Insomniac: A Teen Titans OC-SI

Prologue: World After Dark

The world after dark is different from the world in the daylight. Every human being seems to know this on an instinctual level. Because in the dark—in the places where every shadow looks darker and bigger—there are things that eat away at the mind, body, and soul. I know this, because I have seen those things in every shadow since I was ten. Ever since the day my father left, and my mother's eyes shined a little less brightly.

I don't know if my siblings saw them either, but I could tell that something was different about them as well. The shadows moved differently around my sister, as if they were drawn to her as light was drawn into a black hole. My brother on the other hand, picked up an interest in art, which would have been entirely natural had it not been for the strange and horrifying pictures that he drew.

As for myself…aside from seeing the creatures with their wide, blank eyes and razor-sharp teeth, I had developed some form of insomnia. During these bouts, I would wander throughout the house, hearing strange voices, and seeing things in the shadows that might not have been there in reality.

Sometimes I would hear chants, like a choir singing an ancient hymn. Other times, they would be the mere whispers of a breeze of wind. Sometimes I would see a roiling ocean, with something unfathomably large just beneath the depths. At other times I would see an ancient city, constructed entirely out of black stone and wood. And yet at other times I would see a desert, consumed by the night.

And always—always—there was him. The Dark Man. I had no way to describe his features, for every time I would try to write down or draw what I saw, or merely put to words what I had observed about him, the words an image would escape me.

Over time, I would take my wanderings outside, without the knowledge or consent of my mother. It was in the outside world where my visions intensified, fueled by the absence of light in the sky. There, the creatures that roamed there were more solid…more real. Most wore human skin, but you could tell what they really were just by looking hard enough. The signs were many. A discoloration of the sclera. Teeth that were too sharp to truly be human. The sounds—or sometimes the lack thereof—of their footsteps. The Dark hid many things.

And yet it could hide very little from me.

There was one place in my neighborhood that even the monsters avoided. One place that left a sense of foreboding and dread in everyone who saw it. Most would ask why people would fear a children's playground. Most wouldn't have an answer. Those who did wouldn't want to share it.

In that playground lived something. I never saw it, but the night-dwellers I had spoken to had informed me of it. And laying eyes upon it now, when it was covered in the concealing night, I could see why people would feel a chill down their spines just by passing this place.

In the night, it looked like everything a child feared. A dark forest. A haunted house. The basement when the lights weren't on. I don't know what brought me here, in my aimless wanderings of the night, but now I knew that if I had the choice, I would never come back here.

Morning came hours I had returned home and retreated to my room in order to get some much-needed sleep. After waking, I came to dread the one thing that all teenagers had to face.

High school.

I was not bullied, despite my thing frame, as I had once won a fight against another student twice my size. After that, most of them had backed off. But I had no friends either, due to a combination of my inability to be a social creature, or because I was naturally off-putting. My brother and sister on the other hand, were different. Edward's artistic talent made him rather popular among certain circles of students, and many asked for commissions from him. He had befriended a few fellow painters and formed a small group of highly talented artists.

My sister however, had no friends. Do not mistake me, she was popular, but she regarded all those she spoke to with a mask of friendliness. In other words, she was lying. In reality, all of her 'friends' were more like subjects to her, and they worshiped her like citizens would worship a queen. In definition, my sister was the apex predator of our school. Even the things in the shadows bowed where she stepped.

There were, of course, other predators that roamed the halls. Joey Madison, Nathan Haddock, and Marv Gaites to name a few. The three of them together made the Terrible Three, and terrible they were. Joey was a stereotypical bully jock, the kind you would find in nineties movies. The kind who would shove people in lockers or knock books out of their hands. He was the one I had fed teeth to during my first few months of school after class had ended.

Nathan Haddock was the pretty boy of the trio, someone who made many a girl swoon, and while he wore an amicable façade on the outside, he would be revealed as a cruel and vicious bastard once you got to know him. After all, if the right words were found, much damage could be done.

Marv was the leader of the trio, and perhaps the most dangerous of the three. He was lean yet fit, and his mind was like a steel trap. He had something on at least everyone in the school, including the teachers and principle. Because of this, he feared very few people, and received little repercussions for anything he did. Most who went against him found themselves being quickly rejected by their friend circles. Marv knew that the best way to hurt someone was through their reputations.

