Chapter 27

The cloudless sky was a deep crimson, the color of blood diluted in water. Beneath it lay a vast orange ocean, the glass surface completely still as far as the eye could see. There was no wind, no stars, nothing. Rei Ayanami stood in the liquid—LCL, it seemed—up to her thighs, perfectly still, looking down at her own reflection. Behind her was a dead tree, seven decayed branches splitting skywards like bony fingers reaching out from a grave.

"Is this Eva?" she asked no one. Her voice carried on forever over the LCL. She noticed that the lips of her reflection did not move when she spoke. "No. This is someone else."

She turned her head to look at the tree and realized that it did not have that wooden texture that would be expected from trees everywhere. The whole thing seemed like it was made of shadows, though it did not cast one onto the surface of the LCL.

"Where am I?"

The last thing she remembered was the feeling of nausea as Unit-00 was activated. She heard voices whispering faintly in her ear, stirring locks of short blue hair, but the words made no sense. As if spoken in a language she was not meant to understand.

"Am I dead?"

Nothing. She looked around. She must still be inside the Eva, possibly in some kind of dream-like state induced by the stress of the activation. Since it was her first time, such a reaction could be explained.

After all, the Eva had not felt like anything else she'd experienced before.

"You are different."

The words were not spoken. There was no sound. Only a chill that ran up her body and somehow transformed into language. She looked down at herself and realized that her plugsuit had vanished and she was naked. But her reflection had not changed—it stared up at her with cold red eyes that could not possibly be human.

For the first time she was seeing what others saw.

She reached down, her fingertips brushing the surface, causing ripples to distort her reflection. She felt suddenly cold. Whatever it was, she was touching it.

"Who are you?" she asked again, unafraid.

Her reflection shifted, its features wrinkling in annoyance. Again she heard that strange voice. "You are different. You do not feel like those before."

"I am not like anyone else," Rei said. "I am myself."

"Are you not afraid?" her reflection asked, red eyes narrowing.

"No."

"I should have known," the thing said. "Nobody has ever been able to speak to me as you are doing now. That is how I know you are different. That is how I know of your uniqueness. I am unique as well."

Rei was curious. "No one has ever spoken to you?"

"Not in this manner. Not like equals," it said. "If I must answer to questions then I shall say only that I have never been given a name. I exist by myself, a part of nothing else. But I learned from contact with those that came before that to exist by oneself is meaningless. The true value of existence can only be calculated by the contact between beings. My existence is merely my reflection in the minds of others, as they see me. As you see me. So I am you and I am myself as well."

"Are you an Angel?"

"No. I am free from the Tetragramaton. I am as you are, a creation of man. Those you call Angels are simply an aberration born out of a path that leads to destruction. As everything in nature must have balance, so too existence must have a counter-existence. Your Angels are but alternate parts of yourself. The antithesis to everything you are. Do you not know this?"

Rei shook her head slightly. "Why should I?"

"Because in knowledge lies understanding. Therefore, in that link lies the means by which I am to fulfill my purpose and thus the reason why I exist. Those that came before possessed a wealth of knowledge, experience accumulated through years of heartbreak and loss. They understood fear, loneliness, hatred, love. But you are foreign to all those things. To me you feel ... empty."

She felt a chill run over her, and the LCL around her legs suddenly became much colder. She looked down at her reflection on the rippling surface, and saw that her face was frowning. Except it wasn't really her face. She could not feel the muscles of her brow tightening, nor the kind of emotions that went hand in hand with that expression.

"So, in turn, it is I who must now ask you a question," the voice said again. "What are you?"

"I am Rei Ayanami. I am myself."

The LCL grew even colder—it felt like it was burning her almost.

She winced at the pain, shrinking her shoulders and drawing her arms closer to herself, but could not escape it. "It hurts."

"Your name is not an answer. Not even to yourself. It is simply a front created by others and given to you. It does not answer the question."

Rei shook her head, unable to think of anything else. "Then I do not know."

"What are you, stupid?" The voice changed halfway through that sentence. The shrill, familiar tones of the Second Child now seemed to pierce the air and stab her everywhere.

Rei had never minded her fellow pilot; the Second Child was loud and hostile in ways Rei simply didn't understand, but she was only being herself. She didn't dislike her for that any more than she disliked Doctor Akagi. But now there was something about this voice that filled her dread. Something about what she'd said.

"I do not understand," Rei called out, keeling forward as she did. "I do not understand. Why does it hurt?"

"I want you to die," the Second Child's voice said again. "You'd be doing everyone a favor. I want you to die."

Would she really? Was Rei hated so much that other really wished her harm? Was everything she thought she knew about her relationships with others just a misunderstanding? Even the things she thought she knew—the feelings she attached to people like Shinji Ikari—were just wrong because she was incapable of comprehending.

Because she was empty.

And she was hated.

The Second's voice came again. "You would die if he asked you to."

Rei could hear and feel the venom in those words almost as if it were running inside her veins. It stung badly, sparking small flares of pain into an all-consuming firestorm. The answer was obvious—undeniable.

"Yes."

The voice changed again, into Commander Ikari's. "Rei, are you worried?"

The pain turned to something else—fear—terror—her mind did not know how to describe it. An awful realization of what it meant to be nothing and yet live amongst beings that expected her to understand them.

"I do not want to die," Rei cried, wrapping her arms protectively around herself, slouching forwards. Her knees remained frozen, the only thing keeping her from falling.

In the LCL, her plug-suited reflection was grinning broadly, madly. "I hate what you represent."

"Why …" Rei hissed in pain, grimacing, "why does it hurt?"

"Pain is life," her grinning counterpart said. "Pain validates your existence. And, in turn, it validates mine. You are but reflections on a mirror of sorrow and solitude. You humans, sad creatures. You fear pain as you fear hell, and go about your lives without realizing. Hell is other people … and so is pain."

And something grasped her underneath the LCL—hard fingers that felt scaly against the soft pale skin of her ankles, her calves, working their way up her legs. She jerked away but the she was held tight on the spot. Her heart was racing.

Laughter from behind her made her turn. She was looking at the tree again, and in her shock noticed dozens of gleaming red eyes staring at her from dark faces carved into the dead wood.

Her own face.

The LCL seemed to explode in front of her, and she turned again. Standing there was herself—blue hair, white-black plugsuit, gleaming red eyes that carried a kind of power Rei had never felt.

She could smell the LCL on her shape, like a mist of blood in the air, clinging to her. The red eyes fixed unto her, wide surreal orbs lacking in all compassion or humanity. The thing reached out a hand and grasped her wrists. Rei shuddered at the touch. It was repulsive. Cold. Dead.

And before Rei knew it she was being pulled down into the LCL, beneath the surface until the red sky disappeared in a rippling mass above.

Rei sank deeper. The light faded, so beautiful right before it died, and in the darkness she heard her own name being called. Over and over.

Ayanami.