Beyond the Grave
Jaune stared down at a letter in his hand. He peered at it under the light of a lone streetlamp. It was the only source of light he had on hand. Not the brightest move in recollection as this part of town was extremely dark and he neglected to bring a flashlight.
He flinched as he read over that creepy note one last time just to make sure he got the address right. The parchment read, "Jaune, I know this is going to be strange for you, but try to meet me at the location specified below. I honestly have no idea what's going on, but I want to see you. Perhaps we can figure it out if we put our heads together."
The contents of the letter were cryptic enough, and after comparing the address to nearby street signs, he was able to confirm that he was indeed in the right place. He was disappointed in that fact as the building looming over him was anything but inviting. The area around him alone was enough to put him on edge.
However, it was the signature on the letter that never failed to send a chill down his spine. His eyes fell upon it one more time and he could not look away.
"Pyrrha Nikos."
He reached three separate conclusions one what this could mean but he only placed genuine stock in two of them as did everyone else who saw this demented letter. It could either be a prank, or a trap. Realizing his own luck, it was probably both.
Jaune even briefly entertained the laughable idea that the letter he clung so tightly to was not a mere forgery. He tried to suppress any false hope that arose from such an idea, but he still came regardless of how many of his peers warned against it.
Ruby had even volunteered to go with him, and almost immediately after arriving at this unnerving location, Jaune regretted heading out alone. He could not even recall the logic behind that move. He felt so stupid. He felt stupid for even bothering to come all this way.
He found himself in a part of town he had never even heard of before and all because of some bizarre, most certainly forged, letter he found in his mailbox asking him to meet a dead woman in this sketchy apartment complex. The idea that Pyrrha would even bother setting foot in a place such as this made no sense to him.
Regardless, he checked the time on his phone. Ideally, he would be back in his dorm at that point in time. He had no intentions of coming at night, but somehow he managed to oversleep despite the nagging questions that would have otherwise kept him wide awake. By the time he reached the address specified, the sun had long since disappeared behind the cityscape.
The property beyond was encircled by a rusty fence with a single, narrow opening just in front of him. The grass was knee high and several trees and rows of unkempt shrubs dotted the lawn leading up to that lonely building. The property was pitch black. Aside from a lone light flickering on and off just above the building's entrance, everything was engulfed in darkness.
It was a large apartment building, but it looked very secluded. He could see light shining through various windows. There were definitely people inside but whether that was a good or bad thing, only time would tell.
The place was dead quiet. Nothing moved. Nothing made so much as a peep. He longed for something to break the silence. He would have taken crazed junkies screaming at him from a nearby alley or the unforgettable howl of a Grimm over this unsettling silence any day of the week.
He looked down at the cracked pavement leading up to the front entrance. Grass and weeds were deep in the process of reclaiming that small sliver of concrete. It looked as if it had not been traveled in a very long time and there was probably a reason for that.
Jaune let out a long, panicked sigh as he took his first step forward. The moment he crossed that opening in the fence, he leaped backward at the sight of nothing. His heart was racing and nothing had even happened.
"This isn't right," he hissed to himself, taking comfort in the sound of his own voice. "I shouldn't be here."
He glanced back at the same sidewalk that led him to this forgotten place. There it was. The path that would lead him back to the relative safety of downtown. He could still turn back and it was tempting. Very tempting.
Still, there was a hope that compelled him to move forward. A combination of a morbid curiosity and a desire to at least confirm that Pyrrha truly was dead, even though he already knew the answer to that question.
Jaune regained his composure, took another deep breath, and pressed onward. His approach started slow. Nothing around him moved but as he cleared a bit of distance between himself and that imposing set of double doors, Jaune felt a strange tingling running up his spine.
Technically, there was no reason to assume he was being followed. Out here, he felt like the last man in the world. None the less, he could not shake the feeling that someone or something was closing in on him quickly. He heard no footsteps, it was only a feeling and a compelling one at that.
Jaune picked up the pace a bit. That tingling sensation swiftly engulfed his entire back as if something was not just following him, it was literally climbing around underneath his skin. Panicking, he bolted for the door. He sprinted as fast as he possibly could, not even considering the option to turn around and draw his weapon.
The moment his hands touched the doors Jaune pulled them open, darted inside and slammed them shut behind himself.
The interior of the building was relatively calm. Jaune pressed his back against the doors, knowing it was probably all in his head.
Jaune looked up to take in his new surroundings. The lobby was surprisingly expansive. A large chandelier hung high overhead. It was littered with candles and lit up most of the room, although, there were various other sources of light lining the walls.
On the far side of the room, Jaune spotted a desk and a woman sitting behind it with her head buried in a book. Her red hair almost caused Jaune to jump out of his skin before he came to the obvious realization that the woman in question looked nothing like Pyrrha.
