It took me a few seconds to realize that I was still alive, or at least I thought I was. I opened my eyes to look at my surroundings. Instead of being surrounded by rocks everything around me was white, with snowflakes falling all around me. Azura was nowhere to be seen. Standing up, I looked around frantically for her. Though instead of finding her I realized that the figure with the white cloak was with me. The shadow of their hood covered the top half of their face, but I could tell that they were female. They wore a black corset with white underneath and a skirt with white trimming. Their cloak was white on the outside and red on the inside. The only other thing that I could easily tell about her was that she was shorter than me by several inches.
"Who are you!?" I asked, panicked. "What's going on!? Where's Azura!?"
The mysterious woman just looked at me and smiled, before speaking up.
"I know this is strange for you, Ash, but I don't mean you or your friend any harm." The relief was short lived when I realized I had never told her my name.
"H- how do you know my name?" I asked nervously.
"I'm sorry but there isn't enough time." The woman said calmly, in stark contrast to me. "I will contact you again and explain everything to you. I promise."
"What do you mean? What's going on!?"
"Find Ozpin, Ash. He will help you both."
"Wait! Who are you!?"
"Ash wake up! Please!"
I woke up to a crying Azura shaking me by my shoulders as I lay on the ground. It was dark, but it seemed like the moon was lighting up the ground. It wasn't even two seconds after I woke up that I was suddenly enveloped into an extremely tight hug from Azura, who buried her face into my neck and began sobbing. She then said something that was so muffled that I couldn't understand it.
"What did you say?" I asked her. She looked up at me, with tears streaming down her face.
"I-I thought I lost you." She then buried her face into my chest and started sobbing again.
"Azura look at me." She looked back up at me, tears still falling down her face. I gently grabbed her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "I'm still alive. Everything's ok. I'm not gonna die anytime soon, alright?"
"Promise me..." She whispered.
"I'm sorry?" I asked.
"Nothing. Nevermind." She said as she finally regained her composure and started wiping the tears off her face. She looked around before looking back at me. "Do you know where we are?"
I looked around where we were. The place we stopped to rest during our hike had a few trees and a bunch of rocks, but it looked as though we were in the middle of a forest. As far as I knew, there were no forests like this near our city.
"No, not a clue." I replied. "None of this looks familiar to me."
"Same here," She said. "What do we do now?"
"We have to find a town or something with people. Then we can figure out where we are." Our best bet was to find someone, a town or a diner, just something so we could find out where we were, but which direction would we have to go. It didn't even look like we were in the same State anymore.
"But where do we go?" She asked. "It looks like we're in the middle of nowhere."
Look to your right, at that tree with the slash in it.
That voice... it was that woman in that cloak. I looked to my right and saw the tree the woman described. It was similar to the ones around it, but it had a large slash through its side.
Walk past that tree and keep walking. You will find a large tower. That is where you will find him.
"Ash?" My attention snapped back to Azura, who was looking at me and back at the tree I was looking at. "Did you hear something?"
"No, no I didn't." I said as I stood up. "I think we should go that way."
"What, why?" Azura asked, confused.
"I-uh, I have a hunch." I replied. I didn't sound convincing and seemed more unsure of myself. I didn't know whether or not to tell her about the woman and how she told me where to go. Would she think I was crazy if I did? Would she even listen to me after I told her about her? Azura stood up and looked at me with an eyebrow raised.
"A hunch?" She asked, placing a hand on her hip. She sounded and looked unconvinced.
"Yeah, I feel like going that way is our best bet."
Azura began looking around, trying to find anything that would indicate the best way to go, but her efforts were in vain as there was no sign of civilization anywhere.
"Alright, fine. I guess we're going that way." She said. I had expected her to question my decision, but she seemed to trust my judgement just enough.
"Ok, just stay close to me. I don't want to get separated." I replied. We started walking through the forest, walking close together so we wouldn't lose sight of each other.
We continued walking for about fifteen minutes before Azura started to get 'tired' and forced me to carry her on my back. She normally did this when we would be walking for a long period of time so I was used to having to carry her around. I continued walking with her on my back for another thirty minutes before we got to a clearing, and above the treeline, we could make out a huge tower with glowing green orbs towards the top. That had to be what that woman was talking about.
"Ok, you can put me-" Azura stopped talking as we heard a low growl come from behind us. Both of us froze. I let Azura down and I felt her gripping my shoulders.
"Ash, please tell me that was your stomach."
"No, it wasn't."
I slowly turned my head around and saw a pair of glowing orange eyes looking right at us. The eyes started moving towards us, and I pushed Azura behind me as a large black and white creature with red markings bone-like spikes and plates covering its body came out of the trees. We started backing away from it as it walked towards us. I noticed a large tree branch lying on the ground and grabbed it, pointing it towards the monster like a sword.
"Ash, I don't think that's gonna kill it!" Azura told me, her voice filled with fear. My heart dropped when I realized there was really only one thing that could be done at that moment.
"If I tell you to run, you run and you don't look back!" I said, gripping the branch harder.
"What? No! I'm not lea-"
"Azura listen to me! I'm not gonna be able to hold this thing off, so when I tell you to run, you run!" If she died because I couldn't protect her, I would never forgive myself. She seemed to give in as she lowered her head.
"Please don't get yourself killed!" I looked back at her, and I could see her eyes starting to water.
"Azura, I am not going to die. I promise." I lied.
I knew exactly what was about to happen.
I looked back at the giant creature, which then stood on its two hind legs and raised one of it's claws as if it were gonna swing it towards us.
"RUN!" I yelled at Azura. She turned around and ran towards the trees behind us. The creature swung it's claws down towards me. I tried to dodge it but it still hit me. The moment it hit me, I thought I saw a grey shimmer appear around me, but I immediately forgot about it as I was thrown into a nearby tree, knocking the wind out of me. I fell to the ground, lying on my stomach. I tried to get up, but I just fell back onto the ground.
"ASH!"
Oh God no...
Azura was standing behind a tree instead of running like I told her. She caught the creature's attention and it started walking towards her. I tried to get up again, but when I tried I felt an agonizing pain in my side, and I also felt something wet slide down my body. I assumed the worst as I placed my right hand on the site of the pain, feeling something warm and wet. I looked at my hand and saw it covered in blood. The creature must have slashed me with one of it's claws when it hit me.
I looked back up to Azura, seeing that she was on the ground moving away from the creature, which raised its claw to strike her.
"NOOO!" As I yelled this I raised my right hand towards the creature. As I did, the creature was suddenly sent tumbling through the air and thrown into a tree like a ragdoll. I was startled at this, but my attention was then turned to Azura, who was running towards me.
"I thought I told-"
"YOU RECKLESS IDIOT!" She screamed as she slid down by my side, tears streaming from her eyes. She looked at my wound, and put her hand on it to try and stop the bleeding. I let out a scream of pain as she touched my wound. I wanted to push her away from me, but I forced myself not to. Then I started to feel tired, and my vision started to blur.
No… No...
I looked up towards the creature, which started to get back up. It looked right at us and growled. Azura needed to get out of here, and in my state, there was no way she was gonna make it out alive. I was just about to tell her to leave me, when the sound of a jet overhead made me keep quiet. Whatever it was also caught the creature's attention.
Suddenly an aircraft with small jet engines on either side of it stopped right above us, and four human figures jumped out of the aircraft and between us and the creature. I could not easily make out who they were, as my vision continued to fade. My eyelids started feeling heavy and began to close. I could see one of the figures rushing towards me and I closed my eyes and I passed out from blood loss.