Categories > Anime/Manga > Neon Genesis Evangelion > Precipitate
Author's notes
Wow. Six month sabbatical. In fairness, I had kind of thought I was scrapping this story, so I suppose it's something to be writing anything at all here. I'll try and update regularly from here on in. This is my hardest fic to write, though-horror is more complicated than action or romance, in my opinion, and your plot needs to be rock-solid or you'll lose your audience; hence, this one comes slower.
The bit with the echoing bumping...I'm not actually sure if that happens. I'm not sure if what's bumping is hollow on the inside, and I couldn't find it in any of my research. If anybody here knows, please tell me and I'll credit you and change it if need be. You'll know what I mean when you see it.
Sorry for the lack of length. This one wasn't coming out smoothly. More later.
--
You say you've found yourself a new sound?
--
Chapter 2
Shinji had never liked this elevator. It had always been rickety, creaking when he was alone and positively groaning if all three of them had to ride it at once. Any step Shinji took on the elevator seemed to be amplified and shot back at him, a hundred times louder. The constant sound of metal grinding on metal grated on his ears, a twisted man's muzak. The walls all around him seemed to be rotting apart quietly, as though that was what metal did when it got old. It was the only part of the building that really seemed /old, /rather than just ill-kempt.
/Shinji pressed the /8 /button without looking at it, his hand finding the button above the /6 /button in the single line of identical buttons with a tired ease borne of repetition. There was no 7th floor-it was, the manager had said on the day they'd moved in, superstition. Nobody wanted to live on the seventh floor. Bad luck. No /7 /button. No buttons at all. /No button. Button button, little button eyes. That's not a button. That's not a button at all.
That is a single-file line of unblinking eyes, each one of them a pale, bone-white except for the 6 /button, which is the worst of all. Its harsh, unforgiving yellow stares at him with a sort of triumphant cruelty, like the one spider out of a hundred who has actually persuaded the fly to /come into my lair. And then, all at once, all of the little lines on the elevator-hundreds, it seems, though in reality only four, only wield lines from shoddy construction-seem to reach out for Shinji, whose throat is as constricted as his body and can only watch and wait in horror and anticipation. They wrap around his neck first, and their touch is remarkably smooth and slippery considering they're made of molded metal; then one slides around his waist, and the game becomes painfully clear, and Shinji sees his end unfold before him; the two little spider legs begin to pull, slowly separating his head from the rest of him, until he is pulled into the gaping, unblinking maw of the
Asuka. Shinji blinked and jumped backwards, the death around him fading instantly and his throat becoming once more his. He screamed, his back hitting the wall, his heart trying desperately to evacuate his chest. Asuka stared at him, frowning as though he had not just reacted so strongly to her, or perhaps as though being confused for a giant, evil spider's mouth was simply another part of her routine.
"What the hell is wrong with /you/?" Asuka asked pointedly. /What the hell is wrong with /you? /You're the spider elevator, /Shinji thought wildly, his head still in the throes of panic even as his heart settled. "Oi. Shinji. Talking to you." Asuka's voice contained the barest hint of annoyance, which usually meant that she was about to lash out and take your head off, since none of the children really had the energy to spare on silly things like tone of voice.
Shinji blinked twice and told himself forcefully that this was Asuka standing before him, /Asuka /and not the spider elevator, and that he had to remember that because Asuka was far more dangerous than an elevator, a spider, or any monstrous combination of the two. "Nothing," he said. "It's nothing. I'm sorry." Maybe in another lifetime, on another planet, Asuka would have pressed the matter like a normal person (it is, after all, very damaging to the ego to be reacted to with a horrified scream, saying nothing of the look in Shinji's eyes) but Asuka simply released the matter, perhaps too tired or too apathetic to care much past his unspoken assurance that he wouldn't be jumping into walls again around her. Especially not with /that /in his arms.
"Put that in the main room and then get out for about five minutes," she said at his retreating back as he recovered, moving towards their room.
"What?" he yelped. "Where am I supposed to go?"
"Hell if I care," she snapped back, entering the elevator. "Just beat it."
Shinji sighed, internally annoyed and externally exhausted, (for was he ever really anything else?) and yet, half a minute later, he had placed the big wooden stand in the center of the room and vacated, as per instructions. Almost as soon as the door was closed, he heard movement in the room: A door opening, the rustling of clothing, simple, unsuspicious noises made by any common household resident or burglar. And then, something that was neither common nor normal: A strange, hollow /bumping /sound, one that seemed to echo within itself each time. Like a very small gong, rung against whatever walls or furniture corners happened to be convenient. Shinji did his best to keep his mind from wandering around the corner and through the closed door, but found that he could not help but speculate.
