Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book Two)

E12 Part 2: Gottesschau

Inside Asuka Langley-Soryu

She can feel herself breaking. Her mind being ripped apart, like a cadaver on a dissection table. Her every door kicked open, her every barrier torn down in an eyeblink. She tries to focus -- tries to collect her rage and her pain, her warrior spirit -- tries to fight it. But it's like trying to fight a sandstorm with her bare hands, the winds tossing her about every which way, each grain as sharp as a knife. Hell, she thinks somewhere amid the chaos. This must be what hell feels like.

Exhausted, she stumbles through the ruins of herself. Around her whirls a cacophony of words and half-remembered places. And it's all there, she knows. All the things she won't let herself remember, all the nightmare days she'd thought she'd locked away for good. It's all waiting for her, sobbing and drooling, yearning to consume her whole with blood-stained teeth.

She wants to run -- needs to run, with every shred of what remains of her being. But it sucks her in, every direction leading her in deeper, every step taking her closer to everything she fears. She's past the event horizon now, her light cone set in stone. Nothing left but to fall.

Make it stop, she thinks. Please, Gott, someone, anyone. Just MAKE IT STOP --

***

Command Center. Central Dogma.

Klaxons shrieked throughout the room. "Psychograph readings off the charts!" Maya shouted. "Mental contamination underway!"

"What the hell is that?!" Misato pointed to the wide beam of light visible on the infrared projection that filled the main screen. "A directed energy weapon?!"

"Thermal readings are too low for that!" Makoto's fingers danced over his keyboard. "Hold on -- I'm triangulating the source!"

Misato let out a frustrated growl and turned away. "Asuka! Asuka, sweetie -- talk to me!"

"She can't hear you." Ritsuko shook her head from her position by Maya's shoulder. "Neural activity indicates a delirium-like state. She's cut off from all sensory input."

"MAGI analysis complete!" Makoto announced. "Source is outside of the atmosphere -- satellite visual coming up now!"

A new window popped up above Misato. She found herself looking at a glowing white fractal structure that reminded her of a snowflake, or perhaps a pair of spread wings, shining alone in the dark of space. Another Angel, no doubt. "Where is that thing?!"

"Lunar orbit!"

"What -- the moon?!" Misato's throat went dry. "But -- our entire arsenal --"

"Nothing." Ritsuko stood up straight. "We have nothing that can hit a target at that distance. It's completely out of our reach."

They fell silent as they stared up at the enemy, the only sound in the room Asuka's screams.

***

Inside Asuka Langely-Soryu

Suddenly, she's in a place she doesn't recognize at all. A... playground of some kind? A swingset, monkey bars in the shape of a cube, a sand pit... all impossibly large, in the way things are from a child's perspective. She feels like she was happy here once, maybe?... Did Momma bring her here at some point?...

No. No, of course. This is later, after the accident. She's maybe four or five, sitting by herself with her back against the chain link fence. There's a crowd of children off in the distance, screaming and laughing and playing. It's okay, she tells herself. I don't need them. I'm better than them. Smarter. More evolved. Papa says so. And Mama... Mama...