Note: CH1 last updated 10/27/19

Cover art is a portion of the work by yuumei titled "through the days." Please support this incredible artist by visiting her site

This is not endorsed by Rooster Teeth in any way. Views, opinions, and thoughts are all my own. Rooster Teeth and RWBY and all RWBY related characters are trade names or registered trademarks of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC. © Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC.

"Come on. Come on, almost there," Turner said to himself as he rounded a corner.

Turner had one last delivery to make for his boss. It was a repaired wall clock for the Thompson family.

He jogged down the sidewalks as fast as he could. He didn't run for the sake of his job. No, he ran for his sister, because today was her birthday. Yeah, the world was at war, tossing nuclear weapons around like they were dodge balls. Yeah, the United States was under Martial Law, a really stupid move in all honesty. But the world had been like this for a couple years now. A miserable apocalypse yesterday will still be a miserable apocalypse tomorrow, so why not forget all that for a single day, to bring a joyous smile to the face of all he loved? As far as Turner was concerned, no day would be better than his sister's birthday to do that. So yes, today and maybe a select few others were all that truly mattered in this messed up world, and anyone who thought otherwise could go suck a lemon

Turner trotted up the stairs to the Thompson's and rang their doorbell. He gave his martial-law-ordered carrier coat pockets a quick grope. With all his back-and-forth, he was afraid he might have forgotten the gifts for his family. "Phew, didn't leave them behind," he thought. Checking his wrist watch he quickly re-calibrated the Thompson's clock moments before the door to open.

The door was answered by a woman in her late thirties who greeted him with a warm smile.

Turner returned her smile and said the business slogan. "Tick Tock clock repair services, on time every time. Here you are Mrs. Thompson! One fully repaired wall-mounted clock." He handed her the box with her clock.

"Thank you for delivering our clock, Turner. Would you like to join us for dinner?" she asked.

"You knew I love hanging out with you and your family, but I have to decline. I have some dinner plans with my family that I can't miss. I hope you have a nice evening."

Turner was about to leave when then the sirens blared. Instinctively, both Mrs. Thompson and Turner looked to the sky.

"Shoot," Turner thought as he adjusted his glasses searching for any signs of a smoke trail. "My family's at the east side park I have to get them to a bunker. I need to go now,"

He attempted to run but upon his first step was hindered by something tugging at his sleeve. He turned back and found a ghostly pale Mrs. Thompson. She clutched at his sleeve and her whole body seemed to be trembling with fear. Her voice - small, weak, and strained with desperation and hopelessness - begged to him. ". . . Help us. Please."

Turner groaned and wiped a hand over his face. He needed to comfort her, to help her feel like there was still hope in this world for her and her family. It's what he would have wanted someone to do for him in that situation. "Mrs. Thompson, gather your family, I'll lead you to the northeast fallout shelter." Honestly the Thompsons lived closest to the southernmost fallout shelter, but this way he could kill two birds with one stone and meet up with his family.

She snapped out of her trance and ran back into her home before dragging out her two sons, while carrying her infant twin daughters.

"All right, follow me." He led them into the crowded streets.

As they ran through the crowds, the two Thompson boys began to struggle a bit to keep up. He picked up Mrs. Thompson's youngest son, and grabbed the wrist of the older one, pulling him along though the maze of bodies.

He kept swiveling his head the whole time trying to spot his family, but he found nothing. The sea of bobbing heads and myriad of brightly colored clothes made it impossible to see anything more than a few bodies ahead of himself.

After finding their way to the bunker's entrance pod, they were met with a daunting line. At the front of the line there were U.S. army men trying to carefully and quickly move everyone into the bunker. One of them was Turner's father. He looked troubled. For a man that had been to the front lines, and trained countless drills for this very purpose, he looked far too worried.

Beside his father there was a digital display that showed the capacity of the bunker.

The display read "Current Capacity 2,285/2,400".

The Thompson were not that far from the entrance. Turner placed the boys on either side of Mrs. Thomson.

"You should be all right now, Mrs. Thompson. Just make sure you keep your place in line and follow the instructions the troops give you. You and your family will be safe. I have to get to my own family now, so stay strong and your family will make it through this." He gave her a reassuring smile, and when her expression harden to one of determination instead of fear he turned away. As Turner stepped out of the line, trying to walk against the flow of people, the voice of Mrs. Thompson rang through the air once more.

"Thank you Turner!"

Turner forced his way through the crowd, pushing his way ahead and to the side of people. He earned quite a bit of swears and curses from people believing he was trying to cut ahead of them. Finally he broke out of the crowd and stood to the side of his father.

"Dad, what's wrong? Can I help in any way?"

His dad glanced over, clear frustration and pain in his eyes. "No, I've got things handled."

