"Don't think. Obey."

I didn't really want to finish my breakfast after that escapade. Even Mom's amazing food couldn't really entice me to eat, since I had lost pretty much all of my appetite at that point. I don't usually cry very easily, so the fact that I was crying in front of Mom made me feel almost worse. It's not like I had my arm sliced off using one of the machines, or anything. Still, I let my emotions get to me. There's no real reason I should have been pushed to tears at all. It wasn't like I had been through that much to justify crying like that. It simply wasn't something I was proud. It didn't even take me that long to start crying; maybe I wasn't as strong as I thought I was. Not that I ever thought I really was that strong to begin with. Physically and mentally, I've never been the strongest of people. Maybe it's because I've just lived in that tiny little farm my entire life. I was always a scaredy cat and a fairly vulnerable person, but I was never really a crier, at least not before that point.

My mother was so wonderful to me when I tried to explain to her why I was upset, but all her kindness kind of hurt me after a while. She wanted to help me feel better. She was worried about me. I was making her feel badly, too. I think I hated that most. It hurts when I'm upset, but it hurts way more to see someone I care about upset because of my actions. She's such an amazing person, and I shouldn't have worried her by crying. When I had first started to open up to her, it helped me a lot just to talk through everything that was going on. After she didn't say anything for a while, unease replaced my temporary relief. Silence is more terrifying than any amount of shouting could ever be, in my humble opinion. You never know what will come from silence. In my mind, I promised myself that I wouldn't cry again, especially not with the person I care about most in the entire world around.

I smiled a sheepish and shy smile even though I was still upset. Thankfully, I felt a bit better for real after Mom had tried to convince me that maybe it was my semblance. I'm not entirely sure why I did, exactly. It didn't quite make sense for that to be connected to my semblance. No one has ever had a semblance like that, and anyone who lost their mind could still claim that even if there were. She was clearly just trying to help me feel better, but I didn't really want to hurt her even more by continuing to be upset. If I had to stop opening up and hide my feelings for her sake, I would do it. Her happiness was worth protecting, and if I just pretended it didn't happen then maybe I could eventually convince myself that it really didn't happen at all.

I grabbed my fork and knife again and cut up a piece of the ham. When I took a bite of the ham and chewed it slowly, it had already gotten pretty cold, and I still wasn't feeling hungry anymore. I felt a bit guilty though. Mom always had to get up pretty early to make breakfast for me because I got up before dawn to see the sunrise. She worked so hard everyday for me. On top of how I was already feeling, it made me a little sad that I had let all the delicious food Mom had made for me with love. I looked down at the plate. The only thing that wasn't cold probably was the milk.

I glanced up at Mom, who had stopped hugging me and sat at the other side of the table instead. Her sad, worried expression made me feel even guiltier for worrying her and for letting her wonderful food get cold, and it made me want to help her like it always did. I knew I had to do something to help her feel better. Even though it was cold, I skewered the rest of the piece of ham and stuffed it into my mouth without even cutting it first. Despite my loss of appetite and the fact that the food wasn't very good anymore, I wanted to finish it for Mom.

It didn't take long for her to realize what I wanted to do, and she moved the plate to her side of the table, laughing a little. I must have had a pretty guilty look on my face. Either that, or she was better at reading me than I even knew. "Easy there, tiger. You'll get sick if you eat too fast, you know. Why don't you take some time to calm down? I can always warm your plate up, no problem," she said smiling.

I smiled back when I realized that she wasn't that upset anymore. Maybe she was trying to hide her emotions just like I was trying, and clearly failing to do. I wasn't quite sure, but I knew she loved me. And she clearly wasn't going to kick me out of the house or send me to an asylum if she was telling me to go to my room and calm down. Plus, I'm glad that she took my food away from me. I still wasn't ready to eat. She probably was right, and I just needed to take some time to calm down to feel better. I had just gone through so many emotions in a matter of minutes, and I finally realized that it had taken a pretty big tole on me. I had only just woken up from my nightmare not even an hour and a half ago, and I was already tired. Mentally, I was confused and upset. I promised myself that I wouldn't let my emotions get the best of me again that day, and I wasn't going to let the morning's events hold me down.

