Where Darkness Falls
folder
+M to R › Neon Genesis Evangelion › Crossovers
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
15
Views:
9,342
Reviews:
31
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
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Category:
+M to R › Neon Genesis Evangelion › Crossovers
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
15
Views:
9,342
Reviews:
31
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own this anime/manga, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Silent Hill
Untitled Evangelion/Silent Hill
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Where Darkness Falls
Disclaimers:
I do not own Evangelion or Silent Hill, that honour goes (respectively) to
Studio Gainax animation and Konami Entertainment. Should either company, or any of their
affiliates, request it, this story will be removed from the web. Thank you.
Chapter 1 – Silent Hill
Misato could not keep herself from glancing
at the rental car’s digital clock once more, noting that it had been four
minutes since her last check. 3:36, she thought, bringing her
attention back to the road, and according
to the last sign I saw, Silent Hill should be about five miles or so. I’m almost there, Shinji…
The attendant at the rental car stand in the
small airport had looked sceptical when Misato had asked for directions to the
small resort town. ‘I’ve never been
there,’ the woman had confessed, typing efficiently into her computer terminal,
‘but according to this… ahh here, it is – fifty miles.’
“Fifty miles of nothing,” Misato muttered
tiredly, “empty, flat, nothing.”
She sighed as she spied a small, green exit sign. “‘Silent Hill, 1 mile,’” she read, “Oh
thank G-”
The car lurched.
“What the hell…?”
She gripped the wheel tightly as the car
lurched once more, an ominous clunking sound issuing from the front of the
vehicle.
“Oh no – no!!” she cried, pumping the gas as
the car shuddered, a wisp of fine white smoke curling from the hood. “Come on!!”
It was no use. As the beginning of the exit ramp came
into view, the car lurched one last time, and stalled, coasting to a stop with
its nose inches from the sign reading ‘Silent Hill – America’s Relaxation
Spot!’
“Great,” Misato groaned, turning the key and
yanking it from the ignition, “just great! Hey, Shinji, I want you to come home…
what’s that? Drive you say? Well, funny story…”
She sighed.
Swinging the door open, she grabbed her
jacket. No use whining about it now, she
thought, slipping out of the car and slamming the door a bit harder than she had
intended. America’s Relaxation spot, huh? Well, I haven’t seen a car for about
fifteen miles, so it doesn’t look like I’ll be relaxing until I get there…
better get walking.
Reaching into her pocket and clutching the
wrinkled letter firmly, she did just that.
**
Misato made her way into the small town of
Silent Hill under the cover of dense fog.
At least it’s not raining, she
thought pragmatically, stopping under an awning to shake her hair out. Might as well be, though – damn America’s
wet!
She pulled the envelope out of her pocket
and glanced at the address, though she did not really need to… she knew it by
heart – had memorized every penstroke with meticulous care, lest she should
forget a minute detail or another and not find the boy she had travelled
halfway around the world for.
Of course, knowing an address in a strange
city and finding an address in a
strange city were two very different things. “Glad I’m not a man,” she murmured,
smiling faintly as she spotted a small convenience store, “ok, let’s see if we
can find this place…”
She strode through the store’s entrance, but
much to her surprise, she found it entirely empty – no customers, no staff at
the till…nobody.
“Hello…?” she called, glancing from her
watch to the store’s open-until sign and back again.
What if there’s been a
robbery? She
thought, uneasily slipping her hand into her jacket to caress the butt of her
pistol, But then… where’s the cops? It was only
then that it occurred to her that she had seen nobody on the streets either.
What the hell is going on here?
Hmmm, maybe it’s time for me to be elsewhere. Backing out of the store, she spotted a
map on the floor. She grinned
to herself as she noted that it was definitely a map of the town. Hope you don’t mind if I help myself,
she thought, taking
a look at the map and searching for the apartment building mentioned in the
address on the letter. Hmmm it’s not all that far from here, so maybe-
her thoughts were interrupted by a soft scraping sound, coming from
somewhere deeper in the building.
Instinctively she drew her service pistol
and aimed at the door leading to the convenience store’s back room. “All right,” she called coolly, “come
out slowly, with your hands where I can see them!” Her grip tightened on the gun’s
handle. “I’m armed,” she warned,
taking a careful step to the side in an effort to get a better angle on the
half-open portal, “Are you the owner?
I’m not going to hurt you… just come out where I can see you and we’ll
call the cops, ok?”
Man,
my English is awful, she thought absently, toeing a
bag of potato chips carefully to the side; I hope they understand me…
She frowned, starting to think that maybe
she had been hearing things.
“Hel-”
A sound from above… and something was upon
her.
“Whuff.”
The air left her lungs in a rush as a
creature roughly the size of a ten year old child collided with her, knocking
her to her the floor and sending her pistol spinning across the floor.
Time stood still as Misato Katsuragi found
herself face to face with a demon.
Its body was a disgusting shade of off-white
– like one of the species of tunnelling worms she had seen on a nature program
once, the kind that never saw the light… and its eyes, like glittering chips of
obsidian, peered into hers with a sort of stupid triumph for what felt like a
full minute before its toothless beak descended towards her face.
“Gah!!”
Misato’s paralysis broke as her survival
instincts kicked into overdrive.
She bucked, her hips moving in a sickening parody of lovemaking, but her
‘lover’s’ spindly legs were far more powerful than she had anticipated, and her
efforts only yielded an irritated squawk.
Seeing that this tactic was not effective, she wrapped her left hand
around its neck, trying not to be sick as she found its skin warm and clammy,
and held it back as best she could, reaching blindly with her right hand towards
the closest rack.
