Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ In the Dark Room ❯ Second Exposure ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

 

 

In the Dark Room: Second Exposure

 

By Midnight_Cereal

 

 

Jackelyn Hernandez ran faster than she ever had in her entire life. It was funny, how being wounded and chased by a relentless predator allowed one to do extraordinary things.

 

No it wasn't.

 

She squeezed her sticky bleeding midsection even tighter as she breathed and squinted in the weak, reluctant moonlight. She could barely make out the pounding of her feet on the rocky desert bed over the sound of her heart, pumping life through her burning legs and out of her leaking abdomen.

 

She was running out of time, and she could no longer tell if the cold she felt was from her dark and empty surroundings or her life force, slowly ebbing down her legs, trickling through her shivering forearms, and soaking her grey sweat shirt and old khaki shorts.

 

The ground below her pounded back. Jackelyn allowed herself a degree of hope, felt her dry shivering lips pull upward into a grim smirk. She had made it to the road. It saw scarce traffic save for the regulars that chose to live all the way out here, but someone could come by, it was possible. At the very least, she wasn't going to die out here.

 

A light, yellow, impotent and stationary, caught her blurring peripheral vision. The Grey Coyote. A restaurant. Bandages, for careless busboys and cooks. Water. A pay phone. Knives. Her breath came shuddering, but much easier now. She loped the two hundred yards to the silver trailer, using the distance to think of a way in.

 

Jackelyn mentally tallied off the survival guides she had read through to stave off boredom, her six years of girl-scout training, and about thirty episodes of MacGyver Uncle Willie made her watch whenever she visited him in Tucson. She whittled down her choices and, coming to a decision, picked up the largest rock she could find and hefted it through the glass pane in the front door.

 

I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Douglass. I'm sure you'll understand.

 

She reached through, ignoring the thin red lines being etched into her forearm by the remaining jagged shards. One lock found her groping hand easily, while the lower one required her to get on her toes and stretch torn muscles. She bit back a sharp cry as she fumbled with and then flipped it, nearly losing her balance as she stumbled into blackness.

 

Jackelyn doubted that she could've been able to make out anything specific even with her glasses. Nothing would be solved unless she had some extra light. Using the black silhouette of the main counter as her tactile guide she worked her way along it. As one arm remained pressed to her stomach, the other was stretched out to the counter surface, her slick fingers searching for a break in its smooth lines, some crease.

 

Then she stopped. Her stomach dropped as her ears picked up something. She did, didn't she? She could've imagined hearing it, but it was impossible to discern anything -not her boots scuffing the hollow floor, her wet fingers squeaking across the counter top- above the percussive din drumming beneath her sweater. But she could feel, and…it was getting colder. God, she had to hurry. She wasn't going to die out here. She wanted to go home…

 

There it was. Her fingers followed the crevice down to a cool hinge, and without delay she lifted the small door and made her way to the back of the counter.

 

When she had felt like making a quick buck, which was often, Jackelyn bused tables for the Grey Coyote. More specifically, she bused tables for Mr. Douglass at the Grey Coyote. Most specifically, she bused tables for Mr. Douglass at the Grey Coyote when he did not sit her down at an empty booth warmed with orange rays from the desert sun, and tell her one of his stories.

 

Mr. Douglass would begin speaking, and Jackelyn would instantly fall into his old, grey laughing eyes. His silver eyebrows jumped when he got excited, and he would stroke the stubble on his grizzled chin and study the coffee mug before him whenever he remembered friends long gone. He would pause, look up, and find her staring. He never found it odd a sixteen year-old girl would look at him like that; he always just grinned or chuckled. God, she loved his stories…she wanted to hear more of them, all of them.

 

At the end of the day, before offering Jackelyn a ride back to her house, Mr. Douglass would always turn off the lights from the far end of the trailer.

 

Flip.

