The next few moments were nothing but absolute terror. It started with a strong feeling of dizziness. My head felt as if it just had all the oxygen sucked out of it. I could feel my stomach turning every time I turned my head. Next came the sudden feeling of being thrown from off my bed. I wasn't moving at all, but I still felt as though I'd been tossed out of my bed and into a dark void that led to nowhere. The familiar sight of my room began to pull away from my vision as I found myself falling further into the void. I could see Yang from a distance as she barged into my room with her arm ready to take someone down. Yang had an ability to take off her mechanical hand and replace it with a firearm of her choice. She only really did that when she felt the situation was dire or the enemy would be particularly tough. To see her pulling it out already said that she treated my safety as a dire situation, and I couldn't help but feel touched by that as I continued to get drawn away.

My arms and legs furiously shook and reached for anything to grab as I continued to fall. All I could find was darkness. I screamed for all my teammates and got nothing in return. Things were definitely taking a turn for the worst. Yang was already taking her problem seriously, so why shouldn't I?

I clenched my fists and felt my body shake as power began to build inside. It was time to put an end to this torture. I screamed loudly as I felt a sharp pain in my eyes, unleashing all the power I had stored inside of me. This was a power that I was blessed with. A power with the purpose of eradicating the creatures of darkness. The silver eyes were coming out. I began to feel some confidence return. The darkness would soon find itself enveloped by light. That's what I thought before the arms started to emerge. They were long and spindly black arms that made bone-cracking noises every time they sprouted. Several of them sprung from the darkness and grabbed at me, pulling my hair and clothes. Their pull was strong enough to make me yelp when I first felt one of them grab a fistful of my hair and yank it out. I refused to let them take me down and continued to let the silver eyes manifest. I had enough faith in them to eradicate these things. The arms were probably just as aware of their power because they became even more desperate as I went on, squeezing me so hard that I could hear crunching sounds coming from my limbs. One of the arms reached my neck and squeezed it. I gasped and focused my attention on surviving the hands. The power from my eyes started to dim as more of them squeezed my neck and every other part of my body. The arms seemed to be growing stronger, crunching my bones in their fists. I was in so much pain that I couldn't even scream or cry, only silently stare on as they continued to torture me. The arms relentlessly tore at me, ripping off every part of my body until there was nothing left but my consciousness.

I could no longer feel or use any o fmy senses. All I could do was observe and think. I cursed my aged body for failing to fight back against the arms. I remember a time when I felt like nothing could stop me, and now here I was being torn to pieces by emaciated arms. An old memory began to play before me as I felt my consciousness slip away. It was of me fighting beowolves when I was only fifteen. I had so much precision and speed with every attack I made. Crescent Rose looked nearly brand new back in those days. The memory slowly began to fade away, along with everything else. The last thing I remembered seeing was me smirking at a beowolf before slicing its head off. If only I had that same level of confidence in myself.

There was nothing but darkness and silence for a very long time. I honestly thought I had died or at least came close to it. Instead, I found myself waking up in my room once again. However, something felt different. Yang and Weiss were nowhere to be seen, and neither was Blake. My body was back together, but it felt weak for some reason. I started to walk and felt a strong tingle in my feet. My fingers and arms started to emit the same feeling. I continued walking on, determined to find out what had just happened. The tingling became more of a stinging pain that felt like needles growing inside my body and struggling to burst out. The pain forced me to get on my knees, and then on my stomach. I heard myself breathing deeply as I tried to relax so that the pain would stop.

I was in a weird state of mind where I knew I was conscious, and yet it felt as if I were watching myself from somewhere else. My vision was also somewhat impaired. The door to my room was the only thing I could really see, and I could see enough to notice that it had been opened a crack. With as much strength as I could, I made my eye move just enough to see through it. It looked like there was something looking back at me. It had a wide grin and large white eyes that shook. The thing from before had returned.

"What do you want with me?" I asked. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone on the verge of death, startling me as I spoke.

The thing's eyes grew wider. I heard slow and heavy sounding footsteps approaching the door, slowly opening it. I could feel my teeth grinding against each other as I tried my best to force my body to move. The door opened even wider and the wide-eyed thing took a single step in. I could feel my eyes beginning to water in its presence, and it wasn't from tears.

"...Ruby…" I heard a voice call out.

I desperately shouted so that the voice would hear me better.

"...wake up…"

"I want to," was all I had to say.

I saw something that looked like my own leg step in front of my face.

The wide-eyed creature grabbed my head with its long spider-like fingers that dug into my skull. It forcefully lifted my head up with a single pull. The needles in my body felt like spikes as my head rose from the floor.

I looked into the wide-eyed creature's face and saw the familiar sight of my "future self". There was already drool dripping from the corners of its mouth. I narrowed my eyes in an attempt to stare it down and was met with a sickly grin. The thing widened its grin enough to let its tongue to come out. The tongue was very long and dripping with saliva. It split into two at the end, giving it a fork-like appearance. The thing's teeth began to grow in length as its mouth started to widen. Any resemblance to me started to disappear as the mouth grew wider. The yellow and blunt looking teeth had grown into long fangs that looked like sharpened knives. My future self began to resemble me less as its mouth continued to grow. I watched as the teeth grew in number, surpassing what was normal for an ordinary person. This thing had grown into something else entirely and there was nothing I could do about it. I really thought I was going to die at that moment. There were so many things I had wanted to do with my life. I didn't want it to end like this. Not when there was still so much that I wanted to do.

"RUBY!" the voice from earlier called out.

I opened my mouth and screamed one last time. I screamed loud and hard until my voice turned raspy. The room and the creature began to vanish. I felt my head rush and grow heavy as darkness filled my surroundings once again.

There was darkness once again, but something was different about it this time.

"Ruby! Wake up!" The voice shouted. It sounded much closer to me.

I opened my eyes and saw Yang looking down at me with Weiss by her side.

"She's alive!" Yang cheered. I saw tears streaming down her face.

"Only after I got you to stop pressing so hard against her chest," said Weiss. "You really need to watch yourself with-"

"I'm so happy you're alive!" Yang said, squeezing me in a bear hug. I ignored the pain of her hug and focused on how happy I was to be alive. Unfortunately, all good things came to an end and this was no different. I looked down at my legs while Yang hugged me and noticed that my feet and calves were completely black.