“Come on,” she gasped desperately, her eyes
widening as she found the creature pushing her inexorably back, “come on!!”
Her fingers played over several useless
items – a box of crackers, a hostess snack cake, more chips – before finally
closing over something smooth, cool, and decidedly hard.
With a triumphant cry, Misato brought the
bottle of cheap wine around, smashing it over the creature’s head and taking
great pleasure in the plaintive mewl it uttered as it finally loosened its hold,
clutching at the ruins of its right eye and staggering back a pace. Quick as a flash, she scrambled to her
feet and dashed across the store, dropping to her knees and snatching up her gun
as a howl of rage sounded behind her.
Loosing a scream of her own, she whirled around, allowing herself the
luxury of a half second to aim at the wildly charging creature’s mouth before
pulling the trigger.
For a moment, she did not believe this would
actually kill the creature. After
all – demons don’t die from simple bullets, right? But to her very great relief, the
creature staggered back and fell to the ground, its narrow chest instantly
stilling as a soft, whispery sigh came from its beak.
Misato kept her gun trained on it, her eyes
darting all over the store (including the ceiling) in case it was not
alone. It’s dead, right? She asked herself,
refusing to turn her back on it until she had confirmed this fact. It has to be! …whatever it is.
When it had not twitched for five minutes,
she slowly lowered her gun, taking a closer look at its physique.
What the Hell IS that?! she thought, morbid curiosity slowly taking the place of outright
terror.
It was roughly 4’11” to 5’1” by her
estimate, and quite thin, with three long fingers on each hand – just the right
size, Misato noticed, to close all the way around a human’s neck. Its legs looked somewhat bowed, as if it
had just gotten back from a long horse riding expedition and had not yet gotten
readjusted to life out of the saddle… but it eyes were what disturbed her the
most. Small, hard, black – no more
than half the size of a human eye, but somehow crueller and more avian. Its mouth, she decided, could easily
inflict serious damage on a person, for while it had no teeth, the edges of its
beak were serrated and sharp – marking this creature as an unquestionable
carnivore.
“Well, the menu’s been changed,” Misato
whispered unevenly, risking a quick nudge with the tip of her boot.
Deciding that the thing was in fact dead,
she carefully approached the storeroom, certain she would find the proprietor of
the store lying half-devoured in a pool of his or her own blood… but there was
only the stock you would expect to find in a convenience store, and while it was
definitely disorganized, she could say authoritatively that there had been no
killings here. She looked next in
the staff room, finding it as empty as the storeroom – just as the manager’s
office was empty, and the men and women’s rooms. All were undisturbed, with no blood, no
bodies… nothing.
Misato, keeping her gun at the ready, took
another look at the map. “Lonsdale
apartments,” she muttered, glancing down once more at the body on the floor,
“first right out of here and two blocks up… should be there in five minutes – if
I don’t run into any monsters, that is.”
She rubbed her eyes, hoping suddenly that
this was all a bad dream. When the
creature was still lying on the floor in a spreading pool of black blood when
she opened them once more, Misato decided that there was only two things she
really needed to do: find Shinji, and get the hell out of this place.
It was not her concern what was going on in
this town, she thought firmly. I just came to bring my boy back home. Yeah, whatever’s happening here is
messed up, but I can’t do a thing about that until I make sure HE’S
ok.
Taking a deep breath, Misato stepped out of
the convenience store into the thickening fog, frowning as she realized that
anyone standing inside the store would not be able to see her after she had gone
five paces.
She did not like this idea one bit.
**
Almost there.
Misato consulted the map in her hands once
more, glancing up at the dim, looming shape she hoped was the apartment
building. Being out in the fog had
her jittery – her brush with the gruesome creature in the convenience store
notwithstanding – and she longed to be on her way out of town with Shinji in
tow.
“Just hope he’s ok,” she whispered,
pocketing the map and squinting through the dense cloud of vapour. “No,” she corrected, “I know he’s
ok! I won’t even think
about…”
She trailed off as an odd sound reached her
ears.
Sounds like… flapping…?
With a short cry, Misato dropped to the
ground, her eyes registering the passing of a huge, leathery wing – roughly the
size of her rental car’s hood – tipped with a sharp, bony talon.
She held her sanity through sheer
will.
This
just can’t be happening! she told herself, aiming
wildly in the direction the creature had winged past her. Don’t think about it, she thought
firmly, trusting her sense of hearing to compensate for the reduced visibility,
don’t think about it – just kill
it!
She gritted her teeth as a harsh, bird-like
caw reached her ears, and while she could not see her target, she still had the
presence of mind to steady her gun and squeeze the trigger, hoping for the
best. Her timing was impeccable,
the muffled blast of gunfire sounding a moment before the creature swooped back
into sight, its cold black eyes trained on her face as it dove.
The bullet tore into the thing’s right wing,
cutting it off in mid-screech and sending it to the ground in a tangle of
fluttering, impossibly large wings and sharp, blood-spattered claws.
“God,” Misato moaned, steadying her shaking
weapon with her free hand and squeezing the trigger three times in rapid
succession.
She had no time to rejoice as the creature
fell still, though, as another caw sounded behind her. She took off at a sprint, holding her
gun low but ready as she calculated the chances of her survival.
Four
rounds per… thing, she thought, her eyes sweeping
the street in front of her as she moved, sixteen rounds per clip… half a clip’s gone
already… and I only have one backup.
