sometimes I get overwhelbed

“Come enjoy our natural wonderland! To which we’ve added the world’s finest resort facilities, spectacular amusement parks, and…succulent seafood.”

Mario moaned in his sleep as grandeur visions of fine fish swarmed his mind. His sweaty arms clutched his body tighter, smearing black greases and oils on his pink silk pajamas. The brothers had to resort to plumbing once again to keep their house afloat.

Peach had done a marvelous job at hiring a new guard that could better defend her from Bowser. But what that also meant is that Peach rarely went by Peach now. Say that name in front of her and Toadsworth was sure to chew you out. It was Princess Toadstool 24/7 now.

At long last, she possessed a firm control over the whole Mushroom Kingdom and was too busy to hang out with the Mario Bros.

And aside from the occasional threat from Fawful or Wart, there was no commercial need for an adventuring duo, hence the plumbing gig. It took a long time for the brothers to adjust to normal life. Luigi spent most of his time gardening.

Mario however, had a secret obsession. Traps. He couldn’t get enough of them. Reading about the exploits of others birthed a love he never knew he had in him. Luigi knew what Mario was really up to but chose not to say anything as Mario rigged traps all around their home. For Luigi had a secret obsession too: his brother’s happiness.

Awwww…how wholesome.

But dear reader, this is unfortunately not a wholesome story. What you are about to read observes death as a cold-hearted “fuck your parents, fuck your friends, fuck everybody” truth.

Are you ready? Alright then, well fuck your parents and fuck your friends, let’s-a-go!

Mario turned over in his sleep.

Falling…

F =A ==L ===L ====I =====N ======G

=======P ========E =========N ==========G ===========U ============I =============N ==============S

“That is no son of mine,” Mama Penguin told Mario as he shivered at the base of Cool Cool Mountain. He had vaulted across broken bridges, scaled up a mountain, murdered countless evil snowmen, and sacrificed his very being to find Mama Penguin’s baby son who had gotten lost on the mountain.

“Mama Mia,” Mario forced through blue lips. Placing the incorrect penguin at his side, he implored the mother for better details as to which penguin was hers for they all looked the same to him.

“My son is my son,” Mama Penguin scolded. “I know him.”

Mario scratched his head. This was no help at all.

And then he heard it.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The bird had flown the coop. Or rather, walked to its deathbed by accidentally sliding off the mountain. Mario ran to the edge of the floating island, watching the baby penguin throttle into an endless abyss. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Mama Penguin staring blankly ahead of her.

“You find my son,” she ordered.

This was not Mario’s first scrape with death. He had stomped many a Goomba, stomped them so hard in fact that the coroner wasn’t able to properly ID them. Yes, Mario had done many fucked up things in the past, but this was a baby!

Hm. Okay, Petey Piranha was a baby too and he kinda killed him a few times but still! This was a bonafide “goo goo ga ga” styled baby!

What was a plumber to do? Rescue the baby? Impossible. He needed Mama Penguin’s Power Star so he could access the upper floor of the Castle and rescue his dearest Peach.

His Peach who no longer spoke to him…

“M-M-M-M-M-MARIO!”

Mario snapped awake. Something was wrong. Three shadows were taking up space in his bedroom, two of them stooped over the third. Looking down from his top bunk, he saw a Poison Mushroom Gun being pointed at the head of his brother.

Mario grimaced and jumped off the bed, pivoting in midair until his butt faced straight down, and plummeted into the head of the tall shadow.

“WAAAAAAAAH!” the tall shadow yelped in a sharp voice. Of course. Walugi. Who else would stoop to such tremendously low levels?

Mario swung his bare foot into the air, kicking the stouter shadow in the nose. The pesky plumber’s sheer strength managed to send the shadow lumbering backwards into the wall. As he slammed into the wall, light danced across his face, revealing him as the ever vicious Wario.

What a surprise.

Wario pinched his nose and aimed his Poison Mushroom Gun.

Mario jumped over Luigi’s cowering body and punched Wario right in the gut. The greedy glutton groaned and doubled over, accidentally firing his Poison Mushroom into Luigi’s bed. Worthless.