She glanced up at him with cold and careless eyes before simply returning her attention to the book on the table.
Her reaction to his presence alone, or rather her lack thereof was enough to weird him out a bit. Jaune was quick to dismiss his own apprehension, knowing it was only a product of working himself up during his trip.
He smiled and approached the front desk.
"Hi! Uh, I'm looking for someone named Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos. The girl who used to be on the cereal boxes. I've actually got a picture here."
Jaune reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper only to unfold it, revealing that he did indeed have a photo of the woman.
The receptionist kept her eyes locked on her book. She paid no attention to him. She did not so much as flinch at the sound of his voice.
"Uh, excuse me?"
Finally, the woman acknowledged his existence. She slowly looked up at him with an annoyed glare. Jaune took a step back at the sight of her face. She was not exactly unattractive, but her face looked as if it had been drained of all blood. She was unnaturally pale. Jaune wondered if she had been exposed to sunlight at all in the past decade.
The woman's eyes drifted down to the photo in his hand. At that point, Jaune noticed a name tag on her shirt which read 'Julia.'
Her eyes shifted back to her book once again without uttering a word. Just when Jaune was about to ask her again in a far more assertive tone, she murmured under her breath.
"Top floor. Room 666."
Jaune froze after hearing her reply. He still managed to hear her loud and clear. "She's actually here!? You've seen her."
"Elevator is out of order," Julia muttered in a frustrated tone of voice. "Take the stairs."
"Room 666 right," Jaune asked just to verify that he had gotten the number right. The receptionist slowly nodded her head but said nothing.
Blinded by excitement, Jaune immediately turned away from the counter but not without getting one last look at her name tag. "Thanks a lot… uh… Julia! Oh, is there a restroom nearby?"
Julia pointed to the right side of the room where two closed off doors were located. Jaune immediately recognized the pink and blue labels on either one and set off for his next destination.
He noticed the stairwell on the right side of the counter leading to the upper levels of the complex. He wanted to dart off at full speed, but he had not come across a restroom since his trip started and it was beginning to get to him.
Attempting to make a quick pit-stop, Jaune entered the men's restroom and immediately regretted his decision. The lights were off and the entire room was pitch black. It did not take him long to find a light switch as it was conveniently placed on the wall just to the right of the door.
He switched it on and after some stuttering, a single row of fluorescent lights flickered on just above the line of sinks underneath one long mirror on the right side of the room. It was not exactly what he had hoped for, but it did at the very least illuminate enough of the restroom so that he could see where he was going.
One thing Jaune noticed before taking another step forward was that only one of the stall doors were closed. He looked to the floor and surely enough, a pair of boots could be seen in the open space between the stall walls and the grimy tiled floor.
Jaune scratched his head at this strange sight. It was a public bathroom but he could not for the life of him figure out why someone was utilizing it without a single light on. Deciding that some questions were better left unanswered, he decided to carry on and make his time here quick before setting out on more important endeavors.
The only sound in the bathroom was that ambient buzzing from the lights above the sinks and mirror. It was at least something, but Jaune could not help but be creeped out by everything around him.
He made as little noise as possible and listened for any commotion from the other person a few stalls down but heard nothing. It was as if he were all alone but he knew that could not be the case. Regardless, his mind was on other things.
As he headed to the nearest sink and prepared to wash his hands thoroughly after having to deal with this, not so clean establishment, Jaune's mind raced with theories and assumptions. He got a room number, albeit, a suspicious one and confirmation that at least one person has seen her. A small grain of hope was what dragged him into such a dark place, and now that one hint of glee had utterly consumed his grieving heart.
"I should turn back," he whispered to himself. "I should just come back tomorrow with backup and then go looking around. Seriously, what am I even doing here? This is how horror movies start."
Jaune finished washing his hands and splashed some water on his face. He was already wide awake, but he did it anyway. As he rose up from the sink and got one last look at himself in that grimy mirror, he noticed something about the stall on the far end of the bathroom. The pair of feet inside were gone.
Jaune's stomach sank into his intestines like a ton of bricks. Not wanting to turn around, he used the mirror as his only vantage point. His eyes followed up the stall's door. It was especially dark in that corner of the restroom, but he could still see everything relatively clearly.
His eyes soon fell upon a strange silhouette peeking over the top of the stall's walls. The dark outline of a person's head. He could make out no facial features of the stranger peeking at him, but he could see a pair of wide eyes staring right back at him.
Jaune was frozen there for a few microseconds while his brain fully processed what his eyes had picked up on. Once his synapses were able to put two and two together, Jaune bolted out of the restroom without bothering to look back.
Jaune walked as fast as he possibly could to the front doors on the far side of the lobby. Julia watched him with her eyes as he made his way to the nearest exit.