Yeah, it looks like I’m screwed…
The screeching behind her grew louder, as if
the creature (or creatures, the echoing effect of the fog made it hard to tell)
could sense that its prey was attempting to escape, but Misato ignored it,
putting on a burst of speed and slamming into the apartment building’s front
door with a quickly gasped, “Please be open.”
Her prayer was answered as the normally
key-coded door proved to be ajar, allowing her access to the dark, slightly
rundown looking interior.
Something rebounded off the glass behind her
as she slammed the door, but when she turned to aim her weapon, Misato only
caught a glimpse of something’s tail as it winged off into the fog. Leaning against the wall, she allowed
herself a small, calming breath. Don’t get too comfy, she thought
nervously, find Shinji’s apartment, get
him, get the hell out of here – that’s all that should be on your mind,
Katsuragi.
She took another breath, imagining that the
steadying voice in her mind belonged to her old lover, Ryouji Kaji… because it
was easier than facing the growing certainty that she was the only living person
in this strange, quiet town.
“You wouldn’t have been stupid enough to let
him run away, though, would you,” she asked the empty hall quietly, “no, only
I’m that dumb.”
Shaking herself, Misato headed towards the
door marked 101, trying to decide if she was thankful or frightened that it too
was ajar. Landlord’s place should have a spare
key, she told herself, and if
Shinji’s stuck up there, I doubt he’ll just open the door, even for
me.
The landlord’s apartment was kept neat as a
pin… though it was just as devoid of people as the rest of the town. “At least there’s no bodies,” Misato
muttered, closing the door behind her after confirming that she was alone in the
apartment’s sparsely decorated living room. “Now, quick check of the other rooms,
and we’ll get to work.”
Quickly glancing into the tiny bedroom and
bathrooms to determine that there was nothing waiting to leap out at her, she
made her way to a small filing cabinet marked ‘tenants’ located next to a small
pegboard with extra keys dangling from it.
Very meticulous, she thought,
running her fingers over the rows of keys, now let’s check the records – because if he
moved out right after mailing that letter, and this is all for nothing, I’m
going to be pissed!
She pulled out the top drawer on the filing
cabinet, quickly rifling through the records in search of anything that might
help her find her young charge. She
did not expect to find him using his real name, of course, as he had run away
from home in the first place… but the more she thought about this, the more she
found it odd that he had included his return address in the first place. If he had not wanted her to come after
him, why say where he was? But if
he did want her to find him, why not
include his apartment number?
“Doesn’t matter right now,” she muttered,
leafing through the papers, “all that matters is… hmmm…” she pulled out one of
the rental agreements and read it aloud.
“‘Natsuko Takeuchi plus one’
huh? Well, it’s the only Japanese
name in here, so maybe…” She
frowned at the small +1 notation on the page. “Could it be… nah, no
way.”
For a
moment, she had considered the idea that the +1 (or the Natsuko Takeuchi, for
that matter) could have May Maya Ibuki, one of Ritsuko’s top technicians. The woman had left NERV three days after
the incident with the seventeenth angel, saying that she just could not deal
with the pressure anymore. No one
had seen her since.
Couldn’t be her, Misato told herself, scanning
the rest of the names to make absolutely sure this was the best option, Why
would she be here with Shinji? He
probably just put the plus one there to make sure no one bothered him… hell,
maybe he tells the landlord it’s his mother and she’s always out or something,
who knows?
“Apartment 402,” she whispered, slipping the
rental agreement back into its folder and plucking the spare key from the
pegboard, “just like Rei’s. Talk
about irony.”
Irony, she thought suddenly, or fate?
Shaking off the odd thought, she started to
close the filing cabinet, but her sharp eyes spied a small box, nestled at the
bottom of the cabinet. “Hello,” she
whispered, grinning broadly as she reached in and extracted the small package,
“you don’t mind if I borrow these, do you?”
Opening the box of nine millimetre rounds,
Misato found another pleasant surprise – two fully loaded clips designed for the
very gun she carried and a small yellow flashlight, complete with a belt
clip. God I love you, Browning, she thought
with a great deal of relief, See? Carrying a popular model DOES have its
benefits – and it looks like the landlord was ready for any contingency… her
elation faded a bit. Hope he made it out ok.
Pocketing the clips, the loose rounds, and
the flashlight, she closed the cabinet and headed back to the foyer. She glanced doubtfully at the
elevator. “Better not,” she
muttered, heading for the stairs, “last thing I need is to make myself into a
boxed l.”
.”
She had to repress a giggle at this thought,
wondering suddenly if perhaps she had not gone insane. Maybe I’m still sleeping on the plane,
she thought idly, edging the door to the stairs open and peering carefully into
the confined space, Hell, maybe I’m in a
mental institution somewhere, drooling on my straightjacket and mumbling about
all my life’s mistakes.
Shaking off the thought, she headed slowly
up the stairs, thankful that the small lights on the wall were still on… because
she knew, deep down, that there was no way she was going to climb three flights
of stairs in total darkness – and she was not about to trust her life to the
small yellow flashlight in her pocket.
Finally making her way to the fourth floor,
Misato frowned. “Of course,” she
muttered, finding the floor entirely dark.
Taking a deep breath, she reached into her
pocket and pulled out the flashlight, fixing it to one of her jacket pockets and
snapping it on. Her annoyance at
the dark faded at the sight before her.
The fourth floor corridor looked utterly grimy, with a fine layer of
filth on every surface and dark, suspiciously coppery smelling splatters on all
of the walls.
There was an air of death and decay about
the place that she could not describe with words.
