Raven was standing high up on a pedestal. Her hair was swaying in the wind and she was staring straight ahead. Eyes blank and unfocused. Body limp and barely breathing. There were black tears streaming from her cheeks but she couldn't feel them. She was numb and barely there. There was a dizzying feeling of vertigo and she felt like she was falling into a spiral. An all around spiral with no escape.
In her mindscape she could feel her emotions breaking, their tiny bodies shattering into a million different pieces and she could hear screaming. Mind numbingly terrifying. It resounded like a million different drums. Growing louder and more deafening as time passed. Or was time passing? She couldn't tell. So deep in her dizziness was she. With a breath she looked down. Her eyes instinctively widening as she saw the dark abyss below her.
Even though she was still numb. Cold. But still she stared. Blurry and black spots appearing and disappearing. A constantly changing picture.
Then with a hollow laugh. A hollow emotion. A hollow existence. A lonesome cry of help. A hundred different feelings being blocked. She jumped. Her powers acting like a curled up ball. Barely there and beating rapidly. Yet not appearing. Again the deafening noise of screams began but now there was a hollow beating. Rapid and heartbreakingly loud. The last cry. Then she opened her eyes.
Raven jerked up with a soft gasp. Her hair covering her eye and her hand instinctively reaching for the gem that lay on her forehead. Again. She had that dream again. She could feel tears in her eyes from the fear but she refused to let them fall. She would be a fool to not know what the dream symbolised. It had started recently, but it was an old dream. One she remembered reading about.
The falling. The numb. The beating. The deafening noises. She knew and she could tell her emotions knew as well. Even though she could feel the weakening. Their tiny bodies growing more translucent. Shrinking.
She drew in a deep breath and pulled her legs into her usual position. Her fingers poised in her usual meditative position. As she began her mantra. Her body steadily rising from its place on her bed until she was hanging in the air, her powers keeping her lifted. "Azarath, Metrion, Zenthos." It wouldn't be too long now…
It was little while after 5 in the morning now and Raven was still far from calming down. If anything her nerves were being frayed more and she was torn between wanting to remain calm and prevent her emotions from escaping...or trashing her room. Leading to many strange looks and a lot of questions.
But she was breathing deeply at least, and she wasn't numb like before. She wasn't outright terrified either. But she still felt a hollow feeling in her stomach, even though it felt like it was pulsing. She knew something was happening, she knew it was most likely today that it was happening and she was torn.
Her left eye twitched as she thought, her calm composure trying to evaporate as a panicky feeling left a shiver up her spine, but she ruthlessly clamped it down. Locking it behind a wall, meant to pick at at a later time. When she wasn't too keen on the emotions.
So she resumed meditating, but her thoughts were again interrupted. This time by a sharp crash from outside and the shrill laugh that could only belong to one...green boy. Then there was another loud brash laugh that belonged to a metal being. Followed by a giggle of one tamarian girl and Raven jerked. Her eyes flashing to look at the clock as her eyes widened. She had never lost track of time. The bright digits gleamed at her. Proclaiming the time as 12:00 pm. Almost as if mocking her. She growled and grabbed the clock. No. Because there was no way that she had lost track of time. There was no way. Raven was knowledge of life itself. Conscious of everything going on around her...unless it was happening today.
She let out a shrill gasp. Dazing. Numb. Pulsing. It all came back and she wanted to leap up. She wanted to run. Her flight or fight instinct telling her to flee. To flee and never come back, but she couldn't outrun it. It was destiny and she could feel her emotions struggling again. Rage laughing, because this is what she had wanted since Trigon had been defeated. Happiness dissolving on the meadow, flowers slowly darkening. Timid shrieking and crying, collapsed on the ground. Knowledge staring passively at the wall. Her eyes speaking of an understanding so heartbreaking. Raven was so attuned to them that she could feel..everything. She almost collapsed backward.
But no if this was to be her last day. She was going to make it the best..
So she got up. Pushing on her calm facade and floated by, grabbing a book. Which she knew she wouldn't be able to read, much less lose herself in. She let her cloak flutter as she walked to the lounge area. Seeing Beast Boy and Cyborg in the middle of one of their video game battles. She let a bitter smile cross her mouth as she crossed the threshold and made her way to the couch. Settling on the far side so as not to startle them as they were screaming and yelling so intensely.
Hearing the crack of the spine of the book Raven began reading. The words uttering tonelessly through her head. In a dull monotone.
Raven
Nevermore
Never
More
No
More
"Raven!" She almost jumped at the sound of the voice so near her head but she limited her reaction to a sharp look up. Realizing at the last second that she looked far too vulnerable as she saw the shocked look Beast Boy gave. She quickly changed her facial expressions. Warping them into a dead pan, calm look as she gazed at Beast Boy. Staring blankly in her normal passive way.
