Ghosts of the Past
Alexnandru Van Gordon
I must be an idiot. Busted my knee again. Same one. Don't feel like going over the details.
DISCLAIMER: Sigh…I'll only be repeating myself…
CHAPTER TWO: Seeing things
Saturday was one hell of a day. The police didn't want the press knowing about Slade's escape until they had everything planned out, but the paparazzi is faster than that and it was only a matter of time before the early sleepers knew about his disappearance. Then the early sleepers woke the late sleepers and together they watched the news for the rest of the day as every channel provided a story for it. Silent terror came quickly, but so did sorrow. No one felt worse about anyone than the public did for the Titans. You could bet they would be stuck in the middle of it all.
And that wasn't even half of the trouble. Rancid was on the loose again. How he escaped…honestly, no one knows. It seemed minor villains took turns slipping out of prison while the dangerous ones hid away to devise a plan for world conquest.
You could tell Robin wasn't in a good mood.
They tracked him down to the Jump City Mall where he had another form of dog with him. This was like the last—big, mean and ugly—but this one was at least one and half sizes larger. Not that it mattered—Rancid was arrested and his dog blown to smithereens by Starfire. They shipped off the guy back to prison and waited, still gloomy about the news from Robin.
"Anyone see my foot?" Cyborg asked, hoping around as he checked behind a large fake palm-tree. "I hate it when the bad guys try to eat me."
Beast Boy crossed his arms, still miserable about his last battle against Slade going to waste. "Dude, the next villain I see, I'm going to kick their face in."
"Stop talking nonsense, BB, and help me find my leg."
"Where was it ingested?" Starfire asked, looking around the scrap that was left behind. "Many pieces went flying everywhere. It could be in any place of thismall of shopping."
"Split up."
There was a silent groan when Robin gave the weary command, but they went off in opposite directions. Many of the people who saw that battle stuck around to help, but so far there were a thousand possible places to check. The dog, having exploded, was scattered so far that piece went flying through shop windows and even shot high enough to get stuck on the second level. No one was hurt, thank God for that, but it would take quite the amount of time to clean up.
Robin, walking up the escalator toward the second floor, walked along the railing, kicking at a few metal pieces to check around them. So far nothing.
"Check in here." A man called from the musical instrument shop. He had his coat on, having to leave so that repairs could be done to the front half of the store. The display window was shattered to a million pieces on the ground, and a number of large scrap pieces lay on the floor in the insides. The only thing that was damaged was a shelf holding music books, but besides that nothing else was destroyed.
"Thanks…" Robin said as he stepped inside. The lights went out and it was a little dark, but he spotted Cyborg's foot in a heartbeat. It lay underneath a piano.
Knelling, he lay down on his left side and slid under the black piano to reach it. The moment his fingers wrapped around the mechanical body part, a set of chords was struck on the piano harshly and startled him into hitting his head on the underside of the instrument. Sliding back out with a hand on his head, he stood around to see who had been so rude to do that—and stopped.
Silence filled the room before a piece from the Moonlight Sonata echoed quietly from the piano. He was staring straight at the pianist, eyes wide behind his mask. This…she…What was going on?
"Come. Sit. You know I don't bite." She smiled. "Though some would question that last statement, seeing that I'm not perfectly sane."
He took a step backward, not certain whether to answer or retreat. But he did manage to voice her name, not quite understanding how she could be there…
"HalloWeen…?"
"Yes?" She stared at her fingers for a brief moment to make sure she hit the right keys, and then glanced at him, her smile brightening. She wore the same suit she did when she died—no longer charred—, still with black hair as long as it had been before it was ever cut, but…no mask. Deep blue eyes sparkled behind her small glasses, and he wondered back to the times he first saw her without her mask. He couldn't recall her eyes…
"You…you're dead."
The song stopped abruptly as she hit a few keys and she stared straight ahead with a ponderous look upon her face. One arm crossed over her chest, she rested the elbow of the other arm on it as she tapped her chin with an index finger. "Dead, eh? Would you be a dear and please and answer something for me, Robin?"
Speechless, he nodded.
"Define dead." She said the last word bitterly and continued to song, a little quicker now. "Murdered was what I was—murdered!"
"Slade—"
"Slade?" She paused again and laughed. "I thank him for killing me. I deserved it!"
"What?" She was getting angry and he could tell this wasn't going to end pretty. Something he noticed about HW when she was falling into her insanity was that she became somewhat bipolar. "HW, you tried to stop him. You—"
"I killed my cousin—should have killed Slade too when I had the chance, but I'm too weak…" Her voice, once raised, was low and miserable now. She stared at her still hands on the keys before lifting one to look at the palm. "Look at me, Robin…I'm wasting away. How long must I wait until I rot to nothing? No food, no water, no sleep…The sleep, Robin—the sleep. Sleep is the only salvation any man in this world can ever find. Do you still have nightmares? Do you toss and turn in your bed, or do you even bother to lie down at all?"
He found himself sitting down next to her on the piano bench, watching her hand as she slowly turned it around to look at the back of it. "I did…I do…sometimes."
"You can live a while without water, and even longer without food, but sleep…With no sleep you're as good as dead. You're senses are slowly destroyed and you can no longer tell the difference between the dream world and reality. Light-headed, dizzy, tired and still wide awake, starving but sick to your stomach…You want to die, but you can't…Can you…will you kill me, Robin?"
That startled him and he was too surprised to stop her when she took his hands into her own and wrapped the fingers around her delicate neck. He had dropped Cyborg's foot by then and didn't hear it as it bounced off the floor and rolled a short distance away. He wasn't holding onto her throat, but her hands kept his there. Her pleading eyes stared fixed on his and he couldn't look away.