 

She adjusted to the new field of vision presented to her. A year 2016 calendar just to her left accurately crossed off up to the sixteenth of November. The red and green padded booths waiting patiently for the new day's travelers in search of a quick bite. The windows all around the trailer, painted an ebony that bled into a navy blue hazy with pale natural light.

 

The person standing at the door, next to the phone, looking at her.

 

“Sorry I'm late, Jackie.” The figure raised and lightly shook something black in her right hand. “I couldn't finish without this, you know?” Her brown hiking boots, her dark blue jeans, brown jacket and cropped black hair began to come into focus as she started towards the counter. Towards Jackelyn.

 

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Please. Pl-

 

“-ease.” Her arms wrapped around her bloody stomach. Tighter. Tighter.

 

The best friend she ever had stopped looking at her long enough to duck under the counter, and rise on the other side. When their eyes met once more, the green-eyed teenager closed the distance.

 

“Why?” The question lingered on Jackelyn's quivering lip before it left, and then again. “Why? Why?”

 

“I should be asking you that, I think,” was the answer, its owner standing before the Hispanic girl sinking to her knees, whimpering in fear and pain. “Why, Jackie? Why didn't you just listen to me? Didn't I tell you to be careful around me? With what you asked? With what we talked about? How many times did I ask-”

 

“How was I supposed to know? How was I going to know? How? How…”

 

The only thing the injured girl could think of at the moment was making some sense of this -her last moments, cowering in a shivering heap like a wounded doe in the middle of Bumblefuck, California- but her inquiries were staunched by broken choking sobs. In the next second arms enveloped her. Hands, strong and soothing, moved up and down her shaking back, warm. She was so cold now.

 

“Shhh…shhh…don't worry Jackie, don't worry. I'm your friend. I'm good at this. I know how to do this so that it won't hurt….”

 

One more thing, one more, just ask it…

 

Jackelyn Hernandez asked about that thing.

 

“Probably cry. Just like I will when this is all over,” the girl in blue jeans answered clearly. She was holding something else. “Here.” Gloved hands came around as if crowning Jackelyn, and when they came away the Hispanic girl could see everything perfectly; her ruined sweat shirt and shorts, the restaurant, the other girl's green misting eyes, and another object she was now holding.

 

“Don't move,” Mariko said.

 

Despite the advice, Jackelyn moved a lot.

 

Outside of the Grey Coyote, a truck sped past.

 

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Over the course of its relatively short existence, Nerv had been a virtual Mecca for truly mentally ill human beings.

 

For starters, its late Chief Operations Planning Manager and the designated Second and Third Child, had for a year formed the most dysfunctional family in the history of surrogacy. Fittingly, the guardian of the two children had been the sole survivor of the most catastrophic event in the history of mankind.

 

From the day she emerged from the emergency capsule floating where Antarctica had been previously, she bore both deep physical and psychological scars. She had compensated poorly in the ensuing years, remaining completely mute for the first two, then completely inverting into a motor-mouthed borderline alcoholic with overly promiscuous tendencies.

 

Her boy-shy best friend, a scientist, had fallen helplessly in love with the Third Child's father -a cold and calculating man- who may or may not have played a roll in her mother's death. Despite staying cool under constant and extreme pressure during most of her stint as the Project E. Chairperson, the good blonde doctor had suffered a staggering emotional breakdown at the end, and had not been seen since Third Impact.

 

The Third Child had faired better if just for the fact that he was still alive. Emotionally, mentally and sexually repressed, the teenaged boy had stumbled through the 2015 conflict like a drunk through a minefield. All along he had unwillingly remained on the front lines, incredulously for the praise of his father -a cold and calculating man- who may or may not have played a roll in his mother's death.

 

Each ensuing battle tore at the young man piecewise, until the progress he had made in overcoming his severe introversion had dissolved entirely with the death of the seventeenth Angel. And that was only the beginning of his problems, one of which was undoubtedly the Second Child, whom embodied so much of what the young man feared and desired.