His dad seemed to be intensely scanning each person he prepped for the bunker. He was searching for someone. Desperately searching and not finding who he was looking for.

Turner's heart stopped and his breath caught in his throat. Who else besides his family would have his dad so desperately searching like this? "Have you seen Mom, Amy, or Janet?"

His dad slammed his fist into the metal wall beside him. The family he was prepping flinched but said nothing. He closed the pod and sent them to the bunker. "I haven't seen any of them," he grunted as he helped the next group of four into the pod.

"How could you not have seen them? You were with them at the park!"

"I wasn't!" he whirled on Turner, looking him straight in the eyes. "I never made it to the park, and they never came this way either." His voice died down, it became mournful as he sent the group of four down to the bunker.

Turner backed away. This could not be true; this was his dad's post. He had to be the first one here if the sirens ever went off. He would know for sure if any of their family made it in. The fact that they hadn't meant they were still out there.

Turner dove back into the crowd. He heard his father shout something to him but he didn't care. He needed to find them. To make sure they were safe. He forced his way through the mass of bodies, shoving them out of the way and squeezing between as many as he could. But it was like a salmon trying to swim upstream after a rainstorm. It just didn't seem possible.

Escaping the mob into an alley, he searched for a way to bypass the crowd. His eyes fell upon a fire escape on the building in front of him.

"Bingo!" He climbed up to the top of the building as fast as possible.

From this vantage point the mob and the directions in which they were fleeing was clearly displayed. "I have to get to the park, that's the last place they said they'll be. I need to find them. Need to get them to safety," he said out loud. The next building wasn't too far away, hopefully he could make that jump.

"Well I have to try " He ran as fast as he could and leaped off of the building, landing on the next one with a thud.

"Ouch! That's going to hurt tomorrow," he groaned as he got back up. He continued his trek across the rooftops, trying to get as close to the park as possible. As he got nearer the crowds thinned out drastically. In fact, the streets were now completely empty.

Just before reaching the park, where it just became clear in the distance, a lone silhouette drifting in the street caught his eye. It was a young girl about eight or nine in a blue dress. Fear coursed through his body when he realized who it was. It was his little sister Amy.

"Shoot! I need to get her to the shelter fast." After climbing down from the roof of a home, he turned to find that his sister wasn't there anymore.

"No, no, no! Where did she go?" he cried, running into the middle of the road. Reaching the center of the crossroads, he swiveled his head around, shouted her name, "Amy!" No response. The silence weighed heavy on Turner, his heart pounded, his breathing was sporadic, and his fists trembled. Above him the smoke trails of the missiles sliced through the crystal blue sky in a thick, cloudy gash.

"Damn it they're nearly here," he muttered to himself.

As he desperately surveyed his surroundings once more, he saw a man running in the direction of the mob and shrinking into the distance. He had something large on his shoulder. Turner couldn't make out what it was, but his gut told him it was his sister.

Chasing after the man, Turner was able to close the distance slightly, just enough to see the man carrying his sister on his shoulders. The man was wearing a standard U.S. army patrol uniform.

Turner was a relieved that his sister was with someone that was heading to the shelters, but also worried about her, because, you know, stranger danger and all that. Though this guy was military so he figured he could trust him.

Trying to call out to his sister was useless because he was unable to catch his breath; all that came out was wheezed gasps. The moment the pair reached the pod to the bunkers, Turner dropped to the ground exhausted. "Yes! She made it to a bunker," he thought

Getting up and jogging over to his sister, even though his body was reaching its limits. As he got closer, he saw the man push his sister into the pod and close the doors. The man's actions puzzled Turner at first but then the flashing display made him understand.

The display read "Current Capacity 2,399/2,400".

It hit him like a ton of bricks: there wasn't enough space for two people. Turner's world began to spin, tunnel vision set in as everything but his sister was blocked out. "This cannot be real, there's more room, the sign is wrong," he tried to reason, but it wouldn't work he knew the sign was correct. With a sudden rush of adrenaline he ran over to the pod, hoping that he could at least say good-bye to his sister. Only feet from the pod, from his sister, she was sent away from him, speeding down to the bunker. His sister didn't even notice him. She was focused on her savior, trying to figure out why he wasn't going with her.

Turner collapsed beside the man, realizing it was too late, that the last time his sister saw him was when he left for work that morning. She begged him to stay and take the day off. He now wished he'd listened to her. Turner began to tear up. He looked over to the man who saved his sister

Surprisingly, it was not a man, but a woman. She did not notice Turner sitting next to her; she only sat there with her eyes closed and a slight smile on her lips.

