Everything around him was black.
He blinked - no change. Either he'd gone blind, or there just wasn't anything around him to see. But ... he felt warm, and even though he could breathe normally, Shinji could taste the fluid in his mouth. So that's where he was. He was in his Eva.
But he still couldn't see anything. The controls were where he knew they were, but they wouldn't respond. Was it offline? Then why was he even in here in the first place? He hoped they hadn't forgotten him.
...all of a sudden, Shinji thought he could hear a voice. A woman's voice - one he hadn't heard in years; one he could barely remember, but one that nonetheless evoked a deep reaction of ... something welling up in his chest. She was humming a song... a lullaby?
Why on earth was he thinking of her now?
Mother...