That's alright, as long as I keep it to myself. Nobody else needs to hear that shit. A miniature gong? The hell, Shinji.
Its pretty Youko from work in a big wooden box. She's going to pop out and sing happy
/ /birthday.
/What in the flying /fuck.
For a minute, Shinji honestly did not believe it. How could he? He didn't have any hard evidence. He hadn't written it down anywhere, and if he couldn't remember entirely
is that normal? I don't even remember exactly how old I am; I'm just too damn tired
/ /when it was, but this seemed about right; after all, if he had been here a year, and he hadn't had any sense of this before...this was almost a year to the day. (Again, he could never verify this because he didn't remember exactly when they'd come to the city, but he had the sense that this was about right).
But then...
How did /they /know? Asuka told us when hers was, and I don't think Rei cares one way or another. But I never said anything about it.
The elevator /dinged/, and Asuka's face seemed to fade into view. For some reason, the look on her face reminded him of a movie he had recently seen-/A Tale of Two Sisters, /a horror flick from Korea. He had thought it was about a haunted house. It hadn't been.
For a moment, Asuka looked a little haunted.
A Tale of Two Sisters, huh.
/ /
The elevator did that to people. After a second, her face adjusted and she saw him standing there. Almost immediately, almost seamlessly /(almost)/. "Hey! Turn around!" she shouted at him. "No peeking, idiot!"
Shinji frowned, since he couldn't actually see anything in her hands, but complied nonetheless, turning to face the other end of the dismal hallway. Strangely, it reminded him of a painting he had once seen-that hallway, with its rotting walls and half-opened doors, had seemed to shrink down to nothing, into darkness, as well.
(That hallway had eyes)
(That painting was)
/ /"Asuka," Shinji said without meaning to-his mind, casting about for something else, /anything /else to think about, had locked onto the only other thing in the hallway. "When was the last time you called me that?"
"Called you what?" Asuka, already irate, made it very apparent that she /did not care /through her award-winning use of monotone. This was stage two. Stage three was /pain; /no proverbial /red-button, /but rather the next part in a natural progression of Asuka's anger. Right now she was merely /annoyed; /given time, she may simply tear your head off. In some ways, Shinji felt that she had changed the least of all of them
from what
/ /during their stay. She was the only one whose fire could still be kindled sometimes.
Asuka's footsteps approached. The door opened noiselessly, and then, after a second, closed. Shinji, for some reason, could not bring himself to look away from the
rotting
/ hallway, though Asuka, he knew, was no longer around to punish him for it. /What was it? You stare into the abyss, the abyss /glares /stares back at you. Something like that. /Maybe that gaze was like grasping a pair of live wires-though it killed you, though all you would have to do to save your own life would be to /let go, you can't because your body is no longer your own; electricity flushes through your muscles and tendons, tensing them immediately, and all you can do is numbly stare from outside yourself and wait for your either death or the power to be cut.
Maybe that was this. Maybe he had to wait for somebody to cut the power.
Or maybe you're being an idiot, just like Asuka said. /With great strength of will, a great mental /oomph, Shinji forced himself to turn around, and for the second time in less than ten minutes, found himself nose-to-nose with Asuka. He jumped backwards again, letting out a startled cry, but managed to avoid falling over or into anything. Asuka gave him a funny little look, still frowning, though refraining from reprising him verbally.
"What is it?" Shinji caught his breath quickly enough, reminding himself not to stutter. Is it really stuttering if you can tell yourself not to do it?
/ /
/ Why not? You can tell yourself not to do every goddamned other thing. /This particular thought struck Shinji as remarkably bitter for no reason in particular.
Asuka, Shinji thought, looked of a sudden almost sheepish, and Shinji could think of no good reason why. "You can come in," she said, and then proved herself a Lady (very) in training by entering first through the door which Shinji thought she would be holding open for him. It did not swing shut on him, because if there was a spring on it at some point, it was long dead by now. He shut it behind him, and when he looked back, Asuka was staring at him expectantly, waiting for approval on some sort of bizarre surprise that he hadn't noticed yet. Rei was standing a bit further down, over by their table and lone window, also looking at him-even her usually impassive face seemed now to be a bit different-like Asuka's, a bit expectant. Waiting less for him to approve than for him to notice.
What was strange was that he didn't notice. His eyes slid over the room, and he could find nothing out of place-where, even, was the big wooden /something /that he had brought in without thinking much about? It seemed to have vanished; the room was exactly as it usually was. He passed over the room with his eyes once, twice, and a third time. Asuka seemed to be holding in her temper by this point-with each pass, he took a moment to look at the girls, more a defensive mechanism than anything at this point. Rei was patiently waiting, right next to the window and cluttered table and
Impossible.
