Chapter II: The Landbridge
Asuka walked slowly across the landbridge connected to the original peninsula Shinji and her had ended up on after the Third Impact. Unfortunately, she had yet to see any signs of life--or food, for that matter. The landbridge was barren and cracked, with small amounts of LCL occasionally gushing across it from the sea of LCL that encased just about everything in sight. Ayanami Rei's giant, lifeless head was a mere dot on the horizon, now.
"How are we supposed to live without any food? Don't tell me we're going to really have to cannibalize the remains of the First!" Asuka groaned. She looked at her bloodied, bandaged right arm. Was I brought back from the dead just to die once more? How pathetic.
Eventually Asuka continued walking, planning to walk for just a bit longer. Although the dim light emitted from the energy-dead EVA Unit-01's seraphic wings served as a source of light alongside the moon, Asuka had a feeling that it wouldn't be very good to stay here alone for the night. Unfortunately, Shinji wasn't exactly her idea of the perfect penultimate human left on Earth, but any living creature at a time like this seemed comforting when compared to being alone.
While thinking, Asuka saw a few shadows littering the LCL to her left. She knelt down over the sea for a closer look, and inspected the shadows. With one hand, she reached into the sea and gripped one of the shadows, dragging it onto the landbridge. Upon closer inspection, she discovered it to be a humanoid form, which had been growing in the sea of LCL.
"I see...the "soup of life" is only a reverted state for normal human beings. Thus, the humans can choose to evolve back into their original selves. Seeing as this body only has the basic shape of a human, the features grow later as they come back to the size their bodies were in before they reverted into this state...So I better let this one keep growing." Asuka slid the body back into the sea. "But if the LCL is digestable, then we can eat it for both food and drink, due to it being a broken down physical compound. However, there is no way to tell who we would be eating." She stood up, and began running back to the original mass of land where Shinji was. I had better tell Shinji about this, as there's no way he'll have figured it out by himself. In fact, I bet he's just sitting around crying... She smirked.
`~*~`
Shinji decided to swim up to the enormous head of what was once Rei. From there, he could get a better view of what was around him, and possibly even bring back food--no matter how much he didn't want to eat a former friend--in case Asuka hadn't found any food during her search. Luckily, he found the LCL quite easy to swim through, despite its thickness. It was also a substance that he found could keep him afloat. Usually that would happen in what used to be the Dead Sea, if he remembered his classes correctly, but there is no salt in LCL, which kept you afloat in the Dead Sea. Interesting.
Shinji pulled himself out of the sea using one strand of Rei's hair as a rope, and dropped onto the soft flesh. He climbed to the top of the head, and looked around. Just as he had expected: nothing except the landbridge and the sea for miles and miles around. There wasn't any sign of life anywhere. Rethinking his original purpose, Shinji sat down and patted the pale skin.
"Don't worry Ayanami; I won't eat you...There has to be some other way. You wouldn't cannibalize me if we were in the opposite positions, I know that. In fact, I wonder what you would do in this situation, Ayanami. You would be ever calm, unlike me: I'm starting to panic. Knowing you, I suppose shelter would be a major priority at this point. I...I guess that you would accept that drinking LCL would be the only humane source of water; Misato once told me that LCL isn't poisonous, but it is like one's lifeblood: a vital part. So...then...where would we find shelter?" Subconsciously, he looked up at the dim light of EVA Unit-01. It served as his shelter during Third Impact, but it was naught but a lifeless shell, just as Ayanami Rei was now.
"Priorities, priorities..." he whispered into the slight breeze.
