Chapter One: Unorthodox Manifesto
The day that day began as days tend to: with the rising of the sun. It rose lazily in the sky, as if attempting to waylay that which was to come. Sadly, this is not the case, and in the end, happened anyway.
At the tower of the Titans, the day also began normally. Or rather, it began as normally as could, for the five friends. Raven, never late, was the first up, and the first to ignore everyone else. Cyborg, being that he never truly needed sleep, was the second up. As soon as he awakened, he strolled to the kitchen, and began to roast a pig on a spit for breakfast. Beast Boy, being that he naturally has good smell, was wrenched from a deep sleep by this atrocious aroma. He immediately went to tell Cyborg a thing or two about tofu. Robin, who had not truly slept at all, crept in, when no one was looking, and casually went about staring out the huge window. Starfire was the last to arise. She drifted into the kitchen, and seeing Beast Boy and Cyborg's fight, set about breaking it up through bubbling encouragement and enthusiasm for teamwork.
But today, the birds flew just a little bit slower. The sun shone just a little bit weaker. The lights gave off just a little less light. The world seemed to have slowed down. The clocks ticked with the authority of a funeral march, and the minutes dragged on into eternity. Every second lasted an hour, every minute a day, and every hour, a year. The tension built to a screaming crescendo, unbreakable.
Finally, the blaring of the alarm broke the suspense. It startled every single one of the young superheroes, and seemed to shake the very tower. A bright screen, flaring into life, momentarily blinded them all. As Robin's eyes adjusted, he studied the screen, to find a happening on a street whose name he could not particularly remember.
"We go." He said simply, before heading out of the door. In the wake of such strangeness, the validity of his words struck true. No need for enthusiasm. The day had drained it. And so they traveled, with all speed allowed on such a day.
They found, to their intense surprise and distaste, that it was not a case that truly required their aid. At least, not anymore. The Titans found the victim of an attack. This attack, normally never terminal, was disturbingly fatal for the unfortunate. The truly horrific way was not that he died, but rather, how he died. As if pecked to death, by a thousand berserk birds, all normal sized, and all with vengeance on the mind. His blood loss was minimal, adding to the grotesque nature of his murder.
"Robin. We've cordoned this area off to the public, stating an accident." An investigator told Robin. "We're hoping that you can back us up, and perhaps find out just why this man died the way he did?"
Robin nodded, in an absent way. He waved the others to follow him, to check out the rest of the sight, and survey the scene. Raven, however, stayed behind.
"Mind if I check the body?" She asked the investigator.
"If you want to. There isn't much to see, just some poor sap who's been killed by… something." The man informed her, but nodded his go-ahead.
"Hmm…" she pondered the mystery. She turned the man over onto his back, and gasped when she saw what was there: arcane symbols and runes, all over his body. And suddenly, everything made that much less sense. The world was falling apart. And it was getting dark too
"Do you feel that?" A stranger asked, stepping from the shadows. His eyes seemed to speak of a hidden malice. He radiated an aura of shades and hate, but not towards Raven, of that she was sure, just… he radiated it.
"In a way, yes, I do." Raven answered. "What do you know of it? Why is night falling already?"
"That isn't night. That's the darkness descending." He replied.
"But what darkness is descending?" Raven asked hopelessly, sure that he would still be mysterious as before.
"The value of this darkness unwinds"
-Dimmu Borgir