Why had they decided to split up?

Why, oh, why had they decided to split up?

Starfire asked herself this question again and again, each time the words becoming harsher within her head until it had twisted into something grotesque and ugly. It sounded like a grim, ironic question that someone would ask you just before they ripped apart your heart and the last shreds of your sanity.

"RAVEN!" Starfire yelled out again.

Her voice filled the air around, but she knew that she was going to get no response. Such was her fate. She felt on the verge of tears, judging by the burning in the backs of her eyes, and she did nothing to stop them.

Starfire had always been emotional, but right now her emotions had been completely wrecked.

Tears streamed down her face hotly, blurring her vision from above the city as she continued to fly through the air, screaming Raven's name again and again until her throat her.

Down below her, destruction reigned throughout the city. Crumbled concrete and bricks and stone, and broken and jagged metal with dangerously sharp edges exposed. The ground was beaten by the quake, indented with falling debris that had pounded down to the surface, and the roads and earth split open in wide cracks.

Looking down, Starfire could see nothing but blackness, reaching farther than her eyes could see.

The people were in a chaos, some screaming and others crying and others just in plain shock. And some were dead. Starfire saw the first one, a young man laying on the shattered sidewalk, a heavy protrusion of metal impaled through his body, having fallen from a construction sight.

The metal rammed through his body, straight through his stomach, slicing his internal organs, letting blood pour from his body, and breaking his spine.

Starfire as moved to tears at the sight of him, and she nearly screamed in fear and agony. But there was nothing she could do for him. Her sorrows were with him, but she had to move on.

"RAVEN!" she screamed again, her alien voice carried on the wind.

She was flying through the city at top speed, helping those she could and dodging the dilapidated buildings all around her. A billboard leaned dangerously forward, the wires and metal holding it back just about to give out, and then it would fall and crush those still injured below.

Starfire pushed the billboard back into place.

She tried her communicator yet again once the billboard was safely removed from the precipice. The wires buzzed and buzzed but nothing came on. She tried for Raven again and again, tears rolling down her cheeks all the while.

"Please answer," she whispered to herself.

Titans Tower had been damaged too. Had to have been. Simply looking across the bay to the giant T of the tower could tell her that, with the infrastructure having suffered and giant waves nearly covering the shore. The secondary communication feed had to have been damaged.

That was why she wasn't getting through.

That was what Starfire kept telling herself, as the communicator finally gave up and showed the words DEAD SIGNAL in her palm. She hated to think of the alternative; that it was Raven who was dead instead.

She pocketed the communicator once more, and began flying through the city once more, keeping lower to the ground.

"RAVEN!?" she called out, her vision becoming blurry from the hot tears that kept threatening to overwhelm her.

Why had the two of them offered to go out on patrol that specific time? Why, oh why, had they done it? Even worse, why had Raven suggested they split up to cover more area? Starfire blamed herself, deep down, though on the surface she knew it wasn't her fault.

It was no one's fault.

But it had happened. And now she was left with the aftermath, the deadly destruction that had reigned throughout the city, destroying and ruining so many lives in only a few short seconds.

It was uncanny to believe.

Sniffling, she said, "Please do not be dead. Please be alive still." It was silent, prayer-like almost, and no one could hear it but herself and the wind, blowing back at her and making the words echo in her ears.

"Raven?"

The tears were overwhelming her, the more time that passed. She was becoming desperate. Desperate to find her, no matter what it took or who she had to ask. Landing on the ground, she took to asking many people about her.

Had any of them seen a grey-skinned girl with purple hair, wearing a long blue cloak?

So many of them said no. Others could only offer vague answers that pretty much meant no all the same. Others didn't respond at all, only offered her dirty looks or told her to get lost.

They had suffered too, so Starfire cared not that she was being screamed and shouted and yelled at. But the worst response was always no.

Another thought entered Starfire's mind. Dangerous and horrible and depressing and urgent. It was all of these, colliding within her mind and fueling the torrent of emotions that were already working themselves around her body.

What if Raven was hurt and needed her help? What if Raven was lying severely injured somewhere, under a pile of rubble, begging and screaming out for help, only for her cries to reach no one. Maybe she was unconscious or bleeding to death, or some of her bones snapped so she couldn't work her powers properly.

Or, worst of all, what if she had been alive but with the passing of time, while Starfire looked for her, she died before she could reach her?

That thought was too much for her, and Starfire let out the most anguished scream she had kindled within her, filling the city's sky with her tormented yells. When the screaming stopped, that was when the crying began again, her screams replaced by huge, sobbing gasps.

