Happy Halloween, everyone! This week we got to write anything we wanted, as long as it was spooky! I... don't know exactly what this was. I hope you all like it.
Ren's alarm went off, but he was already awake. It had been another sleepless night for him. The beeping continued, but Ren didn't move. After a few seconds, Pyrrha turned the alarm off, as she had the past two mornings. Ren didn't know if either of his teammates had slept. He couldn't bring himself to care.
Jaune and Pyrrha went about their morning routines with an almost exaggerated care, as if they were afraid of breaking something. Ren knew that he was that something.
When they were finished getting ready, the partners moved towards the door before pausing a moment. Ren could just imagine the uncertain looks they were giving each other.
"Ren?" Pyrrha asked gently. "Do you want to get breakfast?"
"No," he answered bluntly.
"We could bring you something," she offered.
"I'm not hungry," he replied. He'd had only two meals in as many days, but he had no desire to eat.
"Come on, Ren," Jaune said. "You should eat something."
Ren sighed. "Maybe later."
Finally, Pyrrha opened the door to leave.
"Hi," Ren heard Ruby say softly from outside. Any further conversation was cut off by the door closing.
Ren knew that he was being difficult. He knew that Jaune and Pyrrha were burying their own grief for his sake. He knew that he should feel bad about that, but he didn't. He just lay in bed, his mind going in circles, dancing ever closer to thoughts of her while sheer force of will held them back.
Eventually he glanced at the clock, seeing that he needed to get up soon. Jaune, Pyrrha, and he had been excused from classes for the rest of the week, but counseling was mandatory. Professor Goodwitch would come for him if he didn't show up.
Ren slowly dragged himself into a sitting position. He tried desperately to keep his eyes locked on his dresser, but for an instant his will cracked. He looked at her bed.
Tears welled in his eyes, but he blinked them away as quickly as he could. For a moment he thought that he could move on as normal, but it was too late. He needed to give some voice to what he was feeling.
"Never knew a time when you weren't by my side," he whispered. "The one thing I could always count on. Always there for me, you've been my family even when all other hope was gone."
That was when Ren began to process what he was saying. It didn't sound like him. He didn't drop words. And this had almost sounded like singing. Ren never sang.
But these words and the slight melody that accompanied them had come into his mind as if…
As if he had heard them from someone else.
He suddenly wondered if all of the voices that had been going through his mind had been his own.
Ren closed his eyes and listened. He was a very good listener, but it was several seconds before he thought he heard something.
"But for a while things have seemed so different," a voice whispered, too soft to place. "Like it's the same but still brand new. I can't believe it, when did I start to fall for you?"
"Nora?" Ren asked desperately, standing upright. He scanned the room with his eyes, but there was nothing that the sound could have come from. Then he considered the words again. "Fall for you…"
A realization hit Ren, and he sat back down on his bed with his face in his hands.
"Fall for you," he whispered again. Not like she fell in love with him, but like how she had fallen in battle to save him. This wasn't some message from her; it was just his mind torturing him. It was crazy to think otherwise.
"Have I lost my mind?" he cried.
"Have I just been blind?"
Ren sat bolt upright. There was no mistaking it, that had been Nora's voice. And it wasn't done yet.
"Never to have seen you might be everything I need, everything I dreamed. All along has it been right in front of me?"
The pace of the words was picking up, and the melody was becoming clearer, but Ren still couldn't place where it was coming from.
"We've been together for a long, long, long, long time. I never thought that you and I could be a thing. I can't believe it. This is happening!"
Tears came to Ren's eyes as he remembered her cheering those words at the Vytal Festival Dance. He was spinning in circles now, trying to find the voice, but it always seemed to be right behind him.
"I think 'Oh woah, what am I to do?' I didn't know that I would end up haunting you!"
Finally the voice seemed to settle, and when Ren turned to face it he found himself looking at Nora's bed again.
"And what to do right now, I haven't got a clue!"
He drew closer, the singing now clearly coming from under the sheets.
"I just act spooky, and when I want to say I love you I say…"
Ren leaned over the bed, but then threw himself back as a spectral white figure came flying out from the covers. It was hazy and transparent, but the apparition was clearly a girl with short hair and an adorable little nose. As the figure rose out of the bed, it thrust a single finger out towards Ren's nose and shrieked one more word.
"BOO!"