In this day and age, contracting influenza can be cured with painkillers, controlled room temperature and mother's undying love and care. But this bout had been particularly bad. While others simply wore a mouth cover to stop it from further spreading, few unlucky souls had contracted the sickness. Of course, it was nothing some meds couldn't handle, but Ruby had it the worst. Her younger age and tinier immune system weren't enough to bare relentless attacks from the flu, and so, as a result, she was bedridden.
The temperature in the room was brought down to a cool atmosphere, and Ruby lay on Weiss' bed - the lower mattress of their makeshift bunk - with only her tank top and pyjama pants. A blanket was crumpled along her side in case she'd get chills. Her head was elevated with two pillows, hers and Yang's. (Weiss did not want the sickly girl to contaminate anything that belonged to her in fear that she would also fall ill.) Ruby's typically pale face was almost as red as the highlights in her hair. She breathed deep breaths from her mouth, as her nasal cavity was clogged and inflamed.
Yang sat along the edge of the bed, comforting her plagued sister. Her golden eyebrows were pinched together and pushed up in worry. She held a damp cloth in one hand and would occasionally wipe the cold water it was soaked with against Ruby's face and chest. Whenever Ruby would catch a cold before, like the loving older sister that Yang was, she'd pamper her younger sibling with many glasses of milk and a hand-held videogame device. Obviously, her home remedy wasn't working in this case.
"Yang," Weiss said from the door. Her head was poked in from a crack and she wore a mask so she wouldn't inhale the flu in from the air. And, because she did not desire to be sick too, she wore nitrile gloves to protect her hands from the nasty bacteria. "We're going to be late for class." Weiss didn't dare to go near Ruby, although the heiress did pity her team leader.
Yang turned her head to look at Weiss shielded by the door, then nodded, then turned back to stare down at Ruby. She did not want to leave her helpless and possibly dying sister alone, but school was calling her name and all of the other names of the huntsmen and huntresses attending Beacon Academy.
"Okay-" Yang dipped the cloth into a bucket of cold water she had placed next to the bed's leg and wrung it. The water poured back into the pail, which then turned into a drip. The blonde splayed the wet cloth out onto Ruby's burning forehead and stood. "I'll be back at lunch, and I'll ring your Scroll between classes to check up on you," she said to her sister. Ruby was too weak to do anything, instead, she let out a faint uh-huh.
"There's a bottle of water next to you and a few lozenges to clear your sinuses. I'll be back with some soup."
Ruby let out a huh in acknowledgement. Yang was hesitant to leave. She took her sweet time getting to the door, not taking her sight off Ruby until Weiss let out a stern Yang! Even as she closed the door, her gaze didn't leave Ruby, and as she walked down the dormitory corridor, she couldn't stop fretting.
The next few hours for Ruby were long - at least it felt like hours when in reality it had only been twenty minutes. Ruby groaned and outstretched a trembling arm to the drawer beside her bed to awkwardly grope for the bottled water. It took a few full minutes for her to twist off the cap, struggle to raise her head and drink, but she managed to, and almost drank half of the bottle in one go.
She then lay deathly still on the bed. Despite the room's cool climate and the gentle breeze blowing in from the semi-open window, the dreadful fever that ravaged the girl's body felt like she was laying in the scorching sands of the Vacuan desert, waiting for the buzzards circling above to pick her body apart and consume it.
Eventually, after what felt like another gruelling hour, Ruby managed to fall asleep. At first, she didn't dream, but when she did, she could explain it as a fever dream. A fever nightmare.
She would awake on a gurney. The room was dark. Millions of particles of dust floated in her vision and a pungent smell filled the air, though she couldn't put her finger on it. For some reason, the smell reminded her of the creatures of Grimm. Vile monsters that only brought death. Little light illuminated the room she was in, but after squinting to focus her vision, she turned her head in the direction of both shoulders to see her surroundings. She saw cabinets made from dried, rotting wood and glass panes cracked and stained. Shelves of the same aged wood with grimy vials and flasks on them. Some were filled with a clear, yellow fluid. Some were filled with a thick, crimson substance. Other gurneys were in the room. The cloth was worn and somewhat torn, and the metal was rusted. There were stands made from metal rods - also rusted - with glasses hanging upside down which were filled with the same clear, yellow fluid. Her eyes followed a tube from a hanging flask down to her hand. Her body was being fed this fluid.
It was obvious that she was in a clinic.
But where? This was certainly no clinic she had ever seen. Perhaps this dream she was in was a glimpse into the past. Maybe she's hallucinating a life where she's a soldier during the Great War almost a century ago. That would explain the lack of modern technology and medicine.
Maybe she's a soldier wounded, sent from the battlefield to a clinic to recover for the next battle.
Yes, that's it. Just a bad dream.
