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She felt strong arms rap around her, and she squirmed as she was dragged up and out of the basement. From down below, she could hear the crackling of the wood from the weight of the sand and the world around it began to crumble. Certainly, the crease was small, the wood itself only splintering slightly, but it was enough to send a whole section of the basement crumbling downward.
"Rae," Beast Boy had her by the shoulders, her face turned towards her. "What the hell were you doing!?"
"But..." She looked down into the crawl space. "How did you?..."
"Mick, gave me the heads up--ran up to me after he saw what you were doing." This had to be the first time that she ever saw Beast Boy truly that angry. His eyes were wide with some emotion that she couldn't place--something unknown. "And I ran down here as fast as I could."
Then she remembered the dark shadow, and she peered down into the depths again. Beast Boy wasn't the boss of her--she could go down there if she wanted to...But, somehow, she felt as though she would never be safe in Titan's tower again.
"Beast Boy?..."
"Hmm." He growled, his bottom lips quivering with emotion. "What is it, Rae?"
"Promise me that you won't go into that place alone."
"Huh?" Beast Boy looked at her questionably. "What is WRONG with you? You're acting creepy! Do you have a fever or something!?"
"LET ME BE!" She shook him off, shaking her purple head as she stood up and walked away. Her hair tumbled over into her deep eyes, and she brushed everyone away as they tried to corner.
"HEY." Mick saw her coming, and he waved his hand around wildly. "Hey."
She stopped short, crossing her arms in annoyance. "Yes."
"What did you see down there?" He asked quietly, raking his fingers through his short hair. His two once flirtatious eyes were filled with concern--a emotion that she hated when it came to her. "I mean, you were talking to something right?"
And she did think of the...THING. If there really even was a thing. There had been something there right? Was she losing her touch? She swore that she had SEEN something dance across her vision, but yet in a basement like that it could have merely been shadows...
But, shadows? Something had been thrown at her...OR something like that. She had felt something touch her the whole time. NO shadow could cause the sensation of someone tickling the back of her neck as that place had.
"Rae, you-"
Then again, there had been many, many cobwebs down in that place. She could have mistaken a touch of darkness for the feelings of cobwebs brushing the back of her neck. Yes, that had to have been it: cobwebs, just cobwebs.
"-look a little bit shaken up."
Raven stared over her should--never, ever again did she want to head down into that thing┘.But yet, the sheer power of its evil took her breath away. It groped her, overpowering her with its untouchable darkness. Darkness that could drag her farther and farther away from where she wanted to be.
"RAVEN!"
Raven shook her head, "What, Beast Boy!? Your yelling will have shot my hearing straight to Hades!"
Beast Boy pouted, "You weren't listening to me."
"Well," She shook her head. "You've certainly got my attention now. What did you want!?"
"It's not worth it now..."
"Fine." Like she cared about that anyway...
With that, she waltzed up the stairs, her feet hitting the steps. But, somehow, she couldn't shake the feeling that somebody was looking at her. Somebody that wasn't Beast Boy. And was it just her, or had the air around her just started to weight ten pounds?
When she rounded the corner into the empty hall, she shuddered, peering over her shoulder every couple of steps. The hairs on the back of her neck were acting as pins, standing straight up--what in the world?...
"Beast Boy?"
She peered over her shoulder, but nobody was there...
She continued to walk down the hall, constantly checking over her shoulder as if she might just see something creep out behind her. By the time she was on her fourth over the shoulder check, she heard Starfire scream from the floor above.
"Starfire," She thought.
This was it. The thing, the shadow, had finally made it's move on somebody else. Finally, it was her chance to prove that she wasn't crazy. And she wasn't either...MAYBE.
She and Starfire met halfway, her friend tackling her in a full body hug. With force like that, Raven would be paralyzed from now until next week...And worse a news yet, this most likely meant that whatever her friend was suffering from, it most certainly wasn't anything of a dark and twisted nature.
"Friend Raven," Starfire squealed. "I have found the most amazing thing!"
"If it has anything to do with the female-"
The discovery of tampons had been a force worse then hell for Raven, whom had to suffer a five hour demonstration on her friend's part--not something that she ever, ever wanted to repeat.
"No, no!" Starfire squealed. "It is for tonight's party! You wish to see, yes?"
"Umm...Sure?"
Raven walked, deep in thought. Strange how the heaviness of the air had suddenly disappeared...There wasn't even the feeling of somebody standing over her shoulder anymore--weird.