"She has obviously accepted her fate and is content with it," Turner thought. He looked ahead to see the blooming mushroom cloud racing towards them. "Well this is it," he said. He placed a hand on the woman's shoulder and looked at her with a smile, hoping it might convey his gratitude.

Turner was taken aback by a mist-like silhouette materializing on the opposite side of the woman. Before he could process what he had seen he was blasted to oblivion.

"Oh dear god I'm dead!" Turner thought to himself.

"Wait! If I'm dead then how can I be thinking?" He paused for a moment to develop any logical conclusion to the fact that he was still conscious.

"Well I am either dead or alive; it has to be one of those two, but which one?"

"If Iam dead then this is hell, purgatory, heaven, or maybe the slumber before heaven."

"I don't think this is hell since I'm not in any agony. Heaven . . . a slight possibility though I never thought heaven would be so 'nothing'," He thought.

"So if it's not Heaven or hell, then this is either purgatory or the slumber. Though if this is the slumber then why am I conscious. Shouldn't I be . . . well sleeping?" He attempted to sigh though there was no air for him to sigh with.

"Whelp I guess if I'm dead then I'm in purgatory. Lucky me," Turner thought sarcastically.

"But If I'm alive then that means I'm probably in a coma in some refugee hospital or something. God, I hope I'm still living," He thought in desperation

Deciding to put these questions aside for now, Turner tried to access any of his other senses, but it proved pointless. He couldn't feel, smell, or see anything. He was, however, able to move his limbs, which seemed to make him tumble around. It was almost like floating in water.

It felt like he was able to move his body and that his body was in motion. Though for some reason he could not feel his own body. He found out when he attempted to cover a sneeze but couldn't feel his hand or his face.

"Wait, how can I even sneeze, when I am in . . . nothingness?"

"Well I doubt this feeling is something a hospital can concoct so I guess that means I'm dead . . . that's a real bummer," Turner thought.

"Well at least I can enjoy the feeling of floating in water without the worry of drowning," he thought trying to be optimistic.

"Wish I could hold my wife right now. That's pretty selfish of my though, Janet is out safe with the rest of my family."

"I'm really glad my sister's safe too, though she looked pretty freaked out last I saw her."

He tried to sigh. "Mom is going to have a hard time calming her down after this," he thought, shaking his head - or at least what he thought was his head.

"Hold up. There was more than one bunker in my town. What happened if Mom and Amy went to different bunkers?" The thought brought a little panic with it.

"Now that I think about it, I have no real proof that Mom or Janet made it to any bunker safely while I was off looking for them. They may have been caught in the blast, or have gone to another bunker altogether. "

"And I know dad was managing the Northeast bunker but I doubt he would go in without me or Amy, which means he left to look for us. For all I know he was caught in the blast, too. "

"That means Amy could very likely be completely alone in the world right now." His sinking heart ached with a pain he never knew could have existed.

"Damn it! Why do I get this blissful nothingness and Amy gets a lonely hellish life on earth?" he thought as he tried, in vain, to clench his fist.

"At least she is still alive. She can still work and fight for a better life for herself. Unlike me," he thought, grimly.

"Is this my hell?"

"Being trapped in nothingness, knowing that my sister needs someone to comfort her?"

". . . That she will live a miserable life underground?"

". . . That she would suffer just because she got a little lost?"

". . . Because I couldn't get to her in time?"

Turner floated in silence, letting his thoughts weigh on his heart. He wished he could shed tears, hoping that crying would ease the pain. But alas, he could not.

For some time Turner drifted in silence until his thoughts slowly faded away and boredom set in.

To pass the time he started to sing to himself. Well, kind of - he was thinking through the songs since he couldn't really speak in this place.

"I walk this lonely road,"

"The only road that I have ever known,"

"Down the city streets of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams."

"My Shadow's the only one that walks be-"

Turner's train of thought was cut off suddenly as something in the nothingness changed.

Someone else was there.

"Hey, is anyone there?" he tried to call out but failed to do so.

Suddenly gravity came back and he fell to a floor of some sorts. "Ouch! What the hell type of purgatory floors are these? They're harder than stone," he thought as he stood up. There was something off about his motor skills. It was almost like they were incomplete, but he couldn't quite put a finger on how.

His train of thought was cut off once again as a white light in the distance drew his attention, flickering in and out of existence. "I guess that's the afterlife I'm going to be sent to." He began to run towards the light.

It turned out the light was not flickering out of existence but merely being blocked by a moving object. "That must be the other person I felt." He ran as hard as he could to catch up with this person.

But the person vanished into the light and then the light with them. He stood there trying to wrap his head around the situation, but before he could, a strange pressure built up against his entire body, as if he was being crushed beneath miles of water.

Suddenly small cracks of white light started to appear in the black nothingness around him. He was instantly pushed up against one of the larger cracks by the strange pressure.

