RWBY Through Worlds

62: Bury Me Alive

The teams slept a little easier that night, just for having their friends back... Well, most of them did.

Ever since getting to Vacuo, some of them were having reoccurring nightmares every night.

Oscar was having some pretty bad ones, about being kidnapped and tortured--he'd dream that he didn't escape...also that he'd become Ozpin, somehow, on the sly, and it was irreversible.

He woke up yelling a few times from those, but the walls of Shade were so thick, he wasn't heard by anyone--he had his own room for some reason.

Emerald was still having her nightmares, but now the fear of Salem coming after her was added to them--she hadn't forgotten that moment--and also Cinder attacking her.

But somehow it was mixed up in the dreams that Mercury also was either right there or was dead already and they were too late, or Hazel had died too...

She would wake up either yelling or crying or just breathing hard. She felt like it was getting worse, too, the longer they went without making contact. It was maddening to just be so close but unable to do anything!

Getting up, she thought she'd go out into a different room to clear her head. But when she tried to open it, the handle wouldn't turn.

Unlike Atlas, Vacuo just had regular locks on the doors, and each room had a key that you could hang either inside it or outside it (depending on if you were using it) or keep with you. Emerald had it, but when she put it in the lock, it was like it was jammed.

She was sure it had worked fine before, even if it was a little old... She thought it must have been tampered with.

Had someone been here?

Rationally Emerald should have figured that it was probably another student playing a prank--Shade students infamously did this all the time--but she didn't know that anyway, and with all her thoughts being dominated by Salem and Cinder, her first idea was that Tyrian or someone else had found their way here and locked her in.

Starting to get frantic, she yanked at the handle more--though really that would be a dead giveaway she was in here, if she'd thought about it.

The wind blowing outside stirred up some dust, and that made her jump.

"Come on..." she muttered, rattling the handle more. "Open."

Then she heard snickering.

It was still early morning, but some students were up for patrol, and in fact it was one of them who'd jammed the door.

Hearing this, Emerald figured it wasn't Tyrian--he'd be louder--but it still freaked her out.

"This isn't funny," she muttered. "Open the d--- door."

"Maybe you should raid our school," she heard. She didn't recognize the voice.

Emerald froze.

But before anyone else could jeer at her, someone else interrupted it.

Shine and Pyrrha both had heard the noise from where their room was (Shine had kept that no co-ed room rule in place somehow, though Pyrrha was more comfortable with her team now, but everyone had gotten used to  it). They were just the ones down from Emerald, and the others had purposely picked rooms farther from hers, even when there'd been plenty of space.

"I thought I heard laughing," Pyrrha said. "Could you all please be quieter? Our team is really exhausted."

"Sorry," one of the students said. They were cool with Pyrrha; most of them knew who she was.