Chapter 7: Haunting My Steps
-Deeper into the Maze-
They'd been running for what felt like hours, the sounds of trampling claws had slowly receded back to silence as the night began to encroach. The dark tendrils of shadows crawled over the grey stone and spread from the vine-covered cracks basking the maze in the void of cold.
Nova looked to the sky but no stars hovered above, just the dim light of a silver moon behind a thickened layer of clouds and fog.
He had no idea where they were, all hope of getting their bearings had been completely shot and this left him with nothing to go off of. They were in some sort of manicured corner of the maze where three corners intersected but the pathways were wide enough to fit a group of people.
Sighing heavily, his eyes glowing in the dark on account of his Faunus traits, he looked to Ruby Prime, "I think we lost it, but we also lost ourselves... not that we knew where we were, to begin with I guess, so no real loss on that part."
She shuffled around lazily, clearly exhausted. Instead of responding, she plopped down onto a corner of the maze, hugging her knees to her body and casting a dead look at the darkness of their lightless respite.
He watched her and shook his head, "I'll get a fire started," he grabbed some stored dried wood in his inventory and made a small pile before snapping his fingers. A light flame danced out of his fingers and ignited the bonfire that cast a small glow in the constricting darkness.
"Did you remember to bring rations?" he asked, glancing in her direction.
She didn't respond.
"Fine…" he pulled out some jerky and began heating it on a skewer before handing it to her and a bottle of water.
"You're going to have to take this or I will force-feed you," his eyes narrowed at her, "Here…" he shoved it into her hands and passed a bottle of water.
Ruby Prime reluctantly took hold of the skewer and looked at it amidst the flame.
Penny was dead.
The fact stung like poison in her mind, the more she blinked the more she saw Penny's face smiling back at her, like a ghost haunting her every waking moment. Since she'd entered she hadn't been able to process the feelings and she doubted she ever could.
Nova saw the dead look in her eyes and it wrenched his heart, she may not be his Ruby, but she was still Ruby Rose. It was eating him alive, every fibre of his being was screaming to go to her and give her some form of comfort but those were lines he couldn't cross with someone who he barely knew.
He had to mentally slap himself that he was practically a stranger to her, they didn't have a bond, and they were never friends. Looking at the system information he tried to gaze past the lines of text, to curse at whatever being thought it was funny to put him in this situation.
It could have been anyone from team RWBY or even his Ruby, and they would've been better equipped to handle this.
"Fuck…" he cursed, running his hands through his hair and biting down on a piece of jerky in frustration.
"Look, Ruby…" he spoke softly, "I don't know what's going on, or what's gotten you so off your game but you're clearly troubled and…"
"I'm fine," she said tersely.
"No, you're not fine…" he tried again, seeing her respond.
"I SAID I'M FINE!" she exploded, her shouts ringing across the maze again and Nova's eyes went wide, waiting on bated breath for the sounds of running claws but nothing came.
After a few moments he glared at her, "You're not fine!" he whisper-shouted, "Do you have any clue what kind of situation we're in?!"
She went to respond but he cut her off.
"Do you get it?! Death in this realm is real! Okay?! This isn't some kind of game! I get something's got you fucked up but this isn't the time to be letting it control you!"
"Letting it control me?!" she harshly whispered, "Yeah… you're right… I'll… be better…" she said exhaustedly. Her words said she agreed but he could see she was fighting the rising anger.
"Good… and… I'm not your enemy, none of us are. I know I sounded harsh just now but I just want us to get out of here alive. You don't have to like me, we just need to work together, is that okay?"
Ruby Prime looked at him confused. Did… he think her reaction was his fault?
"I-It's not your fault… I'm just… going through a lot right now."
He nodded in understanding, "Then you don't have to talk about it. Just… do your best okay?"
"Do my best…" she echoed in a hollow voice, "Yeah…"
Shaking his head despondently he looked at his bag and saw a particular white cloak that belonged to someone important… he contemplated giving it to her for warmth but… given whose cloak it was… it may cause more harm than good.
Ruby couldn't sleep, she found herself still awake, exhausted but unable to drift off as every moment she did, she could see Penny in her dreams. With tired eyes she glanced around, the fire was still lit and Nova was leaning against a wall, sleeping with his head resting against the cornerstone and his arms folded.
Seeing this as her time alone, she looked down at her hands again and all at once the weight of her failures came crashing down at once, the tears falling without any warning as she wept alone in the dark, her silent sobs the only sound amidst the crackling bonfire.
"Ruby!" a distant… and hauntingly familiar voice called in the dark.
Instantly she shot up, the last drops of her tears falling to the ground as she whipped her head around to the sound.
"Ruby!" the voice of Penny called again in the dark, seeming to rebound off the walls and stone. It was so lifelike…
"P-Penny…?" she asked hesitantly, looking through the pitch darkness but she couldn't see a thing. Only a vague indication of where the voice might have come from.
She waited for a response… and waited… and waited… but nothing more came from the dark. Chalking it up to a delusion spawned by her already crumbling mental health she plopped back down into her corner and tried to sleep.
The next day Nova woke to find Ruby already awake, stoking the fire and boiling a pot of water on it, a stained metal cup lay by her feet, just to her left. The bags under her eyes suggested she hadn't slept the entire night.
Sighing to himself he took his cup out of the inventory and filled it with the boiling water, adding a packet of the instant coffee Hex gave them.
"You didn't get sleep," it wasn't a question.
She downed her own cup and put it in her inventory, "I'm used to it."
Instead of berating her, he made a mental note to watch her carefully. He'd make sure to protect her should the moment arise.
"Last night I did some digging into the system," Ruby said in a monotone voice, "There's a map, sorta."
Raising his eyebrow he waited for her to continue, nodding his head in acknowledgement. It was his way of saying a good job without patronizing her like she was a child that needed to be rewarded for doing her job. She didn't want that and he knew it. That's not the way Ruby Rose worked.
"If you bring up the system map, it shows us the route we've covered so far."
He did as instructed but didn't see much. All he could see was a compass and a map that was mostly covered in fog of war, the path that was uncovered was a relatively small line compared to the rest of the map, presumably what they had uncovered thus far.
"I tested the covering and walked up a bit and uncovered more, but I'm not sure where to go…. The places we'd been are all covered in fog and my map isn't very detailed." she said.
He frowned, "Wait you can see where we are?"
She nodded, "Yeah… don't you see two small blips on the map?"
He shook his head, "No… I got the map and a compass. I can see our previous path…"
Ruby blinked and her map updated.
System: "Map Synch complete, now displaying points of interest to Ruby Rose"
Her map was then updated again with four markers, a red one in the center, a green one at the very end of the maze and two more blue markers that were moving randomly.
"Uh… okay now I can see places to go, but I don't know where to go because I can't navigate…"
"And I can navigate but I don't know where to go… so that's how the system works on this trial. It wants us to use the combination of your map information and my navigation to get out of the maze… ironic because I can't navigate for shit." Nova responded dryly.
Ruby packed up her stuff, "What are we waiting for? Let's go…"
With the combined effort of the two, they managed to make it deeper into the maze, the blue markers were moving closer toward the center, seemingly where they were headed as well.