Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.

"Do you believe in Hell Richard?"

The figure sat on an ornate chair in the middle of the dim room. The only light source – a fireplace – cast flickering shadows over the walls, and left scars of light and dark in his mind. He felt cold despite the large fire, and it was only then that he realized that no heat seemed to be perpetuating from it – rather, it seemed to suck the warmth out of him.

The figure itself looked as if it were being obscured by a cloud of smoke, but as he walked toward it he began to make out features. It was a man, a very handsome man in fact, who had short dark blond hair, and was dressed in a manner more akin to an eighteenth-century noble man than to any modern contemporary. Robin felt immediately drawn to… and revolted by him.

"Please, sit. My reputation would surely suffer if it was found that my hospitality is so lacking that my guest did not have a seat," the man stated. His voice had no real tone to it, no inflection.

Robin looked to his side and saw a chair identical to the one in which the man sat on – a chair he had failed to notice before.

"But at any rate, back to my original query – do you believe in Hell?"

As Robin sat he finally answered the question, "Of course, I've been there."

The man looked at Robin bemusedly and replied, "have you now…?"

Robin was about to say that he definitely had been to hell, but stopped when a question entered his mind, "Why do you want to know?"

The man's face didn't change as he pondered the question, and his answer had the same cordial – and yet dead – tone as before when he answered. "I wanted to know because I was curious Richard."

Robin considered for a moment and then asked, "Who are you?"

The man's eyes opened wide in mock shock as he said, "Oh dear! I do beg your forgiveness Richard. My name is Robin."

Raven had a feeling she knew what was happening before she had even turned around, now that she had she found that she had been dead on.

Beast Boy's drained form lay sprawled before her, tangled in a heap of limbs. "What are you doing?" asked the empath.

"Um… hey Raven I was just uh… getting some air… heh…," was his relatively pathetic reply.

"I can see that. But-" Raven was cut off before she could go any further by a loud yell from the other end of the hall.

"HEY! GUYS! COME HERE!" Beast Boy gave Raven a perplexed shrug.

"NOW!"

"We're coming Cyborg!" Raven called out.

As they walked back into the waiting room Raven noticed that Star wasn't in her chair, and that Cyborg's face had a strange mix apprehension and excitement. Cyborg was reading over some official looking papers, and only noticed that Raven and Beast Boy had arrived when Beast Boy gave a loud, "Ahem!"

Cyborg looked up at this point and his face broke into a wide grin. "I just got this from the doctors; it says that Robin's condition has stabilized enough for us to be allowed to take him back home!" Beast Boy's face lightened up with a smile at this prospect. But Raven only asked to see the paper.

Cyborg looked at her quizzically before handing over the analysis and release forms. Raven took it from him and only just registered that Beast Boy had begun asking questions about Robin.

The papers seemed to show only good knew as Raven flipped through them, until she got to a document that showed brain waves. The papers showed huge amounts of activity, but expressed no signs of Robin waking up…

Raven looked up at this point to here what Cyborg and Beast Boy were saying. "No way man! Knowing Robin he'll be up tomorrow demanding that we train!" Beast Boy said while laughing with Cyborg.

"Yeah you're probably right. I bet he'll say that we planned the whole thing to get out of our exercises!" Cyborg stated as he began to get up.

Starfire had joined them by this point, having had come out of the bathroom. "Oh what Glorious news friends! I shall make the pudding of happiness as soon as we get home!" With this comment everyone's' faces dropped.

Robin stared at the man who had just identified himself as Robin. Something was wrong with this person… He could feel it… "What is this?" he asked slowly.

"What is what, Richard?" 'Robin' replied.

"This," Robin responded.

The man looked at him amusedly before uttering nonchalantly, "This is a conversation."

Robin was about to reply when he saw something in the man's eyes…

Bones…

Death…

Robin looked closer at the man before him, and began to notice things. A strange gleam came from the man's teeth as he smiled, and his fingernails were not translucent… they were white – pure white.

"What are you?"

The man laughed at this. His head rose as his shoulders convulsed up and down, and a sound that seemed like sweet – and yet poisoned – honey came from his lips.

"Are you some sort of vampire? Or daemon?" Robin demanded.

The man's laugh quieted as he looked at Robin. He seemed to be pondering some sort of riddle, and his gaze seemed to go through Robin's body.

"Perhaps... I don't know–Are you?"

I know I said it was going to start making sense – but I guess you'll just have to wait…