Before she could do anything else, I got up and walked over to her side of the table. I smiled bitter-sweetly and gave her a hug as I messed up her chocolate brown hair as much as I could. It wasn't much, since she had put her hair up in a tight braid that day, but I sure tried...as gently as I possibly could. With a mix of happiness and sadness, I recalled the tickle attack from the morning before. Just like when she was worried about my head then, she was worried about my head at that moment too. Only, this time it was for an entirely different reason. Just thinking about the morning before made me feel a bit better, so I repeated her own words back to her.

"I was worried about you," I said, and I truly meant it.

Mom smiled when she recognized the words and repeated my answer,"I know."

"I love you."

"I know."

Then I kissed her cheek and made my way back to my room to calm down. I spent the rest of the day reading stories from my small collection of books. Growing up on a farm didn't exactly give me access to cutting edge technology, so books became a big part of my childhood. With books I was able to escape to far off places and learn about people who lived differently than I did, had different viewpoints than I did, or even were faunus - an entirely different species of people. I loved my boring, but orderly lifestyle. Still, part of it was listening to tales of other people's adventures. The best part about books was that I could learn about other peoples' lives without having to leave my warm, comfortable bed. That, and reading reminded me of when Dad would read bedtime stories to me before bedtime. If I had a few books, I could meet characters and have friends, even if it was all pretend or made up. Is that more than a little bit sad? Probably. Is it more than a little childish? Probably. Regardless, reading has always made me happy, and I've always cherished it.

I've never really liked nonfiction books. I've always preferred fictional stories. However, my favorite was always and will always be fairy tales. Contrary to popular belief, a true fairy tale isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Those are what people think of when they remember them, not what actual fairy tales are. People think that fairy tales are all cute and always end happily, but that's not true at all. In reality, fairy tales are dark and scary to serve as a cautionary tale for the audience. Yet, they always get a happy ending. In my opinion, fairy tales reflect the most important parts of real life more than some of the history books I've read. In history books, the author tries to state the facts with as much of an unbiased opinion as possible, and as a result they don't seem to truly care about anything. Even when they do care about it, they either go into too much detail about things that don't matter that much like politics or the specific culture of a group of people, or they don't go into detail at all and treat people like numbers that we'll eventually forget. They don't tell us about the lives or problems of specific people like fictional stories do. In fairy tales however, all of the characters aren't really characters at all. They don't have to be. They're only there so you can put yourself in their shoes and learn something important like not to trust strangers or how to be a better person. The characters start off without knowledge of the lesson, then their innocence or naivety allows them to make a mistake, they are punished because of it, and in the end they grow, become a better person, and have a better life because of it. Sure they went through hardships, but they reached their happy endings because they learned from their mistakes. Most of the people in the history books seem to never really learn from their mistakes at all. Even when they do, someone else comes and does the same exact thing.

I still hadn't regained my appetite since I had lost it by the time lunch rolled around, though I was feeling a whole lot better emotionally. My head was clearer since I was focused on finding out what happened next in the story, rather than being lost in my thoughts about that morning. I wasn't as scared anymore, and I had been feeling pretty happy. Getting out of doing school work was pretty nice, even if the reason for it was essentially a panic attack. I guess Mom didn't really want to bother me while I was in my room, since she never came to force me to eat. I probably would have heard her if she did, even if I was pretty concentrated on my book. By the time she finally did, I had to turn on my little lamp a few hours before and watched the sunset out of my window.

"Oscar! Supper's almost ready!" Mom called from downstairs, or more accurately down-ladder, as I continued to read my book.

"What are we having?" I joked, knowing full well that it probably was just my reheated breakfast. Since I had never gone down to get it, she probably just made something for herself and put my breakfast in the oven at the same time. Even though she couldn't see it, I smiled down at the book I was reading happily. We both were really worried about each other, and we could both use some good old fashion joking around.

I could almost hear my mother roll her eyes and smile despite herself, if that were possible. She obviously knew as well as I did that I still hadn't eaten my breakfast, and she probably knew I was joking around too. In fact, I know she did because she quickly shot back,"Doesn't matter. You're eating it!"

At that, I pouted a little as I tried to think of something funny to say for a few seconds. When I didn't come up with anything that was exactly comedy gold, I flipped the page of my book and settled with,"I never agreed to these terms!"

Unluckily for me, Mom came up with a pretty good follow up fairly quickly.

