RWBY: LUCID

Jaune took a steadying breath, then moved toward the hallway with the bat held firm in his grip. He didn't waste any precious moments, this time.

His father's room was still as empty as it was before.

He swept the space with a quick glance—another carcass of a bed. Destroyed and lifeless and absent of anything that screamed his father had ever been here

Just hollow.

He exhaled through his nose and backed out, careful to shut the half-broken door behind him like it meant something.

The bathroom was just across from him. Its door hung slightly ajar.

He didn't even glance inside.

Last time, the sight and stench of wet rot and mold was enough to give him the shivers. Something about the streaks on sink and the...odd feeling that the walls were watching him—made his stomach churn just thinking about it.

He tightened his grip on the bat and turned for the stairs.

If this place was going to reset like clockwork, he didn't need to touch every horror twice.

His footsteps echoed oddly down the stairwell, likely due to their ruined state. Every single sound felt longer than it should.

But then again, it might have simply been his nerves.

He reached the first floor and turned toward the entryway.

It was closed and whole.

Just like the window upstairs.

The jagged hole where the Beowolf had once burst in was gone. Now it stood perfectly intact—old, rotting wood, peeling paint, and a rusty brass lock that clicked faintly in the stillness.

"It's also reset," Jaune whispered to himself, eyes narrowing.

He walked toward the back instead, crossing into the living room.

The broken window from the front of the house was the same as before—shattered. Jaune stepped carefully over the shards, unwilling to hurt his barefoot.

He moved closer, squinting past shard lining the frame. He tilted his head upward and saw it once again.

The red moon.

Still broken. Still bleeding its red hazy light across the sky in long, silent rays.

Its shattered crescent hovered wrong parts of the heavens, like someone had cracked it with a hammer and left the pieces floating in place.

No stars either, just red.

Just... that.

He stared for a while. Letting the silence stretch.

Then, softly he spoke, with depressive cadence.

"I'm all alone here, aren't I?"

It wasn't even a question anymore.

Only a realization settling deep in his chest that was both heavy and cold.

Jaune exhaled through his nose and clenched his jaw. He cracked his neck, the pop echoing loudly in the stillness.

"Alright," he muttered, voice low. "Let's get to work."

Jaune wasn't an idiot. He'd read his fair share of time-loop stories—some grim, some goofy, some downright tragic.

But the lesson was always the same:

Learn from your past life and do better next time.

Last time, that thing—the Beowolf, or whatever night-bred horror it was—had crashed through the front door like a battering ram.

And Jaune had gotten a real, close look at it. Closer than he ever wanted again. Its rancid breath, teeth like jagged glass, the raw sound it made when it snapped at his face—

Jaune shuddered. Then forced the memory to serve him.

He'd killed it. Somehow. Wrung its neck with nothing but adrenaline and desperation and some primitive will to live.

So he had an idea of its size now. Its bulk and the way it moved.

"It lunges," he said aloud, pacing slowly as his mind spun through the details. "That's what it did last time. No stalking. No slow crawl. Just..." He mimed the motion with his hands. "Lunge and maul."

A one-track predator. Fast, brutal, and direct.

"If this was a game…" he whispered, fingers drumming along the bat's handle. "Then that'd be its pattern. It lunges first."

And in games—when you knew the pattern—you had to learn how to exploit it.

He glanced to the side.

The couch in the living room was still broken, split along one leg, but bulky and long. Fabric rotting and torn, some springs exposed. It was heavy, but not impossible to move.

Jaune made a face. "I swear, if this thing doesn't jump through the front door again, I'm gonna feel real dumb."

Still, he got to work.

The couch scraped loudly against the ruined floor as he dragged it across the room, muscles straining. It left a gouge through the dust and old splinters, but finally—he got it into position.

Right in front of the main door.

Not directly blocking it, but just a bit further inward. Enough that, if the Beowolf lunged like last time, it would leap straight over the threshold—

And crash into it.

