Author's Note: So, this is something different. An experiment. As with all experiments, this could fall flat, do well or anything in between. But still, I wanted to write something a little more angsty after reading the last (fourth) chapter of Redemption - Book 2 of the Rending Trilogy and this is what became of it. Freezerburn and Ladybug are mentioned. In case you couldn't tell by now, there is no fluff. Oh and every name mentioned is either canon, or from a work of RWBY fanfiction.

Obituary of the World

You know, it's never the same as the way it's portrayed on TV, the apocalypse that is. There's not a steady group of rag-tag survivors made up of army veterans, damsels in distress, vagabonds and criminals turned lawfully good. There's no flitting from bastion of hope to bastion of hope, reinforcing each crumbling fortress to the best of the group's abilities and then holding out there and attempting to live a normal life. There's not even a kiss or a handshake.

You know that scene, that borderline cliché, the one where the survivors find hot water and are quick to bask in the gentle massage of its refreshing warmth? They contemplate life, realise that they love someone or fall to the floor and add their tears to the sultry torrent before being comforted. That's not how it goes either. Do you remember having a bath as a kid? You used to hate it because it felt like a searing flame. You'd spend the first ten minutes of bath time dancing around in the hot water just waiting for your feet and ankles to grow accustomed to the caressing liquid. And by the time you could enjoy it the water was lukewarm at best. That's a far more realistic representation. I should know.

It's been thirty-eight months, two weeks and four days since D-Day. I've not had much else to do with what little down-time I manage to scrape together but watch the sands of time continue to fall, the hourglass's seemingly endless supply of sand a mere illusion, disguising our forthcoming demise. In that time the only source of heat has been red Dust, which Vytal, or at least what little we could explore of Vytal without being torn apart by the creatures of Grimm, is completely tapped of, and fire. I haven't seen the sun in so long. I'd start doubting its very existence had I not known that, without it, we would be dead by now.

Suffice to say days were cold, nights were colder and when we could enjoy the supposedly invigorating touch of water, it was like bathing in ice. That was the standard we adapted to. What used to reduce me to a shivering little girl just three and a half years ago, now felt like a gentle breeze, and what used to feel like tepid water, now felt almost volcanic. Okay maybe I'm being incredibly melodramatic there… but you get my point.

There's no time to contemplate life, any thoughts of who you love are swept away each time you are forced to expose a different part of your body to the seemingly corrosive water, and collapsing in a heap on the ground and crying… well… when you've been grieving for thirty-six months, the well eventually dries. Or at least you kill the emotions that were the key to the floodgates.

Vale is gone, surrendered to the creatures of Grimm on D-Day. We visited Vacuo and Atlas early on and they too had crumbled. The civilians that yet remain with us clutch onto the hope that Mistral still stands, but we know better than that. Ruby and Yang know better than that. To us, to the guardians of what remains of humanity and faunuskind, we know that we cannot assail our fate. Mistral is a graveyard, just like Vacuo, Atlas and Vale… and Knox will be rubble too; it is but a question of when. All we are here to do is postpone the inevitable. Weeping, regretting, forgiving, forgetting… hoping. We tell ourselves that they're all just concepts to us; unthinkable and devoid of a definition.

We don't weep for the lost… not after her. We don't regret what we could or could not have done… for the lives of those still around us will also end in time. We do not forgive the sins of ourselves… or of those that wish destruction upon us. We do not forget what life used to be like… and we do not forget the names of those that fell. And most importantly of all, we do not hope.

Hope gives us something to lose, gives us a reason to fear the path we walk. Hopelessness is the key to keeping everyone alive for but a day longer, because hopelessness means that our only purpose is to fight, to kill.

I won't be so stubborn as to deny missing Yang's touch. That comes with never forgetting…

I can see it in Ruby's grey eyes though: the desire to forget. The desire to forget Blake's lips upon hers; the desire to forget the sound of Blake's voice; the playful gleam that was forever in her eyes come hell or high water; the sly tug of her lips every time she laid those beautifully burning golden eyes upon Ruby's form.

I would reprimand her for that, for trying to forget the lost… but I've yet to bring myself to. I still actually have Yang, even if I don't have her touch, taste or scent, at least I have her… And I've also found myself dreaming of a world without Blake, of a world where I have nothing to remember. A world where Blake, and everything we adored about her, did not exist. I reprimand myself every time I awaken from one of those nightmares.