 

And she knew it. And she let him know that she knew during every mission and every walk to school, every time he washed her clothes and when she took a shower. She was very good at trying hard. She tried hard in school and graduated college barely into her teens. She tried hard at martial arts and received her black belt in Hapkido within a year of stepping to Sensei Diedrich's front door. German, Japanese, English, French, and Italian flowed off her tongue like water. Her monstrous avatar had leapt hundreds of meters into the air and executed the most acrobatic maneuvers with the barest flicker of a thought.

 

She tried so hard because she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she was already a failure.

 

She was reminded of that fact every time she turned to hatefully glare and the First Child -a cold and calculating girl- who was so despised by the German she might as well have played a role in her mother's death. The First Child didn't try, but she had been a better swimmer. The First Child did not try to befriend the Third Child, though she had better success at it.

 

Suddenly, the Second Child came to realize that the only person more emotionally, mentally, and sexually repressed than the Third Child, was her. Suddenly, resounding, crushing defeat became a birthright, embraced her as a mother would her only child, and left her sitting naked and emaciated in some rusty tub among rubble. Nerv security had found her that way after the sixteenth Angel, her vacant blue eyes fixed above her on something. She couldn't even die right.

 

There was her. Then there was the new Project E. Chairperson, slowly losing her mind, though no one saw what was so obvious to the Second Child. There were other stories, a dozen at least that Asuka Langley Sohryu could recall. All were tragic personal tales of loss, betrayal, madness, malevolence, and/or masochism.

 

And yet, somehow, improbably, against all conceivable and reasonable odds, Mariko Ashley Buick was crazier than all of them by ten country miles. It wasn't even close. `I hope we can be friends still'? What planet was she living on? Oh, yeah, evidently the planet where you routinely axe-murdered innocent people completely at random.

 

Was it really at random? There were countless people in that photo album, and not all of them ended up bloody corpses, did they? What did they do (or not do) that saved them from the same fate? Whatever that thing was, Asuka had to find out; that, or get the other girl in the hands of the authorities, which Asuka knew would be harder than just walking into or calling the nearest police department.

 

You simply did not destroy that many lives without being smart enough to know how to get away with it. She wasn't about to count on Mariko getting sloppy, either. It would be even harder if she wanted to keep the others around her alive as well.

 

`Don't make me kill you'. That was you, plural. Mariko liked her. Mariko liked Shinji, too. She didn't want to kill either of them. But, if Asuka made a play to get rid of Mariko without knowing for certain where she or Shinji was (or more to the point, without knowing where Mariko was in relation to Shinji) there was a chance that the girl could slay them both.

 

Asuka could also see Nerv security storming their apartment and rummaging through Mariko's boxes in search for a large red photo album filled with gruesome imagery…and coming away with nothing. Oh, they would pool their resources, make connections, and possibly discover the truth about Mariko Buick, in which case the Sixth Child would disappear.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what Asuka wanted, a known killer on the loose, a seemingly normal teenaged girl that knew her phone number, address, place of education and work. A killer that would really smile and giggle, really offer hugs and friendly advice, right up to the moment she really poked your eyes out with the first ball point pen she could get her hands on. Biding time, lurking, patiently waiting for the right moment…

 

To think that Asuka had welcomed the downsizing of Section Two. The simple fact was there was no real reason for twenty-four hour surveillance of the Eva pilots until about three days ago. That reason announced she had to go to the bathroom.

 

“I'll show you where it is,” said Shinji, getting up from the opposite side of the table. Mariko nodded and stood from Asuka's side, hard triceps tensing underneath a snug sleeve as she pushed away from the edge. The red head watched the two glide past two waiters and a group of noisy restaurateurs as her hands moved of her own accord.

 

“You don't like your steak, Asuka?” Maya asked across the table.