"It's part of the living under my roof contract," she specified before adding,"Check the fine print and come wash up."

So, I closed my book and laid it on the bed. I was just about to start a new chapter, so the timing worked out pretty well. I didn't have to get a bookmark, since I could just remember the chapter number. I took a deep breath. I had a lot of time to calm down, and it really helped. I just hoped that when I got down for dinner, I would be able to apologize to Mom for making her worry about me. Of course, if she was still worried I wasn't going to bring it up quite yet. However she felt, I was going to at least go down and eat the rest of my food.

By the time I was off of the bed, something happened that made me stop in my tracks and practically knocked the breath out of me for a few seconds. I heard Professor Ozpin's voice again.

"We have to leave."

After hearing and seeing him once, I had thought I was going crazy. I probably still was going insane, but at least earlier I had managed to get the idea out of my head for a little while. Even that had taken almost an entire day to deal with. Hearing him again made all of that progress effectively worthless. I could have lived my entire life without hearing him another time, and I desperately wanted to do that. Only crazy people hear voices in their head and see things that aren't really there. Still, I promised myself that I wouldn't let this take control of me. How could something take over my thoughts and scare me so much if it wasn't truly real?

I tried my best to shove it off and ignore the voice I heard for a second time. It didn't exist. I was going crazy, but that didn't matter. What did matter was that Mom was waiting for me downstairs, and I had already let her down before. I wasn't going to let her food get cold a second time. That just wasn't an option anymore. If I did that, she could take it the wrong way and think I didn't want to eat at all. It was pretty late, and the only thing I had eaten was that cold slice of ham from before. After what happened earlier, betraying my promises to myself didn't seem right. It was basically the same thing as giving up. So, I took a deep breath and kept walking toward the door.

Whoever Professor Ozpin was, he wouldn't give in either. He just kept calling my name. Well, he would have if he were actually real, but he wasn't of course. He was just a figment of my imagination. As any normal human being would, I didn't want to accept that any of that was real. It simply couldn't be. It went against logic and everything I had known for all my life. All my life I thought I was a simple, normal farm boy. Simple, normal farm boys to my knowledge never heard voices in their heads from a man who never even existed. There was no way that I was going to accept that in this or any world. The voice I was hearing simply didn't exist. At that moment, I knew I was going insane.

It's a horrible feeling to know that you clearly aren't thinking in a mentally sound way at all. It's not a very easy thing to digest, and simply thinking about it was so much to handle that it made me feel sick. My stomach started hurting, and my vision started to spin a little. My throat started closing up, but I wasn't going to let myself cry again. Though, I was on the verge of starting to, I shoved it off and focused on getting to the door. Even my heart was beating almost as quickly as my racing thoughts. I wanted to question everything I had ever thought of before, but I didn't have time for that. I had to go downstairs for dinner. I couldn't keep my own mother waiting.

Each step felt as if I was trudging through lots of mud or as if I was carrying something very heavy, but I kept walking. When I got to the door, I reached out for the doorknob with a shaky hand, but I couldn't bring myself to turn the handle just yet. I'm not entirely sure why. Even if it was simply to clear my mind, I guess I needed to respond to the voice somehow. I was going to have to face the music someday, even if it wasn't just right then. If I did it sooner, it might go away though. So, I took a deep breath and tried my best to calm down.

"I've decided you're not real," I tried to reason with myself or Professor Ozpin,"So you might as well just give up."

I'm not entirely sure whether I was trying to convince myself or the Professor that the voice wasn't real. It seems kind of stupid to acknowledge something by proclaiming that it wasn't real, but at the time I was so confused and scared. Then the same three words started running through my mind, over and over and over again.

..It's not real...It's not real...It's not real...

Those words kept getting louder, and louder in my head. They wouldn't stop as I started panicking even more. By the time that stupid voice in my head returned, my own thoughts were practically drowning his words out.

"I understand how you're feeling. I went through the same panic and confusion."

I could barely even hear what he had said, but I heard enough to be able to understand the words. It was as if the voice was trying to comfort me of all things. I should have felt angry at it's words. How could he, a nonexistent voice in my schizophrenic, insane head understand at all how I was feeling? Whoever or whatever it was, there was no way that he could even begin to understand how I was feeling. I couldn't even begin to understand my own thoughts or feelings at all. How could he do that if even I couldn't understand? It had no right to claim that he knew at all what my pain was, much less try to console me after all my pain was because of the voice. I couldn't bring myself to be angry, however. Instead, I just wanted it to stop.

