Disclaimer: Once again, I do not own the Teen Titans or anything having to do with them. 'Tis unfortunate but I survive probably.

Nightmares

Blackness and cold surrounded her. The cold bit into her bare arms and legs and her breath misted as she exhaled. Shivering, she tried to move, to turn around, to leave the darkness and emptiness. She couldn't move. Beginning to panic she tried to thrash against whatever held her immobile but except for her violet-blue eyes she couldn't move at all. "Where am I? What is wrong with me?" she shouted but her jaw refused to move. All that came out was a muffled scream. She went from panic to despair. She knew she couldn't get away. She was stuck in the cold empty blackness and she would go insane.

Suddenly the scene changed. She dropped abruptly to the bottom of Hell, or so it seemed. Now, instead of freezing, she burned. Her skin bubbled and sizzled yet she still couldn't move, couldn't run away, couldn't stop the nightmare. Again she struggled, although she knew it wouldn't do any good. To her surprise and relief, she could move, a little. She turned her head slowly back and forth, painfully aware of straining muscles and the pain of badly burnt skin. High rocky walls rose to a roof nearly invisible in the flickering hellfire light. Beneath her floating body, overseers with burning whips patrolled rows of cringing souls, cruelly doling out punishment to the laborers who turned spits, carried enormous amounts of rocks, or sorted burning coals.

"Hello, Raven. So nice of you to visit me." She knew that voice. That low gravelly voice that had tormented her entire life. The one she had thought never to hear again. Did she dare to turn around? She did. She whirled but only her head whipped around. Muscles pulled and cramped at the sudden violent movement. "You!" she gasped in pain and fear.

"Yes, me. Did you expect someone else?" Trigon laughed at her expression. " What, no 'Hey, Dad. How are you?' No hello kiss? Ah well I suppose I shouldn't have expected one…"

"Damn right you shouldn't have!" Raven spat out, trying to leap at him but not succeeding as she was still held in place.

"..but I admit to feeling hurt when my favorite daughter refuses to even give me a hug. And I thought that we were getting along so much better, too. After all, you did allow me to come to your world again."

"What! I never, never would! Not after the last time!" Raven screamed. "You will never have another chance to destroy, Father!" She spat out 'Father' as if it were a poisonous snake, one that had already bitten her.

"Oh but you did. You let me out of yourself as Rage. I am now a separate entity so I don't need you as vessel any more. You have no way to banish me this time. I truly am free. FREEEEEE! Totally FREEEEE! Forever! And I have you, my daughter, to thank." Trigon sighed and stretched his enormous, fire-covered hands towards the roof of Hell. "And now I must leave you, dearest Raven, to destroy your silly little world."

"NOOO! You can't!" Raven screamed in despair. "You can't." She collapsed sobbing as Trigon rose higher. "Oh I assure you I can, daughter, and I will, starting with your pesky friends. I shall see you soon." He left Raven on her knees, crying next to his fiery throne. Her burnt and reddened skin glowed a sickly orange-red color and on her forehead the Mark of Scath sizzled, a dangerous promise of what was to come.

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"No! No, you can't. You can't!" Raven woke up with her cheeks wet with tears. For a minute, she had no idea where she was. Then she recognized her surroundings. She was in a bed, in the infirmary of Titan's Tower. Starfire sat next to the bed, dozing, as machinery whirred and beeped all around. It was only a dream. Raven looked down and discovered that she had numerous little tubes inserted in her arms and electrodes attached to her head. She tried to sit up but fell back to the pillows with a moan. Her head buzzed and ached and she felt weak, too weak even to move.

"Friend Raven!" Starfire started awake and yelled. "You are awake! O, joyful and most relieved am I! The others will be glad to know also. Friends, friends! Raven is awake!" she called down the hallway. In less than a minute, Cyborg, Robin, and Beast Boy had reached the room and skidded to a halt before the doorway of the infirmary. "Raven!" all three chorused and then fell silent as Starfire glared at them. "No loud noises please. Patients need peace and quiet!"

The three boys looked at the floor shamefacedly. "Sorry, Star." "Yeah sorry." and "Sorry, Raven."