What the hell is going on
here? she thought as she gaped at the sight. She took a step into the hall, thankful
that the flashlight’s clip allowed her to use both hands for her gun. She came up short as the light’s narrow
beam played across something white and shiny. No, she thought disgustedly, oh no – you’ve got to be kidding
me!
The creature (creatures, she corrected
herself, seeing that there was two) came up to about her stomach, and like the
one in the convenience store, had skin a pasty, sickly shade of off-white… but
unlike the thing in the store, these beings bore no features – their heads
looking as if someone had shoved lumpy, misshapen white potatoes on their stocky
little bodies.
Also, she noticed belatedly, there were
carrying knives.
With a disgusted cry, Misato opened fire,
catching one creature in the leg and the other in the shoulder, and while both
fell to the ground, neither made any sound… nor did they stop moving, starting
to crawl laboriously towards her position, using their knives like anchors and
dragging themselves across the floor.
Fighting a wave of nausea, Misato drew a
careful bead on the closest monster and pulled the trigger three times, only
shifting her attention to its companion when it had stopped twitching and lay
still. All together, she pumped ten
rounds into the creatures, popping in a fresh clip to finish each with a
carefully placed shot to the shapeless head.
“There,” she muttered, wiping sweat from her
upper lip with the back of her hand, “now let’s find 40-”
She was cut off as something wet and slimy
wrapped around her ankle.
“Ahhh!!”
Without a second thought, she jabbed her gun
downward and pulled the trigger, nearly throwing up as the thing (tongue – it’s a tongue!) spewed blood,
but did not release her. Tightening
her hold on the gun, she pulled the trigger over and over, screaming out loud as
the thing tried to pull her back into the stairwell. After nine rounds, the thing fell limp,
slithering back into the stairwell, where the rest of it – Misato shuddered to
imagine what the mouth must be like – was surely waiting.
“I’m in hell,” she gasped, slamming the
stairwell door shut and backing up until she hit the wall, “literally in hell.” A flicker of movement caught her eye and
she turned, staring out the window with open shock on her face.
It was raining.
And
it’s night time, she thought, glancing at her watch
in disbelief, Five forty and it’s already
full dark!
Impossible!!
She swallowed as a soft hiss sounded behind
her. Slowly turning around, she
found herself face to face with yet another nightmare. “Oh god,” she groaned, “what is that…
what is that?!”
It looked somewhat like a toad, she thought
absently, if toads grew to be five feet long. Its squat form was covered not in warts…
but in small, blinking eyes, and its gaping maw was lined with razor-sharp,
glistening fangs.
Far beyond the point of shock, Misato gave a
weary sigh. “Alright,” she
muttered, “let’s do it then.”
She fell back, barely dodging to the side as
the creature’s tongue lashed out, smashing into the wall behind her and tearing
a large chunk of wood from the stylized panelling. Misato cried out, bringing her gun
around and firing off a round. Four, she thought dizzily, Four shots left – damn it, I should have
reloade-
“Wuff.”
The air left her lungs in a rush as the
creature’s tongue whipped back around, catching her in the midsection. Staggering back, Misato brought her gun
up and clicked off two more rounds.
Three, two, she thought,
struggling to regain her breath as the creature shrieked in agony, one of its
eyes vanishing in a cloud of blood-red mist.
It lunged, catching her off guard and
knocking her into the wall, the back of her head rebounding off the hard,
unyielding wood with a dull thump.
The world went grey for a moment as Misato fought to stay conscious. “One,” she coughed, raising her gun –
which felt as if it weighed a ton – and firing again.
“Zero…”
Grey faded into black as she pulled the
trigger one last time, aiming for the creature’s wide open jaws. Her decent into darkness was not quiet
or peaceful, it was filled with screams and crashes, and the sound of thunder,
booming over and over right in front of her until finally… there was only
silence.
**
Misato groaned as she came back to
consciousness, too dazed to feel any kind of real surprise at still being
alive. What… happened…? she thought, sitting up
and glancing around wildly for the toad-like creature.
“Ow!”
She clutched her head as the sudden movement
made it throb. I’m alive, she thought dazedly, at least… I think I am. She looked around, finding that she was
laid out on a small apartment’s bedroom, a light blanket covering her from her
feet to her neck. No, this isn’t nice enough to be Heaven,
she thought dully, and since I’m already
in the other place…
She reached for her gun as the door to the
bedroom door started creaking open, but it was not in its holster.
Oh
this is just perfect, she thought, frantically
casting about for a weapon, I killed the
thing then staggered into this apartment, dropping my gun along the way… and now
I’m going to die – in bed, of all places!
Finally settling for a small tape deck on
the nightstand next to the bed, Misato staggered to her feet, bracing herself to
fight.
“Oh, now there’s a scary sight,” a familiar
voice chuckled, “are you going to Beethoven me to death?”
Misato’s jaw dropped open. “You!”
“Me,” the woman in front of her replied,
running a hand through her blonde hair as she stepped into the room, “you can
call me Natsuko Takeuchi, I guess… everyone else around here does.”
Misato seemed not to hear her. Plus one, she thought suddenly, Natsuko Takeuchi plus
one.
Seeing the look in her old friends eyes, the
woman named Natsuko nodded. “Yes,”
she said, answering the unspoken question, “he’s here… somewhere. I’ve been trying to find him for some
time now.”
Taking a deep breath, Misato stumbled
forward a step and put her free hand on the woman’s shoulder, forgetting to drop
the tape player. “It really is
you,” she said weakly, afraid that she might have been hallucinating.
