Raven's eyes shot open. For a moment, she wondered if she'd dreamt it all. Perhaps she did dream some of it

Just trying to sit up informed her that she had not dreamt all of it. Wincing a little bit at the pain radiating from her stomach she lied back down and laid her head on the pillow.

Her throat was incredibly dry. But she knew she wouldn't be able to walk to get water. She hated feeling helpless.

"How are you feeling?" The voice was low and quiet. For a split second, Raven wondered why Robin was speaking so strangely. And then she remembered that it wasn't Robin.

"What… I mean…" she began to cough. Cyborg handed her a glass of water. She gratefully gulped it down and tried to speak again. "It's like someone shoved gauze down my throat." She looked at him accusingly. He smiled grimly.

"You've been to the hospital and back you know," Cyborg said. "I couldn't handle that much loss of blood here. It's not like we have a blood bank after all."

"Mm, blood," Raven said, licking her lips. She smiled wanly. "Is it still today? I mean…"

"You've been passed out for two days," Cyborg said. "October 30th."

Raven blinked at him. "You're kidding."

"'Fraid not."

"Then there's time for me to try again!" Raven exclaimed, propping herself up on her elbow.

"Hell no!" Cyborg insisted, pushing her back down. "I don't know if you noticed or not, girl, but you've been gutted. Something pierced you clear through. You're lucky to be alive."

"It was Robin," Raven explained with a fire in her eyes. "I couldn't get through at first, but the barrier gave way and he stabbed me. It was him, Cyborg, I'm telling you."

But Cyborg backed away. His face was inscrutable. "All that means Rae… is that he's dead."

She sat up again and forced the pain to the back of her mind. "No, it doesn't. Because he spoke to me. He stabbed me. The dead cannot have an effect on the physical world. Some part of him is still alive somewhere. He's trapped there. He has no way out. But all we need to do is find out what's trapped him there and we can help him."

"You're not doing anything," Cyborg said. "Not after that stunt you pulled. No more magic, Raven. It damn near killed you. Hell, Robin damn near killed you. Maybe… maybe it wasn't even him anymore."

Raven's eyes flashed with a fiery determination. "I know my own friends. Believe me, it was him."

"Regardless, we'll deal with it. You need to heal."

"I can heal myself," Raven replied.

"Not easily," said Cyborg. "Not a wound like that."

Raven didn't admit it, but she was surprised she hadn't healed it already. "Just bring me my books."

"No."

"Who died and made you Robin?"

"Robin did."

Raven did not respond at first. She looked away from him, despondently. "I miss not fighting with you."

It was true. Before Robin's disappearance, Raven and Cyborg had never clashed. In fact, Cyborg had taken Raven's side in many arguments, whether she was sparring with Beast Boy or challenging Robin's decisions. The two really had much more in common than they'd initially realized. Or at least, Raven thought they used to. Not now, now that things had changed.

Cyborg sighed. He'd never seen Raven express anything like that. At least not willingly. "OK," he said. "I'll bring you your books. But you have to promise me that you'll be careful. And that you'll let us help you."

"Believe me," said Raven. "If it's what I think it is, I'll be needing all of your help."


The day was gray. Robin looked up at the sky. Then down at the earth. Gray. Brown. Gray. Brown. He looked to his left. Black. His right. Black. He looked at the forest about thirty feet in front of him. More black.

The trees were bare and foreboding. The leaves were brown and dead and littered the ground.

All the pretty colors of fall had fled this place. The place where death walked.

Robin felt he had been here before. On either side of him, his friends were grieving in their own way.

He felt restless. The casket was closed. He didn't know who was inside of it.

There was some sort of woman. Robin deduced she was from some new-age religion. She spoke over the dead. He broke away from the crowd of mourners. He approached the casket. No one stopped him. His fingers glided over the ebony. No one said anything to him.

He looked up. On the barren branch of a dead tree was a large raven. It was watching him intently. Robin walked past the casket and towards the forest. The raven seemed familiar. He felt as though he had forgotten something.

But as he approached the forest, the raven took off from the branch. Instead of retreating back to the service, he followed it.