But even then she could not rest. She had to keep searching.

"Raven? Raven? Raven?"

Starfire was correct in one assumption: Raven was indeed trapped under rubble. Her, along with nearly fifty other people, all struggling to survive and keep calm. Some were screaming, even more were crying. Others a silent as the grave.

And she was injured.

A deep gash was torn into her right arm, breaking more than just the surface of her skin but ripping into her muscles. She couldn't move it much; hardly at all, but it didn't matter considering the sharp shooting pain that went through her with every motion.

Tears seeped from her eyes. The pain was unbearable to her, and the hot tears seemed to be offering some sort of release from the agony. Her left hand was clamped to her arm, trying to keep the blood at bay while also healing it, her powers surrounding the skin and repairing it slowly.

Far too slowly.

She forced herself to her feet, each strain of the muscles screaming in her body, then flew the rest of the way, floating inches above the ground to offer her body some release from the pressure of the gravity. Her legs thanked her immediately, since they no longer had to put up with the dead weight of the rest of her body.

The building she was in was just barely holding up…

…but then the aftershocks began.

The tremors ran through the Earth, shaking the already broken building beyond its limits. More debris started raining down upon Raven, and the people around her. Raven's muscles clenched as she desperately tried to use her magic to keep the scores of metal and concrete and large beams of lumber from falling on people.

"Everyone out! Now!" she screamed, her voice strained.

As she held up the curtain of destruction, she called out to Starfire in her mind, hoping that she could listen and come to her.

'Starfire?'

They listened to her easily enough. Some people ran out, while others limped out. The people who could walk had to drag a couple of people out, for they were too injured to walk or even move.

Raven could hardly see them, let alone know it everyone had gotten out alive.

If there were still people within that building, she would have hated herself for what happened next.

'Starfire?

'Starfire? Can you hear me?'

Sweat was beading on her forehead and then running down into her eyes, blurring her vision. Heat flushed her body, and she felt dizzy. Everything hurt, everything aches, and she was trembling so bad her body was about to give out…

…now.

The building collapsed then, burying Raven in an avalanche of heavy, destructive debris. She shielded herself with what energy she had left, and fell to the ground.

Protecting her head most of all.

She screamed, out of pure instinct.

When death feels so certain, one cannot help but to let go of all emotion bounds. In her mind, she screamed, 'STARFIRE!' Raven could only pray to whatever deities would listen, that Starfire could locate her.

The rubble came down around her in a great heap. She rolled out of the way, her flight having failed, and the rubble smashed in the air around her. Concrete exploded into bits of flakes and dust and shards around her face, spraying her body.

Towards the door, that was where she needed to get.

She took one last look behind her, seeing nothing else that she could do, and pulled her tired body to a spot that was safer than beneath a pile of broken buildings.

Taking a deep breath of fresh air, she thought, 'Starfire?'

And passed out.

Another aftershock ran through the Earth, quaking the already torn apart city one last time. Before the last of debris and rubble could coming crashing down, Starfire found Raven, and grabbed her arm to pull her off of the ground.

She lifted her up in her arms, flying high enough to be free of the wreckage.

Tears formed within Starfire's eyes as she looked at her unconscious friend, laying limp in her arms. She clutched her body close to her chest, stifling a sob.

"This shouldn't have happened," Starfire said to herself.

She hugged Raven's body close to her, still trying to suppress her sobs. Starfire was convinced that Raven was dead, and she was trying to be calm about it. It was what Raven would have wanted, she supposed.

But still, Starfire's emotions were a torrent of bitterness and sorrow. Every sad emotion, every helpless thought travelled through her, not letting her hear the end of it. She blamed herself.

She should have been there. She should have never let them separate. She should of know where she was, heard her calling sooner.

Then perhaps she could have stopped this terrible fate.

"Raven," she whispered again.

Raven began to stir then; a more prominent intake of breath, a groan of pain, and the twitching of her sore muscles. At this, Starfire was elated.

"Raven!" she said, watching as she finally opened her eyes. Raven's purple eyes met Starfire's green ones, and the emotions that passed between them truly had no words. It was a connection unlike any other.

A small smile cracked Raven's face.

'I thought you were dead.'

'I thought the same of you.'

Pulling her into a hug, Starfire landed back onto the ground, choosing a spot where there wasn't any deep cracks or uneven ground. Her hug was gentle, instead of her usual bone-crushing hugs that she gave.

The pain had been too great for either of them.

"I am so glad you are okay," Starfire whispered into Raven's ear.

And really, there was nothing more they could have said. Nothing but the mere fact, they were alive.