A/N: I don't know what it is about RWBY, but it has captured every facet of my fascination and creativity. What started as a cool idea to do with some friends has evolved into my reason to listen to music, rather than listening to music for its own sake.
Though, I will give credit where credit is due, because this was created immediately after I was inspired by other works. The majority of this story in particular was inspired by the anime Black Rock Shooter for the fantasy aspect, as well as the anime I recently discovered Bakemonogatari. This was also inspired by several fanfics here, but one in particular, I feel I need to mention 'Free Runner' by Demeter Fenir for using the RWBY characters in the real world.
With that out of the way, I hope you'll enjoy my next tale and please review! I need all of the positive and negative criticism I can get. I'm not here to get attention, I'm here to grow as a writer. So please, tear it apart if you have to, guilt free. I can take it.
Thank you for your time, and thank you for reading!
See you on the other side~
Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own RWBY. The series and affiliated copyrights go to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.
One never remembers the moment they slip into a dream. They can't remember exactly when it happens, how long after their eyes closed until consciousness looses its grip just enough that awareness ceases. They can't remember what it feels like to fall into a deep slumber, all that is known is that at some point it will inevitably happen. The ever-present worries of daily life melt away until all that is left of the formerly imprisoned consciousness is freed into a world of its own creation. The ultimate release, true freedom in its own right, and yet at the same time, the perfect prison. How better to keep one caged than inside their own mind?
What cruel a being it must have been to create such a devious system. Yet this prison has never stopped a single person from shooting for the stars and chasing the very dreams used to keep them complacent. So is it a prison to sustain subjugation, or is it a tool for creativity to flourish? That, truly, is the question of the millennium. Whether it is a veiled threat, or a cherished blessing, one thing is certain: neither one explains, or warrants, the arrival of Them. But that is a story for another time. For now, one young boy had the pleasure of joining the ranks of the dreamers into the realm of the ethereal.
Just as it always does, his ocean of consciousness became black and muggy, nearly impossible to see through. Once his mind was fully unaware, he opened his eyes on the other side as the inverse of consciousness took the form of unconscious dreaming.
The impossible became reality, and the boy looked upon the vast cosmos which lay before him. He just floated there, not really knowing what to make of anything, nor did he really mind that he didn't understand. That's the beauty of a dream, there is no purpose, you are free to do what you will. The boy wanted to go closer to the spiraling galaxies before him, so he did. His mind was just a watcher, no real form in this place, just a spotlight that followed his commands as he bid it to. In just a moment's time, he closed the gap to the star-filled disc and an ethereal body expanded from his spotlight of sight and gave him perspective.
He had two arms, two legs, and a head. But the mind has a nasty habit of not being very specific in the realm of dreams. The proportions of his new body were vague and didn't stay consistent. Sometimes he would be a black silhouette with very long limbs that stood taller than the greatest of monoliths, sometimes he stood out in stark technicolor at the size of an ant. In this instance, however, he stood at the average height of a human. His body lacked anatomy: his face was blank and smooth, his hands were more like mittens and his skin was less a solid surface and closer to a white smoke with a thin layer of reflective liquid keeping it contained.
With his new body gaining weight and gravity, he slowly drifted down to land on the surface of a galaxy. Were he awake, he would easily recognize what every child knew to be their home: the Milky Way. As if to echo this unknown factor, he bent closer to look at the stars themselves. Each one was infinitely bright and warm, yet they were so far apart and they hid their warmth from each other, leaving the open gaps cold and lonely. The boy felt bad for the lonesome stars, so he shrunk down to the size of one and he floated around it, thinking himself to be keeping it company. As he neared it, he became acutely aware how hot the star truly was, and he had to quickly back away to avoid being burned alive.
The boy's fleeing form erupted into a stream of smoke, like a cloud being smeared across the horizon. The liquid film holding his form together burned away, so nothing held back the rest of his avatar from expanding and dissipating in every direction. With his heart fluttering in panic, the boy willed himself away, and he was away. When he opened his eyes next, he realized he actually had eyes to look through. Well, not literally, the face of the new form he found himself in was his favorite, but it still lacked eyes. It did not, however, lack a mouth, and he smiled at his luck upon winding up in this form.
His favorite form, the closest thing to a human form he ever attained in this world of dreams. It was his favorite because it was the most solid. That was really the only way he could rate experiences in the dreamscape, how solid or physical things were. It was a very vague system, and sometimes flawed, but it did the job. This body was just over seven feet tall, a far cry from human norms, but very bizarre in the realm of dreams. This form, unlike almost every other he could remember to date, was actually clothed. The others were all just vaguely humanoid and devoid of all features. His current form was also the only one he had ever been in when he saw his reflection, so he was also sentimentally attached to it. The boy named it Persona.
Persona had bone-white skin, toned muscle, and incredible flexibility. Although it was a special form of his, and by far the closest to his heart, it was still only a figment of his dreams, so some of the details of Persona didn't stay the same from dream to dream. In some cases, he had four fingers instead of five, and sometimes he even had four arms instead of two. This time was the former, he had two arms with four fingers and two legs clad in billowing black pants. His feet were adorned with traditional, ornate tabi shoes with a split-toe design. He wore a form-fitting sleeveless black body shirt with a silky black hood pulled over his head. Strapped on his right wrist, was a thick leather band with a metal clasp and a square metal loop almost like a chain link attached and hanging from the clasp. What purpose this clothing served never occurred to the boy nor did he care. All he knew was that Persona made him feel like a superhero whenever he got to play with it.
