The coldness of the stoned ground was such that it seeped under Shinji's skin.
He wasn't awake, nor was he sleeping; his eyelids were heavy as they fought to stay open when he saw it in front of him, a familiar silhouette.
He blinked, thinking his mind was playing tricks on him, but the silhouette was getting closer.
"What is this?"
He closed his eyes once again as a bead of sweat slid from his temple to his neck. He opened them again, and the silhouette had advanced enough for it to become clear to Shinji what was facing him.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with a round face, almost erased in the shadow, but that wasn't what chilled Shinji.
It was the gaze on the man's face, a gaze heavy with hatred.
Shinji tried to sit up, but his arm trembled, weak. His body refused to obey as a shiver ran down his spine.
" It's…Not real… It's just my brain… I'm having a breakdown…It's nothing… I should sleep… No, I can't… I… need… to stay awake."
Despite trying to convince himself, the silhouette in front of Shinji hadn't vanished. It was just getting closer, step by step until it was there, right in front of him.
And this time… a voice came out of it.
"It's because of you… that I ended up in this hell."
Shinji's eyes widened. He was certain now that it was no longer a vision, no longer a delusion. It was a man, and that man was here for him.
Shinji tried to back away, but his back hit the wall of the bridge. The man kept advancing slowly with a terrifying calm.
His steps barely made a sound on the wet stone, but in Shinji's head, it was a drum. He knew no one was here to save him this time.
"I don't know what you're talking about…" Shinji gasped, panting. His voice trembled like a thread about to snap.
The man stopped, breathing heavily, his eyes locked on Shinji.
"Do you remember that day?" His voice grew calmer.
"I didn't notice it then… but now that I think about it… You never even asked my name."
Shinji didn't know what the man wanted; his fingers desperately searching for an escape when he felt a small and sharp stone under his hand.
He didn't hesitate and threw it at the man. The throw didn't come with the accuracy of a sane man; it was the throw of a cornered animal.
The stone grazed the man's cheek as a red streak appeared instantly.
He didn't flinch. The man tilted his head slightly, his gaze still fixed on Shinji.
"You haven't changed…It's Dorel, by the way." He smiled, a smile that left a sour taste in his mouth.
"You're still the same monster," said Dorel as he wiped the blood off his cheek.
Shinji began to crawl sideways with his weak legs like a wounded animal, but the man's gaze never left him.
"You don't remember me, do you? I remember you, every day since I arrived in this rotten world."
The smile disappeared from the man's face.
"I wandered for months. Alone, starving, beaten, hunted, and why is that? Because I'm one of them ?" His voice tightened.
"One of them ?" thought Shinji.
"And all that time… I kept telling myself that one day, I'd find you." The words coming out of the man's mouth with a bitter taste.
Shinji shook his head.
"You… You're mistaken… You must've taken me for someone else…"
But the words convinced no one, not even him.
The man laughed, a dry, grating laugh like glass being crushed.
"No, Shinji. I'm not mistaken. I could forget everything but not your face."
After stopping for a second, looking down at his feet, the man fixed Shinji again before saying the words that Shinji ended up never forgetting:
"You're the one who killed me."
Shinji froze.
"That's not possible…" he whispered. "It wasn't me… I never-I-"
"SHUT UP!" screamed the man.
The man roared, and in the same motion… he drew a knife from his pocket.
Shinji felt the air freeze; his heart raced. As he tried to stand, his legs buckled; the man stood abruptly and charged.
As the knife was about to hit Shinji right in his chest, his arms rose instinctively, grabbing the armed wrist.
The impact spun them both, the trembling blade between them, but the man was stronger and more determined, the hatred in his gaze still as strong as the moment Shinji saw it for the first time.
He raised his knee and drove it into Shinji's stomach with the intention to kill him. The air left Shinji's lungs and his body, once again… suffered and remembered the alley.
He collapsed, breathless. He barely felt the pain, not because it wasn't there but because it was everywhere.
"This world took everything I had…And you? You wandered like a lost soul, crying over your fate, when *you're* the one who threw me into this!" screamed Dorel as he spat on the ground.
"This world broke me, Shinji. But you know what? I thank it now."
His smile twisted and his eyes burned, but for once it was not with hatred, with relief.
"Because it's finally giving me the right to kill you."
"He doesn't mean it, does he?" thought Shinji.
He began to laugh, his head clutched in his hands—the laugh of a sick man, a laugh to cope with the inexplicable.
"Of course…Of course, he's capable of it… Everyone wants something from me… and he… wants my life."
His fingers dug into his hair, and his nails scratched his scalp. He continued to laugh, scream, and choke while the man looked at him with disgust.
"You've lost it… You don't deserve to lose your mind, you deserve to feel every single amount of pain before you die… after what you did to me!" screamed Dorel as he raised his knife and advanced.
The knife sliced through the air, and Shinji didn't think. He raised his hand, and the blade plunged into the middle of its palm.
And in that suspended second… Something emerged from the blade. It wasn't the metal of the knife, it was a thin, black shadow.
It escaped the knife like a cold breath, swirling around their two hands locked in struggle.
Shinji screamed all the air out of his body, but he refused to die. He refuses to let go of the knife as his fingers, despite the pain and blood, closed around the man's wrist.
The man stepped back, caught off guard by Shinji's actions. His breath quickened and his gaze flickered when he saw that look, that wild fire in Shinji's eyes.
"That's not possible…" he whispered.
He saw that face before him, distorted by pain. That twisted mouth, those wet eyes, and that forehead drenched in sweat. But he wasn't crying to beg, he was crying to hold on to the last hope he had
"I won't die before finding them!" screamed Shinji.
"How can you still…? How can you still fight… even in this state…? Even after… all this?*
The man fell to his knees, his hands on the ground.
"You don't have the right…"
Shinji took this moment of doubt to pull the blade from his own hand. His flesh tore, blood bursting all around them.
But he didn't scream anymore; there was no room for that. With the knife in his hand, he half-stood, and the man saw him; he saw Shinji's eyes filled by a primal need to survive, to find something he doesn't even remember the feeling of having.
"No…" he murmured.
An image of a bar whose floor was filled with blood flashed in the man's mind, and he also saw that look, the same look that was facing him at this very moment.
"No… no, not again… not after everything I did to survive here…"
Shinji raised his arm and struck Dorel in the middle of his chest, then again and again until his body collapsed and was drained of his blood.
The knife fell from Shinji's hands as he fell on his knees.
"I did this… I killed a man."
As the very last ounce of energy was leaving his body with blood still pouring out of the palm of his hand, he heard a scream.
"SHINJI!!!"
As he turned his head slowly, he saw Haruka, her hair floating slightly in the morning air.
But it wasn't her, or was it? Shinji once again started doubting his eyes.
"Haruka…?" whispered Shinji like a child calling for his mother in a nightmare when another loud voice rang in the air.
"There they are! Grab them!" screamed a man who was wearing the same attire as the guards who took the girl in the alley.
They were coming, but Shinji… heard nothing anymore.
The warmth left his body when his eyelids started closing on their own, his breath shortened… but his heart was still beating.