"You look quite jostled." Starfire attempted to repeat a friendly side butt, but that only sent Raven to the floor. "OH!"
She said quietly. "Ouch."
"Are you alright!? I have not jostled a rib or broken a spinal column have I!? I have heard that it is quite easy to do in humans."
Raven lay with her face on the floor, her head hanging low. It was hard to tell if something was broken, because her whole body had suddenly gotten very, very numb--OUCH. 'Note to self,' She thought. 'Remind Starfire to never, ever do that again.'
"My apologies friend," Starfire offered her hand. "I have seen many a friend do that on the television."
"Friends don't usually have strength like you do..." Raven pulled up her hood, sighing as her healing powers took affect. "What is it you're going to show me anyway."
"Just some...dresses."
Uh-oh.
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When she lay in bed that night, she felt shivers all around. She was so cold that she couldn't seem to fall asleep...And whenever she did, she woke up with the bed sheets in a heap on the floor. Was it her? Could she really be going psycho?
It had to be her mind, it had to be. Nobody was in the room with her, not even an animal of any kind. She would be able to sense it if there were. When she sat up out of bed, she peered around the room for about the hundredth time that night.
For the first time in a long time, something had managed to frighten her enough to keep her awake at night...
There was a cool breeze at the back of her neck, and she jerked around, looking desperately for the source.
Nothing...
Absolute darkness...
She burrowed her head in her hand, wondering what the heck to do next. This wasn't getting her anywhere. At the rate she was going, by the time she went to sleep she would be in a worse a state as Beast Boy and the others that were howling like wolves. With that, she picked up her stuff and waded it in a ball.
Fine, she would just join in the festivities then. She wasn't going because she was scared out of her mind, she was going because she wanted to go...Heh, yeah right. Like that was ever the truth.
In her ear, she thought she heard laughter. A deep, throaty kind of laugh...Almost as if somebody was hacking up a lung. Whatever it was, it didn't sound human--not even in the slightest.
"Hello?"She whispered. "Is there...anyone there?"
IT came again, louder and more frightening.
"OKAY!" With that, Raven raised her hand in warning. "Show yourself."
The nearest bookshelf moaned under the pressure of some unknown force, and book after book tumbled off the shelves. She looked up, alarmed. This had to be her powers manifesting themselves somehow.
"I'm scared." She said allowed, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. "I'm really scared and I'm not afraid to admit it."
But when she opened her eyes, another book fell off the shelf--a book that was moving on its own accord.
"UGH!"
There had to be a logical explanation for this. She admitted that she was frightened, so her powers couldn't be manifesting themselves. Two books had fallen to the floor of there own accord, and it was so cold in the room that she was shaking in her boots. It was midsummer and she was shaking!
She stiffened her shoulders. "COME OUT!"
And when the next book fell off the shelf as if on queue, her own powers did exactly what she wanted them NOT to do. With a mighty roar, she lost control...For the third time this week. What was she DOING!?
"Raven!"
From down the hall, she heard the sound of running feet...Uh-oh.
The door was kicked open, and she jerked around. This wasn't when she wanted them to see her. She was already feeling weak and had begun to question her own sanity--now the other Titan's would begin to wonder as well.
"What's going on, Raven?" Robin stood before him, and on his cheek was a lipstick smudge. "Are you alright!?"
"RAE!?"
Even she was taken aback by what she saw: Beast Boy was dressed in drag, completely with hula skirt and a coconut bra. She didn't even want to KNOW why the heck he was dressed like that.
"WHAT HAPPENED!?" Robin cried, looking at the bookshelf.
"Um." She looked at it, broken hearted as she saw all her books that had been tipped over and crushed at their spines. "I had a...nightmare."
So, what!? She was lying to save herself time. Even she knew for sure that whatever had happened, it hadn't been a dream. It was just that she couldn't let the other team members know what was going on. Last week as breakfast, they had already been whispering about her behind her back. Something like this wasn't the smartest thing to bring up now.
"A nightmare." Beast Boy scuttled forward. "Must have been pretty scary--I haven't seen you freak like that in a long time."
"Yeah," Raven took a step back.
Cyborg chuckled. "She probably dreamed about you in that skirt, BB. That would make ANYBODY wet their pj's."
"SHUT UP, MAN!"
"Extreme truth or dare." Cyborg gave her an apologetic look.
"So," Robin eyed her carefully. "You're okay?"
She lied, "Yes."
