Hello and a happy Hallow's Eve to everyone!

In celebration of fears and terrors and the ending to the second volume of RWBY, here's a special one-shot featuring our beloved wolf-Ruby.

Wolf Love is not necessary to understand what's going on here, but I'd love it if you check it out anyways if you have the time. Will this or does this event ever take place in Wolf Love? ... Who knows...

Let's Scare Ruby

"So what story are you going to tell tonight?" Ruby beamed at the cat Faunus. For several nights now, after their reading session, Blake would tell Ruby a story, a simple little bedtime story. Sometimes it would be about what she was reading, sometimes a little fairy tale, and sometimes just about her day. Regardless, Ruby loved listening to Blake's voice.

Blake smirked mischievously. Ruby didn't know what today was. Tonight was the night that terrors run rampant.

"Well Ruby, I heard an interesting story about Beacon today," she said, pretending to be nonchalant. "It was about a girl who used to go here."

"A former student?"

"Yep, I heard it passing by the professors. Want to hear it?"

"Sure!" Ruby grinned happily.

Oh you won't be happy for long…

"Okay then, get comfortable.

"About sixty years ago, there was a student here, a first year girl. She was really smart even though she was really young… and she loved the color red."

"Just like me!"

"Yes… just like you…" Blake continued slowly, as if just realizing.

"You know… she also loved reading and writing, and would spend a lot of time in the library. One night, she was writing in her journal when her hand felt itchy.

"'That's odd,' she thought as she scratched it. But she paid it no mind and kept writing. A little while later, and her hand itched again. But as she kept scratching, the itchier it felt. When she looked down, scratched all across her hand were the words she had been writing.

"She looked at her book and found that each and every word… was written in her blood.

"The girl panicked and tried to stop, but the itching was too much! She could only watch in horror as her fingers scraped away her skin… her flesh… her bones.

"By the time morning came… all they found was a girl that bled to death and a stump where her hand should have been."

Ruby gulped. "T-that really happened?"

Blake shrugged and grinned. "Probably not. Some students said that it happened at this library and that her spirit is still here, looking for blood to save herself."

Blake kept a straight face for a moment before bursting into laughter along with Ruby. "Oh come on! Like that could ever happen!"

"Writing in blood? That's so weird!" Ruby said between peals of laughter.

SLAM!

They both flinched as they heard something heavy crashing onto the floor.

"What was that?!" Ruby shouted as she looked around.

"This way," Blake pointed and they headed behind the shelves.

Oddly out of place was a black book on the ground. Blake and Ruby could sense there was something wrong. An eerie and unsettling smell permeated the shelves.

Blake inched forward and picked up the book. It was slightly damp to the touch. She opened the book and gasped. Slowly, she turned and showed Ruby what was written.

BlooOoODdddD RrRUuuBBbbbYYyyyY

Still wet… still damp… and still bloody.

Ruby's breath hitched and her eyes strayed towards the shelf where the book fell out of. She gave a strangled shriek. She could only point and Blake turned to see what had freaked out the girl so much.

Wedged where the book was supposed to be… a dismembered hand.

Ruby tore out of the library as fast as she could.

Blake stood still for a moment before pocketing the book and walking behind the shelf.

Another Blake leaned against the shelf smirking.

Blake felt that a self-congratulatory praise was in order for such a well done trick.

"Where did you get the blood and hand?" she asked as she prepared to dispel her clone.

Her clone smirked back at her. "My own…"

As Ruby ran down the corridor, she felt a familiar pressure in her lower abdomen.

Toilet! Toilet! Toilet! Her mind screamed as she veered off into the nearest restroom. For some reason, every stall was locked except the last one.

Once properly relieved, she heard the sink running.

"H-hello?" she called out.

"Ruby? Is that you?"

"Yang?"

"Fancy meeting you here…err are you in the last stall?"

"Yes?"

"Nothing! Nothing's wrong, just stay calm Ruby!"

"Yang! You sound don't sound very calm!" Ruby was beginning to become agitated herself.

She heard Yang take a couple of deep breaths to calm herself.

"You see… there's a story about that stall… there was this girl-"

"Did she die here too?!" Ruby freaked out again. She already had to deal with one ghost, she did not need another.

"Uhhhh… no? But she was bullied a lot. She would come to that stall and cry. But her bullies would follow her here and dunk her head in the toilet before flushing. I'm not saying I believe what everyone is saying, but people say a lot of strange things happen in this bathroom when someone is sitting in that stall… that it's cursed…"

"S-strange things? L-like what?"

"The person in the stall is safe, because that's where the girl was… but the people outside… the people who were bullying her.. … .. … … .. … … . ."

"Yang?"

"… … … … … .. … … .. "

The lights flicked off, throwing the entire bathroom into darkness.

"YANG!"

They flicked on, but kept flickering, shadows danced in the stall and Ruby felt something wet trickle down nape of her neck.

Every toilet in the restroom flushed at once and Ruby heard whisperings over the cacophony of flushes.

"Die! Teacher's pet. Uselessness! FaiLuRE! HAhaahAHAHAhahAHA! No! Leave me alone! HAhaheHaheawhAha! Please!"

She threw the stall door open and ran to the sink.

Yang was nowhere in sight.

"Yang…?" Ruby checked each stall, each of them were now mysteriously opened…

In the first stall, the one furthest from hers, was Yang's white back-skirt… half clogged in the toilet.

"Come on Yang… this isn't funny," Ruby stumbled backwards out.

She tried to use her nose to find Yang, but all she smelled was smoke.

Smoke?

She turned around and saw a small fire underneath the sink. Immediately, she ran over and stomped it out.

She sighed in relief before noticing what was under her foot.

A picture of Yang… and the writing "Her life snuffed out".