He had tried to go against me once, and that had drawn the attention of my sister and brother, who had rallied others against the trio.

After that, I had come to tolerate school a bit more. It was better than the world after dark.

I walked home from school that day. My family only lived a few miles away, and I wanted to be by myself.

That, and the thing from the playground had followed me.

I hadn't noticed it at first, as I had been moving through the motions of everyday life. Then I had begun to notice things around fourth period. A shape in the crowd. A shadow on the wall that didn't look human. Footsteps that carried no sound. Eyes burrowing into my back.

I don't know if it had followed me home after I had first laid eyes on the playground, or if it had just started this morning. It didn't matter now. All that mattered was losing it.

At first, I walked. Then I ran. It kept walking, somehow keeping pace with my footsteps, only ever a few feet behind. I would slow down to rest my weary legs. It would not. I looked behind me, seeing the ever-shifting cloak of infinite colors and the skeletal hand of the creature, and I laughed as I fell into its shadow,

How could I be so foolish to believe that I could escape the shadow of death?

I had not expected to reawaken, and yet reawaken I did. The place I had found myself in was dark. Cold. Almost comforting. Like floating in a lukewarm pool, but without the wetness of water. It was like resting in a womb. Or being dead.

Then I begin to see things. Sprites in the dark, with bright, white eyes and bulbous bodies. For some reason they remind me of human beings, but without the blessing of having limbs. They move past me in a hurry, some of them looking at me. Other things pass me too. Darker and much less human things. Lanky horned creatures with feet resembling goat hooves. Diseased, boated monsters. Large, armored men screaming about blood and skulls. A pale, faceless creature with an imitation of a suit.

The things become less and less human and become something more exotic. Wolf-like creatures that either stand on two legs or walk on four. Massive spiders with black beady eyes, and something that walked like a spider, but had too many human limbs attached to ever be considered one. Dragons that were made of stones and held the size of mountains. Other things pass then as well. Things I have no words or descriptions for. They all blur until they become colors in a seemingly infinite tunnel.

I see things in that tunnel, images and scenes that appear like they belong in a movie. A blue-white haired man waging a war of desolation and change against a rigid system. A hulking mass of metal floating in both the depths of space and something called the Warp. A great tree, blossoming with red fruit that gave both power and light. A black pyramid buried under the snows of Europa. A pair of brothers, traveling a vast nation that relied on alchemy. A facility whose containment has been broken. And always, always the Man in Black, being chased by a Gunslinger towards a Dark Tower that stretches infinitely into the sky.

And then…something yanks me out of the tunnel. A pale hand connected to a man in a fine gray pinstripe suit. We are in the Dark Place, but it is different now. There are shapes that resemble furniture: A coffee table and two armchairs.

"It is a good thing I caught you before you went too deep." The man says. He reminds me of Hannibal Lector. The Hannibal Lector from the TV show, not the movie. Still a cannibal and a serial killer, but a different actor. "Terrible things tend to happen to those who look too deeply into the truth of existence."

I didn't speak. Or rather, I couldn't. My mind was too busy trying to comprehend all that I had seen. Or perhaps it was trying to erase what was there.

The man looked into my eyes and seemed to realize something. "Ah. You are trying to comprehend what you have seen in that place. Do not try to right now. It will come to you with time. For now, sit and listen to my words."

I sat down in one of the chairs, and he in the other.

"You are going to go somewhere. A world that is both like and unlike your world. While you are there, you will meet five extraordinary people. But one of them is especially important in this world. They are connected to a force that you must help me oppose, or this world will suffer, and then you will suffer. Do you understand?"

I didn't trust my words, so I nodded instead.

The man smiled. It only partially reached his eyes.

"Good. Now, there are some things I need to give you, and something else that I need to tell you." He handed me a wallet and a duffel bag. Then he leaned in towards my ear and spoke to me of lies. How to construct them. How to maintain them. How to detect them. And finally, how to reveal and end them.

Then, the colors returned, but there were less of them. I think I was going where he was sending me. Then, I heard the voice of the man again, whispering in both my ears and my mind as the colors swirled faster and faster.

"Now go. Dream the last good dreams that you will ever have. For soon, nightmares will soon awaken."

AN: And here is my second self-insert. I challenge you, the viewers, to name every work referenced in this chapter in the review section. I have no rewards for you other than a proverbial imaginary cookie.