thought he might turn away and leave, and if he'd done that and left with the wrong impression, I think that this would have been entirely on me.
But then he didn't.
"Are you sure that I'm not bothering you? I know lately we've been trying to invite you to stuff – I was thinking that maybe you'd enjoy it and, I guess I thought you were, for a while, but…
I just wan't you to know that, if you don't really like it, you don't have to feel like you have to come along or anything. If this is all just annoying you, I can leave you alone, and tell the others to do the same – it might be hard to convince Asuka, but maybe if I talk to Hikari-"
"No!"
I really don't know what overcame me there.
Some kind of sudden fear. I think I spoke a little bit louder than was strictly merited.
I know this was kind of an irrational thought, but, I feel like if he really, honestly stopped, starting from this particular moment, I would really and truly have been lost.
I held my volume back to its usual level when I next spoke.
"No, it does not bother me. Truth be told I am grateful for the opportunity, even if I don't always feel like taking it.
Actually, I think I will come to the cafeteria with you."
"-you don't have to do do it just to spare my feelings or anything-"
"Not at all. I actualy want to. Very much."
"...you… you really mean it?"
I was not prepared for how much his face would light up when I said that. I'd meant it as a simple, straightforward statement.
"Thank you for – for saying that you like spending time with me."
It struck me that, sadly, perhaps that wasn't something that he heard very often.
"I uh- I like spending time with you too! But I don't mean that in a weird way or anything- "
"It's allright. Let us go. We have to make it to the cafeteria with enough time to spare for the actual meal."
"I suppose you're right."
I spent the rest of the lunch break eating a piece of avocado toast and listening to the boys telling me about their latest trip to a local flea market.
Ikari-kun had managed to obtain an old antique radio and several posters about the solar system, Aida-kun got his hands on a model gun and some military paraphernalia he had been eying, and Suzuhara told us all about the signed baseball card and rare special edition sneakers he had found after a good while of rummaging through the boxes. He also mentioned picking up a potted plant to surprise his sister, who was apparently fond of them.
I suppose that was thoughtful of him.
In the grand scheme of things I once might say that such a small incident did not matter much and that it did not matter much whether I heard of it or not, but it was as valid a path of space-time as whatever grand disagreements might have dominated the discourse in the last days of the First Ancestral Homeworld, and besides, it was the part of it that I got to see when so much was forever beyond my grasp.
Every small path of grass under a drain pipe is its own complex eco system.
So is this group of adolescent boys – and it was the one that happened to invite me, even if it was for reasons mostly up to chance.
Even if it was grounded on them not knowing just what they had invited into their midst.
It was not such a bad moment to exist in – all of them laughing, teasing each other, so characteristing in each of their idiosyncracies.
Ikari-kun smiling the honest, sincere smile of someone who has wandered for so long in the darkness that he knows to be grateful for even the slightest flicker of light.
Being happy, simply because his friends were here with me. Because I too was here, counted as such a friend.
Not that I had much to contribute. I didn't have any stories of my own, nor anything to smile about. I sat a little bit away from the others, simply listening. A few times I tried contributing a little something, citing some fact that seemed somewhat related to the discussion.
The avocado toast wasn't even all that good, it was just the one vegetarian option that wasn't sold out yet when we got there.
Even so, I was welcome here, not just accepted, but invited, even as I was, sitting in them in that same warm golden daylight.
If only time would stop.
...
My duty is a settled matter
It means that I must live for the purposes of others,
even if I do not know them.
I am uneasy.
Even though, not too long ago,
there was no one in my heart but Commander Ikari.
The other people…
Everything that's happened…
They are changing me.
Do I really have to go back?
Why?
For whom?
I…
What I am living for is...
What I desire is…
Moonlight.
The night breeze.
The scent of water.
The slumbering sea, adrift in repose.
The feeling that I am losing myself.
A moment in which I no longer comprehend what I am.
The feeling that I am losing myself.
A moment in which I no longer comprehend what I am.
...
I don't really recall too much of what I saw there.
It was just some fleeting, hypnagogic wandering in the sweaty sleep of morning.
All I have retained by the time I'd woken up were a few scattered images, and some felt sense of being, something like an overmastering, inexplicable sense of lightness.
So far as I can piece it together from that, I think that it involved some kind of scenario where I was a new student at some school – Ikari-kun was also there, as were his friends, Horaki-san and the second.
Even Major Katsuragi was there, for some reason – she seemed to be one of the teachers.
But somehow, inexplicably, even though she was there, there was no trace of NERV, no EVAs, no Lillith, no nothing, no reason to think that the endless days of summer would come to an end.
No reason that I couldn't just keep going there every day, spending time with Ikari-kun, Horaki-san and the others, a little more every day, amassing twinkling, radiant memories, until there would come a day when they would probably remember me, even if I dissapear.
Most of what I said or did in the dream is barely comprehensible to my waking self.
At one point I was running around with a piece of toast in my mouth.
At another, I think I got into some kind of argument with the Second, who of course, was not actually the Second Child, but just a normal student in that world. I believe that was somewhat… cathartic, at least, if that was the right word.
Aside from her appearance, out of place in that idyllic world,the 'me' in the ream barely even resembled me.
Perhaps that is how different things would have to be for such a ridiculous thing to be possible.
It's so very, very confusing.
So very, very strange.
While it was happening, I think it felt like a happy dream, but while I lay here, contemplating it now in my once-more waking mind, I was beginning to be convinced that it was a very, very sad dream instead.
…
A dream?
Was that a dream?
Was I dreaming, just now?
The me within the dream.
Another me that is unknown to me.
Why would I have such a dream?
My deepest gratitude to youtube user reichu and the EVA 2 translation project for making some of that game available in english. A lot of this chapter's content has been taken from there.
Assuming no future revisions to my present outline, we are now at the halfway point.
Though I hope that, as with the corresponding part of the original series, this is where it gets ~even juicier~.
