Raven is lost and alone, who can bring her back? Go ahead, take a guess.
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Shining Armor
Raven floated in the void of space. Secluded from the rest of the world she was falling to Earth slowly. Too slowly. Trapped in a malfunctioning space suit she would freeze before she hit the Earth's atmosphere. It was going to be a long, cold, drawn-out death.
She was being punished by a creature known as Torture. A sentient being who fed off the emotional outpourings of telepathically powerful humans like Raven. He was getting his kicks. She was paying the price for his pleasure.
Torture had the power to transport her anywhere so he took her to the artic to freeze, alone. It wasn't enough to even spook her, so he buried her in a coffin and threatened to let her suffocate to death in the claustrophobic confines. She seemed only more serene at that prospect, so then he took her high up and in the sky with the idea that a fear of heights or at leas a fear of falling would evoke a stream of terror. She controlled herself and enjoyed the view.
He was at his wits end when Torture decided to abandon her in space with nothing more than a defunct pressure suit and an advisory.
"The fall probably won't kill you," he let her know. "But you will notice that you have been placed in a decaying orbit in the shadow of the Earth. I don't know how long you will last before you freeze to death or the oxygen in this decrepid suit runs out, but you will never see the sun again. Think of it. Three ways to die and you will die. Alone and cold and only a two thousand mile trip down to the surface to put you out of your misery. I wouldn't want to be you."
And with that he was gone and she was alone. All alone. She looked down into the blackness of the night side of Earth. She knew a twenty-four hour geo-rotational decay would keep her in the darkness until she hit the atmosphere…that is, of course, if she were lucky enough to just burn up in the atmosphere.
It was starting to get to her.
Initially she thought she wouldn't give him the satisfaction, but the cold of the vacuum was overpowering the heating elements of the suit. The bone numbing chill was penetrating her body. The faulty air valves were cheating her of oxygen. What's more, not knowing how far up she was and whether or not she was about to start the burn of reentry chipped away at her concentration. Torture was accomplishing his goal with his insidious combination.
Raven was truly starting to crack. The strange thing was that the worst of it was not the combination of the physical threats to her well being. It was the emotional impact that was making it so unbearable. She was cold and getting colder. She was alone and getting lonelier. She was in the dark and it only seemed to be getting darker.
Miles below her, all over the night world, people were sleeping toasty warm in their beds surrounded by family and friends. No one would even know what happened to her. She wondered if they would even care.
"There is a good chance," she thought. "that my body might miss the ground all together, and down it will sink into the dark ocean depths. Not even my dead body will ever see the light of the sun again. How ironic. Not even the warmth of morgue for me."
The shear solitude was what was weighing her down most.
"Beast Boy, Robin, Raven, Cyborg. I know I was aloof and cold to you all. I wish any one of you…all of you were with me now. No, I wish I were with you. My friends. My friends. Please don't let me die alone. Don't let me me go…so alone. I am freezing. Please don't let it end like this."
She thought for a second a lack of oxygen was causing dementia, but Torture had somehow managed to assure that the suit would leak just enough life giving air so that she would be fully awake to experience the terror of her situation. What a jerk. She couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be so cruel. Why would anyone want to inflict such misery. "Why me, God?" she thought.
Raven lost all hope. "No one can find me. No one can rescue me. Oh, my God. I've been such a loner no one will ever even realize I'm missing. Even when they haven't seen me for a while they will assume I wanted to be by myself. With a whole wide world to search can anyone of them be ingenious enough to look for me in space. Robin? Raven? Beast Boy? Cyborg?. Robin you're so clever, but no one could figure this out. No one could deduce…could you? No. I've got to face the facts…" She trailed off in her mind. She did not want to face the facts as they were killing her.
All at once she began to tremble uncontrollably, and not just from the cold. The body numbing freeze of absolute zero was pushing Raven into hypothermic shock, and the frightening realization of her seclusion from all possible human human warmth propelled her into a quiet desperate hysteria.
"No one should be so lost, so cold, so alone. I wouldn't let any person suffer like this…if I knew about it."
Ravens reflexive shivering became pathetically violent. She was now a shuddering mass of flesh in space. She gasped a little as opposed to crying. She was dying and she knew it.
She was scared to death.
Her last conscious thoughts were the sad wanderings of hallucination. In the periphery of her vision she imagined a streak of yellow flame piercing the darkness.
She had only just enough strength and air to tremble out the words, "Hurry…please…". She then faded into an uncomfortable semi-consciousness, painfully reconciled to her own solitary doom.
Ascending from a low orbit trajectory, the cyber-rocket fired its retros.