Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ The First Child / Before I Sleep ❯ Moon Over Damascus ( Prologue )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

The First Child / Before I Sleep
(A Side Story to "The Second Child / Promises To Keep")

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Part 1 - Prelude / Moon Over Damascus

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"... Don't you dream? ..."

She hears it in her sleep.

A voice in the void. A small haunting presence flitting
past the silent girl like a firefly in the night, but she
notices it and follows it. She's recognized the voice of
the old Asuka Langley... whispering to her like a ghost
from the past...

"... Just who exactly are you, Rei?"

Rei Ayanami opens her eyes with a soft gasp, her knees
freezing, heart racing silently, and she looks warily
around the unfamiliar, dimly-lit room. As her eyes adjust
to the gloomy grey light, she notes clothes and books and
packing boxes strewn carelessly around on the floor, on
the dresser, on the chair. It's the apartment, she
realizes, starting to relax. Not her apartment. The other
one.

Her eyes, continuing to survey the room, come to a stop
on the bed, where the Second Child lies on her back,
bathing in the moonlight that covers her from her hair to
her thighs. The redhead has her hands crossed behind her
head, her long hair flowing over her pillow, her blue
eyes, lost in thought, staring pensively at the ceiling.

With a few small steps Rei walks over to Asuka, and sits
down hesitantly on the bed, by the Second Child's bare
feet. The First Child remains silent and expressionless
for a few long seconds, and glancing over at the Second
from the corner of her eyes, she finally replies, a flat
whisper across the long, pregnant silence,

"I... I don't know."

"You're not telling me everything," grumbles the Second.
"Why bother coming here then?"

"Even if I did know, and I told you, you... you
won't remember us meeting like this when you wake up
from this dream... otherwise, you would have told me
about it, right?"

"See? See? Even in my stupid dream, there's something not
right about you!"

"... Please don't say that."

"Why not? It's true."

"Perhaps I don't want to know the truth."

"Hmph. You're a coward then. Just like your friend
Shinji."

The First looks away. Into the shadows in the room.
Clenches her shaking fist on the rumpled bedsheet.

"And you?" is all she manages to say.

The Second doesn't answer.

"Aren't there things you yourself are afraid to find
out?" Rei whispers.

Silence.

"Asuka?"

Silence. Nothing.

She turns around to face the Second, but gasps and jumps
away suddenly in wide-eyed shock.

They're not in Asuka's room anymore. The Second, wrapped
now in a patient's gown, lies under the white sheets of a
hospital bed. Her face gaunt and pale, lit only by the
gray light of the old bulb on the ceiling. The Second's
lips lie half open in a frozen frown, wide hollow eyes,
their fire long quenched, staring vacantly up at the
ceiling. Her shallow breathing, and the dull mechanical
beeping of the life support systems, the only signs
denying the fact of her death.

A new chill runs down the First Child's spine.

"Asuka? ... Wake up..."

The door to the hospital room opens behind her with a
slow creak. Echoing footsteps.

"Asuka...?" she whispers plaintively.

***

A boy's whisper behind her.

"You are Rei Ayanami, the First Child. We are alike, you
and I..."

The First Child turns around and finds herself looking up
at scarlet-colored eyes.

"Adam-child," she whispers, almost calmly. "Have you come
to betray again?"

She notes the static in the air as two AT fields nudge
against each other.

"I'm sorry, Lillith, but the appointed time has arrived,"
he whispers calmly back to her.

***

A man's whisper behind her.

"It is time for you to serve your purpose, Rei. Are you
ready?"

The First Child turns around and stares up at a familiar
grim face, eyes hidden by spectacles.

"Yes, Commander," she replies simply, automatically.
Almost smiling.

"Dr. Akagi has unfortunately gone."

"You've... killed her?"

"Rei... it's begun. Now... take me to Yui."

"To Yui..."

***

A boy's whisper behind her.

"Asuka..."

The First Child turns around and recognizes the haunted,
tear-stricken eyes of the Third.

"Shinji...?" she whispers, with a tremble in her voice.

He doesn't see her. He goes straight to the comatose
Second Child's bedside, and plaintively pleads for her.

"Asuka... Asuka..."

***

The barriers across the parallel visions shatter, as the
desperate shaking in the boy's voice reverberates across
the dream like a tremor in the earth.

And is gone.

"I'm sorry," she whimpers, finally, alone, in the
darkness. She kneels in the void, crossing her arms
against her self in a forlorn, shaking embrace. "I don't
know what to do. I don't know what I'm here for. I don't
want this! I don't wish you to suffer, but... Ikari, I'm
sorry..."

Silently her consciousness slips into the darkness around
her.

"Wake up!" hisses a young woman's voice, furtive and
angry.

And Ayanami wakes up with a start, sits up, back in her
own bed, alone in her crumbling apartment. Heart racing,
she looks around quietly, and her eyes glance out the
window, notices the moon at watch in the evening sky,
bathing the room in its light.

"This is my final night," she realizes, putting her feet
on the floor. "And I'm the last one."

She starts to go through the motions of changing her
clothes, preparing to return to Terminal Dogma. She
notices the Commander's glasses on her dresser, and
pauses.

Several minutes later the girl closes the door behind
her, leaving her room forever behind.

The glasses lie crumpled, shattered shards, a dead man's
tears, on the floor that had not been cleaned for a long
time.

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To be continued...