"What is it that you want Sir Loud Voice?" She said, her voice just the perfect tone of sarcasm to keep him for questioning. He blinked soundlessly for a while and then cleared his throat, "Well I was just uh...wondering why uh didn't have your tea?" He sounded confused and she would normally have sighed. But today she just stared blankly. Then she blinked. Once. Twice. And inside she cowered. She was supposed to remain a sense of normalcy, but she had forgotten tea. She outwardly scowled and resisted the urge to growl, hut her lips rose up in a snarl. Giving Beast Boy the impression that she wasn't in the mood. He shrieked and moved away. Arms raised in a defensive gesture. "Sorry!"
But he still glanced at her worriedly before he returned to his video games and she glared even more harshly. She could not allow them to know. They would want to fix...it. And she couldn't allow that. It would only ruin them. Azarath knows she had hurt them far too much already. She withheld a sigh and looked at her book again. The words blurring so irritatingly that she slammed the book closed and just sat there staring into space. Her eyes settling on the view of Cyborg's monkey character pushing Beast Boy's lion into the ground. A loud roar resonating from the t.v. as she dimly heard Cyborg's typical "Booyaa!"
"Friend Raven? What is it you are staring at Friend Raven?" Raven looked up again, to be met with the warm eyes of the tamaranian. Starfire. "The air." Raven said blandly. Her tone again perfectly neutral.
Starfire's eyes lit up. "Oh air what a delightful thing! On my planet we have no such thing as air! We breathe only a certain gas call-"
Raven again heard a shrill scream of Happy as her domain began diminishing. The happy colors, turning a disgusting shade of black. Like charcoal. The pink coated emotion batted helplessly at her cloak as it began burning. And Raven was a helpless bystander as the pink, rapidly disappearing emotion, stared pleadingly at her. Mouthing a mute, Please.
The rest of the day followed a similar pattern, her emotions beginning to disintegrate and Raven staring into space. People trying to talk but her not even hearing. Everything a dull monotone hidden under layers of water laden speak. Affection went next, disappearing into a film of black as she tried to hide under layers of hope. Hiding behind love. But love transported herself. Desperately disappearing and reappearing. Trying to hide, striving to stay alive.
The only person Raven could hear clearly was Beast Boy. His warm, worried voice. His eyes full of hope, and dare she say it love. Family most likely.
Timid went easily. Her grey coated frame falling and curling into the ground as the emotion cried tears of sorrow as she screamed and wailed. Fear railing through her thin frame. Then she was gone, the shrieks disintegrating into the air around her. Raven left the tower around the time she was left with only two emotions. All her others having disappeared and she stood on the top of the tower. Having disappeared from inside it but still not willing to leave.
She was reminded of her dream as she stood staring straight into the dark abyss that was the land below. She could hear no more emotion. She could only feel a slight pulsing and dark tears began to push out from below her eyelids. Tightly closed and sending rivulets of pain through her head. She breathed deeply and lowered herself to the ground. Her fingers tracing a pattern on the wet roof. Was it raining?
She could feel a slash of pain and withheld a gasp as she felt love die. With fear so tremendous that Raven was surprised she didn't collapse. The fact that her emotions could feel themselves. Its so different than what most would expect.
Rage she would know would be the last to disappear. Even though Rage looked forward to it. Knowing that...she would wreck havoc upon Raven and leave her broken and disorientated. Dizzy and broken. Forgotten and dead inside. But still feeling.
She knelt down as she felt Rage's glee as she felt the sick feeling grow stronger. As she felt Rage's laugh like a resounding drum beat. Growing stronger every moment. Then she let out a scream as the wall burst. Pain. Searing. Laughter. Why was she laughing? Insane. Maniacal.
Insanity was here.
Red spots danced across her body and the darkness inside of her exploded. Sending every part of her thrust away. Thus Insanity continued. Repeating. Repeating. Pain
Everlasting Pain.
Emotion never more.
No more.
The dream of numb. The dream of a dizzying spiral of an abyss is most commonly known as the symbol that something is happening. Something within the psyche. Most commonly something related to insanity.
Knowledge whimpered as she hid, her thin yellow cloak drawn up around her shoulders as she wrote. With the blood her mind she wrote in quick jerky movements…
The second Trigon was gone
The wall was created
Created of the combined blood of Raven and her mother
Created to keep the ongoing race of demon
Though it was changed as it soared through the blood of that of a human
Festering behind the wall it grew
Dark red
It continued growing
Until it was huge and was constantly banging on the wall
Forcing itself through her brain where it restarted its new purpose
Absorb
Destroy
Destroy the psyche
Absorb the emotions and turn them into something
Despairing
Desperate
Broken
Whereupon Rage rejoiced
Her red eyes glowing with malicious glee
Happy turned dark, spinning circles and giggling around her mangled kingdom
Timid shrieking in her ever continuing hell
Knowledge watching on
Her eyes wide and broken but yet she could not look away
For she was in no way perfect insanity, nor was she perfectly sane
She was rational mind and she may still remain
But have the least impact
Knowledge let out a quiet sob and curled up even tighter. She knew. Even before Raven herself had known. She knew what was happening. She heard the stumbling footsteps along with the slow giggle and her blood ran cold. As she curled even tighter.