She couldn't move her limbs, still too weak from this wretched flu. What struck her as odd, however, was that she could smell. She could breathe through her nose, despite having clogged sinuses just before she fell asleep into this bad dream. Ruby wished her head was still stuffed. The particles dancing in the air gave her nose an itch that only a sneeze could scratch. And she couldn't sneeze.
A light suddenly flickering to life in the darkness attracted her gaze. The light was small and unsteady, like a candle flame. A voice spoke from that flame.
"Oh, yes… Paleblood…" The flame hooted a laugh. "Well, you've come to the right place."
The flame drew closer, gently swaying side to side. The wooden floor and metal creaked as the flame grew and soon the figure of a man wheeling himself toward Ruby in a wheelchair took shape from the darkness. The flame was only a tiny lantern dangling from his chair.
"Yharnam is the home of blood ministration." Ruby, as the man wheeled himself closer, could make out the man wearing a suit and a laughably large top hat. She did nothing but listen to this man speak to her. She couldn't express fear. She was too exhausted to. Just a bad dream, Ruby thought to herself.
"You need only unravel its mystery," the man softly spoke, "but where's an outsider like yourself to begin?" He slowly wheeled himself closer again. He was close enough to see now. He had an elderly, bearded, face. His silver hair shone in the dim light creeping in from behind a torn blind covering a window. The giant brim of his hat covered his eyes.
"Easy," he answered his own question, "with a little Yharnam blood of your own…" He raised his head so the brim wasn't blocking his eyes, yet he had no eyes, only bandages. Ruby squinted and saw past the wrappings covering the upper portion of the old man's face, and as far as she could make out, he didn't have any eyes.
"But first," he said and lifted a piece of paper that was sitting in his lap, "you'll need a contract."
Ruby finally felt something. It was in her right arm. It was no longer senseless, but instead feeling like it was constantly being stabbed by pins and needles. She lifted it, shakily and with no emotion behind her eyes, raised it to the old, yellowed paper in front of her. She had no utensil to write with, so the old man gifted her a black feather with the pointed end dipped in ink. She held it weakly but was able to write out her name anyway. The R looked more like a P, and the U ended up as a J, and the B as the number eight. The Y was the easiest, though seemed more like an X with one long leg and the other a stub.
Ruby dropped the quill and the old man placed the faded paper with the unintelligible writing back into his lap.
"Good, all signed and sealed." The man smiled. Ruby shifted her gaze to the high ceiling of the clinic. She didn't know why she signed the contract. Hopefully to end her bad dream? That's all this was. A bad dream.
"Now, let's begin the transfusion. Don't you worry," the old man whispered. Ruby felt her eyelids grow heavier by the instant, so she closed them. The last words she heard before fading back into a slumber were of the man's.
"Whatever happens, you may think it all a mere bad dream…"
The old man wheezed - laughing.
There was another moment of darkness. Another moment of Ruby's consciousness in a void. It all faded when she opened her eyes again. She saw the ceiling. Nothing differed from what she saw before sleeping a second time - except that the old man in the wheelchair had gone silent now, perhaps even left. The girl laying on the gurney, for some reason still exhausted and unable to muster the energy to get up, shifted her head to check her surroundings again. Indeed, the old man had gone, left Ruby's sleeping body alone, and replaced with a large pool of blood. His blood? Ruby's blood?
She stared at it for a bit, letting the copper scent fill her nose. The pool rippled. Ruby squinted. Two shining eyes and a hairy scalp emerged from the pool, staring at Ruby. It rose, revealing a back, and soon a full torso. Limbs soon emerged with a toothy snarl on its head. It was a beowolf! Except it lacked the bony platings and protrusions. The monster, with its coarse fur soaked in blood, reached a clawed hand out to Ruby. She panicked in her mind. Her facial muscles were able to move to form a frightened expression, but her body didn't. She couldn't scream either, only hyperventilate.
Just a bad dream, she frantically thought, yet unable to convince herself, Just a bad dream!
The claw poked her side, then a burst of flames ignited the growling monster, sending it on its back and screeching as it was burned to a crisp. She wasn't hurt, because this was only a bad dream.
She then heard scratching on the floorboards, which then moved to the metal supports keeping the gurney up. It wasn't another monster, no, this sound was made by a much smaller creature. Creatures. Tiny hands reached over Ruby's sides, and grey, tiny ghouls climbed onto her. There were about 7 of them. Some had beady, foggy eyes. Others didn't have eyes - or even teeth. Despite their equally terrifying presence, Ruby felt at ease around them, like she knew they wouldn't hurt her. All they did was eye her curiously, crowding around her face.
Ruby felt her eyelids grow heavy again, and she fell back asleep. In her third, shorter dream, she heard a woman's voice. It was comforting, and it said, Ah, you've found yourself a hunter.
Ruby awoke once more, but this time with a jolt. She shot up, sitting straight as her head cocked into different positions. She was in the same clinic, in the same hospital bed, in the same bad dream - but this time it felt real. She hadn't a stuffed nose anymore, or a raging fever, or exhaustion. She was cured of the flu. She even felt better than ever. Then the dread set in.