“D’oh, I missed!” Wario cried out helplessly.

Mario considered taking out the gangly creeper behind him, but instead launched into a backwards long jump through Waluigi’s legs. As Mario soared over Luigi’s body, the two brothers grabbed hold of each other and flew backwards together.

Hitting the staircase to the living room with pinpoint accuracy, Mario was able to launch into a stream of backwards long jumps that warped them through the whole house in a second.

Mario could never explain these sorts of events; he just knew that if he did the right thing at the right thing, some sort of seam would be ripped throughout reality that he could take advantage of.

Mario swung open the front door, scanning the front lawn for signs of danger. Nothing out of the ordinary except that the Warp Pipe that could have lead them to Toad Town had been blocked by the head of a massive snowman.

They wouldn’t be leaving here any time soon, that was for sure.

Mario felt the ground move from under him as he was suddenly swept away, tossed to the grass beside the porch. He struggled to free himself for the clammy grip around him, but found himself being tugged under the porch.

“Shhh…” Luigi urged, rubbing Mario’s stomach. Mario cooed and let himself sink into the moist earth below their porch.

Luigi looked up as two pairs of feet stumbled across their porch, little bits of dust and dirt flying down like snowflakes.

Mario patted Luigi on the back and pointed between the cracks of the steps.

Waluig’s Poison Mushroom Gun was still loaded.

Luig’s eyes widened. He shook his head at Mario, hunching his shoulders, dipping his chin into the dirt.

Mario crawled up to Luigi’s spot in the muck, tracing out a strategy with his finger. Mario would come from the West side, Luigi from the East, and they would both Long Jump past Wario and Waluigi, confusing them, then spin jumping to the center where they could—

Luigi slapped a hand against the mud, turning Mario’s magnificent bastard strategy into two dimensional space, and shoved off of the ground, blindly charging at Waluigi.

Mario gritted his teeth, boosting himself up so his back was against the floor of the porch, but he couldn’t leave his spot. He couldn’t be as bold as Luigi.

It happened so quickly.

Wario and Waluigi gasped as they saw Luigi.

Luigi wildly leapt into the air, soaring through the darkness.

Luigi’s feet firmly planted into Waluigi’s smug face.

The two of them rolled about in the grass like lovers reunited.

And as Luigi stood up from the tussle and brushed himself off.

Waluigi aimed his gun at the back of Luigi’s head.

And Mario got out from under the porch.

And Luigi heard Mario shuffling and turned to face him with a smile on his face.

A smile that shone even from underneath his gigantic mustache.

And then Waluigi fired.

And Luigi died.

More specifically, Luigi’s eyes widened as his body shot six feet into the air only to intangibly drop through the Earth below them.

Mario tried thinking of something that could adequately express his grief, but only managed to come up with the war cry of “MAMA MIA!”

Mario vaulted across the lawn and landed at Waluigi’s feet. Waluigi arched his arm to snap the empty gun against Mario’s neck but he was too late; Mario grabbed ahold of Waluigi’s foot.

That was all he needed. Mario twirled Waluigi around in huge rotations by the ankle, gritting his teeth as he prepped his aim. Just outside of the perimeter of his property, Mario had set up some spiked bombs he saw being sold at low, low prices in a magazine he liked.

Releasing Waluigi with tremendous gusto, Mario watched the purple man fly out into the distance only to collide with a spiked bomb and explode.

Waluigi fell at the feet of Mario, screaming and writhing in agony, until he began twirling. Twirling so fast Mario couldn’t keep track of what he even looked like. Twirling so fast he blended in with the air around them.

Twirled so fast it was hard to notice when he disappeared from this world completely.

Mario licked his lips to taste the innards of his mouth. He needed proof that he was real and that this had just happened. He had just murdered Waluigi. A vile man though he was, and undeniably great at Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix, this still didn’t feel right.

But soon Mario found himself licking dirt and grime from his lips as he caved into the weight of Wario. Mario struggled and writhed, but he couldn’t combat with Wario’s sheer strength. Maybe if Mario had eaten more garlic he could have competed.