I turned and realized that I had left books lying around the floor. Wanting to keep my room clean, I walked over and started to put the books back. I didn't want to deal with voices in my head that didn't exist. Instead, I tried to ignore it. The same three words kept running through my head. Maybe it was a defense mechanism or a way to cope with what was happening, I wasn't really sure. All I knew was that it wouldn't stop. I kept hearing my own words in my head, over and over and over again. As I put the books away, I actually said those words out loud. I guess maybe I thought if I said it enough, the situation I was in really wouldn't be.

"It's not real...It's not real...It's not real..."

I got up from the floor and gazed at my reflection in the mirror. Nothing about this made any sense at all, and I just wanted the voice to stop talking to me. Hearing voices in my head and seeing things isn't normal. It was crazy. I was crazy. There really was no other explanation at all, other than the fact it could have to do with my semblance. But that was a stupid idea in of itself.

While I was trying to ignore the horrible voice in my head, the voice coming back didn't really help matters at all. Ozpin just kept talking to me, and I hated it. "I can assure you. You are perfectly sane."

Yeah right. Any sane person wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place. None of this was something that any sane person would experience. It was stupid to think that it was. No real normal person would be hearing people who aren't there. There was simply no way that I was sane. Something this weird and crazy didn't happen to normal, sane people. At this point, I could only repeat that in my head in an attempt to calm myself down. Needless to say, it didn't work at all. What was going on simply was insane.

I continued to look at my reflection in the mirror. The boy who stared back at me seemed just like any normal kid probably should have. As much as I wish I did, I didn't have any brothers or sisters at all. Since no one my age really came to visit the farm ever, I basically grew up with only my books, the few people around the farm including my parents, and my imagination. From what I saw in my books, I looked like a pretty normal farmhand. Maybe it was having so few people to talk to that had finally gotten to me. Maybe I had gone crazy in some sort of effort to talk to someone. That could have been it. A few months ago, I read a book about mental disorders since I had nothing else to read at that time. In that book, there was a chapter on multiple personality disorder. The book said that it was extremely rare and ninety percent of patients were abused as children, but it was still possible I guess. Either growing up without any friends pushed me to make my own friend, I was one of the extremely rare ten percent of people who weren't abused, or I didn't have multiple personality disorder at all. Anyway you slice it, I was still crazy despite what the voice in my mind said.

"I'm talking to a voice in my head." I whispered to the boy in the window.

I could see how scared I really was in my eyes. Even if I looked fine everywhere else, my eyes would probably give me away every time I tried to hide something. Whether it was with good intentions or bad, my hazel eyes were probably the reason my mom could figure out I was hiding something. Well, that and the fact that she is my mother after all. When I got downstairs, she would pick up on the fact that I wasn't doing very good. Besides my eyes, I was also shaking a bit. It wasn't very hard to tell that I was upset in the very least. There probably wasn't even a way to hide it from Mom. Mom's are good at things like that. In fact, it probably was a better idea to try and calm down again before going down the ladder to her. It was too bad that was next to impossible at that point.

"I didn't say you were normal," Ozpin retorted,"I said you were sane."

Even if it was true that I was sane, everything was still so confusing. That didn't really make any sense. Then again, nothing about what was happening made sense at all. I decided that maybe I should just go down to dinner again. Mom was waiting for me, after all. I had already made her worried, and making her wait for me more probably only made her worry even more. I didn't want to do that to her. She had already tried to make me feel better once, and she shouldn't have to do it again. Mom deserved better than that. She was always so wonderful like she had been that morning. Everyday, Mom did her best to give me a happy life, despite not being around anyone close to my age. Heck, most of what she did was all for me. She wanted me to have a better future than the already wonderful present. My mother was an amazing person, and she didn't deserve to ever feel scared or worried, much less hurt. She didn't deserve to have a son that was clearly going mad.

While thinking about my mom, I found the courage to once again walk toward the door. On my way there, however, Professor Ozpin's voice broke through my thoughts,"There's quite..."

