You'll be happy to know that I seem to be unable to keep from updating with longer chapters… Three long chaps in a row – new record for RSK! Well, this one's fuller, at least…
Read and Review,
Raven's secret-keeper
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Missing: Raven
Chapter 7: World of Nightmares
Dove was standing in the shadows in a room she didn't recognize, but she wasn't worried, confused, or feeling like she shouldn't be there in any way. Half of the entire large space was in a strange and foreboding – yet undaunting to Dove – shadow, and the walls were concrete, the floor a natural dirt. A noise erupted near the door, the only thing in the room, and she turned her head. The door flew open and two figures entered the room. One was Raven, the other was an unrecognizable person clad in a white hooded robe. Raven hardly took two steps before she shot into the air and hovered in the middle of the room. The figure tilted its head up and followed swiftly. Dove watched the scene unfolding in front of her numbly, unemotionally, indifferently. The figure flew up to Raven and lunged at her, but she dodged it and threw a ray of energy at it and tried to fly back to the door. The person shot in front of her, blocking the exit and causing Raven to nearly collide with them. The other shot a ray of blinding white energy at her and she dodged it, then they fired again and hit her. She was a bit dazed and began falling – then recovered herself and swerved up just before hitting the floor. Again the stranger shot towards Raven and she avoided it, but this time the person fired again and hit Raven while she was still moving. The contact stunned her and she was knocked unconscious, causing her to fall to the floor.
Dove moved a few inches for a better view. The figure hovered still for a few seconds, watching her attentively, and then soared down to her unmoving body. Dove tilted her head curiously and watched as the figure picked her up and carried her out the door. She followed the figure into a hall much like the room and walked into a much smaller space with a crack in the wall. The person put Raven on the ground and watched her for a few minutes. Dove hummed a tuneless song to herself, waiting for something to happen. After a while, Raven stirred and moaned softly before sitting up with her head in her hand. She looked up at the person wearily. The person stared at her for a moment and seemed to have Raven in a trance – when she tried to get up, she froze and blinked her eyes a few times as if trying to clear her vision, then moaned and bowed her head. The figure kneeled in front of her and looked into her eyes before lifting her chin up with their first two fingers. Dove watched thoughtfully and couldn't help becoming slightly interested in what was going on. Raven expelled a breath and began breathing heavily. The figure chuckled a bit, then picked her up and ran their finger along the crack. It spider-webbed out until it reached the ceiling, then the entire wall collapsed into the room, revealing a metal wall with clamps lying behind it in a secret room. Dove raised her cloak against the dust, then lowered her arm and heard Raven gasp. The person lifted her – she tried struggling a lot, to no avail – and locked her arms and legs in place before lowering the metal and places it on the dirt. Raven struggled again and chanted Azarath Metrion Zinthos, but nothing happened. The person reached into the folds of their robe and pulled out something – a shimmer of light glinted off the metal of a crooked knife. Raven gasped. The person began staring at Raven intensely, and Raven blinked. The figure kneeled next to her and took the knife to her shoulders. She groaned and tried to pull away, but the person slit all the down to her wrist. Dove tilted her head at the blood beginning to seep through Raven's clothes.
The person stood up and surveyed their work before kneeling again on her other side and repeating their tactics. Raven tensed and moaned tightly, then her breaths began coming in great gasping gulps. The being continued to perform acts of torture upon Raven – some of them with the knife, others involving pressing a steaming piece of metal, somehow pulled from the dirt, on her skin, and others still performed by blowing the dirt up in a cloud and whispering inaudible words – making the dust change to a black color – and blowing onto Raven, who began coughing and strained against the clasps holding her down. The person put up their finger towards Raven and chanted once more, and a shadow-like entity flew from it and straight to Raven. The person moved their finger ever so slightly and moved it around Raven's body, leaving an artful scorching black and red mark wherever it trailed. Suddenly they flicked their finger back to their hand and Raven gasped. The person tilted their head, and reached into their robe once more, withdrawing a bottle of a strange transparent green liquid. The person looked into Raven's eyes for a moment, and Raven warily eyed them back.
Dove sensed Raven's pain as all of it happened, yet somehow it seemed much more foreign than her empathy allowed, and it seemed entirely ignorable, even though Raven was obviously in intense pain.