Natsuko smiled ironically. “Hello, Misato,” she said softly,
“welcome to Hell – confirmed human
population: you, me, and Shinji.”
Misato just nodded dumbly, giving the only
reply she could think of.
“Hello, Ritsuko…”
TBC
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Where Darkness Falls
Disclaimers:
I do not own Evangelion or Silent Hill, that honour goes (respectively) to
Studio Gainax animation and Konami Entertainment. Should either company, or any of their
affiliates, request it, this story will be removed from the web. Thank you.
Chapter 1 – Silent Hill
Misato could not keep herself from glancing
at the rental car’s digital clock once more, noting that it had been four
minutes since her last check. 3:36, she thought, bringing her
attention back to the road, and according
to the last sign I saw, Silent Hill should be about five miles or so. I’m almost there, Shinji…
The attendant at the rental car stand in the
small airport had looked sceptical when Misato had asked for directions to the
small resort town. ‘I’ve never been
there,’ the woman had confessed, typing efficiently into her computer terminal,
‘but according to this… ahh here, it is – fifty miles.’
“Fifty miles of nothing,” Misato muttered
tiredly, “empty, flat, nothing.”
She sighed as she spied a small, green exit sign. “‘Silent Hill, 1 mile,’” she read, “Oh
thank G-”
The car lurched.
“What the hell…?”
She gripped the wheel tightly as the car
lurched once more, an ominous clunking sound issuing from the front of the
vehicle.
“Oh no – no!!” she cried, pumping the gas as
the car shuddered, a wisp of fine white smoke curling from the hood. “Come on!!”
It was no use. As the beginning of the exit ramp came
into view, the car lurched one last time, and stalled, coasting to a stop with
its nose inches from the sign reading ‘Silent Hill – America’s Relaxation
Spot!’
“Great,” Misato groaned, turning the key and
yanking it from the ignition, “just great! Hey, Shinji, I want you to come home…
what’s that? Drive you say? Well, funny story…”
She sighed.
Swinging the door open, she grabbed her
jacket. No use whining about it now, she
thought, slipping out of the car and slamming the door a bit harder than she had
intended. America’s Relaxation spot, huh? Well, I haven’t seen a car for about
fifteen miles, so it doesn’t look like I’ll be relaxing until I get there…
better get walking.
Reaching into her pocket and clutching the
wrinkled letter firmly, she did just that.
**
Misato made her way into the small town of
Silent Hill under the cover of dense fog.
At least it’s not raining, she
thought pragmatically, stopping under an awning to shake her hair out. Might as well be, though – damn America’s
wet!
She pulled the envelope out of her pocket
and glanced at the address, though she did not really need to… she knew it by
heart – had memorized every penstroke with meticulous care, lest she should
forget a minute detail or another and not find the boy she had travelled
halfway around the world for.
Of course, knowing an address in a strange
city and finding an address in a
strange city were two very different things. “Glad I’m not a man,” she murmured,
smiling faintly as she spotted a small convenience store, “ok, let’s see if we
can find this place…”
She strode through the store’s entrance, but
much to her surprise, she found it entirely empty – no customers, no staff at
the till…nobody.
“Hello…?” she called, glancing from her
watch to the store’s open-until sign and back again.
What if there’s been a
robbery? She
thought, uneasily slipping her hand into her jacket to caress the butt of her
pistol, But then… where’s the cops? It was only
then that it occurred to her that she had seen nobody on the streets either.
What the hell is going on here?
Hmmm, maybe it’s time for me to be elsewhere. Backing out of the store, she spotted a
map on the floor. She grinned
to herself as she noted that it was definitely a map of the town. Hope you don’t mind if I help myself,
she thought, taking
a look at the map and searching for the apartment building mentioned in the
address on the letter. Hmmm it’s not all that far from here, so maybe-
her thoughts were interrupted by a soft scraping sound, coming from
somewhere deeper in the building.
Instinctively she drew her service pistol
and aimed at the door leading to the convenience store’s back room. “All right,” she called coolly, “come
out slowly, with your hands where I can see them!” Her grip tightened on the gun’s
handle. “I’m armed,” she warned,
taking a careful step to the side in an effort to get a better angle on the
half-open portal, “Are you the owner?
I’m not going to hurt you… just come out where I can see you and we’ll
call the cops, ok?”
Man,
my English is awful, she thought absently, toeing a
bag of potato chips carefully to the side; I hope they understand me…
She frowned, starting to think that maybe
she had been hearing things.
“Hel-”
A sound from above… and something was upon
her.
“Whuff.”
The air left her lungs in a rush as a
creature roughly the size of a ten year old child collided with her, knocking
her to her the floor and sending her pistol spinning across the floor.
Time stood still as Misato Katsuragi found
herself face to face with a demon.
Its body was a disgusting shade of off-white
– like one of the species of tunnelling worms she had seen on a nature program
once, the kind that never saw the light… and its eyes, like glittering chips of
obsidian, peered into hers with a sort of stupid triumph for what felt like a
full minute before its toothless beak descended towards her face.
“Gah!!”
Misato’s paralysis broke as her survival
instincts kicked into overdrive.
She bucked, her hips moving in a sickening parody of lovemaking, but her
‘lover’s’ spindly legs were far more powerful than she had anticipated, and her
efforts only yielded an irritated squawk.
Seeing that this tactic was not effective, she wrapped her left hand
around its neck, trying not to be sick as she found its skin warm and clammy,
and held it back as best she could, reaching blindly with her right hand towards
the closest rack.
“Come on,” she gasped desperately, her eyes
widening as she found the creature pushing her inexorably back, “come on!!”
