She had been an innocent. Before all of this. Before she was crowned queen in the ashes of a ruined city. Before she had let herself believe that it was right. Before she had let their blood stain her hands.
At her third foster home, she had read every single Harry Potter book over the course of two weeks. She read them again a year later at her fifth, right before she ran away again. Something about Harry's character reminded her of herself: a child with no real family, stricken with enormous power he couldn't fully control.
Yeah, Terra could relate to that.
She thought about Harry Potter a lot these days. About how he was strong enough to resist Voldemort's tempting whispers and defeated him and saved the world. Terra wished she could do that. She wished it every day. But she wasn't strong enough. This Harry had joined Voldemort in a time of weakness, and now he was trapped.
Terra glanced down at her torn and dirtied bandages. Dark spots of blood speckled the white cloth, watching her like tiny red eyes. A sudden wave of anger came over her, and she tore away the fabric. Slade would be angry. Let him be, she thought.
It had all seemed like such a good idea. She'd gain control with him. She'd punish those who deserved to be punished. But then again, she had never been good at predicting the future.
It had to be done, Terra, Slade had told her. His voice was like silk. It was calming. Aren't you glad they're gone? Isn't this what you wanted?
"Yes," she rasped to herself now, mirroring the conversation. It was what she wanted. She wanted them to hurt like she had been hurt, to punish them for all of the wrongs committed against her. But Terra was cursed with excellent hindsight, and her sins felt like flames licking her skin.
There was a quote in her favorite Harry Potter book: The Half-Blood Prince. "Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe". At first she had believed the quote to be bullshit; killing was beyond easy. The human body is fragile. It is so easily crushed and broken and torn. But now, after all that she had done, the quote had become a great, horrifying truth, displayed prominently in her mindscape.
She never really wanted to kill them. But as the heinous acts were committed, Terra realized that she couldn't stop. She attributed this to Slade's influence over her. And yet, there was that little voice in the back of her mind, whispering about how much she liked it, how much power it gave her to see the life fade from their bodies.
"No," she reminded herself, tightly shutting her eyes. "No. No. It was Slade. It was Slade!"
But had it been, really? Hadn't it been her hands, her words, her weapons? She had exploited their weaknesses, split them up into easily managed groups. She had killed them all. And the worst part of it was that she had done it without remorse.
Terra could admit that Raven had fought the hardest. She had egged on the witch's rage to the point of explosion – exactly what she (no it was they she had to remember Slade it wasn't her it couldn't have been her) wanted. Without control of her powers, Raven was suddenly an easy battle to win. Terra had watched as the mud she controlled pulled Raven under; watched it pour into her open mouth and her panicked eyes. Terra had watched, and she had smiled.
Fighting Starfire and Robin together had been a challenge, but she had managed to send the Tameranian flying over the edge of the cliff without too much effort. Starfire's body lay at the bottom of the cliff, broken and still. This distracted Robin enough for Terra to fall back. Not that either had landed a blow on her. She hadn't even spared the broken body a second glance.
Cyborg and Beast Boy…just thinking about the fight sent a thrill down her spine. She grimaced at the feeling, hating it for existing. But the fight had been so enjoyable. The power that had flooded her body when she opened that crack in the earth, allowing Cyborg to tumble in. His scream had echoed off of the walls, fading away into the blackness. And then Beast Boy. She couldn't deny the fact that she had been harsh with him. But hadn't he deserved it? After all he had done to her? After all he had said?
Slade's right. You don't have any friends.
Her hands balled into fists on her knees. She didn't like to think about that.
Robin had been the hardest fight, emotionally and physically. He had jabbed at her again and again with swift punches and unwanted thoughts. Look at what you've become! He had yelled. And she hated him for it. She hated him so much in that moment. Suddenly, there was no Slade – only Terra. And once she had conquered Robin, had proved him wrong, had beaten him, she raised the rock above his trembling body and brought it down with all the force she could muster.
Blood had gone everywhere. Robin stilled so suddenly that it was almost frightening. She was breathing so hard, her mind whirring like a broken factory belt. His blood touched the edges of her boots, but she didn't notice. Robin was the first dead body she had actually come face to face with, and it would be an understatement to say she was disillusioned. Her mind wiping itself blank, Terra knelt over the still warm form and reached over Robin's still chest to wrap her fingers around the badge. Without realizing, she had knelt in the pool of blood. It stained her knees.
The wind was blowing up from behind where she sat upon a large, flat rock. It blew her hair over her shoulders, in front of her face. She didn't move it. Waves lapped the rocky sand next to her feet, washing the dried blood from her boots.
Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe.
"I trusted you! We trusted you!"
"Terra!"
"You can only save yourself."
Terra pushed half of her hair behind an ear and stood up. It was time to leave. Her hands glowed a faint yellow as the stone lifted from the earth. She flew away slowly, leaving a dark T-shaped tower behind her.
…
Her quarters under Slade's base were dark and nearly empty. There was a single bed with sheets that felt like paper. A bare bulb hung on a string from the concrete ceiling. In the corner, a toilet and showerhead were cut off from the rest of the room by a flimsy gray shower curtain. The floor was concrete, with a drain in the center. A metal folding-chair sat in another corner next to a cracked mirror. The single light did not illuminate the whole room, and the shadows blanketed most of the corners.