Or maybe if Mario didn’t have to look into Wario’s tear-streaked eyes as he rubbed Mario’s face into the dirt.

“Waaaaaaah!” Wario whined in his usual manner.

Mario clamped his eyes shut, a tightness building in his chest; he was going to die but he was okay with it. Luigi and him could do some good plumbing for the Big Toad Up in the Sky.

Then lightness, a lightness that Mario had never known.

He reached up to touch his head but all he felt was hair. That wasn’t right. Where was his cap? Looking across the lawn, he saw Wario leaning against a tree and with the oil of Michael Jordan, casually spun Mario’s famous cap on his finger.

Hark! What a wretched fiend!

What was a man without his heart?

What was a plumber without his trusty cap?

Wario knew this chink in Mario’s armor and was being a cheeky garlic-ball about it!

That’s okay. Wario was only a long jump or two away. He could reach him.

Mario crouched down to launch into long jump, but screamed as his body pinched together. Nerves snapped all over. His vision faded.

He took one step towards Wario and groaned as the life was sapped from him, becoming vacuumed away by some phantasmal force. Dragging one foot behind him, Mario grimaced, the distance between him and Wario being larger and larger.

Falling again…the chest emptied itself, crumbling away into dust. A heart beat becoming slower and slower…

A baby penguin screaming for its mother as it fell to its death.

Chunks of cake sloshing about his mouth. Moist frosting sticking to the roof of his mouth.

Dear Mario…Please come to…

Piantas and Nokis dancing in the sunlight. An entire paradise bathed in glory, Shine Sprites twirling around Shine Sprite Tower.

…the castle. I have baked…

All the galaxies in the world united into one. A baby Luma making one last effort to let him live and succeeding. Sacrifice.

…a cake for…

After seven bad runs with different castles, finally the one that she truly resides in.

…you. Yours truly, Princess Toadstool.

Soft lips pressed up against his plump cheek. All the trouncing faced by Goombas and Koopas and Chain Chomps vanished as if they had never even touched him.

Peach!

Mario looked up, tugging down his imaginary hat, and threw himself on the spot of ground before him, bones cracking as he did so. He covered the spot as if he were trying to protect others from a grenade. And then he vanished.

“WAHAHAHAHA!” Wario laughed, wiping a happy tear from his eye having witnessed the death of his nemesis. And now good fortune was on his way; a whole mountain of gold had been promised to him for this bounty.

“It’s a-me! Mario!” a cheery voice decreed beside him. Wario raised an eyebrow in response and turned to face the source. Mario smirked as he yanked his precious cap from Wario’s weak grip, slapping it on his head.

While the pain did not go away, the gradual loss of life did. Mario was going to need to heal up with some coins after this battle, but his sheer force of will was going to carry him through this.

He had used a hidden warp pad hidden on his lawn you see, for Mario had a fascination with traps now. It was sort of his thing.

Maybe he would have to take up gardening now.

Because Luigi was dead after all. Wario killed Luigi so now Mario had to kill Wario I guess.

Mario grimaced and punched the tree beside them. Holding out his hand, a Mega Mushroom dropped into his waiting palm.

Wario gasped and tried to make a break for it, but Mario’s foot easily sunk Wario’s squishy behind into the grass. Holding Wario down with ease, Mario tossed the mushroom into his mouth and grew ten times his size.

As he grew, he made sure to lighten the strength of his stamping so as to not kill Wario. Yet. For Wario’s death needed to be a masterpiece.

“NO!” Wario shouted, trying to push Mario’s foot off of him, but as he became a mere ant to the gigantic Mario, Wario threw his hands in the air and shouted, “Don’t do this! He’ll kill you! Let me live and I’ll help you kill him!”

Mario blinked.

How strangely coherent of Wario.