Her fingers played over several useless
items – a box of crackers, a hostess snack cake, more chips – before finally
closing over something smooth, cool, and decidedly hard.
With a triumphant cry, Misato brought the
bottle of cheap wine around, smashing it over the creature’s head and taking
great pleasure in the plaintive mewl it uttered as it finally loosened its hold,
clutching at the ruins of its right eye and staggering back a pace. Quick as a flash, she scrambled to her
feet and dashed across the store, dropping to her knees and snatching up her gun
as a howl of rage sounded behind her.
Loosing a scream of her own, she whirled around, allowing herself the
luxury of a half second to aim at the wildly charging creature’s mouth before
pulling the trigger.
For a moment, she did not believe this would
actually kill the creature. After
all – demons don’t die from simple bullets, right? But to her very great relief, the
creature staggered back and fell to the ground, its narrow chest instantly
stilling as a soft, whispery sigh came from its beak.
Misato kept her gun trained on it, her eyes
darting all over the store (including the ceiling) in case it was not
alone. It’s dead, right? She asked herself,
refusing to turn her back on it until she had confirmed this fact. It has to be! …whatever it is.
When it had not twitched for five minutes,
she slowly lowered her gun, taking a closer look at its physique.
What the Hell IS that?! she thought, morbid curiosity slowly taking the place of outright
terror.
It was roughly 4’11” to 5’1” by her
estimate, and quite thin, with three long fingers on each hand – just the right
size, Misato noticed, to close all the way around a human’s neck. Its legs looked somewhat bowed, as if it
had just gotten back from a long horse riding expedition and had not yet gotten
readjusted to life out of the saddle… but it eyes were what disturbed her the
most. Small, hard, black – no more
than half the size of a human eye, but somehow crueller and more avian. Its mouth, she decided, could easily
inflict serious damage on a person, for while it had no teeth, the edges of its
beak were serrated and sharp – marking this creature as an unquestionable
carnivore.
“Well, the menu’s been changed,” Misato
whispered unevenly, risking a quick nudge with the tip of her boot.
Deciding that the thing was in fact dead,
she carefully approached the storeroom, certain she would find the proprietor of
the store lying half-devoured in a pool of his or her own blood… but there was
only the stock you would expect to find in a convenience store, and while it was
definitely disorganized, she could say authoritatively that there had been no
killings here. She looked next in
the staff room, finding it as empty as the storeroom – just as the manager’s
office was empty, and the men and women’s rooms. All were undisturbed, with no blood, no
bodies… nothing.
Misato, keeping her gun at the ready, took
another look at the map. “Lonsdale
apartments,” she muttered, glancing down once more at the body on the floor,
“first right out of here and two blocks up… should be there in five minutes – if
I don’t run into any monsters, that is.”
She rubbed her eyes, hoping suddenly that
this was all a bad dream. When the
creature was still lying on the floor in a spreading pool of black blood when
she opened them once more, Misato decided that there was only two things she
really needed to do: find Shinji, and get the hell out of this place.
It was not her concern what was going on in
this town, she thought firmly. I just came to bring my boy back home. Yeah, whatever’s happening here is
messed up, but I can’t do a thing about that until I make sure HE’S
ok.
Taking a deep breath, Misato stepped out of
the convenience store into the thickening fog, frowning as she realized that
anyone standing inside the store would not be able to see her after she had gone
five paces.
She did not like this idea one bit.
**
Almost there.
Misato consulted the map in her hands once
more, glancing up at the dim, looming shape she hoped was the apartment
building. Being out in the fog had
her jittery – her brush with the gruesome creature in the convenience store
notwithstanding – and she longed to be on her way out of town with Shinji in
tow.
“Just hope he’s ok,” she whispered,
pocketing the map and squinting through the dense cloud of vapour. “No,” she corrected, “I know he’s
ok! I won’t even think
about…”
She trailed off as an odd sound reached her
ears.
Sounds like… flapping…?
With a short cry, Misato dropped to the
ground, her eyes registering the passing of a huge, leathery wing – roughly the
size of her rental car’s hood – tipped with a sharp, bony talon.
She held her sanity through sheer
will.
This
just can’t be happening! she told herself, aiming
wildly in the direction the creature had winged past her. Don’t think about it, she thought
firmly, trusting her sense of hearing to compensate for the reduced visibility,
don’t think about it – just kill
it!
She gritted her teeth as a harsh, bird-like
caw reached her ears, and while she could not see her target, she still had the
presence of mind to steady her gun and squeeze the trigger, hoping for the
best. Her timing was impeccable,
the muffled blast of gunfire sounding a moment before the creature swooped back
into sight, its cold black eyes trained on her face as it dove.
The bullet tore into the thing’s right wing,
cutting it off in mid-screech and sending it to the ground in a tangle of
fluttering, impossibly large wings and sharp, blood-spattered claws.
“God,” Misato moaned, steadying her shaking
weapon with her free hand and squeezing the trigger three times in rapid
succession.
She had no time to rejoice as the creature
fell still, though, as another caw sounded behind her. She took off at a sprint, holding her
gun low but ready as she calculated the chances of her survival.
Four
rounds per… thing, she thought, her eyes sweeping
the street in front of her as she moved, sixteen rounds per clip… half a clip’s gone
already… and I only have one backup.
Yeah, it looks like I’m screwed…
The screeching behind her grew louder, as if
the creature (or creatures, the echoing effect of the fog made it hard to tell)
could sense that its prey was attempting to escape, but Misato ignored it,
putting on a burst of speed and slamming into the apartment building’s front
door with a quickly gasped, “Please be open.”