"Trip, fall, brain exposed." Jaune thumped the bat against his palm. "Then I go full home-run mode... or die trying, I guess."

He nodded to himself.

It wasn't elegant. But it didn't have to be.

He crouched behind the ruined kitchen island, taking a few steadying breaths. The red moonlight filtered through the broken glass, casting long, jagged shadows across the floor.

Everything felt tense. Like the house itself was holding its breath.

"Alright, ugly," Jaune muttered, eyes locked on the door. "Round two."

Jaune waited.

And waited.

He kept his breathing slow, back tight against the chipped side of the kitchen island. The bat rested across his knees, his eyes never straying far from the front door. Moonlight oozed across the floor like silent blood.

Ten minutes passed.

Nothing.

No crash or snarl.

No nightmare monster barreling in like a truck with murder issues.

Jaune frowned.

"…Okay. That's weird."

He stared at the couch still positioned like a hopeful trap.

It was still and solid, untouched.

He scratched the back of his head, brow furrowed. "Wasn't it faster than this last time?"

His voice sounded too loud in the dead air.

"Did I… get the timing wrong?" he muttered. "Or maybe… maybe it's not coming this time."

A cold thought slipped into his mind.

"Is it waiting for me?!"

Jaune stiffened, then glanced sideways toward the broken window. The silence outside felt wrong now. 

There seemed to be an expectant chill in the air.

He let out a breath, rubbing his jaw. "Last time, before it jumped me. I made a noise when I was trying to run away. And it must have heard me. That's why it came for me."

He tilted his head, thinking.

"Maybe it didn't see me this time. Or hear me."

Cringing already, he pushed himself to his feet.

"God, I'm really doing this," he said to no one in particular.

He walked to the cracked edge of the kitchen counter and, with a wince, slammed the rusted bat against it. The metal made a sharp clang—like a tuning fork being hit by a truck.

He waited.

Nothing.

Another slam.

Then another.

One full minute of rhythmic metal banging.

Still nothing.

"…Okay," he breathed out, standing straight. "Something's definitely wrong."

Jaune stepped out from behind the counter, bat still held up, warily scanning the walls and ceiling as though the thing might fall through them like a horror movie cliché.

But there was nothing.

Everything looked the same: dead shadows, rotten wood, the room still frozen in that strange half-real dream state.

His steps were slow as he moved to the window, mindful of the shattered glass. He peered out across the street, squinting past the grime-streaked pane.

The view hadn't changed.

The cracked asphalt ran down the lane in uneven lines, dotted with potholes and strange black splotches that looked more like old burns than water stains. Trash cans lay upended, but the trash was old and dried. No smell, noise or even animals digging through it. No wind. No... nothing

Everything felt... off.

"Where the hell are you?" Jaune muttered, eyes sweeping side to side.

"This doesn't make sense. You came charging in last time—full berserk mode. I didn't even do anything. You were just… there."

His knuckles tightened around the bat.

"Is it because I changed something? Was it the couch? The noise? Or did something just decide… nah, not tonight."

He looked down at the road again. Still no movement.

"If this is some kind of dream logic… then maybe it reacts to me? But then why wouldn't it show up when I practically called for it? That's supposed to be how monsters work, right?"

He turned away from the window, pacing a short circle.

"Unless this isn't about me anymore," Jaune said softly. "Unless this place doesn't want me to win again. Or doesn't want me to expect anything."

He tapped the bat against his palm, head down in thought.

"Time-loop stories… they're supposed to repeat, right? But they also change. That's the whole point. I changed something. So now the outcome's different. But what did I change?"

He glanced back at the couch.

"Was preparing, enough to throw it off? Is that how this works now?"

He sighed, dragging a hand down his face.

"I hate this place."

Then he looked back toward the hallway, toward the door that led to the rest of the house—and possibly, the rest of the street.

His eyes narrowed.

"…If the monster's not coming to me, then maybe…"

He gripped the bat tighter.

"I'll have to go to it."