Then spasms all over. A giant ball of ice had crashed into his head, cracking like a coconut on him. Mario fell from the sky, shrinking back to his normal size. And as the green grass rushed towards him, he saw a white painting getting curiously closer and closer to his face…

Mario tumbled into Snowman’s Land like a lazy no-good husband cast into the streets. The giant living Snowman Mountain stared down at him. While surely the mountain had no desire to hurt him, Mario still felt uncomfortable under his gaze. He plodded softly to the right, looking around at the old familiar terrain.

Before him was a lake of ice so cold it would scorch the bottom of the man who dared hop in for a swim. And directly above that lake was a sheet of ice that the Big Ice Bully used to challenge people on. But now the Big Ice Bully was dead and gone and hopefully, no adventurer had come here since and accidentally got stuck in the death trap below the ice.

“WAAAAAH!”

Wario had materialized behind him suddenly, scrambling across the snow. Shoving Mario to the side, he pinched his nose, leaping into the lake.

Mario tried to stop him but it was too late. Once one’s keister made contact with that ice, you were done for. Wario howled as he rocketed up into the sheet of ice only to bump his head and fall back into the burning lake.

This continued until Wario’s lifeless body made it to the other side of the lake, only to then slink back into the lake and dissolve slowly.

The night had begun with four. Now there was only one.

Then a pain like no other seared the side of his skull.

Darkness.

Mario’s eyes fluttered open to see a stretch of thin ice supporting him. He knew this place all too well, the bridge that hovered before the mouth of Snowman Mountain. Mere yards behind him were the lips of the Snowman who would blow a mighty gust of air that would sweep Mario right off the mountain.

And if he was there…and the giant Snowman was there…that could only mean…

“You!” Mario painstakingly pointed, voice cracking from such foreign vocabulary.

Two flippers slapped against each other softly.

“So you finally figured it out,” Mama Penguin sneered. “Yes, I hired Wario and Waluigi to eliminate you and of course, they failed.”

She gazed off the mountain, taking a quiet moment to embrace the amount of distance between them and the ground. That was fine. Mario needed time to think…

But he had no traps at his disposal and he was even weaker than before.

“You killed my son, Mario Mario,” Mama Penguin shook her head.

Mario froze mid-planning. What? he wanted to say, but such foreign words to him were too much of an effort to spout.

“Yes, I realized it years later, I was looking at my child and I realized that—he was no son of mine,” she said stoically.

But this was ridiculous! She told him that was the wrong penguin! She didn’t even care when he throttled to his death.

Oh if only Mario said more than “Mama Mia!” and “It’s a-me, Mario!” It would make this situation much simpler to navigate. His throat tightened as he tempted to explain his side, but lost all gumption as Mama Penguin began waddling towards him.

If he stayed put, she would push him into the Snowman’s breath and he would be hurled off the mountain. If he were to jump off the mountain to escape, he would surely perish.

He leaned to his left, right shoulder falling slack.

“Now I will kill you for what you did to me and my son, Mario Mario,” Mama Penguin explained coldly as she pushed Mario closer and closer to the wind.

Mario tried pushing her back but it was no use: she was too big for him.

Then it hit him. He had one last trick left. Running away from Mama Penguin, he approached the wind quickly and just as he was about to collide with the torrent, he turned on his heel, banged a U-ie, and charged at the deranged mother, ducking into a crouch and sliding right between her legs.

As she slowly turned to face him, Mario rolled to the edge of the bridge, his body failing him. It didn’t matter that he had his cap back on him; too much damage had been done.

Mario jumped as high as he could and crashed back into the ice with a mighty Ground Pound.

Fortunately his butt still had enough strength left in it to shatter the bridge and send Mama Penguin tumbling to her death.

As Mama Penguin throttled to the ground below, she felt the cold wind rush past her, brushing her cheek. This was how Junior must have felt.

Her son was but a baby when he died; she knew nothing of him beyond his demise.

Finally, she shared something with her son; the agony of having to helplessly watch your death unfold before you. At least Mario had given that to her in her death.

Mario strained to spit one of his catchphrases out as he watched Mama Penguin explode into bloody guts, but his chest prevented him. His whole body was caving inwards. He gritted his teeth and tried to pull himself up the cliff but it was no use. There was no getting out of this.

