And So
by Hino
dotty675

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Everything has its oddities, and though odd as the one-legged pirate that everyone's got living in the second house over, this one was a simple enough concept to comprehend: A quiet albino teenage girl, book bag in hand, walking down the street to school. Men, women and her classmates would pass her by on the sidewalk, and though many knew the girl, none of them knew her enough even to say hello. Her persona was as pale as her skin, and she made no attempt to personalize with others. Her aura, however, was one that emitted not revulsion of others in the slightest bit, but a fervent indifference to the basic world around her. Some labeled the girl autistic; the truth was that though she had no interest in social interaction, it was simply from a learned lack of any definition in her life. She was the result of the first successful human cloning experiment. She was, and understood herself to be, nothing more than a doll, created by man in man's image. Her name was Rei Ayanami.

Rei's apathetic nature developed through years of the comprehension that she was a copy of another being, an empty husk of a human being that could be discarded at any time, simply to be born again at the push of a button. Her creator's wife had died in a horrible accident, and he had created Rei to extinguish the sorrow in his heart. Though he cared for her like a daughter, he knew well that Rei was not in fact his wife; she could never truly come back to life. He therefore showed very little regard for her overall well-being, and Rei grew up a cold, isolated girl. Her creator didn't send her to school until seventh grade, but at that point she had lost any motivation to try to change her fate, obvious to her by now - to do her creators bidding: model as the wife he'll never have again, and nothing more. Friends were not a necessary part of life, thought Rei, and so, she refrained, and continued down the sidewalk as silent as a flower in the rain.

Even if she was never truly happy with her solitary life, Rei somehow had the strength enough to take it for all it was worth - not that that was much. She had spent her entire life listening to her heart (or soul, or mirror of a soul, or whatever it was you would call something spiritual created in a lab), being that she had enough spare time on her hands and nothing better to do. Besides, she thought, any companion could be better than the nothingness I already have. Man is not his body, but his soul, his mind; the body is but a shell to verify one's existence in the plane of the world. And so, she continued, if one is to listen to their heart, one might find one's true self. Being that she was but a copy of another's true self, Rei often wondered if she had a true self at all. And so, what a better way to figure that out than to listen to her heart? Rei's had indeed been true to her, and over time she became consciously aware that though she was fake, though she was an artificial clone created to fill the gap in some man's life, she was still a being, a person, and in essence, she was herself - nothing more or less than any other person in existence.

There were things, however, that kept Rei from truly being happy. Yes, she understood her place in the universe, and yes, she knew that she had just as much of a meaning as anyone else...but what about the future? What exactly was her fate, her long-term point of existence? For someone created for a dead purpose, finding any actual meaning in the life ahead is quite hard. Then there was the possibility that even if she did have a fate, what if it had been cloned along with the dead woman's body that she now inhabited? The woman wound up tragically dead. Rei would often sit at home, staring at her bare ceiling, her bare walls, or simply close her crimson eyes and ponder silently on whether or not there was really any point in going on.

Unfortunately, she usually came up with a no.

One day the girl met her creator's son, who was the most emotionally screwed-up kid she'd ever seen. And there he was today, walking some ten yards ahead of her, face towards the ground with all the self-consciousness in the world, stumbling along as usual: Shinji Ikari, the class loser. The boy could barely stand up with out falling right back down. That was Shinji in a nutshell - a kid who could never get his footing. Poor child, Rei thought; he doesn't have a chance in the world. Sure, a man could make any situation a living heaven if he wanted to, but Shinji didn't want to. He'd rather sit and rot than make an actual effort to be happy. Yes, he wanted to be happy, Rei knew, but he was too afraid to let himself admit it. The boy was a liar in practically every way - even to himself. And, man cannot survive if he can't even recognize his own truth.

He wasn't a clone, Rei thought; why should he be so depressed?

But that's another story.

***

Rei tried her best not to let her mind wander into the depths of her soul, which spent most of its time constantly seeking an actual purpose to live; it was depressing down there. But, sometimes the mind could not help but to wander. The mind is in charge of all thought process, Rei thought, so I suppose it's plausible that it would want to accomplish as much as it could...but I digress. It's my mind, and I should be the one in control of what it does.

Then a fleeting thought crossed her mind, and she stopped - is it I who wants my mind to wander? Was I meant to wander, to think, to see the world around me? Am I so sad because I've been ignoring my mind, my heart's constant begging to do these things that I've forever tried to suppress?

Maybe so.

Shinji looked over his shoulder and saw Rei, whose face displayed a look of actual wonder - something he never thought she was actually capable of doing.

Neither did she.

They smiled.