Jaune planted his hands on the first doorknob he could reach and prepared to flee into the night. He hesitated. The nagging voice in his head telling him to at least go to the top floor and check things out was an overbearing presence in his mind.
He dropped his head in defeat and sighed at his own foolishness. He turned back to the expansive lobby ahead. Jaune met the gaze of that weird receptionist on the far side of the room. He expected her to remain quiet. She stared at him for a moment with a blank expression before suddenly betraying his expectations.
"Turn back while you can, kid. Whatever or whoever your looking for just isn't worth it."
He could not have asked for a more blatant and foreboding warning. Jaune kept glancing between the set of doors behind him that would probably lead to an uneventful trip home and the stairwell up ahead. So easily could he avoid whatever nonsense was obviously lying in wait.
His mind was split into two trains of thought. The first was begging for him to leave and never come back. The second was screaming for him to move forward and disregard that little warning. He stood there in total silence trying to think it over. He could not think of one good reason to carry on in this enigmatic apartment building. Likewise, Jaune did not want to leave now that he had obtained evidence that she could possibly be here.
Eventually, one of those opposing voices managed to scream louder than the other and his decision had been made. He marched back toward the stairs, glancing at the restroom as he passed it by. He was relieved to see that whoever he encountered in there was still inside.
As Jaune passed the front desk, Julia called out to him. Her voice caused him to stop in his tracks.
"It's dangerous to go alone," she remarked in monotone. She then took out a flashlight and placed it on the table. "Here, take this."
"Oh, thanks," Jaune said with a nod. He swiped the flashlight off the table and checked it for functionality. Surely enough, it shined and shined brightly.
With that, Jaune headed for the stairs. He could feel Julia's eyes on him the entire time. He could not shake the strange vibe he got from her, regardless of how helpful she had been. He glanced back one last time to see her eyes once again locked on the book in front of her. He set out for the stairwell and showed no intentions of turning back.
At the base of the stairs, Jaune looked up to the winding path leading straight up. There were two rows of stairs before him. The first led upward. He could even see a door which he assumed led to the first official floor.
The one to his right, however, led downward. There was a rusty sign posted on the wall which was labeled, "Basement."
He gulped at the dimly lit staircase which led down to a lonely door below. He breathed heavily in relief at the thought that he had absolutely no reason to go down there.
"Guess I could at least check out that room," he thought as he tilted his head in an attempt to see the top of the stairs. "If Pyrrha isn't there then I can just make a break for the exit and never come back. Yeah, that's a genius plan!"
He then slammed his fist into the palm of his left hand out of newfound confidence.
"What could possibly go wrong!?"
Jaune promptly marched up the stairs. At first, he allowed his feet to simply slam against the carpet as he made his way upward. After reaching the first level, though, he decided to keep quiet as drawing unnecessary attention to himself did not seem like the best idea.
Out of curiosity, he glanced at the door he was on the verge of passing by. There was a narrow window which gave him a somewhat decent view of the hallway beyond. It was fairly well lit, but desolate. There was not a soul to be seen. He reminded himself of the time, but the sight was still a bit unsettling.
For a moment, he entertained the foolish idea to check out that floor but he quickly shrugged the idea off.
"Literally, no reason to go that way. Why did it even cross my mind?"
Jaune kept himself focused on the task at hand. As much as he did want to know a little more about this bizarre apartment complex, he kept reminding himself that there was a reason for his visit and so he kept moving.
He kept clinging to that hope all while he scaled those stairs. Hoping that maybe, just maybe there was a surprise waiting for him at the top.
An end to his seemingly endless grief.
Note: I've been looking for an excuse to write another horror story. It's my favorite genre and it's ironically the one I write the least. This project is a product of two things. Mainly, this entire story was inspired by one little scene I had planned for another work. The project in question doesn't exist anymore, I removed it because I had no intention to keep working on it.
It was a crossover between Red vs Blue and RWBY. It was mostly a surrealist parody featuring the Red Team's portal going haywire and it started accessing all these weird dimensions. I won't go into it too much as the overall plot is irrelevant, but one scene in particular that I had always planned to include but never got around to writing featured Jaune peering into the portal and seeing Pyrrha being tormented in Hell.
Looking back, while that entire project did revolve around some really dark jokes, there was no punchline to that scene. It was just horrific and out of place which is the main reason why it was never written and only kept being pushed back to later and later chapters.
The other source of inspiration I had going into this story was the horror genre as a whole. These modern slasher flicks take themselves way too seriously so I wanted to write something that wasn't a total parody but straddles the line a bit. Hopefully, I succeed in that regard.
I hope you all enjoy this weird little story I came up with and do feel free to leave feedback.