'...No. I've never been farther from 'okay,' she thought.
Beast Boy put both his hands in front of him, whirling out of the room like superman. "Back to the games them!"
"WAIT!"
Everyone turned around, their eyes on her--good thing she had her hood up, or they all would have been very alarmed by the look she wore on her face. Indeed, it was hard to hid how sickened she felt by the world around her.
"I..." Raven checked over her shoulder. "Maybe I'll come to your little...thing, after all."
"JOYOUS!"
They walked out of the room, Starfire firing nonstop chatter at Cyborg. Raven made sure her head was down, or else her friends would notice her strange behavior--no way she wanted them to see how she was right now.
"Raven." Crap, maybe somebody had noticed. "Are you alright?"
She looked over at Robin, her mouth tight. "Yes. I'm fine. Better then fine--good even."
"Okay."
She looked at the floor again, her eyes focusing on the wall behind her. "...That's..."
"What?"
From the moment she looked up, she realized that she had made a mistake in saying a word about it. Robin was looking at her with big eyes, his mouth tight. She was ruining this for them--a night that was supposed to be fun. Here she was, acting childish.
"Nothing."
"RAVEN-"
She glanced his way. "Drop it, Robin. I'm alright--better then alright, good even."
"Now, friends." Starfire stood atop the couch, her hair spiraling behind her like a vail of fire. Just the way her eyes glowed a bright green warned everyone hat something very unpleasant was going to come. "Shall we sing the joyous song of celebration again, since Raven has yet to hear-"
"That's alright Star." Robin said nervously.
"Yeah." Beast Boy smiled. "We wouldn't want-"
Robin shout him a warning look.
"Oh," Beast Boy's smile shrunk several molars. "Right, never mind."
Raven shrunk a little bit in her chair, willing herself to get the chill out of her bones--a chill that seemed to be permanently with her since the very begin. When she looked up and saw her friends curious faces, she did her best to give a small smile--one of which probably looked more like a rather pathetic flinch.
"Friend Raven," Starfire leaned over her and Raven could smell the tropical lotion. "Perhaps you are not feeling quite as well as we thought. Would the medbay be a proper place for you to-"
"NO." She snapped. When Starfire looked hurt, she corrected herself. "I mean...No thank you."
Truth be told, she wasn't sure what was going on with herself lately. Some little part of her was afraid that she was going truly crazy...No one around her could feel this THING stalking them. Certainly, she was sensitive to the UNKNOWN, but that didn't mean she was entitled to be delusional.
When Robin brought up a game of truth or dare, she silently groaned. This was not what she bargained for. All she wanted to do was sleep; all she wanted to do was escape from whatever it was that was hunting her down like a overactive predator.
Beast Boy cleared his throat, "I don't think I can get any more...daring then I am right now."
'Thank you, Beast Boy.'
She blinked as her two eyes grew as heavy as a forty pound weight. It was, after all, four o'clock in the morning. Parties weren't really much her thing either: too many people, too many questions.
"Movie?" Cyborg suggest.
When they started throwing movie selections out in the open, Raven kept her mouth shut. She didn't care what she watched. Truthfully, a big part of her didn't even know what was going on right now. Her mind was as blank as a piece of fresh computer paper.
"RAE!?"
She blinked twice as Beast Boy waved a movie in front of her face. It too her a minute to piece together was what going. His mouth contorted over the words, 'DO YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS MOVIE?'
"Whatever."
The moment Beast Boy put it into the recorder, her head lulled to the side. She blinked heavily before her eyes closed: once, twice, three times. Starfire looked in a even worse a state, her head in Robin's shoulder, eyes closed in her contentment. Any minute now she would be snoring.
Beast Boy watched them with a smirk. "This would be the ultimate prank, you know...Starfire is sleeping like a bear in hibernation."
"Yeah." Three heavy blinks later, the television was all black with some ninja fighting screen.
Raven's head lulled forward onto her chest, and she shut her eyes--an overhead clock nearby rang out the time: 5:00. They made it through the night without a wink of sleep. If any villain decided to attack them now, it would be the ultimate time to attack. No way she could get her powers under control as tired as she was.
Beast Boy smirked as Starfire began to snore softly. "You know...Cy..."
"Don't even think about it, BB."
Raven gave a soft sigh, and she felt the world around her begin to fade black. It wasn't until she squirmed throughout her exhaustion induced sleep did she find something warm and comfortable--something so soft that she thought that she could lay curled up against it for the rest of eternity...
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