Her prayer was answered as the normally
key-coded door proved to be ajar, allowing her access to the dark, slightly
rundown looking interior.
Something rebounded off the glass behind her
as she slammed the door, but when she turned to aim her weapon, Misato only
caught a glimpse of something’s tail as it winged off into the fog. Leaning against the wall, she allowed
herself a small, calming breath. Don’t get too comfy, she thought
nervously, find Shinji’s apartment, get
him, get the hell out of here – that’s all that should be on your mind,
Katsuragi.
She took another breath, imagining that the
steadying voice in her mind belonged to her old lover, Ryouji Kaji… because it
was easier than facing the growing certainty that she was the only living person
in this strange, quiet town.
“You wouldn’t have been stupid enough to let
him run away, though, would you,” she asked the empty hall quietly, “no, only
I’m that dumb.”
Shaking herself, Misato headed towards the
door marked 101, trying to decide if she was thankful or frightened that it too
was ajar. Landlord’s place should have a spare
key, she told herself, and if
Shinji’s stuck up there, I doubt he’ll just open the door, even for
me.
The landlord’s apartment was kept neat as a
pin… though it was just as devoid of people as the rest of the town. “At least there’s no bodies,” Misato
muttered, closing the door behind her after confirming that she was alone in the
apartment’s sparsely decorated living room. “Now, quick check of the other rooms,
and we’ll get to work.”
Quickly glancing into the tiny bedroom and
bathrooms to determine that there was nothing waiting to leap out at her, she
made her way to a small filing cabinet marked ‘tenants’ located next to a small
pegboard with extra keys dangling from it.
Very meticulous, she thought,
running her fingers over the rows of keys, now let’s check the records – because if he
moved out right after mailing that letter, and this is all for nothing, I’m
going to be pissed!
She pulled out the top drawer on the filing
cabinet, quickly rifling through the records in search of anything that might
help her find her young charge. She
did not expect to find him using his real name, of course, as he had run away
from home in the first place… but the more she thought about this, the more she
found it odd that he had included his return address in the first place. If he had not wanted her to come after
him, why say where he was? But if
he did want her to find him, why not
include his apartment number?
“Doesn’t matter right now,” she muttered,
leafing through the papers, “all that matters is… hmmm…” she pulled out one of
the rental agreements and read it aloud.
“‘Natsuko Takeuchi plus one’
huh? Well, it’s the only Japanese
name in here, so maybe…” She
frowned at the small +1 notation on the page. “Could it be… nah, no
way.”
For a
moment, she had considered the idea that the +1 (or the Natsuko Takeuchi, for
that matter) could have May Maya Ibuki, one of Ritsuko’s top technicians. The woman had left NERV three days after
the incident with the seventeenth angel, saying that she just could not deal
with the pressure anymore. No one
had seen her since.
Couldn’t be her, Misato told herself, scanning
the rest of the names to make absolutely sure this was the best option, Why
would she be here with Shinji? He
probably just put the plus one there to make sure no one bothered him… hell,
maybe he tells the landlord it’s his mother and she’s always out or something,
who knows?
“Apartment 402,” she whispered, slipping the
rental agreement back into its folder and plucking the spare key from the
pegboard, “just like Rei’s. Talk
about irony.”
Irony, she thought suddenly, or fate?
Shaking off the odd thought, she started to
close the filing cabinet, but her sharp eyes spied a small box, nestled at the
bottom of the cabinet. “Hello,” she
whispered, grinning broadly as she reached in and extracted the small package,
“you don’t mind if I borrow these, do you?”
Opening the box of nine millimetre rounds,
Misato found another pleasant surprise – two fully loaded clips designed for the
very gun she carried and a small yellow flashlight, complete with a belt
clip. God I love you, Browning, she thought
with a great deal of relief, See? Carrying a popular model DOES have its
benefits – and it looks like the landlord was ready for any contingency… her
elation faded a bit. Hope he made it out ok.
Pocketing the clips, the loose rounds, and
the flashlight, she closed the cabinet and headed back to the foyer. She glanced doubtfully at the
elevator. “Better not,” she
muttered, heading for the stairs, “last thing I need is to make myself into a
boxed l.”
.”
She had to repress a giggle at this thought,
wondering suddenly if perhaps she had not gone insane. Maybe I’m still sleeping on the plane,
she thought idly, edging the door to the stairs open and peering carefully into
the confined space, Hell, maybe I’m in a
mental institution somewhere, drooling on my straightjacket and mumbling about
all my life’s mistakes.
Shaking off the thought, she headed slowly
up the stairs, thankful that the small lights on the wall were still on… because
she knew, deep down, that there was no way she was going to climb three flights
of stairs in total darkness – and she was not about to trust her life to the
small yellow flashlight in her pocket.
Finally making her way to the fourth floor,
Misato frowned. “Of course,” she
muttered, finding the floor entirely dark.
Taking a deep breath, she reached into her
pocket and pulled out the flashlight, fixing it to one of her jacket pockets and
snapping it on. Her annoyance at
the dark faded at the sight before her.
The fourth floor corridor looked utterly grimy, with a fine layer of
filth on every surface and dark, suspiciously coppery smelling splatters on all
of the walls.
There was an air of death and decay about
the place that she could not describe with words.
What the hell is going on
here? she thought as she gaped at the sight. She took a step into the hall, thankful
that the flashlight’s clip allowed her to use both hands for her gun. She came up short as the light’s narrow
beam played across something white and shiny. No, she thought disgustedly, oh no – you’ve got to be kidding
me!