He was seeing things—this couldn't be real! NONE OF IT WAS REAL!
"No—" He gasped and tried to wrench his hands free, but she held tight. "This isn't real—"
"Then why not? If I'm an illusion, you're not really killing anyone."
"No—it's wrong to kill."
Despite the great weight in those tired eyes, she smiled gently and let his hands drop back to his lap. "You're insane, Robin…You need to see someone."
"What? I—"
"You're seeing people you know are dead, and you believe that they're real until you come to a hard decision."
"But you—" He reached out to touch her shoulder—but came into contact with nothing. His hand went right through her and that forced him to recoil his hand back as though he had been burned. But hadn't he just…Wasn't she…
Still smiling gently, she shook her head. "You're not perfectly sane, Robin. Tell the others and find help. I think the asylum will do you some good. Seeing that Slade is gone, at least you know there will be a free space for you to stay."
He stood abruptly and stared down at her in terror. "I can't…I have to stop—"
"Slade?" She continued to shake her head. "The others can do that. Besides, once your friends find out about your mental imbalance, how long will it be before they start to worry? What will stop you from attacking a monster that isn't there—instead attacking a civilian? They will lock you up with all those men you brought to justice…they will betray you…"
"You're…you're not real…"
"I know that, Robin—but that's not what you think."
This couldn't be happening. The only explanation he could come up with was that this…illusion was really a figment of his imagination—something built off his insanity. Maybe he was insane. Maybe, after all the worrying and the fighting—after all the stress he had been through, he finally snapped. HW wasn't alive…That proved it.
"Where are you going?"
Robin had turned around and picked up Cyborg's foot. Now he was heading for the exit. He had to find his friends to make sure they were the only ones who would know about this. They could keep it secret and through them he could keep himself out of the asylum.
"Robin…Robin!"
"I have to tell them and they'll help me figure this out."
"You need help—and you need it now!"
"My friends—"
Zap!
Falling to his knees, he eventually fell to his side, eyes slowly closing off to darkness. HW was standing over him…and the last thing he saw was her reaching toward him with something in her hand…
-C-
He had heard of odd things before but this was plain ridiculous.
"Are you sure we can't see him?" He asked, tapping his mechanical hand on the desk impatiently. His foot had been returned to him in the mall by a paramedic who also told him that their leader was getting sent over to the hospital. It wasn't every day that this happened and they raced down to the hospital, only to find that no one was allowed to see him. Something about a stomach ulcer and hallucinating.
"I'm sorry, sir, but you can't."
"Says who?" Raven said rather defiantly, a black portal appearing on the wall beside her. She, Starfire and Beast Boy jumped through it before the guards could stop them, heading for the elevator to beat them to Robin.
"Sorry. Ma'am, but Robin doesn't hallucinate. Believe me when we say that we have experience with this."
"But…" She paused, fighting to find the right words to say. "When they found him, he was raving on about some girl named…Joyce Johnson—who he kept calling Halloween after that. He swore he saw her…but wasn't that the young lady who died a couple of months ago?"
She was…electrocuted and a broken neck—no doubt the work of Slade, but that didn't explain why she was shocked. Perhaps if she was in the water—but HW had enough control to make sure she didn't do that to herself. There was something else that was missing which went with her to her grave…
"Go ahead…" The nurse finally sighed, giving in at last out of pity. "You guys are a tight knit group of friends. Maybe you can remove that mask of his."
Ha—like that was ever going to happen. Robin took off his mask for no one—even the rest of his Titans. Batman was probably the only other person besides Slade that knew who hid behind the mask.
"Thanks…" He nodded and headed toward the elevator. What were they going to do about Robin?
---
Taking off her glasses and gloves, she tossed them onto the table and took a seat. Exhausted, she waited for a moment before she lifted her aching head to look at Slade. She hoped this was satisfactory for a first try—she was new to making people crazy.
"I saw…" Slade began, referring to some sort of camera he had planted on something that followed her. "And he believes he saw the dead?"
"Yes? But it almost didn't work because he wanted to tell his friends. The drug is working though. It'll wear off soon, but by then it will be too late. And even if it does—a daily dosage should convince them he's crazy."
She waited, watching as Slade began pacing slowly, hands behind his back. She had no idea what type of person he was, meeting him for the first time only a week ago, and now she wondered what he would be like. So far it was all silence and secrets, but she hoped she wouldn't be left in the dark forever. Then there was the issue of exhaustion.
"I'm exhausting myself." She said and he stood still. Though he had his back facing her, she knew he was listening. "Might I relax my powers? I'm not doing anything important right now…"
She was almost afraid she had done something wrong in speaking out of turn, but with a wave of his hand he granted her that small request. "Three hours—then return. You have to ease into it, don't you?"
"Yes, but it is very tiring and—"
"Three hours..."
She didn't want to argue and accepted the small release. The sooner she got her jobs done, the more time she would have to rest. So far, as long as she didn't have to stay the way she was 24/7, she'd have energy enough to keep control.
Standing, she started off into the darkness of the warehouse in search of a place she could sleep. It didn't matter if it was well hidden or not—Slade would find her.
Relaxing her powers, he headed off to rest.
-A-
You guys are so smart…I know you picked up the next batch of clues. I set out. You'll get to see more from Slade's POV soon in the next chapters, so don't worry about your favorite villain. Sit back and relax—I'm off to work on Not Again!
Until Again,
Alexnandru Van Gordon