Remembering the taste of Peach’s cake in his mouth, he let go of the cliff, falling into his beloved’s arms, and she carried him to the spiky rocks down below.

Rolling green, twirling, thundering, screaming, spiraling all around. A sudden thud, his brain’s rotation lagging behind, reorienting itself with this new gravity.

Mario got to his feet, feeling completely rejuvenated, and saw Luigi touching up the lawn.

Mouth dry from screaming, Mario walked over to Luigi and put a hand on his shoulder.

How could this be? How could he still be alive?

He died. He remembered seeing the sky get farther and farther away.

Yet at the same time, he only knew he died. He couldn’t remember what it felt like.

His eyes narrowed in deep focus.

War. Death. Legacy. Rebirth.

Mario.

…

Another Mario.

That wasn’t him that watched Wario burn to death. That wasn’t him that held Luigi’s hand so tightly.

That was someone who gave his life so that he could be.

Somewhere out there, Wario and Waluigi were out there scheming again. They would be back.

Mama Penguin was a goner though. Surely she had no access to the Extra Lives System like the brothers did.

Luigi gently punched Mario in the jaw, taking off his sunhat to better look Mario in the eyes.

Mario saw the pain in Luigi. He must have felt it too.

Luigi reached out and grabbed Mario’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

They killed her, didn’t she? She lost that battle. She awoke and became one with her Eva, her mother, and she killed all of the enemy Evas. She ripped them to shreds but somehow it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter because she didn’t matter.

Then she died.

But she had it. Three and a half solitary minutes of faith in herself, a victory that cracked her smile so sharply. Permission to be the cocky pilot again. She could quip and joke and destroy. But that was over now.

Her crumbled arm wrapped in bandages longed to touch, to be remembered again. It needed to feel, so her hand came up to Shinji’s face and touched it.

Nothing. There was nothing there.

Yet he felt something it seemed for Shinji’s tears began to empty onto her face like hail. His hands bent inward and retracted back to him as he clawed at the ground, back arched like a feral cat.

It was at this moment that she felt a tremor in her flesh, a dangerous hollowness that created a panic.

Something was wrong with her eye. Everything seemed so narrow, like peering between the crack of a door.

Watching Shinji cry like this was almost amusing. This method of seeing, this distant image of him before all the red, gave her some voyeuristic delight.

It was because there was a bandage over her face that concealed an empty void. They must have taken her eye. Her fingers caved into her palms as she imagined tearing the Evas apart again, but then she remembered that they were likely gone, as was her Eva Unit, and that she was just a fourteen year old girl again, just like everybody else.

Like everybody else.

She was breathing.

She didn’t want to be breathing. She didn’t ask to breathe. She begged for death and it welcomed her, and they forced her to live, forced to fight, and now she was here at the end of the world.

And the people who made them fight were dead.

Shinji wouldn’t stop crying. Stupid Shinji.

On the shore of a new world and neither of them could get up.

In this moment of quiet, it felt as if she should become suddenly cognizant of a breeze passing through. Anything, there had to be some kind of sensation to pick up on in a moment of desolation. But there was nothing but Shinji’s tears.

She wanted to kill him. This cowering, loathsome creature that couldn’t look away from his phantoms for a moment to reach out to her and help her. She wanted to wrap her hands around his throat to and watch him sputter and squeal as the life faded from him.

Yet she remained there, flat as a board, as dead as the rest of them.

At least Shinji had the courage to move.

Her eye narrowed and some recognition floated through her mind.

It wasn’t them that did this to her.

Surrounded by black, choking, phantom hands to her phantasmal throat, her eyelids refusing to shut, and she could feel it all happen, their screams as the thousands of Rei crawled across the planet and ended every last one of them.

People who regretted everything, people who regretted nothing, people who didn’t know how they felt, people who saw this as fitting despite the absurdity of it all.

It would have been nice.

And as she thought that little phrase, it echoed all around her in the empty chamber, rattling her arms, some pain desperately trying to claw its way out of her and breathe.