The trees rose tall and foreboding all around him. The dead leaves crunched underfoot. As he walked, the day grew darker. Until he could barely make the outlines of the trees.
Somewhere in the distance, a raven cawed.

What day was it, Robin thought. What hour?

There was the sound of scuttling. Robin felt in his pocket and found a book of matches. He tore one off and lit it. In the dim match light, Robin saw hundreds, possibly thousands, of tiny little creatures, all scuttling around on the forest floor. They crawled over his shoes where he stood. He couldn't make out the dead leaves anymore. They crawled on the tree trunks.

They were all a poisonous shade of green.

As he watched them, he finally identified them as tiny cockroaches that were crawling everywhere.

He lifted his foot to take a step and the ones on his shoes fell to the ground and immediately covered any empty space he could set his foot down.

Robin wondered dimly if it had been a mistake lifting his foot off the ground. The event of crushing some roaches underfoot was pretty much inevitable now. They were everywhere.

As hideous as they were, Robin did not want to harm a one of them. But he had to keep going. He had some sense of urgency. There was something he had to do.

So he put his foot down and felt the squishing crunch of crushed cockroach shells. He thought he heard them screaming. It was at that exact moment that all the roaches stopped in their scuttling. Then, they began again, with a new fervor, as they all began to gather in one place. The pile of cockroaches grew and grew. Robin's match burnt down to his thumb and forefinger and burnt him. He dropped the dead match and the matchbook. The light disappeared. The scuttling continued and rose in a crescendo of squealing and shuffling. And then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

Something was walking towards him until Robin could feel it's presence an inch in front of him. There was a scratching sound and then a spark as a match game to life. The one who lit it held the match between their two faces. Robin could see the face clear as day.

It was Beast Boy.

His teeth seemed extra sharp in the sinister match light. Beast Boy pushed Robin down on his back. He wielded a wooden knife.

"You think bugs are insignificant," Beast Boy said, as he kneeled down by Robin's side. "You think you can just step on us. Ignore us. Now the bug bites back."

Beast Boy began the incision at the base of Robin's neck and drew a line straight down to his naval. He could feel the slice burn and ooze with blood as Beast Boy cut him open. Robin's chest cracked open.

Out with the blood oozed a thousand tiny spiders.

Robin screamed.

Somewhere in the distance, a raven cawed.


The moon began to rise on the night of the 31st. She milked every ounce of fear her prey was giving her. It overwhelmed her. For a while, he'd pretended to be brave. It didn't stop him.

She stole his dreams from him, drank his memories like sweet nectar. Her fingers began to extend as she traced a line along the length of the middle of his chest, from base of his neck to the top of his naval. He shivered at her touch. Her strength began to grow.

All she needed was a few more hours. By the end of the night, she would have her body. She was already well-nourished by his mind. The process was almost complete. And then she would have until the end of the year to experience everything carnal. All the things she missed from being alive, the cool sweet taste of vanilla ice cream, the soft scent of pumpkin pie, the sweet melody of a friend's whispered secret, the warm velvet of a lover's touch. The sight of a sunrise. She would have electric blue eyes. She would have real hands. She would be truly alive again.

Until the body began to decay badly enough that she was forced to leave the shell for dead. It would take about a month, six weeks at best. If she was really careful, a body could last her up to two and a half months.

Of course, she was rarely careful.

She began to hum to him again.

"Romeo is bleeding to death. To see a friend bleed to death, and what for, some kind of metaphor that I can't see…"

Something interrupted her thoughts and she was alert immediately. It was the same presence as before. She tried to block the demons mind, but the veils between their reality and hers were thin now.

She both adored and cursed Venus. Its miniscule alteration of Earth's energies greatly increased the efficiency of her transformation, but it also made it easier for others to interfere.

She ground her nonexistent teeth and hoped that by the time they realized what was going on, Robin would be hers.


Disclaimer: "Romeo is bleeding to death..." is a quote from Funeral For A Friend'ssong "History." Um... For the record, some of the songs I've been listening to as I wrote this. Funeral for a Friend, obviously, and My Chemical Romance "To The End" (which is kind of Robin's anthem in this fic), and Brand New "Seventy Times 7." I don't know why I told you that.