"God so this is how that xenomorph felt when he got sucked through a hole in a window!" he screamed within his mind.

Something in the cracks gave and he fell into the white light.

He awoke in a field of tall grass.

He tried to sit up but searing pain stopped him. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. He decided it was best to stay still. He lay there trying to make sense of things and ignore the pain.

"Yeah, yeah, I was in a coma. That's it, a coma, and I am either dreaming in the coma or I actually woke up."

"If I woke up that would explain the pain-" He stopped thinking, attempting to look around him as heavy footsteps came towards him.

Turner could barely make out the shape of a man through the tall grass. But the man did not come close to him. No, instead the man's attention seemed fixed on something several feet from Turner. The men knelt down out of view. Turner could only guess that he was checking on whatever he found. Turner tried to yell out to him. "Help! Help me!" but all that came out was a slightly raspy wheeze.

The man stood, bringing his hand to his head. Turner assumed the man was on his phone. After a few seconds the person on the other side of the line could be heard.

"Hello? Oh, Professor Ozpin, is there something you need?" the voice on the phone was clearly female, and a rather cheerful sounding one, too.

"Wait, did she just say Ozpin?" Turner thought.

"Yes, I need you to come to the fields outside of Beacon immediately." The man who Turner presumed was Ozpin said.

"Hold up did he just say Beacon?" Turner thought.

"Why? What's wrong? Are you injured? Did you burn yourself with your coffee again? I told you that you shouldn't use the custom thermos Oobleck gave you," the woman on the phone said.

"What! Oobleck? All right, what kind of sick person would play this kind of joke on a guy in excruciating pain?" Turner thought to himself a little annoyed.

"It's not me, I found someone out in the Beacon fields that is in dire need of your medical abilities . . . and for the record that only happened once. I have since fixed Oobleck's thermos design flaws," The Ozpin man said.

"He's here to get help for an injured person! Oh yes yes, thank god! He must have seen me before getting distracted. And he called a medic here too. Thank god I'm saved," Turner thought.

"Oh! Okay, I'll be there right away sir." The woman said before he hung up.

The Ozpin man crouched down a bit out of sight.

"What has our traveler brought from the underworld this time?" he said.

The man stood up and held something up slightly above his head as if inspecting it under better light. Suddenly he began to glow with what could only be described as an aura, or maybe he was somehow radioactive because of the nuclear fallout? As the man glowed the wind started to pick up and swirl around hm.

But only for a moment, because the object he picked up started to glow red hot, causing the man to drop it. After that the wind and the glow from his body died down, and the man stood there looking at what he dropped.

Soon another set of footsteps could be heard racing towards them. "Yes, that must be the medic," Turner thought.

"Oh, Peach, I must applaud you for meeting me here with such haste. I honestly thought you would have taken the scenic route," the Ozpin man said with a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"Wait, what type of name is Peach? Oh God. Don't tell me I woke up in some kind of fantasy themed brothel," Turner thought, starting to worry a bit.

"I came as fast as I could. Where is the person you spoke of?" Peach said, sounding slightly annoyed. This seemed to be the same woman Turner had heard on the phone.

"She must have already been in the area," he thought. Turner couldn't really see much of the woman due to the tall grass but was able to make out something that looked like bright pink hair.

"She's right here. She hasn't had any changes in her behavior, but shows no sign of waking up anytime soon," Ozpin said.

"Wait, she?Then that means . . . there is someone else here! Have they even noticed me yet?!" Turner thought to himself in a panicked state.

Peach knelt down out of sight. "From what I can see, she seems perfectly fine. If you want, I can take her to the Medical District here in Beacon for further examination," Peach said.

"Yes, that seems to be the best course of action right now. Let me know if she wakes up, I have some questions for her," Ozpin said.

Peach nodded, then picked up the person in front of her and began to run off.

"Shoot, she's leaving! I need to get their attention," Turner thought but before he could do anything she was gone.

"Wait,that Ozpin guy is still here!" he thought.

He tried to call out, to move an arm or a leg, to do something to get the man's attention but it was no use. Turner couldn't make a single noise other than a wheeze and none of his body would listen to his commands to move.

The man picked something up, stood there for a moment, then turned around and quickly started walking away.

"No! Help me, help! Please, somebody, Ozpin, anyone help!" Turner tried to shout. But no matter how hard he struggled he was not heard or seen.

Turner lay there staring up at the sky with a single thought running through his head.

"Well I'm doomed."

So this is an update to the first chapter. It was a rather larger rewrite of it compared to what I have usually done with cleaning up the story. I would like to thank Katie Grey, for being such great Beta readers and being willing to work with me through the FFN Docx system. Please go read their works when you have time she really is a talented writer.