While he kept talking, anger finally started to boil up inside of me. Up until then, I had tried to do my very best to keep from being angry. I was scared and confused, but I hadn't fully gotten angry yet. I had every reason too, though. After all, the voice was the cause of all the pain and fear I was feeling. Hearing Professor Ozpin's voice for the first time had scared me so badly that I had actually started crying, which I rarely ever did. Maybe I just never had a real reason to cry before that day. I was convinced that my own mother was going to send me away to some mental institution for "help." I was afraid that she wouldn't want to be around me anymore, or even worse, maybe she would hate me. I was so afraid of myself, knowing that I was probably not right in the head at all. That's such a horrible thing to think about, and yet there I was, thinking about it. In fact, I had been thinking about it for so long that it just amplified my feelings of terror and confusion, as well as the anger that was starting to erupt.

He or the voice, or whatever it was continued,"...a significant differen-"

Angrily, I cut Ozpin's words off with a shout that quieted the voice almost instantly,"Shut up!"

Hey again! Sorry for the wait. This week was a pretty big mess. My only computer stopped charging for a while, so I couldn't work on anything, even if I wanted to. I promise that if I miss another week's chapter ever again, you can be really, really mad at me or something. There isn't a whole lot you can do other than that besides pming me and expressing your anger or whatever. If something ever happens that prevents me from uploading the chapter on time, then I will let you know what's going on with a note at least. I don't want to keep you guys in that dark about what's going on, and it's not fair to do that, anyway.

I hope that the shift from third person to first person can give us more insight to what Oscar is thinking, but I might have to shift it back if it doesn't accomplish that. I have the original chapters saved just in case. If it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out. Just let me know if you prefer the original third person to the new first person.

I've been thinking so far ahead that it's getting hard to put that aside and focus on where I'm at in the story currently. Volume 6 is doing a really good job at fixing some of RWBY's problems and striving to be better. It's just really inspiring. Plus Ruby is getting character development! Woot! Woot! So this chapter I've been getting a lot of writer's block. Not to mention I've been struggling to get away from my own pack of Apathy if you know what I mean. Maybe it's the fact that I'm thinking about the wording of this story in first person now. It's kinda depressing, but I'm good. I promise. I've never really been truly depressed and I certainly won't let the reason I actually become depressed be an internet story I'm writing. It could also be that I'm just tired from dealing with exams, but who cares.

On top of that, I'm trying to obviously help Oscar's character development. I'm not sure if it's working or coming across at all, but his personality will become more apparent around other people. Since he basically has been used as a tool by the plot to connect to Ozpin, he kinda feels like a blank slate. In the show, he really hasn't held a real conversation with anyone other than Ruby. I'm also going to assume he has lived at the farm his entire life without ever leaving. I think it's safe to say that he's a shy, socially awkward, introverted kid, but he also wants to help people. Just saying that makes him sound like a discount Izuku Midoriya though, no offense to our favorite farm boy. So, this chapter I thought I would bring up the fact that he would rather hide his feelings than express them and make the people around him feel worried. He wants to help everyone around him, including with little things that might honestly just be all in his head. If it didn't really come across that way this chapter, then that will be explored more soon. Hopefully, as this story goes on, we will get to see more and more of Oscar's personality as he gets pushed more and more out of his comfort zone.

Also, I am so excited to play with the fact that Oscar is currently MIA. It's gonna be fun.

Dear Readers,

Hello again! Sorry again, but I have another urgent announcement regarding this story. GUESS WHO'S ONLY COMPUTER STOPPED CHARGING. I am SO SO SO sorry for letting you guys down. I know I promised that the new chapter would be ready to go last Sunday, but I couldn't use my computer since it broke Friday night. I know I messed up, so I will probably add another scene to this chapter or something. I left you guys without a chapter that I already had delayed, which isn't fair at all. Especially right before Christmas. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that I broke my promise to upload every week only on the third chapter in. I really hope that this doesn't happen again.

Maybe it was for the better, though. Since I got a really wonderful break, I hope everything will be even better than it would have been otherwise. I had time to come up with new ideas, and it makes me happy. Christmas in general makes me happy.

I will upload the new chapter next Saturday. No excuses. If you think the change to first person sacrifices some of the quality of Os's Scars, please let me know. I can change it back if it doesn't end up helping.

I love you guys! Thank you so much for your patience, and Happy New Year!

Love,

UnitedPikachu