ION

"YOU MAY CHOOSE TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY, BUT YOU CAN NEVER SAY AGAIN YOU DID NOT KNOW."

-WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

Also, will you please look for the bold ones?


Rain hit the rooftop hard, causing Robin's world to go all around.

It was times like these where he had a hard time remembering his mother's words, "The tears don't have to be for a broken, un-savable world. They're for when we realize the world is so much bigger than us. And the rainbow promises, He is real, a better tomorrow where there is so much more than just us."

He just couldn't believe anything could be okay sometimes. And not now. He fell off the edge, enjoying the weightlessness of falling for a moment before the jerk of the grappling line through the rain.

He hated the rain all the sudden.

It soaked into his bones, making him clammy and cold. Too cold. He trudged across the gravel of the roof he had landed on, plopping himself down in the doorway of the rooftop exit, squandering what shelter he could.

Sometimes, he felt he was too open. To clear, a book for the whole world to read, an empty page for the whole world to write on. But sometimes… the story they wrote… he wanted to close it up with a key, throw it into the ocean where all the ink would be washed away.

It was one thing to be ridiculed. It was one thing to be called a charity case. It was one thing to etch bullies into the corners of his book, but sometimes, going too far went way further than his pen could hold.

Sometimes it tore his pages right in half.

He could be called stupid.

Imperfect.

Worthless.

Ugly.

Gyp.

Orphan.

Charity Case.

Hopeless.

But this was different. It went beyond painful. It went beyond tears. This was his whole world, ripped one page at time, no one sparing a thought to the stories they were tearing at the same time. Life wasn't fair, and he was okay, he accepted that.

He could take unfairness. He could take pain. He could take that some kids grew up with "perfect" lives and he never would. That was fine. That was okay. But this wasn't about equality. This wasn't about simply being mean.

This was well beyond.

This was a fire to the delicate pages of his story.

He grabbed the stone wall by his head, water splashing down and washing all the world away in a blur of sparkling cold. He shook, his teeth bared against the tears getting past his eyes. The dam was long gone by now.

He was alone now.

All alone.

He could yell at the sky as much as he wanted, no one would ever find him.

All tracers abandoned, all abilities to find him forgotten, he tore off his mask, watching it fly off in the hurricane-like weather. Blue eyes filled with emotion stared at the gray skies, choking on his inability to suck it up.

But he was tired of sucking it up.

He was ready to let it all out.

Screaming in pain, he curled in on himself. The pain had nothing to do with the rocks grinding into his arms, but with the swirling chasm inside. He couldn't… why was the world so cold?

Dark?

Unfree?

Selfish?

How could people barbecue, laugh, play, smile when the world was so broken? So horribly inhumane? How could they live in such a veil of stupidity that they could continue everyday? Or maybe they just didn't want to know?

Dick sucked in a breath, ripping off his cloak, gloves, boots, everything. Out of a small box stashed in the a crack under the wood floor just inside the exit he was sitting in, he changed. A worn-down gray hoodie over faded jeans, no shoes but several anklets of braid, a soft fossil blue shirt… he wasn't going to be Robin right now.

He couldn't be Dick Grayson, either. All he knew was he… was who he was. For the first time in years, he let go of his life with Bruce, let go of Robin, just being… Loloduianchir. Robin, in Romany. Who he was before everything. He was him.

"El Crallis ha nicobado la liri de los Cales." He smirked softly before sobering. "May angle sar te merel kadi yag."

Shaking his head, Dick walked out into the streets of Gotham, the dirt and grime only natural under his feet. It had been years since he had been allowed to walk around barefoot, and it felt like he was back in touch with the world.

The pain was still there, though.

Walking across Gotham, he crawled down into the basement of a long abandoned building, and over to the corner. A little girl lay, silent.

Completely silent.

Dick knelt, bowing his head. She was gone long ago, innocence stolen before being cast away to die. And he hadn't done a thing. Of course, he didn't know what he could've done, but he didn't much care.

He closed her unseeing eyes, sadness quelling his usual buoyancy. "Akana mukav tut le Devlesa."

I now leave you to God.

Rain thud loud enough to even be heard here as he began to dig into the ground with a shovel he'd brought. It's not that he knew the girl, it's not that the child and he had been friends, but in the serenity of the rain, she'd breathed her last breath in his arms. And all she had said was: "You saved me… will you meet me at Home?"

And of course, that was what he was going to do. He didn't know her story, all he knew was that pimps and traffickers had filled her nightmares, days of pain, years of tears. He knew that as she died, she knew peace was coming at last, sent home to her Comforter.

He knew that he hadn't known her, but someday, he could. For now, he dug into the earth. Each hand over each other, each foot caked in mud but not caring at all. He suddenly felt a hand on his arm. Turning, he met eyes with Artemis.

Her lips softened into a smile, and she held him to her chest as he cried.

"How did you find me?"

"We all found you, man."

Looking up, he met eyes with the green ones of Wally. "But… how?"

"Does it matter?" Superboy asked softly.

Wally knelt down, dirt smudging his jeans as he took the shovel. "What was her name?" he asked softly.

Dick bowed his head. "I don't know. She's not in records."

"Come on, let's do this." Wally nudged him. Dick nodded, still crying. In the dark dampness, the whole team worked together to dig. By the time they were done, they were all a mess of mud, dirt, water, old cement, but that was far from their minds.

The air smelled like dirt, the earthy scent fogging the air of the run-down, floor-lacking basement. Dick knelt by the girl, picking her up in silence, laying her down in the whole. "I didn't know her, but I... she… she wasn't just a looverni*, she was a person. She was an angel, here on earth, but her wings had been cut before she had the chance to try them out. I-I… I couldn't do anything about her, but now, we simply must say dza devlesa, bitti inger. God go with you, little angel."

The Team bowed their heads along with him, piling the dirt in upon the teenager, just like them, in silence. They didn't know what had happened exactly, but Dick did. He knew that this happened too often. But whenever it did, it deserved proper respect. He didn't want it to happen ever again. And that's why he was Loloduianchir, the Robin. That's why, no matter what happened to his book, he always needed to be open for more, another chapter, another person to write across his many pages.


Hello, everyone.

This is a story about no one in particular, but I think in Gotham there would be a lot of Human Trafficking.

I wanted to bring to attention the severity of it. Millions upon millions of people are stuck in it. It's real, it's where we live. I've done my research, I've read the stories. It happens everyday. You have no idea how close to home it is. I'm working towards the ability to help more, but for now, if this is all I can do, I'm darn right going to do it.

What is the story you want written on your pages?

I want mine to be others', the words on my pages the stories of people I've helped.

Review if you support, #StopHumanTrafficking, #TheExodusRoad, #Freedom.

~WheUniversesCollide