We knew the day would come eventually, where we would all fall down. For some reason I always had this stupid assumption that it would be together, and in a blaze of glory as the last seconds of humanity's existence tick away. I had this delusion of grandeur in which red, white, black and yellow all blurred into one as we united for one last dance with death. One he would win not because he was better than us, but because his hordes of bloodthirsty demons were limitless.

I always pictured Yang falling first, then me, then Blake. Ruby, I like to tell myself that she'd survive. That she'd save the world but… that was just another delusion. That delusion was shattered viscerally but a short time into the apocalypse. We were attacked by bandits, fucking simpleton thieves that preyed upon those that escaped the remnants of Vale. We managed to disarm them and talk them into surrendering. We spared their lives and continued walking… one of them still had a switchblade. Blake died as a result of being stabbed in the back by a honourless coward. She didn't save anyone. There were no heroics or final goodbye. There was a knife through the back, through the heart… and there was Blake, in a heap on the floor, her eyes already empty of life, her body already limp.

We all changed that day. That was when these ways of life became custom. We would not forget. We would not forgive. We would not hope. We would not cry. We would show no mercy, for the world deserved none. Still I like to believe that Yang and I are still human somewhere deep down. I can't bring myself to believe the same for Ruby because I can't even recognise her anymore.

She's cold, ruthless, apathetic and horrifying. She's the only thing in this world that I am scared for, and am scared of. I don't fear death. I don't fear the infinite amount of Beowolves, Ursi, King Taijitu, Boarbatusks, Deathstalkers and Nevermore that threaten our very being day and night. I don't even fear losing Yang, because I at least have her to lose. But Ruby? She's different, she's already lost, but her husk is still here. Her schedule was the same today as it has been for three years. Wake up, eat alone, ask Yang or I if we needed her help with anything remotely sanguine, and then set off alone.

Sixteen hours a day she was beyond that wall. Sixteen hours of mutilation, destruction and deep-seated wishing that one of the Grimm would finally end her misery. She'd come back though. She always came back, her clothes torn or removed entirely, that same dead stare transfixed on me, that same look in her eyes that said that she wished that she was dead. The only trace of emotion was in her clenched fist when she kissed the locket that hung round her neck. Yang and I had seen that enough to know that that was a display of both Ruby's hatred of Blake for ever existing in the first place and gratitude that Blake had ever been a part of her life to begin with. That was Ruby. The first girl I ever cared anything for and the only girl in this world that I wished would smile at me.

Yang threw herself into the leadership position. In classic Xiao Long fashion, she became the matriarch, the aegis, the weatherer of storms. Almost every second of every day was spent killing, fortifying, comforting, lying to or feeding that which surrounded her. She was the false idol they needed her to be, the emotionless shoulder they needed to lean on and the dictator that bared the burden of committing the greatest of sins on an almost hourly basis. She was never there for me, and I was never there for her, at least not in that sense. We didn't need each other like that. On one level or another we were just as empty as Ruby, we just weren't a slave to our rage.

She'd be there with a gentle wave or a pat on the back after a mission; she'd be there by my side beyond the wall; and she'd be there on a night, either watching over me as I slept, or being watched over by me as she slept. The extent of our interactions boiled down to advice, strategy, dark humour and the occasional discussion of martyrdom. It was painful at first, seeing Yang run herself ragged. Seeing my Yang sacrifice herself for the good of those that remained. But, again, I still had her, and that would usually always wash away my desire to touch, taste and smell her.

There are few of us left from that past life. Team Juniper, they got the valiant fall that I once believed naively Team Ruby would get. They went out in a blaze of glory last night, defending the north wall from an Umbra. Their bodies still remain in the snow where they fell. There's a blizzard picking up, they'll be buried by morning. There are reports surfacing of a pyromancer living on the borders of our perimeter, usually I'd just shrug and say the Grimm would kill them. That's usually what would happen, but I think I know who it is, and it's actually nice to know that she could be out there. Velvet, Miltia, Sun and Oobleck are the only other four from that time that yet live. I never so much as glimpse at them however.

For anyone wondering how this bountiful world came to be an infernal wasteland… Look no further than the top of Velvet's head, or at Sun Wukong's prehensile tail. Humans boosted their self-esteem by suppressing the minority Faunus and claiming themselves superior. Faunus were unjustly discriminated against, segregated from society, attacked for their genetics and mistreated in their workplace.

