Creation began on 10-02-23

Creation ended on 12-25-23

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evangelion: Wandering the Streets

He couldn't recall his name, a very basic task, and he couldn't remember what he was doing before he ended up in the hotel. Walking down the street until he found a park, he went to sit on a bench under a streetlight, trying to comprehend what he did know so far. The woman on the phone said he was being set up for a robbery and murder, knew that he couldn't remember anything about anything, and that some people were after him.

Who am I? He wonders. Where am I? What's going on here?"

Looking up at the streetlight, he seemed like he was going mad a little, unable to make heads or tails of his situation.

-x-

Something went wrong with the scene in the hotel room. It wasn't the lack of clues or evidence, but the three men that were looking around were upset with what they did find there.

"Where is Dr. Ikari?" One of them spoke.

"She has failed to report in again," one of the other two men responded. "We need to speak with her about this."

"We must find her first," the third man uttered. "Find her and the subject."

-x-

Maybe he was restless, probably due to waking up in a bathtub, but he felt like sleep didn't come easy to him. Having gotten up from the bench in the park, the young man walked down a different street and avoided others as much as possible. The talking of other people was a strange noise to him; it was as though they were talking to him, but they weren't talking to him. Images of a giant, purple being appeared in his mind…and a girl with blue hair and red eyes that stood at a distance; he wasn't sure why he was seeing them, only that he felt put off by them.

"…Did they catch the guy that killed those two yet?" He heard a man say to a woman.

"Not yet, but the police are getting close," the woman said back to the man. "He can only hide for so long before needing to make himself known again."

What is going on here? He wondered as he looked out at the lake nearby. Why can't I remember anything? Who am I? Where am I?

A moment later, from the darkness behind him, a pair of hands reached out and grabbed him, pulling him in.

-x-

"Attention," a female voice on the loudspeaker inside the room announced, "the sensory deprivation rooms will be closing in twenty minutes. Please, begin making your way towards the exit. Thank you."

In the room of one such sensory deprivation pool, a woman sat in isolation, pondering what to do later on.

"Doctor Ikari," she heard a voice behind her, and she moved away from the side of the pool, seeing a bald man in a dark coat walking along the edges of the pool. "Your failure to report in has caused us to come find you…again."

"My apologies," the woman responded, dressed in a blue one-piece. "Lately, my heart has been feeling off."

"You know we don't like it when we have to come looking for you when we need your expertise," the man, bald and pale, tells her, looking uncomfortable by his current environment. "You know how we feel around this…moisture."

"Again, my apologies."

"The subject was supposed to be in the hotel room, but he wasn't there when we showed up. Why is that?"

"He…he reacted before I could imprint him."

"So, then…he has no memories of what he was supposed to know?"

"Only minor recollections, but there is doubt that it's anything to make any sense to him."

"Oh, if only that were true with this one. He has always been the special case, kept alive out of pity, because we require your skills. Again, must you be reminded that he is broken because of what was done to him…and why he had to be reset to begin with? You can't return to him what was never his to begin with. None of it was never his to begin with."

"I…I wouldn't try to do that. That's impossible. You warned me what would happen to him if I tried to. It's better for him not to have any recollection."

"With only minor fragments, he won't recall anything for a while, but in time, he'll likely recall things that tug at his nerve endings in ways that will frighten him. He'll likely try to find aid for what he recalls."

"But…you've had strays before, right? It's just a matter of rounding him up. And problem solved. Again."

"We will round him up…and you will process another template of what he is supposed to know, yes? You will do this after tonight's tuning. And doctor…no more of this where we have to find you. No more…inconsistencies with your punctuality."

The man left the room and the woman shudders at her memory of the last time she saw the boy earlier that evening.

"Who…were they?" He had asked before he lost consciousness in the bathroom.

He's not supposed to have memories, she thought, but maybe what he one knew…is not so easily forgotten as I was led to believe. If they were to find out, they would kill him…just to make sure I wasn't trying anything I know I shouldn't.

-x-

Flash! A light shined over the boy's face as he found himself sitting in a hotel room, surrounded by strange people he didn't know.

"Huh?! Wha… Who are you people?" He asks them.

One of them, a woman with purple hair, dressed in a short, black dress and red coat, stood against a wall behind herself and utters, "We're just concerned strangers making sure that you were kept away from some bad people that were after you."

"How do I know you're not the bad people?"

"If we wanted to kill you or worse," went a young man his age, dressed in a black tracksuit, "you wouldn't be here in this cheap-ass hotel room seeing our faces, man."

He sighs and notices another boy with freckles and glasses, another woman with strange blond hair, and a girl around his age with red hair.

"I woke up in a hotel room," he tells them. "The phone in it rang, I picked up and this person on the other tells me to get out before some people came in. I was…set up for something I don't remember doing."

"Yeah, they do that once in a while, making people do things they don't normally do," the strange blond lady responds. "It's a puzzle why they tried this with you, though. A bigger puzzle is whether or not you even remember anything you were made to forget too long ago."

"What? Forget?"

"Do you…remember any of us?" The boy with the glasses asks him. "Do you remember your name? Your life before any of what happened when you woke up tonight?"

"No, I… I don't remember anything."

"Maybe not yet," the redhead expresses, "but maybe later. Those people that are after you, they're the same people that are after us. We're their strays, people they tried to control, but now we're just trying to hide from them and find others like ourselves, people that just up and go missing after realizing something wrong."

"And what is wrong?"

"Everything," they all tell him.

To be continued…

A/N: And here is the second chapter! Merry Christmas to you all and I look forward to the new year that approaches.