And their smooth, freshly-lacquered, brand-new cello.
Wow. Six month sabbatical. In fairness, I had kind of thought I was scrapping this story, so I suppose it's something to be writing anything at all here. I'll try and update regularly from here on in. This is my hardest fic to write, though-horror is more complicated than action or romance, in my opinion, and your plot needs to be rock-solid or you'll lose your audience; hence, this one comes slower.
The bit with the echoing bumping...I'm not actually sure if that happens. I'm not sure if what's bumping is hollow on the inside, and I couldn't find it in any of my research. If anybody here knows, please tell me and I'll credit you and change it if need be. You'll know what I mean when you see it.
Sorry for the lack of length. This one wasn't coming out smoothly. More later.
--
You say you've found yourself a new sound?
--
Chapter 2
Shinji had never liked this elevator. It had always been rickety, creaking when he was alone and positively groaning if all three of them had to ride it at once. Any step Shinji took on the elevator seemed to be amplified and shot back at him, a hundred times louder. The constant sound of metal grinding on metal grated on his ears, a twisted man's muzak. The walls all around him seemed to be rotting apart quietly, as though that was what metal did when it got old. It was the only part of the building that really seemed /old, /rather than just ill-kempt.
/Shinji pressed the /8 /button without looking at it, his hand finding the button above the /6 /button in the single line of identical buttons with a tired ease borne of repetition. There was no 7th floor-it was, the manager had said on the day they'd moved in, superstition. Nobody wanted to live on the seventh floor. Bad luck. No /7 /button. No buttons at all. /No button. Button button, little button eyes. That's not a button. That's not a button at all.
That is a single-file line of unblinking eyes, each one of them a pale, bone-white except for the 6 /button, which is the worst of all. Its harsh, unforgiving yellow stares at him with a sort of triumphant cruelty, like the one spider out of a hundred who has actually persuaded the fly to /come into my lair. And then, all at once, all of the little lines on the elevator-hundreds, it seems, though in reality only four, only wield lines from shoddy construction-seem to reach out for Shinji, whose throat is as constricted as his body and can only watch and wait in horror and anticipation. They wrap around his neck first, and their touch is remarkably smooth and slippery considering they're made of molded metal; then one slides around his waist, and the game becomes painfully clear, and Shinji sees his end unfold before him; the two little spider legs begin to pull, slowly separating his head from the rest of him, until he is pulled into the gaping, unblinking maw of the
Asuka. Shinji blinked and jumped backwards, the death around him fading instantly and his throat becoming once more his. He screamed, his back hitting the wall, his heart trying desperately to evacuate his chest. Asuka stared at him, frowning as though he had not just reacted so strongly to her, or perhaps as though being confused for a giant, evil spider's mouth was simply another part of her routine.
"What the hell is wrong with /you/?" Asuka asked pointedly. /What the hell is wrong with /you? /You're the spider elevator, /Shinji thought wildly, his head still in the throes of panic even as his heart settled. "Oi. Shinji. Talking to you." Asuka's voice contained the barest hint of annoyance, which usually meant that she was about to lash out and take your head off, since none of the children really had the energy to spare on silly things like tone of voice.
Shinji blinked twice and told himself forcefully that this was Asuka standing before him, /Asuka /and not the spider elevator, and that he had to remember that because Asuka was far more dangerous than an elevator, a spider, or any monstrous combination of the two. "Nothing," he said. "It's nothing. I'm sorry." Maybe in another lifetime, on another planet, Asuka would have pressed the matter like a normal person (it is, after all, very damaging to the ego to be reacted to with a horrified scream, saying nothing of the look in Shinji's eyes) but Asuka simply released the matter, perhaps too tired or too apathetic to care much past his unspoken assurance that he wouldn't be jumping into walls again around her. Especially not with /that /in his arms.
"Put that in the main room and then get out for about five minutes," she said at his retreating back as he recovered, moving towards their room.
"What?" he yelped. "Where am I supposed to go?"
"Hell if I care," she snapped back, entering the elevator. "Just beat it."
Shinji sighed, internally annoyed and externally exhausted, (for was he ever really anything else?) and yet, half a minute later, he had placed the big wooden stand in the center of the room and vacated, as per instructions. Almost as soon as the door was closed, he heard movement in the room: A door opening, the rustling of clothing, simple, unsuspicious noises made by any common household resident or burglar. And then, something that was neither common nor normal: A strange, hollow /bumping /sound, one that seemed to echo within itself each time. Like a very small gong, rung against whatever walls or furniture corners happened to be convenient. Shinji did his best to keep his mind from wandering around the corner and through the closed door, but found that he could not help but speculate.
That's alright, as long as I keep it to myself. Nobody else needs to hear that shit. A miniature gong? The hell, Shinji.