Ruby felt tears in her eyes. She couldn't take it anymore and ran back to her dorm.

Weiss was enjoying a nice, quiet evening while everyone else was no doubt celebrating such childish fears and candies.

Her quiet was rudely interrupted when Ruby broke down the door sobbing.

Ruby barreled into Weiss, latching around her waist babbling about haunted libraries and flushed Yangs.

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. She was not even going to try and comprehend the young girl in this state.

Instead, she rubbed Ruby's shoulders and waited for the tears to stop. Once Ruby was more calm, she told Weiss of what happened earlier that night.

"Oh Ruby, I am sure they were all pranks," Weiss stated exasperatedly. "They are just ghost stories, and nothing more."

"B-but I'm still scared," Ruby sniffed. She looked up at Weiss with pleading eyes. "How do you deal with scary things?"

"By not being scared."

"That doesn't help…"

Weiss sighed. "Maybe thinking of something else scarier that you can deal with will help."

"How?" Ruby asked unsure.

"Many things are scary in the right context. It's just a matter of removing the context and they'll stop being scary."

"…okay, let's try it."

"Hmm… scary…. something scary…" Weiss pondered the idea in her head. She will not say that she is unafraid. Many things in this world warrants fear… just not the things Ruby would fear.

Her thoughts drifted back to the cold gaze of her father…

"Tell me Ruby, do you know of hypothermia?"

"H-hypo… huh?"

"It's when your body gets too cold. It starts with shivering. The body tries to warm itself up by spending energy. But the more energy it spends, the less it has for later and will end up freezing."

Ruby shivered involuntarily.

"The body tries to cut off the less important parts… like fingers… toes…arms and legs… the nerves get cut off and numbness starts settling in."

"W-Weiss?" Ruby asked as the room suddenly felt colder.

"Without energy, without warmth… the cells start dying. The numbness doesn't help and without feedback of touch or pain, people stumble around and cause more damage to their hands and feet."

"You're starting to scare me…" Ruby couldn't feel Weiss' fingers on her shoulders anymore.

"Good. When the water freezes… it expands. Like little shards they slice and break through the blood vessels. Minor bleeding, but enough to further drain what little heat you have left. Your brain goes crazy from the lack of oxygen, heat, and chemical imbalance."

"…" Ruby couldn't say anything. Her mind is becoming clouded. W-what am I …doing?… Cold… so very cold…

"Your mind dips to a more primitive state. You curl up to conserve as much heat as possible. You try to find a small space… a den."

Sleep… yeah… sleep would be… nice…. less… … cold….

"And you are never sure… if you'll wake up again."

Weiss blinked, and snapped out of her memory of her father's lecture. "So did it work, Ruby?"

She noticed the girl breathing softly while asleep. She smiled and moved her to her bed.

She tucked in Ruby, though she could not shake the disturbing sensation as Ruby shivered under the blankets.

…. Cold…. Alone…. I…. Don't…..want….to….

….Help…..pleaSe….hELp….

Ruby groggily woke up, shivering heavily. It was still the middle of the night, but she heard angry voices.

"Well sorry if I was trying to fix your mistakes!"

"You didn't have to freeze half the room!"

"I told you, that was an accident!"

"Accident or not, it still affected Ruby."

"At least I'm not little miss arm chopper."

"It was just a prank!"

"Yeah!"

Ruby recognized the voices.

"YANG!"

Yang, Blake, and Weiss turned to face the newly awoken Ruby. Ruby tried to jump towards Yang and hug her, but her still numbed limbs made her crash to the floor. Her friends quickly rushed over to help her up.

"You're okay!" Ruby cried into the hug.

"Yeah… sorry Rubes… I just wanted to scare you a little… I didn't mean to freak you out that much."

"I guess it wasn't such a good idea to do this all on the same night, sorry Ruby," Blake apologized.

Weiss remained silent and Blake and Yang stared pointedly at her. "What? I only scared her to get her mind off of your stupid pranks," she adamantly stuck to her argument.

"Stupid?," Yang muttered. "Like freezing the room and almost giving her frostbite? What kind of fear for Halloween is that?!"

"Forgive me if I don't find childish things like ghost stories scary. You want to know what I find scary? Taxes, student loans, economic collapse. Things that can and will happen."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Only you can make something that's supposed to be fun and scary into something dull and boring."

"Anyways," Blake tried to bring the conversation back on track. "We're sorry for scaring you Ruby. Are you still scared?"

"N-no," Ruby admitted. "Just… c-cold…"

Yang grinned. "Well I have a solution to that." She let go of Ruby briefly before pulling Blake, Ruby, and Weiss into a hug. Easily lifting them off the ground, she deposited them onto Weiss' bed with a dangerous creak.

"We'll just snuggle together and we'll all be warm!"

"Why my bed?!" Weiss shrieked.

"You made her cold in the first place, and you have the softest pillows," Yang countered.

Both points were technically true, so Weiss could not argue back.

While Ruby slept in the middle with Yang and Blake on either side, Weiss slept beside Blake, stating that she made Ruby cold so being next to her would be counter-intuitive.

Despite that, Weiss felt a small hand entwined fingers with her own, and she squeezed it back slightly.

A silent question: Why?

"Because you can be warm sometimes too, Weiss," she heard a sleepy murmur from the center of the group.

Hoped you all enjoyed that.

So what was your favorite part or who's event was scariest if any? I'd love to hear what everyone thinks.

There's also a present for everyone who read this far. I've started up a tumblr blog to put my RWBY drawings called RWBYShenanigans. You can find the link on my author's page. There are two scenes from this story that are posted there, so give them a glance if you like. Let me know what you think!

Here's to improving my art alongside my writing!