An Aura of Hope: A RWBY Fan Fiction

Chapter Five

I got home later than I predicted that day due to that minor delay that I refused to think about as anything other than a delay. I didn't say much to my family, and barely touched my food even though I hadn't eaten all day. I was surprised that they didn't say anything about it; I think they figured I was just already getting homesick, which I'll admit wasn't entirely untrue, it just wasn't the whole truth.

I kept glancing at the door, worried that the police would come barging in at any second, demanding me to get on the ground with my hands behind my back. I imagined Mother and Grammy standing in a corner, holding each other and crying, while I'm being loaded into a car and carted to prison, where I would be beaten by all the other inmates.

Whoa James. Calm down. Nobody is coming for you.

Not yet, anyways.

I didn't sleep much that night, either. But when I did, my dreams were filled with images of blue-eyes and brown-eyes twisted in horrible and gruesome ways. I dreamed about blue-eyes's arm stuck on the end of Viartannie Ijs. I dreamed about kneeing brown-eyes's head and his head exploding from it.

I dreamed about the blood now stuck on my hands. When I was awake, I was at work wrapping my broken wrist and packing for tomorrow.

I came down to breakfast the next morning "looking like I'd been hit by a train," to use the wonderful words of my mother. It didn't really matter to me; after today I would be far away from these troubles. I ate my breakfast in silence. My boat left at noon, so I had about three and a half hours to say goodbye to my family.

"Hey, Gloomy Gus," said Grammy, "we only have a few more hours with you. How about a game to get the frown off of your face?"

"What kind of game?" I asked.

"What card games do you know?"

"None, actually."

"Excellent. This one will be good, then. Sharon! Come in here!"

Mother came in from the living room. "What is it?"

"We're going to play Liar," said Grammy.

"Oh! Yay!" Mother took a seat to my right.

"What is Liar?" I asked.

"Only the funnest card game EVER," answered Mother.

"How do we play?"

"Okay," started Grammy, "so first I deal out the entire deck." She pulled out an dusty deck of cards from the cabinet that held all of Grammy's antiques. She passed a card to Mother, then me, then down to herself. She repeated this until no more cards were left. "Now we pick up our cards." I picked up the pile in front of me. I had two aces, a two, a joker, three tens, two kings, an eight, four jacks, a three, two fives, and a six. "Now, you'll mother will start. She places out how many twos she has and tells us." Mother put down a card.

"I have one two. Hehe. One two."

"Now we can either let it go, or we can call her a liar. If we call her a liar, she flips over her cards that she put down and if she didn't put down what she said, she takes the entire pile. If she wasn't lying, whoever called her a liar would take the deck. The goal is to get rid of all of your cards. Now it's your turn, James. You have threes. You can either put down the threes you have, or some other card and call it a three. You have to put down something. Oh! And if your turn passes and you were lying and nobody called you on it, you can say 'blackened hands.'"

I looked down at my hand. I had one three. I counted the turns. Grammy had fours, Mother fives, me sixes. I decided to put my three with my two fives. "Three threes."

Mother giggled.

"Alright. My turn. Jokers are any card, by the way. Two fours," said Grammy.

"Blackened hands," I said.

Grammy wiggled a finger jokingly at me. "Now you're a criminal. Hahahaha."

She had no idea how right she was.

---

The game lasted until quarter past eleven. Mother won. Afterwards, I went up to my room to get my stuff. My room looked so empty. No more Grimm heads above my bed, no more posters of famous Huntsmen and Huntresses on the walls, no more action figures cluttering my dresser; it wasn't my room anymore.

Of course the stuff wasn't GONE. But it still felt like I lost something important.

I took my backpack, two suitcases, and trunk downstairs. Mother and Grammy were both crying. "What's the matter?" I asked.

"We're going to miss you so much, James," said Grammy. They pulled me into a crushing embrace, and I was crying too. We stayed like that for about five minutes, then I pulled apart from them and told them it was time to go.

Grammy and Mother took my trunk together, against my insisting that I could carry all of my stuff. They were going to help whether I liked it or not.

We set off towards the city together. Together for the last time.