Her chin thudded into her chest and her eyelids drooped over her. How nice it would have been for Rei’s deinty hands to hold her face as she melted away into nothing. She wondered if it hurt as much as it appeared to.

Then she became angry because she hated Rei.

But it would be nice to die to a friend.

To somebody who loves me.

Then she screamed she knew Rei hated her too.

And the scream rang loudly and pierced her own ears, and she crumpled into a ball, knees folded to her chest, to escape the echo she had caused.

Stupid quiet Rei. She could see those eyes that didn’t ever find the need to open all the way, that tiny expressionless smile that didn’t deserve any praise. How was it that this girl who felt nothing could be so powerful, could be so useful and such a warrior?

Rei’s crimson eyes watched her from far away in the darkness, no different from the eyes that watched her from plain sight, and Asuka shut her eyes, hoping they would go away, the current of the darkness bending her head upwards, her hair drifting away from her face.

And a tiny voice echoing through her mind, a whisper, a hand just for her to hold onto, a hand that beckoned to her.

“Forgive me,” it hissed to her. Wavering, too friendly, too broken, too fragile, not strong enough.

Disgusting, pitiful.

Crimson red miles away and all of a sudden the hand wasn’t a hand, it was one long finger curled up to her.

Glowing green eyes.

Her breath cut short, quivering, heart contracting inward, everything growing apart from each like, the body collapsing.

Her eye, she actually lost her eye. Good, she deserved that.

Her Eva looked at her, the finger on her cheek, and she felt tears drip out of the empty socket on her face.

This was her mother, and like always, she felt so eclipsed by her. Even when she was dead, the memory of her hanging from the ceiling wouldn’t go away. But now she was floating there in space with her. She had seen everything Asuka had accomplished.

I matter because I pilot Eva well.

Another oversimplified thought echoing throughout the chamber, spoken back to her in such a chipper tone, a voice that knew nothing. She twitched and her hair fell over her eyes, which was nice, because she needed to be alone right now and it was difficult with the Eva floating there, waiting for her to do all the talking for the two of them.

It was supposed to be her — she was the one destined to pilot Eva. Not stupid Shinji or soulless Rei, a girl who so thoughtlessly died for her.

It wasn’t the same Rei that came back to them. Even Shinji could see that. Rei was never real; she was just some tool for NERV to use to kill Angels. It was sickening, and she pitied her. She smiled at the thought of Rei lying in the blood, attempting to feel something.

Maybe that was why she destroyed the world. Or maybe the world that did this to them deserved to die.

It didn’t matter. Because she died before the others because she was weak.

Hands slamming against levers that wouldn’t budge, screaming for a machine to listen to her, to let her feel that bliss again.

Without the Eva, I am nothing.

Everyone knew who Asuka really was. It was obvious. She overcompensated, she hated everyone so she could spend at least a few moments each day not remembering that she hated herself the most. So shallow and superficial and empty and utterly

Worthless.

The word echoed throughout the chasm, bubbles blowing by quickly, the Eva creaking as the moment passed between the two of them.

They were all always dying, this moment was not a surprise.

Shinji, curled up in his bed, paralyzed in grief, so unloved by his father, and terrified of making any decisions, who became something terrifying when given power, something that should not be allowed near any Eva.

Rei, deathly quiet as she listened to jokes and expressions that made no sense to her, committed to piloting Eva vastly more than the other children because nothing else in life was programmed to make sense to her.

Miss Misato, crying, all her prestige and stratagem fading away at the absurd notion of having to sleep alone for just one night, something burdened by so much pathetic insecurity. Sleeping around willingly making bad choices to fix something every way but the right one. Melting away into nothing at the sight of Kaji.

Kaji.

She had wanted him so badly.

But she was nothing to him, and the most received from him was laughter as he rolled her tiny frame off of his body.

I’m an adult. I’m more mature than the rest.

Everything was so obvious. They were all so weak and fragile. They all knew this about each other.

But when Shinji laid comatose in his bed every evening, did she care for him? Did she lay down beside him and ask what was wrong?

Did Miss Misato say anything when she heard Asuka scream in the shower when she thought she was alone?

