Chapter Two

For the second time that day, Raven had locked herself in her room. There wasn't much doubt that it would be the last time, because she had already made it painfully clear that she wasn't going to come out anytime soon.

After many futile attempts to coax, bribe, and even force Raven out from the confines of her bedroom, the Titans eventually all gave up and left her alone. At one point, Beast Boy even persuaded Starfire to sing her entire collection of Tamaranian folk songs, and assured Raven that until she came out, the alien girl was going to stand in front of her door and belt out every single note. Raven apparently seemed to develop a very solid immunity to the nerve-wracking screech that was Starfire's singing voice, and after ten minutes of loudly informing the sorceress that they could hold up for hours on end, the team was forced to abort their plan when Cyborg's steadfast determination was overtaken by a particularly violent seizure.

Soon after this, a very irritated, very unstable Cyborg threatened to kick the door down if she didn't come out by the count of ten. Raven did not seem to be altogether pleased by this concept, for the moment Cyborg began to utter the number 'nine', a large pile of outdated magazines suddenly flew into the air and chased the four Titans down the hallway and back into the living room. Beast Boy and Starfire both suffered a number of small paper cuts, Robin was beaten over the head several times by the July issue of Newsweek, and Cyborg had gunned down more than one copy of People magazine with his sonic cannon, making the entire tower smell strongly of burning paper.

Raven let out an exasperated sigh and knit her fingers firmly into her hair, and was pleased when she didn't hear them return even after several minutes. Still fiercely toying with the idea of sending an army of rather sharp eating utensils after them as well, she exhaled deeply and was finally able to clear her mind, thus drifting away into the quiet stillness of meditation.

A feeling of gratification soon replaced her resilient anxiety, which had slowly begun to ebb away, and she was lulled into tranquil nothingness; a perfect void where she could abandon the weight of her conflicting emotions and just…think. She took in several more deep breaths, and finally forced her numbed mind to focus on the situation at hand.

The girl had visited her every night for three days. Now that she had let go of her fear, her doubt and her frantic denial, she could readily accept the fact that this was most definitely a phenomenon, and that it was happening very much on purpose. However, determining whether this was simply foresight on her behalf or a deliberate cry for help was a completely different and much more elusive process.

If it was a plea for help, or even a warning, then who exactly had sent it; the girl…or perhaps one of her victims? In fact, these messages could be from anyone—anyone at all. For all she knew, the Nufu overlord and a particularly diabolical rubber chicken could be tapping into her brain and sending her short clips from Beast Boy's large collection of bad horror movies.

Raven seriously doubted this, of course, but with the amount of information she had, it was entirely possible.

Wrenching her drifting thoughts away from rubber chickens and scheming blocks of whole-protein substances, she willed herself to center every ounce of her attention on searching for clues that the little girl may have given to her…but she was so tired, and could feel herself slowly, slowly drifting away from the hiatus that was meditation and falling into the chaotic, nonsensical world of slumber, dreams and nightmares...

"Hello."

Raven's body whipped towards the source of the voice and immediately froze.

It was the little girl.

"Get out of my room," she demanded hoarsely, trying to chase the quiver from her voice. The girl laughed—a sugary, tinkling sound that made Raven's hair stand on end.

"You're dreaming, silly," she giggled. "We're not in your room—you just fell asleep." Raven blinked in spite of herself and uncertainly studied their surroundings, feeling her insecurity grow considerably higher when she saw a large crack in the wall behind her bed. "But you don't want to wake up. Not yet," she added, her eyes still cast to the ground and never meeting Raven's gaze.

"…Why not?" Raven retorted hesitantly, helplessly watching the crack in the plaster rapidly spiderweb upwards for a second and then stand still again. The little girl smiled a little, slowly easing herself onto the tips of her dress shoes and then leisurely lowering back down onto her the balls of her heels in a continuous, sickeningly naïve-looking sequence, all the time staring intently at the floor.

"I don't know," she answered innocently. "Aren't you stuck?"

" 'Stuck'?" Raven repeated, looking at her blankly and feeling her stomach churn as the crack in the wall shot up a little higher again. At this point, it had almost met the ceiling, and Raven tried her hardest to ignore it.

"Don't you want a clue?" the girl continued, her voice so sweet and faultless that she could have been a normal child. Raven was suddenly reminded forcefully of The Exocist, and was half expecting the little girl's head to twist around in a full circle at any minute. "Don't you want to know more?"

"You're sick," Raven said shakily, taking an involuntary step backwards. The wall splintered slightly, emanating a loud creaking noise, and the crack continued to slither across the ceiling. "You're insane…" The girl didn't seem to acknowledge this last comment, because she suddenly looked at Raven with those too-blue eyes and smiled sweetly.

"You're really pretty," she said out of nowhere. "Would you like to play dress-up with me?" Without warning, a slimy, murky substance oozed from the crack in the ceiling and splattered thickly on the little girl's shoulder, and as Raven watched, the flesh beneath it began to rot away before her very eyes. The girl either didn't notice or didn't care, because her gaze never wavered.

"What do you want?" Raven begged frantically, positively shaking. "Just tell me what the hell you want and leave me alone!" Another large clump of the alien substance fell from the still-splintering ceiling and landed heavily on the girl's face, seeping slowly down to her chin.

"I want you to play dollies with me," she said softly, one eye melting away and oozing down her cheek as the liquid touched it. Flies had begun to buzz around her, swarming about her tiny body like they would gather around a corpse, and maggots were crawling desperately towards her on the floor from all directions. "Do you want to play with me?"