 

“It's fine.” It was fine. It was great, actually, but there were things at the moment that took precedent over her enjoyment of her medium well-done (and expensive) slab of meat. “Maya, I need to talk to you.”

 

The doctor wore a blank face before she smiled. “Of course. What did you want to talk about? I'm sure that I could-”

 

“Not now,” Asuka softly interjected. “This is gonna be a long conversation. Just the two of us.”

 

“Does it have anything to do with that bruise on your cheek?” Doctor Ibuki asked as she absently poked at her own meal. “Or more to the point, the person that put it there?”

 

Maya's sigh came immediately after the girl broke eye contact and then jerked her shoulders nonchalantly. It was a sound the Second Child took exception to.

 

“You're not going to lecture me about my apartment etiquette, are you?” Asuka suddenly asked. “Because Mariko's the one with the problem.”

 

“Oh…maybe I'll talk to her then-”

 

“No,” Asuka answered almost too quickly, “I want you to talk to me first. We've worked together for, what, three years now? I think I've earned your ear over some total stranger.”

 

“I agree. You're right.”

 

“I want to trust you, really.”

 

At this, the young doctor eyed the German teen, failing to hide the hurt in her large brown eyes. “You…don't trust me?”

 

“It doesn't have anything to do with you as a person.”

 

“But, you don't trust me…true or not true?” Maya asked, slowly shaking a head of short dark brown hair.

 

“I…you changed Maya. I think you have, to be honest. I don't know what it was that made you different.” Asuka's voice dropped to a self-conscious whisper as she leaned forward. “I guess I just ignored it until now.”

 

Maya leaned back, and her shut eyes reflected understanding. “I've been out of it…yeah.” She let out a breath before she whispered. “When did it start? I don't know exactly.” Then she added, “Maybe…after I heard you scream.”

 

It did not do good things for Asuka's full stomach when Maya Ibuki gave a soft chuckle as the young pilot drew back in surprise. “I guess I shouldn't have told you that, huh, Asuka?”

 

“We share a really fucked-up bond, you know that?” Asuka pointed out.

 

“Asuka…” Maya softly chided.

 

“Well…it's true.” Slowly, the numbness Asuka felt drained and her expression became solemn. “When I lost…the last thing I remember was your voice.”

 

“Maybe,” Maya began, “we could help each other if we did speak. I know it would help me.”

 

“Free therapy is a rare and wonderful thing, I know…unfortunately. I owe you one, anyway.” And with that Asuka winked at the woman with her left eye.

 

Maya beamed.

 

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It's three in the morning, thought Asuka, and I'm still awake.

 

She rolled away from her clock radio and tried to take a deep, relaxing breath. Deep, yes. Relaxing, no. Having an insane murderer rooming about twenty feet down the hall tends to do that. It was just the unpredictability of it all.

 

She could imagine tonight's dinner with Maya going differently; they would all be talking about something inane as they ate. Asuka would mention something and Shinji would ask a stupid question. She would reply in kind, and it would be funny, if a bit mean. Shinji would look embarrassed and Maya would pretend to be embarrassed for him as she laughed behind her hand. Mariko would pause from eating her Martina de Siciliana to laugh openly. Then, still laughing, she would pick up Asuka's steak knife and punch a neat hole in her temple.

 

Asuka breathed again. Deep, yes. Relaxing, no. She closed her eyes.

 

They all seemed to have problems, everyone that lived in this city. Traumatic childhood episodes seemed to be a prerequisite for Eva pilots. But she was not some…cold-blooded monster like Mariko. Neither was Shinji or Touji. Rei was a cold-blooded monster, though of a different kind, as far as the Second Child was concerned. In any case, Rei was definitely not Mariko.

 

What did it take? What broke Mariko? How much worse could her experiences have been than Asuka's? What could possibly trump watching your mother watch you as she dangled by her brok-

 

ENOUGH.

