She pulled herself up onto the floor of the next level, and the hole in the bricks where she had passed through vanished as soon as she turned away, blocking her from going back even if she wanted to. Ruby didn't notice, though, instead moving over to the shelves lined up against one wall and looking for anything useful.
There were a couple of candles, which she took gladly before lighting one, and while she was happy to have a source of light again, she almost wished she couldn't see the walls. Below, the walls had been just plain old stone, but up here, they were splattered with blood on almost every visible surface. With a shudder, she turned toward the door and attempted to ignore the red all around her.
The door swung open on its own, hitting the wall with a loud bang, and she jumped. There was no one on the other side, even though she was partially expecting to see another creepy Weiss standing there. Ruby shook her head to clear it, and cautiously stepped out into the hall, being reminded again of how little help the candle was. The dust in the air was thick enough that the flame's light just sort of bounced off, instead of lighting the way ahead, so she could hardly see more than two or three feet ahead of her. Still, having it there gave her some sense of contentment, even if it didn't realistically help much.
This hallway was shorter than most of the others, so she came upon the next room right away. There was a pillar in the middle of the floor, blocking her view of the far wall, which bothered her slightly. Other than that, it felt relatively safe, and she wandered further in to explore.
Of course, as soon as she passed through the doorway, she noticed a dark figure standing to her right. Spinning around to see what it was, she immediately regretted that decision as the candle light illuminated the figure and showed her that it was Blake. Or, it looked like Blake, but its eyes looked exactly like Weiss's had. For a moment she wondered what to do with it, since Weiss had moved as soon as she stopped looking at it, but she didn't get to think about it long before Blake made the decision for her. Ruby gasped and backed away as its head jerked back and the rest of its body seized, and then crumpled to the ground at her feet. She forced herself not to scream again when she noticed its hand had landed on her boot, as if it had been reaching for her, and she continued to back away instead.
That is not Blake. It looks like Blake, but it's not her. This is a horrible nightmare that's just trying to scare me by showing me my friends like this, but they're fine. If I'm in the infirmary in reality, I bet Blake is sitting beside my bed reading a book right now, perfectly normal and safe. Ruby reassured herself over and over as she slowly moved to the side of the room she hadn't been able to see before, ignoring the crumpled Blake.
There was a small, wooden chest on the floor here, and she knelt down to open it. Inside she found another candle, which made her realize that she hadn't even noticed the dripping wax from the one currently burning in her hand this time, despite how it had burned her skin before. Maybe this one was burning too and she just didn't feel it this time, though whether that was from her fear or something else she didn't know. She shoved the thoughts of the candle away as she noticed the light glinting off of something in the bottom of the chest, similarly to how her rose symbol had, and she reached in to pick it up as well.
When she held it under the light, it took her a moment to recognize the forest green gears symbol as Ozpin's. When she did realize what it was, Ruby blinked in confusion. Why is his symbol here too? Is there some sort of pattern to this? Whatever the reason for them being here, she had a feeling their symbols were incredibly important right now, and placed Ozpin's gears next to her own rose on her belt.
She closed the chest and fought to stand up again, her legs protesting even though she hadn't done anything yet to make them tired. For a moment she wondered why, but that thought vanished as soon as she spotted a dark figure standing in the doorway beside the chest, and stood bolt upright before staring at the figure, startled. Now at eye level, her candle was close enough to just barely light up a green coat and black hair, and it reflected ever so slightly off of a set of sad, magenta eyes.
Though she felt no danger, Ruby continued to be frozen in place as she stared at Ren. He wasn't at all creepy like the other two had been, or threatening like Weiss, but there was something about him that was wrong.
Then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone. She blinked for a moment and looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen, as if he had vanished into thin air. Glancing back at where he had been standing, she thought about him and the other things she'd seen down here. Weiss had been first, with its creepy eyes and what Ruby had felt was an intent to hurt her, then the dark figure with the scraping noise that she also had a feeling would want to hurt her if it saw her. Then Blake, which hadn't seemed dangerous but still creepy, and now Ren, who had just looked sad. If I've seen those three, does that mean I'm going to see monsters that look like Yang and the rest of team JNPR too? She dreaded the thought of running into Yang, if the rest of her team had looked like they did, she absolutely did not want to know what this place would do to her sister.
She shook her head. No, not my sister, the image OF my sister. These things aren't my real friends, they're just part of this nightmare. No matter how much they look like them, I can't let this place fool me into thinking the monsters are my friends. Still, her mind drifted back to the look on Ren's face, the sad expression had seemed incredibly foreboding. No matter how she looked at it, seeing him gave her the feeling that she was about to see something very, very bad. Either that, or things in general were about to get a lot worse.
Finally, she walked through the doorway Ren had been standing in, continuing on into the next room.
A/N: I don't like putting these here because I feel it breaks the immersion, but just letting you guys know this story is already essentially FINISHED, so I can post updates whenever I like. Which also means the more you guys review, the faster I'll be convinced to update. So basically, if I get enough reviews, you could end up getting a chapter a day or more (especially since some of the chapters are so short) so if you want more, leave a review and I'll update faster!