In a sense, Persona was like his favorite childhood toy. With a smile still painted on his face, Persona stood and took in its surroundings. He was standing on the apex of a tall hill overlooking the most alien formations of earth and stone imaginable. Floating mountains flew high in the sky stretching miles in the air, they gave a sense of godliness in the most overwhelming of ways. The landscape for the surrounding area formed a concave bowl, as if the aftermath of a massive crater now inhabited by lush plant life and outlined by rivers which all converged to the center, forming a large lake. At the center of the lake, a column of water snaked its way up and away from the surface to form a winding stream curving and twisting through the sky. More than anything else, the boy loved how alive his dreams were. They were always interesting, and he never had the same dream twice.
Persona wandered the dreamscape, just admiring the majesty that was his own creation, yet completely foreign at the same time. He scaled an arch of stone and sat upon the apex with his feet dangling. It only took him seconds to move from one point to another. Scale may be accurate sometimes, but the mind doesn't have the same observational skills when it is asleep. One can be anywhere they want to at anytime. They could also be everywhere at the same time, and yet nowhere. Everything that was not the avatar they took the shape of was part of them as well, so perspective was king in this world of fantasy.
The boy was content to just watch the world take its course through the 'eyes' of Persona in this dream. He scanned the massive bowl he sat in, noticing the large figures of colossal animals in the distance. He once tried to confront these animals and meet them, only to find that they had vanished moments before his arrival. From this distance, they were indistinguishable, fuzzy. Much closer, however, movement caught his attention below the arch he was sitting on. In the trees below, he saw flickering colors through the tall canopies of the immense forest.
Curiosity captured him, and Persona journeyed closer to watch. In a flash, he was below in the forest of twisted, gnarled trees. Even the most basic form of plant life in the reality, came through as strange alien like figures in a dream. The boy pushed the thoughts aside and he focused on gaining his bearings again. After practically teleporting from the top of the arch down to the forest, he had no idea where it was he saw the figures, so he started bounding from tree limb to limb in search of the anomaly that captivated his curiosity.
He soon flew clear of the trees as he came into a large expanse of plains, though they were no longer in the massive bowl with floating mountains. It was darker, colder, and full of mist. It almost felt like a graveyard on a far away island, too far to ever return from. Through Persona's own senses, the boy felt a cold chill snake its way up his spine. He didn't like this at all, it felt completely wrong. He had nightmares before, of course. Everyone did. But this... this was just wrong, it didn't feel like anything he had ever experienced before. Everything felt lethal, and threatening. Persona was going to flee, to turn around and escape into the forest where he could hide, but when he turned to do so the forest had vanished. All that remained was the barren, dead land upon which he stood.
Loud metal clangs pierced the quiet air like a dagger, and caused Persona to jump and immediately turn back to face the direction of the sound. He was no longer curious. He was only scared and confused. But, as it almost always went, he would have to explore the disturbance to get out of this place, or if all else failed, wake up. So he flashed forward at great speed and explored the area beyond the hill before him. Persona crested the top of the hill and stopped in his tracks, even more confused. The ground beyond the hill was, in fact, a mass graveyard. Crosses, tomb stones, graves, gnarled deformed trees and wrought iron fences dotted the entire dreamscape. Terror took the place of fear, and inaction gripped his legs.
Another loud clash rang through Persona's skull, this time from behind him. He turned again and just as before, the area behind him vanished to be overtaken by this mass grave. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat, every fiber of his being told him to turn and run, and this time he did so. The boy ran for his life, or for what he thought was his life. The dreamscape always finds ways of making you forget that this was not real, so sheer terror drove his legs beyond anything a human would ever be capable of. But he was not fast enough.
Something smashed into him from behind, sending him tumbling to the dirt as he smashed into a tomb stone and skidded to a halt before a mausoleum. Persona shuffled to stand, but only got to a sitting position and froze before an imposing figure. The person standing before the boy practically embodied his fear. It was a tall woman with long, dark red hair, wearing a gothic styled dress and a crimson cloak with a sinister red hood pulled over her eyes. She gazed down upon Persona through narrowed eyes, the eyes of a killer. She was not unarmed. The woman held a massive, evil looking scythe in her hands, already dripping red from the pointed tip of the blade.
The boy wanted to scream, to make Persona bellow with terror and wake himself up, but his voice caught in his throat. All he could do was meekly raise his arms in defense as his mouth hung agape, inoperable. The woman mirrored his imagined fears, and she raised the wicked scythe behind her, then swung. The razor sharp point closed the gap at incredible speed, but vanished. A flash of unimaginably bright color blinded Persona, blotting out everything.
Vlad's eyes shot open. For half a second, he laid under his blanket frozen in place, before he shot up and took in a massive breath. He started hyperventilating in panic as his left hand shot up to his neck, feeling around for anything.. wrong. His eyes were wide open, his head throbbed, and hands were clammy, and his whole body was coated in sweat. Vlad cast his blanket aside and wrangled himself free on the sweat-soaked sheets to swing his legs free of the bed and drop his feet flat on the ground. He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands, heavily sighing and shaking himself free of any lingering doubt.
"It's just a dream.. It's just a dream.." Vlad repeated this several times in a whisper, getting more and more quiet each time before he was silent again. But man.. it was a realistic dream. He stood and stretched, realizing how much he stunk from the film of sweat coating his skin. He immediately began rummaging through drawers for clean clothing and getting ready to bathe, but cut himself short when he realized the most important part of his morning. Vlad closed the drawer and picked up the leather-bound book sitting on his nightstand. He clicked the light on and sat on his bed with the open book and his pencil.
Dear Diary,
A/N: In the event you've read either of my other stories 'Team REPR' or 'The Shadow That Almost Was', it may or may not be necessary to point this out, but, this is another AU from my own 'canon' that is Team REPR. Just trying to avoid any confusion. (And yes, I really love Vlad that much. He's my favorite OC I've ever made)