A twinge of pain, a lie and her eyes widened as her Mother’s gaze held steady on her.

I pretended I thought I was alone. I wanted them to hear me.

When the second Rei came to them, Asuka merely blinked, and spat at this creation even though she was only a baby. Her only sin was that her sister dared to make a sacrifice.

And when Asuka ran away and tried to —

Her Mother’s warped finger brushed her cheek.

“Forgive yourself,” it whispered.

When she tried to kill herself — did they care?

No. They made her fight.

Tendrils impaling in her, holes in her body breathing, blood becoming a mist.

This was what she wanted: the abyss.

She remembered what she had done, and it had reset.

Her bare feet laid on top of the mossy wooden planks, her hands pulled off her final scrap of clothing, and she felt real for a second.

She watched herself lower her clothes onto the chair, folding them nicely for whoever found her. Looking through the gaping holes in the ceiling, she felt the warm sunshine touch her bare skin, and it was the last good thing she would ever know..

She was so small, so tiny, so childish, only fourteen years old. A child pretending to be this powerful warrior, but here she stood, naked to the world. This was how her body should be found; they should see how worthless she was after all, alone and pathetic and needy and clingy and evil and cruel.

It was the perfect death.

Even though it hurt her to do so, she plucked the Eva clips out that were always on proud display in her hair. Because she would never pilot Eva again, and she was never a good pilot. She never deserved that badge of honor, all her brashness and bravado could no longer hide it. They had seen her try to move unmoving levers too many times.

She tossed the clips to the floor and they slid away into the shadows.

Nothing left.

Her clammy hands clapped her hips and ran down her thighs. Flat and boyish. It hurt more than she wanted to admit.

Completely and utterly normal. Plump little thighs laden with baby fat, awkwardly joining her stomach which jutted outward from her hips, a strange crease above her thighs where her misshapen body came together.

Utterly featureless and plain in the mirror, the only color coming from a tuft of hair growing between her legs that made her so human and weak.

Flat-footed on the floor, she held back hot tears as she glared at the steaming bath tub, chastising herself for every moment not taken to step closer.

Blood ran through her veins that she was going to empty from her soon.

She wished she could have ran farther, hid where they would never find her, but it had to be now. Otherwise she wouldn’t — couldn’t — do it.

Cold steel brushed against her cheek, and it hurt despite the soft caress of her Mother. She felt a hesitation from the tiny touch. There was a longing from both to merge and hold on, but they could not. Her body could barely handle her mother’s touch.

The finger drifted away from her and she floated their in space again, her ravaged body sticking to the bloodied clothes and bandages.

Her Mother wanted something more for her, to be someone else, to leave it behind and move on. To be a person. To be her mother’s daughter and live a life beyond the tragedies she had passed onto her.

She could not speak or even move, facing this monstrosity in the darkness, this thing that she could not tame because she was weak. This thing telling her to forgive it—her, her mother.

This wasn’t real.

Another reality, a world where she became a failure, a washed-up fighter who struggled with sleepless nights that told her to kill herself — this wasn’t the same person she knew so well in the mirror, or at least, what she forced everyone to see.

But no, this was real, it was the obvious ending to such a loser, and suddenly she was in that bath tub again and she was naked, hairless and pure and flat and forbidden and weak.

The little hairs not yet submerged stood on end from the chill, the rest of her skin below breathing.

Those sullen eyes that had held onto a blank darkness closed as her chest rose and fell with the steam and she smiled.

Asuka Soryu-Langely.

Floating in that space before her Mother, her hair fell to her shoulders and brushed the skin and she longed to be alive again.

How stupid of her, she thought. How Shinji of her to break down like this. Do you want to pilot the Eva or not you loser—this issue, this concept of not—being—able—to—be—yourself—was—ridiculous—and—

Pathetic.

But still, she wanted to wake up, she wanted to be the Asuka who piloted Eva and killed Angels better than anyone again. Even though there was no Eva to pilot or Angels to kill.

I guess…

Her Mother cocked her head to the side, massive finger resting under her chin.