Its pretty Youko from work in a big wooden box. She's going to pop out and sing happy
/ /birthday.
/What in the flying /fuck.
For a minute, Shinji honestly did not believe it. How could he? He didn't have any hard evidence. He hadn't written it down anywhere, and if he couldn't remember entirely
is that normal? I don't even remember exactly how old I am; I'm just too damn tired
/ /when it was, but this seemed about right; after all, if he had been here a year, and he hadn't had any sense of this before...this was almost a year to the day. (Again, he could never verify this because he didn't remember exactly when they'd come to the city, but he had the sense that this was about right).
But then...
How did /they /know? Asuka told us when hers was, and I don't think Rei cares one way or another. But I never said anything about it.
The elevator /dinged/, and Asuka's face seemed to fade into view. For some reason, the look on her face reminded him of a movie he had recently seen-/A Tale of Two Sisters, /a horror flick from Korea. He had thought it was about a haunted house. It hadn't been.
For a moment, Asuka looked a little haunted.
A Tale of Two Sisters, huh.
/ /
The elevator did that to people. After a second, her face adjusted and she saw him standing there. Almost immediately, almost seamlessly /(almost)/. "Hey! Turn around!" she shouted at him. "No peeking, idiot!"
Shinji frowned, since he couldn't actually see anything in her hands, but complied nonetheless, turning to face the other end of the dismal hallway. Strangely, it reminded him of a painting he had once seen-that hallway, with its rotting walls and half-opened doors, had seemed to shrink down to nothing, into darkness, as well.
(That hallway had eyes)
(That painting was)
/ /"Asuka," Shinji said without meaning to-his mind, casting about for something else, /anything /else to think about, had locked onto the only other thing in the hallway. "When was the last time you called me that?"
"Called you what?" Asuka, already irate, made it very apparent that she /did not care /through her award-winning use of monotone. This was stage two. Stage three was /pain; /no proverbial /red-button, /but rather the next part in a natural progression of Asuka's anger. Right now she was merely /annoyed; /given time, she may simply tear your head off. In some ways, Shinji felt that she had changed the least of all of them
from what
/ /during their stay. She was the only one whose fire could still be kindled sometimes.
Asuka's footsteps approached. The door opened noiselessly, and then, after a second, closed. Shinji, for some reason, could not bring himself to look away from the
rotting
/ hallway, though Asuka, he knew, was no longer around to punish him for it. /What was it? You stare into the abyss, the abyss /glares /stares back at you. Something like that. /Maybe that gaze was like grasping a pair of live wires-though it killed you, though all you would have to do to save your own life would be to /let go, you can't because your body is no longer your own; electricity flushes through your muscles and tendons, tensing them immediately, and all you can do is numbly stare from outside yourself and wait for your either death or the power to be cut.
Maybe that was this. Maybe he had to wait for somebody to cut the power.
Or maybe you're being an idiot, just like Asuka said. /With great strength of will, a great mental /oomph, Shinji forced himself to turn around, and for the second time in less than ten minutes, found himself nose-to-nose with Asuka. He jumped backwards again, letting out a startled cry, but managed to avoid falling over or into anything. Asuka gave him a funny little look, still frowning, though refraining from reprising him verbally.
"What is it?" Shinji caught his breath quickly enough, reminding himself not to stutter. Is it really stuttering if you can tell yourself not to do it?
/ /
/ Why not? You can tell yourself not to do every goddamned other thing. /This particular thought struck Shinji as remarkably bitter for no reason in particular.
Asuka, Shinji thought, looked of a sudden almost sheepish, and Shinji could think of no good reason why. "You can come in," she said, and then proved herself a Lady (very) in training by entering first through the door which Shinji thought she would be holding open for him. It did not swing shut on him, because if there was a spring on it at some point, it was long dead by now. He shut it behind him, and when he looked back, Asuka was staring at him expectantly, waiting for approval on some sort of bizarre surprise that he hadn't noticed yet. Rei was standing a bit further down, over by their table and lone window, also looking at him-even her usually impassive face seemed now to be a bit different-like Asuka's, a bit expectant. Waiting less for him to approve than for him to notice.
What was strange was that he didn't notice. His eyes slid over the room, and he could find nothing out of place-where, even, was the big wooden /something /that he had brought in without thinking much about? It seemed to have vanished; the room was exactly as it usually was. He passed over the room with his eyes once, twice, and a third time. Asuka seemed to be holding in her temper by this point-with each pass, he took a moment to look at the girls, more a defensive mechanism than anything at this point. Rei was patiently waiting, right next to the window and cluttered table and
Impossible.
And their smooth, freshly-lacquered, brand-new cello.
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