It wasn't the long, creeping corridors or the dingy barely lit rooms. It wasn't the deserted city or the threat of an impending death, nor was it the many monstrous and malicious beasts that scared him. It wasn't anything so nice, anything so obvious. It was something else entirely that terrified Jaune Arc.
Ever since the lower city was evacuated, ever since they'd started their patrol... An existential dread, a looming pressure upon his shoulders, just something beyond him entirely pressed down on him and only him. Brief glimmers of warmth, of light or positivity kept him pressing onwards at the beginning. Then he'd gotten separated.
The others hadn't noticed, probably waved of his jittery behaviour and ever increasing paranoia as nervousness. They did only have two days to achieve their objective after all, they were all nervous. He'd been tasked with clearing a particularly rundown building alone, to maximise speed and ground covered,the moment they'd been separated long enough the weight on his back increased tenfold.
The putrid stench of rotting fish, of blood congealed for days and oddly, perhaps most terrifying, of fresh oranges. A multitude of wondrously ripe fruit in fact, almost tantalising, hypnotic.
He'd rather it wasjust death and decay.
He imagined it similar to someone using a single spritz of fine perfume to hide the smell of a rotting corpse stashed away under the floorboards. He imagined sweet little girl's and kindly old ladies that hid blood stained knives still dripping with gore behind their backs.
Of a freshly baked pie on the windowsill of serial murderer or assorted sweets to tempt young children away from prying eyes.
A trap, an 'I can't possibly hurt you so come very close and have a treat' sort of trap.
Except it was so much worse.
Each room explored, each monster that leapt out and was cut down, each echoing step and he slipped further and further from whatever safety he'd thought he'd had. Existential dread, a fear over one's place in the universe. Of how utterly, patheticallysmall one was in the grand scheme of things. Of being a single grain of sand in a desert that stretched over all of creation, the entire universe. Realising that right beside your grain of sand, a mountain had appeared, was it always there and you were simply too small to have noticed? Or had it come to you, to remind you how insignificant you truly are? Did it even notice you, did it care?
He never saw it, never felt it, never heard it. But the smell of wondrous fruits that ineffectively hid millennia of decay continued to haunt him. Lurking just out of view of every other sense he had.
Another Beowolf fell dead and scattered before him, and he froze.
Utterly and completely froze, a wriggling tendril of air slithered past his ear. It passively waved before his eyes, a thinghe still could not see but could now feel through the minute motions it made upon stagnant air.
A breath from behind him, like a gentle wing that blew across his entire back and ruffled clothes, the stench at its worst. There was no worldly comparison, how would you even go about describing such an abominable smell? This was no rotting corpse, no putrid fish or off milk. This wasn't a million, billion, trillion deaths. Yet, it still encompassed all those things... along with the delectable aroma of fresh fruit.
Jaune turned slowly, and he paled. He'd kept his composure to a degree the entire time, kept focus on what little he could to distract from that cloying thingin the recesses of the darkness, held on to what sanity wasn't being drained away at astonishing speeds.
"Hey Jaune"
His cracked lips parted just enough for his tongue to nervously dart out and moisten his lips, blue eyes trembling and wide.
"You ok?"
She smelt like fresh fruit.
She didn't approach him, stood less than two foot away she had no need to. That was an appropriate distance for conversation wasn't it? She was smiling so kindly...
Fresh fruit that did nothing to cover the foul odours. A gentle smile that did nothing to hide the knives.
"I-I'm fine"
He managed to grit out.
Ruby simply smiled happily.
Her shadow filled everything behind her in black, and though Jaune couldn't see it- he could feel the air contorting all around him.
Grasping fingers, wriggling tentacles, writhing worms and a trillion eyes blinking in unison.
"Good, that's reallygood, Jaune"