 

Just a few nights more. Then she would sit with Maya and explain in detail what she saw in that horrible red book. Then they would decide carefully, precisely, how to dispense of the most insane person either of them would probably ever know. Well planned, clean, perfectly executed. She's alive, Shinji's alive, and Mariko gets the help she somehow thinks Asuka could provide and that the girl so desperately needed.

 

She doesn't want to kill us. There's time to do this right.

 

She opened her eyes. Someone was sitting on her bed.

 

She shot up into a sitting position, frantically reaching for the exacto knife resting underneath her pillow.

 

“I thought I was just imagining it, but you have been jumpy the last few days. No wonder you're so alert this late. I'm sorry I startled you, though.”

 

Shinji. Not Mariko. Not tonight. How'd he get in her room without her hearing? But the million-dollar question, of course, was…

 

“What the…hell are you doing in here?”

 

Something new and foreign touched his voice as he answered her. “Whatever you want me to do.”

 

Asuka then knew what tinged it, and the fear that had given way to befuddlement returned in force, though different in form.

 

“What do you mean?” she asked, consciously maintaining a steady tone. She knew what the young man had meant, and was validated as his dark form crept past her feet to her knees, and then moved to plant his hands at her sides. She could not keep from shivering when his fingers brushed her skin beneath her top.

 

“I mean…I'm tired of running away. There's only one place I need to be right now.” His whisper was like velvet, his hot breath tickling her burning ear. “I want you to take me there.”

 

She breathed in his scent. He smelled like many things, and at the moment it didn't matter that one of those things was blood. Nothing else really mattered when Shinji swung his leg over and straddled her. She wasn't going to sleep anytime soon.

 

“What…what if Mariko hears?” she asked as she lay back down and let his weight press against her pelvis and bore into her. Hovering above her in the dark, he chuckled.

 

“If she does, it's going to be very uncomfortable tomorrow at breakfast.”

 

She bit her lip and summoned the necessary courage. “Shinji, just be…I think…I want you to know you're…erste.”

 

His hands gripped her thin wrists. “Then this might hurt a bit.” His grip tightened as he plunged down with his mouth…

 

…and tore a chunk of flesh from her shoulder.

 

For some reason she felt no pain, but she screamed all the same, a wretched sound sired from disbelief and terrible confusion, fear and betrayal. She writhed beneath as teeth gnashed at her, ripping sinew, somehow crushing bone. A blind awesome panic kept her from reconciling what she had been hearing and feeling from Shinji seconds ago and the thing on top of her now. It could not speak but squealed and growled as it took pleasure in the carnage it so eagerly inflicted.

 

Her shrieks rose in volume and desperation, and it responded by moving down to her stomach. All Asuka knew was that here he was again, betraying her, killing her, this time not just through inaction. She glimpsed a ribbon of blue light hanging above him, and before he dove down to devour her heaving abdomen he rose slightly…

 

A gaping and slavering maw lined with teeth gleaming like bloody pearls and bisecting a giant sightless white head…

 

Nonononono shut it out, don't look, close them, shut your eyes. Shut Your Eyes. SHUT YOUR EYES.

 

She did so as the lights in her room jumped to life. The body that had been atop her, the thing killing her, eating her, was gone. Somebody was speaking real words to her now, not just garbled savage moans. Shinji. The real one. A hand touched her, tried to at least as she flailed her arms outward wildly. Her shoulder was whole again. Her eyes were still shut.

 

She was still screaming.

 

The hand tried again as she wrenched away, opening her eyes just long enough the view an empty far corner. She shot from her sweat-soaked sheets and crushed her back against it. She was aware enough to know she was awake. Alive. She knew that soon she would stop struggling, stop screaming and pushing his arms off her shoulders, but his voice seemed so far away at the moment…

 

“C'mon Asuka. C'mon, relax. Asuka, breathe.” After a full minute, with considerable effort, she did take a breath. Deep, yes. Relaxing, no.