"NO!" Raven screamed frantically, crying out in horror and disgust as the entire right-side of the girl's face began to rot away. "Oh my god…oh my god…!"

"What is it, Raven?" the little girl pressed, her single eye widening hysterically. "Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared of me?"

"What the hell do you want!" Raven cried, pressing herself against the back wall and shrieking as the plaster behind her began to give way.

"Sixty-five-eleven! Sixty-five-eleven!" the girl chanted maniacally, laughing shrilly as her lip began to shrivel away. "Ashes to ashes…ashes to ashes and dust to dust!" she giggled suddenly. "Silver to tarnish and iron to rust! Wake up, Raven! Wake up! Wake up!"

"—wake up, Raven!" With a gasp, Raven opened her eyes and looked hurriedly around the room, her breathing quick and raspy. Robin was kneeling over her and appeared to be in the process of shaking her roughly…presumably to rouse her from her nightmarish slumber. When he saw her eyes flutter open, however, he exhaled deeply in relief and closed his eyes for a brief moment, looking as if he had run several miles. Starfire looked horrified, to say the very least—she was also at Raven's bedside with her hands at her mouth, her knuckles as white as her face with worry and tension. Beast Boy was at the foot of her bed, watching her with the strangest expression on his face, and Cyborg was observing the scene from her doorway. Apparently he had either been incredibly concerned on her behalf or was just true to his word, because the door was lying pointlessly on the floor, several feet away from its setting, and had obviously been slammed off its hinges.

"So you ended up kicking in the door after all," she said shakily, trying hard to lighten the mood. Nobody laughed—not even Beast Boy—and the laughter quickly died in her throat as Robin fixed her with his penetrating stare.

"Raven," he said slowly. "I'm going to ask you this one more time. What's going on?"

"I wish I knew," Raven answered honestly, looking up at him hopelessly. "I keep having these dreams, and…"

"So it is the dreams, isn't it?" Robin interrupted softly, looking angry, disappointed, and frustrated all at once. The effect was enough to make Raven want to crawl under a large rock and hide there with all the other slimy, insignificant creatures, and she looked away.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you just tell us?" Beast Boy demanded, his voice radiating anger and disgust. "We asked you enough times, didn't we? Why can't you just tell us the truth?"

"We've all been worried about you, Raven," Cyborg agreed solemnly, his tongue slipping over her name and pronouncing it 'Ray-ven' like he always did—but this time, it wasn't sweet or reassuring. "Even I asked you what was up a few days ago, but you did exactly what you always do; you blew us off and tried to handle it all by yourself, and you never let us help you until it's too late."

"I'll be fine," Raven lied, but Robin had obviously just reached the brink of his self-control.

"You were screaming!" he shouted suddenly. Raven shrank back into her pillows in horror and surprise and he continued, now positively livid. "You were screaming for help! We thought you were being attacked, Raven!" he practically spat, bringing his face closer to hers and glaring fixedly at her. "We thought someone was in your room, because you sounded terrified. I've never, ever heard you scream like that, and it scared me to death!"

"I'm sorry," Raven whispered, hating herself a little more each second, and overcome with self-revulsion when tears started to sting at her eyes.

"Damn it, Raven, we're you're friends!" Robin snarled, and she choked back a sob. "How dare you scare us like that when we care so much about you! We're worried about you! We want to help! Do you know how close you were to dying the last time this happened to you? Do you remember what happened last time?" Raven nodded and he grabbed her shoulders hopelessly, still obviously frustrated, but desperate and pleading as well. "Then how could you do this to us?" he said softly, looking so pitiful that he didn't even look like himself anymore. What had happened to the vicious, determined leader she knew so well? "How could you be so selfish? How could you even put us through the thought of losing you, Raven?"

"We are veryconcerned for you, Raven," Starfire agreed weakly, tears streaming down her cheeks. "We simply wish to know what is…what is 'going on', yes?" Instinctively, Raven's gaze flickered to Beast Boy—who had been unnaturally quiet for a while—but he remained perfectly silent and refused to meet her eye.

"I told you already," she said quietly, biting her lip as hard as she could to keep it from trembling. The pain helped her focus, and the tears that were misting her vision almost seemed to dissipate as she did so. Crying doesn't solve anything, she thought firmly, and swallowed hard. "I told you already," she repeated aloud. "I don't know." Robin looked at her pleadingly, silently begging for an explanation.

"Then tell us what you do know," he told her softly. Raven took in a deep breath and began to recite the events of the past week—the stories that would haunt their nightmares for years to come, just as they did hers.

A/N:

I know that this chapter was a bit shorter than the first, and that's mostly because I was aware that if I continued writing, the chapter wouldn't end for about twenty more pages. So, unfortunately, I had to stop here.

Five reviews and five favorites on the first day! I'm incredibly flattered. It's depressing, though; I think that The Masked Commenter must have given up on me since I haven't posted in...((um…onetwothreefourfive…))…seven months. I've completely let you down, dearest. I'm so ashamed. ;;

Thank you so, so much! I'm so glad that my morbidity hasn't deterred you from reading. But then again, a little blood and guts here and there is always enjoyable, right? Still…even I think the maggots were a little much, but that's probably because I detest those things. They're gross. Really, really gross. That part of the story in itself was enough to make me cringe, and I wrote it. Yuck. Maggots. Disgusting.

Love from;

Nevermore

P.S: I hate bugs.