"Ruby? Where are you?" A voice called from outside my room.

I smiled to myself because I knew that the owner of that voice would eventually stop by to check on me.

The door opened before I could respond and in stepped my older sister, Yang. She was always making sure I was safe and checking up on me when she thought something was wrong. I'd told her many times that she didn't have to do it, but she insisted nonetheless. It's not like it made a difference anyway. Yang also had a habit of acting purely on how she felt without stopping to think. This was pretty clear when she barged into my room without knocking or waiting for me to respond to her call.

"There you are!" Yang said with a half-smile as she looked at me. She walked to the side of my bed and sat beside me.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, her metallic arm resting on my shoulder. There was something about the arm that made me uneasy. It was so lifeless and cold, yet it behaved and interacted with me as if it were organic. I didn't dare tell Yang that though for fear of hurting her feelings.

"Yes," I responded hesitantly. My eyes looked out the window as I tried to think of some way to respond. I always needed to word my issues properly with Yang, or else she'd overreact in the worst way.

"I think I'm getting sick," I said after an uncomfortably long silence.

"Really?" asked Yang. She turned so that she could get her organic arm to touch my forehead. It felt warm and soft as it pressed against my head. I smiled a little at the familiar feeling of Yang's touch.

Yang frowned at me. "You feel fine to me," she said. "I think it has something to do without you hunting Grimm in the middle of the night."

My eyebrows rose. "W-What are you talking about?" I asked, trying my best not to sound flustered.

Yang snorted at me. "Come on, Ruby," she said with a smirk. "Everybody on the team knows that you do it."

"Oh," I said with a pout. I really thought that nobody else knew besides Blake.

"But I think you need to stop lying in bed and move around or something," said Yang. She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of bed with all her strength. I yelped a little as I flew out of my bed and landed on the floor.

"Could you…warn me next time you do something like that?" I asked shakily while lifting myself off the floor.

Yang loudly laughed and slapped my back. "A little shock in the morning is always enough to wake someone up," she chuckled.

"I'd call that more than a little shock," I said dryly.

Yang laughed and continued talking, but something was off. Her voice started to trail off into a distant echo. Every other vowel sounded like it had to travel all across our base to reach my ears. Even stranger were the other words mixed in. I could hear words like "useless" and "weak" thrown in as well. It sounded like an angrier Yang saying these things, but they couldn't be coming from the same Yang talking to me. Could they?
I must have had a very strange expression on my face during all of this, because Yang's eyebrows furrowed in concern at the same time I started hearing the echoes.

"Ruby?" she asked. Her voice was now back to normal and so was everything else. No more strange words could be heard.

"W-What?" I asked faintly.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You look scared."

"I don't know," I sighed, feeling strangely light-headed. "I've been having these weird hallucinations ever since I came back from my Grimm hunt last night."

Yang crossed her arms and looked straight into my eyes. Unlike Blake, Yang had purple eyes that were almost inviting compared to Blake's yellow eyes. Just looking into them was enough to put me at ease. However, Yang's firm expression was a pretty big contrast to the warmth her eyes gave me.

I already knew what she had concluded and I didn't like it.

"I'm probably just overtired," I said quickly, waving my hand dismissively.

Yang's expression didn't change. I could tell she wasn't having any of that.

"I'm not going to stop," I said defiantly. "I'll just make sure I have more sleep next time."

"Not while you're having hallucinations like that," said Yang. "I only see you looking that scared when something's very upsetting. You're not leaving this base until you feel better. Okay?"

I didn't say anything and lowered my head. There really wasn't a point in defying Yang when she had her mind set on something. Much like me, she had a habit of sticking strongly to something she believed in.

"Good," Yang said cheerily. "You just stay in here and rest. I'll bring you some food."

She ran out of my room to get the food while I stood alone. The comfortable security I felt had disappeared. I didn't like this feeling of isolation and confinement. Things were starting to get strange again. The slanted visuals I experienced last night had returned, only now they were even worse. The room would slant from side to side at a fast rate, making everything look like they'd been thrown in a whirlpool. I felt myself sit myself down on the floor as I watched my surroundings gradually shift into something else. My small and simplistic room had been turned into an ocean of darkness. The rippling effects were still there and they were accompanied by the sounds of heavy breathing from every angle.

My door twisted into something that resembled a face. The face had no defining features aside from the eyeless sockets. I could see it growing larger and larger until I could finally make out some more features. It had wrinkled skin and its mouth open in an expression of shock. For some reason, this very sight didn't startle me as much as it interested me. I could feel myself moving closer to the face. Every step I took felt like trudging through mud. My legs would force themselves to move ahead because of how heavy everything felt.

The face began to quiver as I moved closer. Its eyeless sockets shook more and more as I came closer. Against my own will, my hand started reaching out to touch the face.

I was about to touch the face when I happened to look up and see its eyes. They were the same eyes that the creature from last night had. They stared deep into my eyes. The sounds of breathing had now turned into sounds of hysterical shrieking. I heard myself scream and step back as the face looked at me with its terrified expression. The shaky white eyes rolled back into the sockets as the face started to shrink.

My surroundings started rapidly shifting back into place. The dark surroundings disappeared as light entered, revealing the familiar sight of my room. The face had shriveled away and my door was now in its place. The shaking and slanting had also stopped. It was now just me once again in my room. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. My hands had almost gone numb from fear. What I saw had felt so real, and yet it had been nothing more than an illusion. Whatever happened was part of something more and I had no idea what that was. The realization that I had no control over the situation is what scared me most.