I just want to be whole for right now.

Her wrist tightened, snapping under pressure, chin collapsing into the chest, shoulders slumping upward.

Maybe she could be strong this time.

Wake me up, please, wake me up now, I want to see the light.

“How disgusting.”

Everything dead and gone, disappeared and probably happier elsewhere.

Shinji didn’t notice when Asuka stood up and limped across the sands, nor did her splashes register to him as anything beyond white noise.

Ankle deep in the red, this was the world that they had for them, and if they died so would the world.

Already after her revelation, she felt a gnawing in her chest. She wanted her Mother back, to hold her again, and to guide her. But that was a relic of the old world and there was nothing she could do to bring it back.

She had already died once before after all.

She wanted to wade out into the ocean and swim until her body gave up on her.

A headache rippled through her as she stepped back to the shore and nestled into the sands, looking at this deranged vision of the world that was theirs to wander.

No Angels and no Eva, but she was still Asuka.

Asuka Soryu-Langely from Germany, born to Kyoto Zeppelin Soryu, daughter to a scientist that lost her mind to her work.

This was an experience that no longer made sense in this wreckage, something that could never be understood and would soon be forgotten.

“Shinji-kun, come here,” Asuka said softly. She seated herself on the sand and waited for him to come to her.

A kid brother and his kid sister who needed supervision. In charge of a planet.

Sand shifted, piling up against her ankle as a shaking hand fell next to hers. She hesitated, then took it and clutched him tightly.

The blood moved in waves just like any other ocean.

A tingle up the spine, slimy skin rattling, desperate to become blackness once again, but her heart remained steady.

Shinji’s pupils had shrunk so much. At any moment, he could go away too, so she held his hand tighter and he responded in kind.

There had to be more out there, more people who had the nerve to return to the bleakness, more people like Shinji.

Neither of them were special. There was no destiny. She bonded with the Eva because it was already born into her; not because she was an exceptional pilot or the fiercest warrior.

No history book would remember her and no one would ever love her. Not without the Eva.

She turned to Shinji, her face still frozen in a horror so unlike her. Three words came to her.

But they were not heard and her lips merely puppeted the movement of speaking. To be so vulnerable to this weakling was stupid, and suddenly she felt no different than she did in the abyss.

“Huh?” Shinji asked dumbly. He said everything dumbly.

She looked away and muttered under her breath, “Can you sit on my right side? I can’t feel with this hand.”

A tiny grunt to signify he heard her, and he obediently crossed past her, crawling actually, over her body, and she laughed.

He sat beside her and held her other hand and she was amazed at the sensations it gave her.

“I want to die,” Asuka said weakly to Shinji. “I think I’m sick.”

Shinji couldn’t think of anything to say. Stupid Shinji. He was the worst one of them all to talk to about this.

“Do…” Asuka breathed in. “Do you want to die too?”

Shinji’s lips shook as he responded in kind, weakly saying in that pathetic way only Shinji could muster, “Yes. I hate myself.”

“Well then you are a fool,” Asuka said plainly. Shinji’s grip loosened and she felt him staring at her. “You are an amazing person. You were the best pilot of us all. You gave it up because you didn’t want to hurt anyone and I don’t know anyone else more deserving of a good life than you.”

Waves rolled against her feet. Just like water. Maybe a little thicker.

“We need to keep each other alive, okay?” Asuka said again, her voice awkward in the abyss of silence around them.

“Okay.”

His curt response was so fragile to the pain around them. She held him tighter even though it made her squirm. She knew that it meant something to him.

She grinned even though it felt disingenuine, and looked to Shinji like Miss Misato maybe would, and nudged him, and she got that smile she was looking for, even if it lasted less than a second.

It felt good and it brought a warmth to her chest.

Asuka looked away from Shinji and to where his eyes fell: the broken head of Rei lying in the ocean of blood, eyes forced open with a deadly smile.

She wanted to look away but there wasn’t much else to see.

“Shinji,” she said in a clipped tone, hands pushing in towards her, dragging the sand upwards,

“Yeah?” Shinji replied.