The being walked behind Raven's head on the floor and moved the metal plate she was on up against the wall, propping Raven up with it. She moaned, and Dove could weakly sense her feeling a bit dizzy. The person poured the green liquid onto the black and red marks left by their strange energies and the knife, and Raven's face contorted in pain. She began moaning tensely and loudly, struggling more than ever to break free. The marks began spreading over Raven's body, and her clothes - and in some places, skin - was beginning to burn off as if the liquid was acid, leaving unnatural black scorch marks on her and a heavy sulfuric scent hanging heavily in the air. Suddenly Dove began feeling just a bit sick at the excessive torture and felt Raven's soul leaving her body –
Dove gasped sharply and shot up in her bed. She gulped uneasily and blinked before she began gasping for breath. Though her dream self had almost no feelings, she was completely afraid, and her body was tense and alert. She swallowed again and began feeling sick again. The images in her dream – if that's what it was – were so vivid and real, not to mention hard on her stomach, and her squeamish side was beginning to show through all her other feelings.
And then the anxiety set in. She began realizing the possibilities that it may have been real.
She gulped once more and tried to catch her breath a few more times before getting up, shakily putting on a cloak, and exiting the room.
She walked down the labyrinthine halls of Titans' Tower slowly and unsteadily. She was still feeling a bit of leftover fear, and her breaths were coming as shakily as her steps.
She stopped and looked left and right a couple of times, taking a moment to recollect herself. And remember which way Raven's room was…
She sighed softly and started off again. When she reached the window in the hall, she jumped uneasily at a drop of rain that fell against the window. She looked out into the clouded-over night sky and saw a few more drops hit before rain began pouring down. She looked up in the clouds as lightning lit up the sky. Thunder crashed and she cringed and bit her lip before forcing herself to continue on towards her sister's room.
She finally reached the door marked RAVEN and knocked softly. In her anxiety and fear from the dream, she had completely forgotten that Raven wasn't even in the tower. There not being an answer, she knocked again, a bit louder this time.
"Raven?" She gulped and closed her eyes. She chanted Azarath Metrion Zinthos under her breath to help herself calm down at least a bit and get her powers under reign, then she opened her eyes and chanted it again, louder this time. She used her powers to unlock the door – but it wasn't locked, just unopened, and she felt the unexpected gap in between the door and the wall and felt her powers reach the empty space, and when she opened the door with a bit too much force she heard it slam into the wall and yelped softly.
Dove looked around sheepishly, then sighed and recovered herself – it had all been a little too fast for her to comprehend and understand – before stepping into the room. She looked around and noticed Raven wasn't in the bed and she began feeling a little confused and anxious, now really worrying that her dream had come true.
Did it really happen? She's not here... Raven's gone.
Then she had a flashback of when she had first realized it, and her memory and sense returned so suddenly she gasped softly and stepped back. She looked at the bed and bowed her head with a sigh, remembering the past two weeks and her missing for Raven returned. She sighed and headed back to her own room. She couldn't help looking out the window again as she passed it in the hall, feeling her longing for Raven's presence return to her. She began worrying, once more wondering exactly what was going on with Raven and unable to keep herself from thinking that it was a vision…
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Dove sighed as she sat down on the couch with her cup of tea in her hands.
"Hey, Dove, are you alright?" Beast Boy asked. Her expression was one he had never seen on her face but Raven had worn it a couple of times – a look of pain that they had tried to numb and it didn't work.
Dove shrugged and took a sip of her tea. "I... just had a rough night."
"What happened?" Robin asked and he turned his head from the TV.
"I had a bad dream about Raven..."
"What happened in it?"
Dove blinked and took another sip. "It's just… She was… She fought this person – I couldn't tell who, so don't ask – and they hit her, and she was fainted for a little bit, and they took her into this room and began torturing, a lot, her until... she…" Dove closed her eyes and sighed again. She closed her eyes and took a soft breath. "She died."
"What?"
"Raven died."
She felt the pressing stares of the others and closed her eyes.
"It wasn't a... a vision, was it?" Beast Boy asked.
"I'm praying not," Dove whispered. Then she spoke up. "I don't know… It was so… life-like and vivid… But I've never really had that sort of vision before, only - just once… and never while I was sleeping…"
"Perhaps it was merely your imagination taking a bit too much flight."
"I don't know, Starfire… Maybe it was…"
"Is there any way to be sure?" Robin asked.
Dove shook her head. "If she was here, she'd be able to tell me, but…"
"So what do we do now?" Cyborg asked.
Dove sighed heavily and put the cup to her lips again. "Praise whoever has an answer."
The others glanced at each other uneasily.
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-Raven's secret-keeper