Raven tried to talk but all that she could manage at first was a gurgle. She cleared her throat and asked in an incredibly gravelly voice, "What happened? Why am I here?" She began to cough, wracking her body with spasms. Her friends watched concernedly and Starfire produced cough medicine and tried to pour it down Raven's throat. She shook her head and waved Star and her medicine away as the coughing died down. "I'm alright. But really what happened? And how long have I been like this?"

Robin answered, "We're not really sure what happened. We were fighting Doctor Nightmare and he defeated all of us. Beast Boy said he saw you get really tall and freak out on the Doctor. Then you got small and collapsed and then ran off. We found you out cold on the floor next to Doctor Nightmare who is now in custody. As for your second question, you've been unconscious for about forty-eight hours and still haven't shown any sign of improvement besides waking up. Why weren't you healing yourself like you usually do?" (A/N from The Beast Within)

Raven's closed eyes flew open. "I wasn't healing myself?"

"Well, no. Do you mean that it wasn't on purpose?" Robin looked worriedly at Raven who shook her head.

"When I'm unconscious, I heal myself automatically. I should be healed by now. Instead," she grunted in pain as she sat up, "I'm almost too weak to move. That's not good."

"Is there anything we can do to help you?" Robin asked with concern in his voice. "Yeah, like get you, umm..., a hot water bottle or something," Beast Boy piped up. "Or massages or chocolate or…" He shut up as Raven glared at him. "Just trying to be helpful," he muttered unhappily.

"I'll be fine. You have other things to do." Raven said. Just then the alarm went off and Robin and the others looked at each other, hesitating. "You see?" Raven lay back into her pillows. "Go. GO. I'll be fine!" The Titans left and Raven could hear Robin yelling, "TITANS, GO!" She sighed and decided to meditate. Her lack of power and energy worried her. She should have been healed and ready to go back to fight with the team. What was wrong with her? Shivering slightly, she remembered her dream. It had seemed so real but thank Azar it wasn't. Trigon was gone and he wasn't coming back. Reassured, Raven slipped into meditation, wanting badly to be calmed and healed.

Heat and fear assailed her immediately. Red anger and hate pounded at her senses, blinding her and striking her deaf and dumb. She screamed inside and hurled herself from the meditation trance, jolting herself back into the real world. Breathing heavily she stared around the infirmary. What was that? Where was that? Why didn't I go into meditation?

Question after question poured through her mind, confusing and frightening her. Nothing like this had ever happened in all the years since the priestesses of Azarath had first taught her to meditate. Maybe I did something wrong. I am tired and can't concentrate. Maybe that's it. I'll try again. Concentrate, Raven. Be calm. Breathing as evenly as she could, she slipped into her meditative trance once again.

Blessed peace and relief began to spread throughout her mind and body. Raven sighed in relief which abruptly turned to a gasp of panic as her surroundings shifted sickening to red glowing balefire and lashing flames, fear and despair and hatred filling her mind once again, causing her to cry out with the pain of thousands of tormented souls. Screaming Raven threw herself away, trying to escape once again. But the tortured souls clung to her feet, weighing her down and pulling her towards the fires and eternal damnation.

Raven clawed at their hands, trying to get them to let go. "No! Let me go! Let me go!" The souls hung on, cackling grimly. Their laughter mocked her feeble attempts to free herself and seemed to say, "You deserve this. Don't struggle. Come home with us and be forever tormented as you deserve for letting loose the evil you have inside of you on the world." Raven's screams and pleadings went unheeded and the tormented dragged her into the balefire and out of reach of the blue sky she could see through a crack in the ceiling of Hell. "Noooooooooo!" Raven was gone.

Okay, the end of chapter four. I know that's kind of an odd ending but all will rectify(this is a fun word to use. It confuses people.) itself in the next chapter so please be patient.

By the way, anyone who likes Raven (likeI do) and doesn't really want anything really weird or bad to happen to her probably shouldn't read the rest of the story.

It could be disturbing. It disturbes me and I'm the one who's writing here so...

well whatever. I hope you liked it.