*For months, Ruka had run through in her head of what she'd do if she came face-to-face with the Crimson Dragon again. She'd gone though every statement, every argument and every question thousands of times over.
But when she was actually stood in front of it, she froze. All the planning refused to make sense and she could barely recall any of it. She felt terrified of letting the dragon know exactly how she felt about the situation it had pulled her and her brother into. Pulling them away from their family back in their own timeline, to make them grow up and make lives in the current one without ever saying why they were really sent there. What if one day they had to choose between the two? What if they didn't get to choose at all? Even choosing would be an incredibly difficult thing to do.
The Crimson Dragon silently stared Ruka down, as if waiting for her to say something, but as time passed without a word, the dragon seemed to grow impatient and let out a shrill cry before it started to fly away.
Ruka wanted to call out to it, but the words weren't able to leave her mouth.
It was then that the area filled with a sudden flash of red light...
-----------------------
Ruka woke with a start in her bedroom in the Sakana apartments. Sitting up, she took a moment to let the familiar look of the room sink in, before she breathed a sigh of relief.
"...it was just a dream...".
She looked over at her brother's bed on the other side of the room, making sure she didn't wake him up, but she was surprised to see that his bed was empty. Looking over at the clock beside her bed, it read that it was just past 7am.
This was puzzling to Ruka, it was rare for her brother to be up this early at the weekend. Actually, it was rare for him to be up at this time any day of the week.
"Maybe he went to help Yuusei with something..."
After getting dressed, Ruka wandered through the apartment, gradually checking the rooms, but it seemed like no-one was around at all. Where could they all be at this time in the morning? They wouldn't of gone somewhere without telling her...
Though there was no indication anyone had gone anywhere. Shoes were still in the hallway and everyone's apartment keys were still hung up on the wall near the door.
Opening the door, Ruka stepped out into the courtyard and ran around to the garage. Surely if no-one was in the apartment, they might just be in the garage, maybe to watch something Yuusei was working on.
"Yuuse---"
Ruka stopped dead as she ran into the garage, only to see the area where her friends D-Wheels were usually parked to be completely empty.
Ruka walked slowly back into the courtyard, not knowing what to do. Her friends had to be somewhere, right? But where would they be if it looked like they never left the apartment? Her thoughts wandered to the strange dream involving the Crimson Dragon, but she shook her head, to try and shake those thoughts away.
It couldn't of taken her brother and the others away? Not without her? And not without so much as a warning... right?
Maybe one of the other residents at the apartment knows where they went, but with it being so early, she didn't want to wake up anyone who's sleeping to ask.
Though maybe you are up this early for some reason and you see Ruka standing in the courtyard, looking confused and slightly upset.
Maybe what woke you up was the really odd flash of red light that filled the area, just before 7am and you came out to investigate what it was.
Either way, she looks like she needs to someone to talk too.*
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