The creature (creatures, she corrected
herself, seeing that there was two) came up to about her stomach, and like the
one in the convenience store, had skin a pasty, sickly shade of off-white… but
unlike the thing in the store, these beings bore no features – their heads
looking as if someone had shoved lumpy, misshapen white potatoes on their stocky
little bodies.
Also, she noticed belatedly, there were
carrying knives.
With a disgusted cry, Misato opened fire,
catching one creature in the leg and the other in the shoulder, and while both
fell to the ground, neither made any sound… nor did they stop moving, starting
to crawl laboriously towards her position, using their knives like anchors and
dragging themselves across the floor.
Fighting a wave of nausea, Misato drew a
careful bead on the closest monster and pulled the trigger three times, only
shifting her attention to its companion when it had stopped twitching and lay
still. All together, she pumped ten
rounds into the creatures, popping in a fresh clip to finish each with a
carefully placed shot to the shapeless head.
“There,” she muttered, wiping sweat from her
upper lip with the back of her hand, “now let’s find 40-”
She was cut off as something wet and slimy
wrapped around her ankle.
“Ahhh!!”
Without a second thought, she jabbed her gun
downward and pulled the trigger, nearly throwing up as the thing (tongue – it’s a tongue!) spewed blood,
but did not release her. Tightening
her hold on the gun, she pulled the trigger over and over, screaming out loud as
the thing tried to pull her back into the stairwell. After nine rounds, the thing fell limp,
slithering back into the stairwell, where the rest of it – Misato shuddered to
imagine what the mouth must be like – was surely waiting.
“I’m in hell,” she gasped, slamming the
stairwell door shut and backing up until she hit the wall, “literally in hell.” A flicker of movement caught her eye and
she turned, staring out the window with open shock on her face.
It was raining.
And
it’s night time, she thought, glancing at her watch
in disbelief, Five forty and it’s already
full dark!
Impossible!!
She swallowed as a soft hiss sounded behind
her. Slowly turning around, she
found herself face to face with yet another nightmare. “Oh god,” she groaned, “what is that…
what is that?!”
It looked somewhat like a toad, she thought
absently, if toads grew to be five feet long. Its squat form was covered not in warts…
but in small, blinking eyes, and its gaping maw was lined with razor-sharp,
glistening fangs.
Far beyond the point of shock, Misato gave a
weary sigh. “Alright,” she
muttered, “let’s do it then.”
She fell back, barely dodging to the side as
the creature’s tongue lashed out, smashing into the wall behind her and tearing
a large chunk of wood from the stylized panelling. Misato cried out, bringing her gun
around and firing off a round. Four, she thought dizzily, Four shots left – damn it, I should have
reloade-
“Wuff.”
The air left her lungs in a rush as the
creature’s tongue whipped back around, catching her in the midsection. Staggering back, Misato brought her gun
up and clicked off two more rounds.
Three, two, she thought,
struggling to regain her breath as the creature shrieked in agony, one of its
eyes vanishing in a cloud of blood-red mist.
It lunged, catching her off guard and
knocking her into the wall, the back of her head rebounding off the hard,
unyielding wood with a dull thump.
The world went grey for a moment as Misato fought to stay conscious. “One,” she coughed, raising her gun –
which felt as if it weighed a ton – and firing again.
“Zero…”
Grey faded into black as she pulled the
trigger one last time, aiming for the creature’s wide open jaws. Her decent into darkness was not quiet
or peaceful, it was filled with screams and crashes, and the sound of thunder,
booming over and over right in front of her until finally… there was only
silence.
**
Misato groaned as she came back to
consciousness, too dazed to feel any kind of real surprise at still being
alive. What… happened…? she thought, sitting up
and glancing around wildly for the toad-like creature.
“Ow!”
She clutched her head as the sudden movement
made it throb. I’m alive, she thought dazedly, at least… I think I am. She looked around, finding that she was
laid out on a small apartment’s bedroom, a light blanket covering her from her
feet to her neck. No, this isn’t nice enough to be Heaven,
she thought dully, and since I’m already
in the other place…
She reached for her gun as the door to the
bedroom door started creaking open, but it was not in its holster.
Oh
this is just perfect, she thought, frantically
casting about for a weapon, I killed the
thing then staggered into this apartment, dropping my gun along the way… and now
I’m going to die – in bed, of all places!
Finally settling for a small tape deck on
the nightstand next to the bed, Misato staggered to her feet, bracing herself to
fight.
“Oh, now there’s a scary sight,” a familiar
voice chuckled, “are you going to Beethoven me to death?”
Misato’s jaw dropped open. “You!”
“Me,” the woman in front of her replied,
running a hand through her blonde hair as she stepped into the room, “you can
call me Natsuko Takeuchi, I guess… everyone else around here does.”
Misato seemed not to hear her. Plus one, she thought suddenly, Natsuko Takeuchi plus
one.
Seeing the look in her old friends eyes, the
woman named Natsuko nodded. “Yes,”
she said, answering the unspoken question, “he’s here… somewhere. I’ve been trying to find him for some
time now.”
Taking a deep breath, Misato stumbled
forward a step and put her free hand on the woman’s shoulder, forgetting to drop
the tape player. “It really is
you,” she said weakly, afraid that she might have been hallucinating.
Natsuko smiled ironically. “Hello, Misato,” she said softly,
“welcome to Hell – confirmed human
population: you, me, and Shinji.”
Misato just nodded dumbly, giving the only
reply she could think of.
“Hello, Ritsuko…”
TBC