Terra had never been afraid of the dark, but tonight it unnerved her. She lay in the starchy bed, staring blankly at the wall. The light was still on, swinging back and forth from a breeze out of the vents. It was too quiet – silent but for the distant rumble of machinery.
She threaded her fingers into the thin blanket and pulled it further up her shoulder so it nearly touched her face. She needed to sleep. She was definitely going to be sore and Slade was probably going to make her do heavy lifting tomorrow. Swallowing her inklings of fear, she rolled up onto her knees and reached up with one long arm, her fingers wrapping around the string to turn off the light. One pull, and the room was thrown into black.
She curled back up in the blankets, forcing her thoughts away. The last thing she needed was nightmares. Terra lay in that same position for an indeterminate amount of time, drifting in and out of sleep.
Her eyes snapped open.
Her light had turned back on. Terra squinted up at it. The string was swinging back and forth like a pendulum. She hadn't pulled it, had she…?
A flicker in the corner of her eye. Terra whipped her head toward the movement, coming face to face with –
Nothing. All she could see were the shadows that hung in the corners of the room like cobwebs. Impenetrable. Her heart began to beat a little faster. There was nothing in the shadows, nothing in the darkness. Nothing.
"Terra…"
"Who's there?" she screamed, spinning in her bed to face the other wall. That was where the sound had come from. "Show yourself!"
No answer. Terra briefly wondered if she was dreaming.
"Terra…."
A shuffle. Terra sucked in a sudden, terrified breath. Her voice caught in her throat. Infinitesimally slowly, she began to turn her head to the side. Was there something moving in the shadows, or was it just her imagination?
Something dripped on her face. Immediately, she reached a hand up and wiped it off. The substance was gritty and unpleasant smelling. She drew her fingers away from her face to see what it was.
Mud.
Terra looked up. Attached to the ceiling like a bat was a horrid sight. A creature caked head-to-toe in mud, hair hanging in dirty, dripping strings. It opened its mouth.
"Terra…" Mud trickled out of the mouth and bubbled at the back of the throat. Terra felt sick with fear. She recognized this creature; she knew its face and its dirty cloak and its small, thin smile. It was Raven.
That shuffle to her left again. Terra whipped in the direction of the noise, acting entirely on instinct. Terror made her heart pound like a jackhammer in her chest. In the shadows were two large, dark shapes: Cyborg and Starfire. The half-robot was scraped up and dirty, and the machine side of his head was completely caved in. Terra could see a mess of wires and sparks within the broken skull. Starfire was a much more organic horror. One of her shoulders had been jarred from its socket, ripping flesh and muscle along with it. Blood had trailed down into her ripped uniform, glaringly red against her dirty skin. Her neck hung limply at a grotesque angle, allowing her long red hair to tumble haphazardly over one shoulder. What had once been a beautiful sight was now caked in blood and dirt. A scream built at the back of Terra's throat, locked down by pure fear.
"Why, Terra?" It was on her other side this time. Her muscles tensed. She didn't want to look. She couldn't look. But her neck turned slowly, as if on its own free will. Standing only inches from her bed was Beast Boy. His arm was badly broken; white shards of bone had ripped through his sallow jade skin. His chest was caved in on one side, like he had been crushed. The stretchy fabric of his uniform was soaked in dark red blood. Some of it was dripping to the floor in fat, crimson droplets.
"You had a choice, Terra." In the shadows behind Beast Boy's mangled frame, another figure stood. Tears of fear began to slowly stream down Terra's face; she could barely breathe. It was Robin. He looked almost normal. But she could see the strange, flattened look his skull had taken; the blood that had soaked his face and the top of his uniform.
"How could you, Terra?" Beast Boy rasped. His eyes were glazed and bloodshot. The scent of decay and blood coming off of him suddenly seemed to clog Terra's nostrils, and she gagged.
"We trusted you, Terra," Raven gurgled from above her. More mud poured out of her mouth as she said it, and the putrid black substance splattered onto the blankets covering Terra's lap. The geomancer screamed and scurried backwards, quickly hitting the wall. Her hands were shaking. What were they? Was she dreaming? Were they ghosts? Did her powers work on ghosts? All of these questions flew in and out her head, never staying for more than a second.
"We loved you, Terra," Starfire whispered. Her voice was merely a breath – her vocal cords had snapped.
"Go away!" Terra screamed. The tears were coming faster. "You're dead! I killed you!"
The beings were silent, all staring at her with glowing eyes. The sudden quietness pressed against Terra like a physical wall. More tears broke free of their eyelid prisons and poured over onto her cheeks. She closed her eyes and shoved her fists into them. "Leave me alone!" she screamed. "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!"
The silence was piercing. Terra spent a moment catching her breath, her hands still pressed firmly against her wet eyes. When she opened them, the figures were gone. There was no trace of them. And it was dark again. The geomancer stood up on her bed and pulled the light cord.
Nothing. Nothing but shadows and cobwebs. It had just been a nightmare. Terra let out a sob of relief and pulled the cord again, plunging herself back into darkness. She lay back on the lumpy mattress, pulling the blanket up to her chin. Only a nightmare.
A puff of air on her ear, disrupting her hair. Then a second. Terra's skin began to crawl. It was nothing, of course. Just a stray air current. Nothing. Nothing.
The whisper was hoarse, bringing with it the stench of blood. It wormed its way into her ear and froze her throat, not even allowing her to scream.
"Murderer."