Boy I have to start writing more...

Note that this fic might be a bit sensitive where religion is concerned.
Read with caution.

Truth

	She was dead. Her long, auburn hair, so vibrant in life, now lay in thin,
lanky strands around her slumped frame. Her eyes, mercifully, were closed;
they had seen too much pain before, and now, like the sharp features of her
face, looked strangely peaceful in repose that they now enjoyed. The flesh
of her body was already beginning to whiten as well, the heat fading fast
into the cold air.  

	He knew he would join her soon. How, he didn�t know, but the fact remained
that he would. Slowly, he reached out with one hand and brushed away the few
remaining hairs on her forehead, noting the chill he felt as he made contact
with the pale skin. Dead for a few hours now. He sighed once and turned his
gaze to the crimson sea that spread out before him as he sat on the parched
ground of the Earth.

	He would have wondered what life was for if he hadn�t countless times already. 

	The Third Impact had come and gone. Now was the true beginning of the end,
the wait for the last two humans on the planet to perish. The wind soughed
once, a rare occurrence, and blew minute particles of red earth into the
air; he reached out with his hand and caught some, regarding them quietly as
he listened to the barely audible sounds of the waves on shore. They told
him he would be dead. It seemed everything told him he would be dead, and
soon; it was better that way.

	Everyone would be better off dead, he recalled someone saying? Him? No. Not
him. Never him. No. He mustn�t run away. And then he couldn�the remember -
the the words suddenly seemed unreal, echoes of a forgotten past, and a
stood futilely for a few moments more as the shreds of half-meanings they
still had slipped away from him.

	They didn�t need food. No, neither did they need water. Slowly, after the
first few days of panic, they�d settled down to a meaningless, listless
existence, not speaking more than a few words to each other for days on end.
They couldn�t control it; maybe they didn�t even want to, then�because even
at that time, recollections of anything past waking up on the beach had been
hazy, as if someone or something wanted them to forget. Occasionally, there
were flashes of memory, but though were always sad; Asuka (was that her
name?) screaming as she was jolted out of sleep by a nightmare, him crying.
He wondered why he did, and why he was now remembering all this. But it was
the same, in the end, always the same - he didn�t know and didn�t want to.
Because it didn�t matter. None of it did.

	Again, another sigh from the wind, more red dust into the air, and the
overwhelming silence. That and not knowing, a sense of what could almost be
dread - and nothingness.

	Then there was Evangelion Unit-01. That, at least, he remembered, with
astounding clarity at times. The yellow eyes that stared down at him from
their vantage point high on the craggy expanse of it�s face, the startingly
familiarity, even kinship, he felt.. But all this was immaterial, wasn�the
it? He was going to die anyway.

	It was better that way. Then he wouldn�t hurt anyone anymore. He could
almost hear someone speak. But that was in the past. It was going to be
over, and he smiled.

	He looked around the desolate land that was once Earth. Now, it was wholly
devoid of life; nothing but a red sea that stretched towards the horizon and
two bodies near a hulking relic of a civilization dead and gone. Finality
hissed in the crash of waves on shore, echoed in the empty wind that sighed
over them, permeated the very air and atmosphere around them. It would end soon.

	Who was he? Why was he here? Eternal questions with no answer. It didn�t
matter.

	Why not now, he wondered. He stood, suddenly feeling very old, and walked
slowly over to the massive giant that crouched by the sea. One hand reached
out, and almost against his will, he traced a finger over the cold metal,
feeling, taking comfort from the unyielding rigidity of it.

	And fell dead it it�s feet.

	Days passed, the sea, the unchanging, eternal red sea continuing it�s
incessant motion over the land, the crimson sun baking the already parched
earth as time passed. Death, now, was what the wind sang of as it howled
across the dead planet, death and the sheer non-existence that now reigned
above all other things. EVA-01 remained, though, looking at the waves with
sightless eyes, standing silent vigil over the two silent forms of what were
once the last two humans on Earth.

	And then slowly, it began. It took years, millenia, eons even, but there
was no one left to whom it mattered or cared. So it was that Evangelion
Unit-01 came to slow, silent life once more, and screamed with the voiceless
fury of being as it took to the skies, rising up to the heavens to grasp in
it�s two hands the Spear of Longinus, casting it towards the Earth.

	The metamorphosis took years, uncountable millenia. But when it was
complete, a new entity had come into existence high above the branches of
the great tree that lay, branches sprawled over the mass of fused
continents, in the world below. 

	And then there was light.

******

	Believe it or not, the original idea for this piece came quite a few months
back - I wrote out a first draft but then decided not to post it. After
tinkering with it one rainy day, though, it became somewhat half-decent,
though still pretty rough around the edges - by then, though, I was writing
some other stuff. ^_^

	So here�s the second draft. Not intended to be anything ground-shaking, but
please enjoy.

	As the behest of my sister, this fic is instead dedicated to my cat. 
	
Zhou Tai An (kain@pacific.net.sg) "There is no one simple truth." - Rune Walsh

"Who is this? This is I. Who is I? What is I?		   - Rei Ayanami
I am myself. This object is I. The figure that forms me."

The ways of nature and of life are strange and deep. They are not to be
understood. In the midst of angers and of wars love's secret work goes on,
and binds us all by blood, and this, whether love is denied or bestowed. -
Pearl S. Buck