 

“Good. C'mon, again, good. Gooooood. Breathe. It's okay.”

 

He was right. It was over. It was okay, she had dreamt it all, both the first and second act. Her tired muscles began to soften. His hands clasped her shoulders firmly, comfortably.

 

“Good, Asuka. It's okay. We're here.”

 

We?

 

Her question was answered when she finally opened her eyes; the painful glare subsided, and green eyes filled with concern stared back. Shinji looked on from the doorway.

 

“What happened?” Mariko asked. “I thought you were dying in…huh?”

 

“I said get out.”

 

Mariko's hands shrank back as she gently stammered. “I-I was just worried. You just kept screaming and screaming, we didn't know what was going on-”

 

“GET OUT! GET OUT!”

 

Shock registered on Mariko's face at the explosive hostility of the other girl's words. Sparing Asuka a crestfallen expression, she turned and shuffled to the doorway, lightly brushing past Shinji. Favoring Mariko with a sympathetic look, he approached Asuka, who was looking down at her feet.

 

“She was just worried about you,” he said quietly.

 

“I'll make it up to her later.” Much later. Like never. She waded back to her bed on rubbery legs.

 

“Bad food?” he softly asked. Though Asuka could not see him as she sat and leaned forward with her head in her palms, she felt the mattress sink with his added weight.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What was it?” The bed sank further around her thighs and she could feel his body heat. “Was it the one with Misato? And your eye?”

 

She shook her head. “No.” He was so warm.

 

“Because I thought you stopped having that nightmare.”

 

“No I haven't. But it doesn't bother me like that anymore.” She groaned and pulled herself up and crashed backwards like a scuba diver. Pulling her wrists over her eyes, she said, “This was a different one…and I'll get over this, too.”

 

“Asuka…” he breathed apprehensively, “Doctor Ueto wanted to know if this type of thing happened…”

 

“I know, Shinji.”

 

“That if you started having other nightmares, you should see her-”

 

“I know. Now stop talking. I don't need her. All I need is to go to sleep.”

 

A second passed, another, and then the bed then rebounded as his weight ascended and he approached her door. “Goodnight. If you change your mind about seeing her, or just talking to me, just…can you do that, for me? Let me help you. Please.” She did not answer for an odd moment, long enough for the young man to turn to the hallway.

 

“Now you want to help me,” she scoffed as she lay blind and prostrate. “How much help do you think you need to offer, Shinji? You make it sound like you have a time machine or something. What are you gonna do to help me change that day, to make me all better?”

 

“Whatever you want me to do.”

 

Her breath audibly hitched. Dammit, dammit, dammit! He was seconds away from leaving, and now he was there watching her. Why did she say something?

 

“I can't believe you just said…” she began, her voice already crippled by a growing despair. “Why can't you ever say the right thing?” For about ten seconds a terrible pain choked off the sounds mingling in the back of her throat. And then it came out and shook her with a child's sobs and a strange misshaped laughter, muffled by one hand as another clasped her wet eyes. “You never, never say the right thing,” the sorrowing girl softly stated to Shinji, who to her knowledge had remained stapled to the floor at the entrance of her room.

 

“Maybe…you can start by doing what I want you to do, like you said. How much better do you think I'd feel if you got the hell out of my room, huh?”

 

Asuka did not feel better when she heard the door shut, and felt herself alone once more. Can't DO the right thing either, can you, Shinji? Wiping shed tears from her hot cheeks she craned her neck to peer upside down at her clock radio, and try as she might, she couldn't get the numbers to go backwards.

 

 

End of Second Exposure

 

A/N: Ummm….yeah. Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

 

Random A/N: I'm probably driving you people crazy with these rapid-fire updates, but I just keep finding these little piss-pot typos…you know what it's like? It's like waxing down your car until it was absolutely spit-shine spot free, and having a pigeon just dump on your hood out of spite. I hat typos.

 

Next Chapter: Shiritori