Rightfully they rose up against this. They tried to make things better, but then they tried to make things even… The White Fang and countless other Faunus organisations rallied. They attacked humans, attacked human companies, and even attacked other Faunus who sympathised with humanity. They became obsessed with power and revenge, and eventually Adam Taurus lit the wick and walked away as the world descended into anarchy.

Humans and Faunus clashed. Each side conscripted innocent soul after innocent soul. Humans turned to their sympathisers and punished them. Team RWBY and Velvet Scarlatina escaped the kingdom, we were labelled as traitors but in actuality we merely saved Blake and Velvet from being crucified by humans.

With no civilisation to return to we settled down in the wilderness, moving between Grimm Infested Areas and spent the months of the war defending against the true threat. Throughout the day we would lavish ourselves with the blood of the Grimm, each day the beasts offering a new challenge. The evening we would bathe in lukewarm rivers. And on the night we would tumble into our beds and sleep. When that failed we found… other… ways to fill the night. Looking back I can only imagine how lonely Velvet must have been.

This cycle continued almost endlessly to the point where we forgot what time was, but at the end of the day we were just five girls with a limited supply of ammunition and Dust. No amount of heart, courage, soul, spirit, grit, determination or love could protect a warring world from the shrouding darkness that threatened to descend down upon it. We were merely a band-aid placed over a severed limb…

The Grimm came, taking advantage of the conflict between humans and Faunus. An amalgamation of darkness appeared in the sky, eclipsing the sun and, in that single moment Faunus and humans alike stood side by side, united with their backs against the wall, surrounded by the harbingers of their destruction. The Grimm attacked with fang, claw, brute strength and sheer numbers. Mankind defended with iron, Dust, desperation and the desire to live. Sheer numbers triumphed that day. The victory was the Grimm's. They did not care how Pyrrhic it was, after all they had no comprehension of loss. They aimed to slaughter by any means necessary, and they did just that…

It'll take a miracle for the pockets of mankind to survive this Armageddon, and we are all out of God's mercy and second chances. Our second chance, our salvation came millennia ago when we discovered Dust.

God pitied us then, pitied the victims of undeserved eradication. We deserved it this time; we chose to walk the path of absolute annihilation. If anything I believe it's more likely that the Grimm's butchering of man and Faunus alike is the doing of God himself. He passed judgment on us, and sentenced us all to death for crimes committed against this once beautiful world, and our very own once peaceful existence.

So why am I touching pen to paper for the first time in three years? Well, I've spent thirty-eight months, two weeks and four days just waiting for the end to come. Every waking moment is filled with bureaucracy, feigned sympathy, blood, steel and gunpowder, and I woke up today with the unmistakable gut feeling that today was the day I was waiting for.

My brain screams at me that the culling is nigh. That the hourglass is finally running out of the sand to seep. But I promised to never forget, never regret, never forgive, never weep and never hope. I don't hope that I'm wrong, I won't forgive myself for falling today, I won't regret never bringing Ruby from the brink of the abyss, and I won't weep when I see Yang's broken body before I join her in Satan's domain. This record? This is how I make sure it isn't forgotten.

…I can hear the cries of battle, the roar of Grimm. It would seem that my instincts were once again correct. The crushing of bones, the ripping of flesh, the screams of anguish, it's all a little too close. The northern wall must have finally collapsed. It took thirty-five months, three weeks and one day for Knox to fall, the haven of Vytal is about to be turned to dust. I better make sure we're all remembered then:

Okami, Mina Carfax, Dante Stryker, Spencer Stone, Abel Schnee, Miltiades Malachite, Bartholomew Oobleck, Velvet Scarlatina, Sun Wukong, Orion, Jinto Belladonna, Date Kiramiru, Garnet Rose (no relation), Reynolds, Ruby Rose, Yang Schnee-Xiao Long and Weiss Schnee-Xiao Long. These are the men and the women whose time has come. These are the brave souls who will die today to buy the helpless enough time to be euthanized. There are one hundred and thirty-seven civilians, thirteen of whom are children, including one Pyrrha Arc, and one Christian Scarlatina. A manifest of the dead can be found in Yang Schnee-Xiao Long's lockbox, it's never locked. A manifest of the dead, including those alive as of time of writing this, can be found beneath the floorboard in the bottom-left corner of the same room.

Well. I guess there's no reason to postpone any longer. Jinto's probably already dead... time to join her.

Signed

Weiss Schnee-Xiao Long

P.S At least Blake will rest in peace...