In a land of cold.
City skyline covered in white.
A black plateau littered with snow and settling frost.
She sits on the edge.
Hugging her knees.
Rocking back and forth.
Draped from head to toe with rusted chains.
Covering her cold, naked figure.
Blue mist and vapors rise and settle around her.
Her eyes constantly shed icy tears.
She rocks back and forth.
Silence.
Crunching sounds in the snow.
Too pale blue feet.
Naked as her.
She exhaled.
Blue vapors.
A beat.
"Your job……," the Spectre utters. "It is……done?"
She mutely nods.
Silence.
His pale and missing eyesockets gaze down at her.
An invisible wind blow at his gray hair and beard.
The Spectre says: "It had to have taken great resolve."
"It took nothing," she spits.
A hiss of cold white fog.
Silence.
"Terra……," he speaks. "In this world, there is no regrets."
"Speak for yourself……," she utters. "Not even when I was alive have I felt this much pain. You say Hell is a word. I don't believe that. I believe I am in Hell."
"Then, child, you entered Hell long before you turned to stone."
"You did your job…," the Spectre gestures. "Now it is time for me to do mine. And that way……we can both sleep. We can both rest. We can both be……at peace."
"Just like the Titans, Terra."
"Just like the Titans………"
Silence.
The Spectre takes a vaporous breath.
He slowly steps over and reaches down towards her with a chain-dangling arm.
"Slade……"
He freezes.
Her lips part.
She slowly turns her icy head
She gazes upwards.
She speaks to the Spectre: "Slade……could it be…………that you can't touch your wife……or your sons……or your daughter……because they don't want to touch you?"
"……………," he gazes at her quizzically with one pale eye.
"They want nothing to do with you. Isn't that the truth?" she narrows her icy blue eyes on him. "Even beyond the land of the living. Beyond the land of warmth. They want nothing to do with you. They want nothing to do with you or the memory of you."
"Terra……what are you getting at?"
"Raven……," Terra stroked her forehead. "Raven touched me. Starfire and Beast Boy……they let me hug them. Cyborg and Robin……they spoke to me. They told me things they wouldn't tell anyone else. They trusted me……"
"Terra, you must not let regret—"
"This is NOT REGRET!!" she shouts.
Angry blue vapors rise around her shaking figure.
She stands up with clenched fists.
The chains clatter around her.
"The Titans trusted me. Even when I betrayed them. Even when I hurt them. Even when I KILLED THEM!!"
"You are their Reaper. They have no choice."
"That isn't true and you know it, Slade……," she points a shivering hand at the Spectre. "Raven wanted me to put her to sleep. Starfire didn't want to go. Beast Boy had no clue. Cyborg sacrificed himself and Robin gave up. They all met death in their own ways and with their own desires. I was not their Reaper. I was their friend."
"It matters little what you are…," the Spectre's one eye narrows. "You made an oath, Terra. And you carried your task over beyond the cold veil of black. You killed them just like you were supposed to. And now that my job is done, mine shall end. For I have come to kill you, Terra. You knew it from the beginning…as I did…"
He steps toward her again with his hand outstretched.
"No, Slade," she glares. "I did not finish my job."
His lips part.
Vapors.
"What do you mean?"
"There is one Titan left."
He shakes his head.
"But you killed them all!! They are all asleep!!"
She shakes her head.
"I am still here."
Silence.
An invisible kind kicks at the snow.
The Spectre pants.
"You……You……"
"I am a Teen Titan……," the girl shudders, closing her frosted eyelids. "……a true friend. Those were the words that I could not see. That I could not feel. All those years of stone."
She reopens her eyes.
Glaring daggers.
"I am still alive, Slade. My job is not yet complete. I have not been killed."
"Then I shall do my job," he advances on her again. "And both of us will be spared eternity—"
"NO!!"
He shudders.
She snarls:
"The Titans are MY JOB!! MY RESPONSIBILITY!! That was according to the oath!! Back in the land of the Warmth!! Remember?!"
"I swore……on my own blood……to destroy the Teen Titans. It is my job. Not yours. As long as my job is not complete. Neither is yours."
The Spectre shakes all over.
"Terra……finish the job."
"No."
"Finish the job. Now."
"No, Slade."
"DO IT!!"
"I said no!!" Terra shakes. "Not even all the chains in the universe could make me do it!! The Reaper stands firm!!"
"You must……y-you must d-do it……," the Spectre shakes all over. "You must let us sleep. You must let me sleep."
"Fuck off, Slade."
"Do you have any idea……ANY idea whatsoever how much this burns??" he growls.
Her lips part.
Eyes thin.
A blink.
Flames.
Smoldering flesh.
Putrid stench.
Billowing plasma.
The girl gasps silently.
The Spectre is on fire.
"Now do you finally see it? Now do you finally feel it?? The world that I see? The world that I am in?? Do you realize how long I have been in here?? There is no time to scale it. No sense of agony to measure it. As long as you frolic there in your limbo of cold, I am in this land of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Do you have any idea what I would give……the souls that I would put to sleep……the jobs that I would do……just to have but a breath of your freezing vapor?? There is nothing more horrific……nothing conceivably more painful……then the burning wrath of Life itself. Do you even have a fucking clue, Terra??"
She takes a deep breath.
She steps back into the blackness and frost.
"I do now, Slade."
He gapes at her.
"I know now……and I'm going to leave you. I'm going to leave you to burn."
"Terra……"
"As I leave to freeze."
"Terra, don't leave me."
She turns around.
"Goodbye, Slade……"
"Terra!! Don't you fucking leave me!!"
"C-Come back!!"
"…………"
"I'm sorry, Terra!!"
"I'M SORRY THAT I TURNED YOU AGAINST YOUR FRIENDS!!"
"I AM SORRY THAT I TURNED YOU INTO A REAPER!!"
"PLEASE!! PLEASE COME BACK!!"
"NNNNNNGHAAAAAAAUGH!! COME BACK!!"