"No," Ruby cursed, "No, no no no," she shouted, holding the sides of her head. "No! Where am I?!" Scanning her surroundings, there were the same cabinets and shelves, and vials and flasks. The same dream.
"Only a nightmare, just a nightmare!" Ruby shouted. The echo bounced off the old walls and back to her ears. She shut her eyes, convinced that when she opened them, she would be back in team RWBY's dorm, in Weiss' bed, with Yang at her side with a bowl of soup.
Ruby blinked and blinked again, further cementing her realization that this nightmare was indeed reality. A feeling of hopelessness filled her soul. She balled up on the hospital bed and cried for her sister Yang, for Weiss, for Blake. She cried for her mother.
A mere bad dream.
The old man was wrong. This wasn't a bad dream, this was a nightmare!
Ruby sooner realized that waling for her friends and family would only get her a deeper sense of solitary. Wiping the tear trails from her cheeks, Ruby mustered the courage to hop off of the gurney she sat on and stand on the wooden floor. She did - and noticed that she wasn't in her pyjamas, nor her combat outfit. She now wore shoes reminiscent to those a businessman would wear. As well as cotton slacks and a white buttoned shirt. It all reeked of sweat. She had never worn anything like this before. She would go as far as saying she didn't like this kind of attire. It was all too formal.
Who had changed her out of her clothes anyway? The old man? Ruby cringed at that thought. She didn't want to think about that. No. It was time to figure out where she was. At one end of the room, there was a wall cloaked in shadow. Perhaps there was a door there, but Ruby did not dare go into the dark. At the other, there was a door, open and lit with a wall lamp. She went there and came upon a stairway leading down. The flight of stairs was long and would result in nasty sprains and fractured bones if one fell down it. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the stairwell, but it was not lit. A window on the wall instead let the evening light in to illuminate her way. Ruby carefully tread down the stairs, sliding her hand along the dusty wall to help her balance. At the bottom of the stairs was another, smaller room. To the left, there was a door, closed and shadowed. Directly ahead there was another door, opened and leading to a room that looked like, from where Ruby was standing, another sick ward, like the one she started off in.
She carefully walked. The wooden boards underneath her creaked with each step. She passed more gurneys and IV stands. Her eyes were focused on the walls, which were lined with more cabinets and medicines. She wasn't paying any mind to what was in front of her, instead, looking at her feet in the darkness so she wouldn't trip over anything.
A growl caught her off guard. It was low. Guttural. Looking up, she was faced with another monster. Wolf-like, like the one that burned up before she passed out for the umpteenth time. She gasped and held her arms out. She had no weapons. No trusty Crescent Rose to help her. She tried activating her semblance to hurry into another corridor to escape this thing. She couldn't. Ruby tried firing up her aura for at least some protection. Nothing happened.
The armourless beowolf pounced from where it was feasting on what Ruby now realized were corpses. She jumped to the left, evading a swipe from its massive clawed hand. She had nowhere to go. Unless perhaps if she was fast enough on her feet, she could outmanoeuvre it in this labyrinth of a hospital.
The monster lunged again, knocking over a few hospital beds and snapping its jaws at Ruby. She jumped out of the way again, though, this time she tripped over a loose floorboard and landing on her chest. She could hear it behind her, thrashing about in a pile of broken metal and cupboards. Her ankle was twisted, something she felt once she tried to get up and run. She remained on the floor and the tears began flowing again. Her joints were locked with fear. She did not let out a cry until the wolf-thing jumped on her and pinned her with its giant claw. It tore into the back of her neck. In an instant, she was killed, yet she still felt a solid surface below her. She lay for a bit, believing she was done for. Dead. Minutes passed and soon Ruby opened her eyes. She was somewhere else.
What?
That was all she could think at the moment. One second, she was being eaten, and the next, she was awakening in… heaven? That's how she described where she was. A serene place in the sky. Clouds surrounded the small island she was on, and at the centre of that island, on a hill, was a house. It resembled a small cathedral. There were white flowers and tombstones everywhere, lining the two paths that led up to the building.
Ruby felt peaceful here, like a place where she could rest. Wonder led her footsteps as she walked up a hill that turned into stone steps. She passed a life-sized porcelain doll, which by looking at it let off an uneasy atmosphere. The girl came to a pair of two big wooden doors. She pushed them open and inside there were books stacked everywhere. A large chest lined a wall with a workbench lining the space next to it. At the front of the interior, there was a podium. In the centre of the building was another elderly man, though not the one that Ruby had met in the clinic. His hat was reasonably smaller, and his clothes were different.
This old man has no facial hair and had both eyes, which widened in surprise at the sight of Ruby. The two stared at each other for a bit until Ruby finally asked, "Where am I?" Her small voice shook with fear.
The old man didn't answer the question. He responded with a greeting instead. "Ah! You must be the new hunter."