Chapter Fourteen: Out of Time
Cyborg searched frantically for an escape. Water was pouring in down the staircases around them. The icy coldness didn't help matters much either.
"There's gotta be a way out of this!" Beast Boy screamed.
"If the water is flowing down, then perhaps we should go down too, yes?" said Starfire.
"I don't think so." Cyborg said. "We'll have to try further back."
The three Titans braved the pouring water making their way aft.
"What if Star punches our way up and out?" Beast Boy asked.
"No!" Cyborg snapped back. "Who knows what that could do to the ship? It could make matters worse!"
After a few minutes of running, they escaped the water.
"Now where do we go?" Beast Boy asked. They looked around, noticing a stairwell.
"There!" Cyborg said.
"But it goes down!" Beast Boy protested.
"I don't care! Let's go!" Cyborg made for the stairway.
They hurried aft on catwalks that took them past coal bunkers. Cyborg operated the individual watertight door controls for each they encountered.
At last, they came to the Reciprocating Engine Room. It was more or less silent, save for the hum of distant machinery and the engineers on the lower levels.
"Where to?" Beast Boy whispered. Cyborg searched for an exit.
"There!" he said, pointing to the entrance to the Turbine Engine Room.
They quickly made for the door, heading for the lower level.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" a crewman yelled.
"Sorry, wrong turn!" Beast Boy said.
Panicked, Starfire grappled the base of the door and forced it up.
"Let us make the haste!" she yelled.
The Titans ran through, leaving behind the dumbfounded crewman.
"There's our way out!" Cyborg said, pointing to a stairwell.
They made their way to it, running up and out, making several turns as they did so. Cyborg decided to check his clock. It was one-forty. 'We're running out of time!' he thought.
Raven had led her group of passengers to the Boat Deck through the after First Class Staircase. She guided the passengers out the door, where they mixed with the other passengers already on deck.
At the end of the group, a man and his family stopped to face her. She recognized him as the man who rallied the passengers to follow her. "Thank you, Miss..."
"Roth. Rachel Roth." she said.
"Thank you, Miss Roth. You and your friends have kind hearts."
His wife nodded in agreement. "Thank you for saving our family. God bless you!"
She embraced her. Raven returned the embrace. She looked at the child they had with them; a young girl perhaps four years old. She knelt down to her.
"Listen to your parents, and take care of them, okay?" she said, smiling.
The girl smiled back and hugged her. When she let go, Raven left the family, looking for Robin and Terra. She didn't see them.
"Tim? Terra?" she said. She went inside to search for them. They were nowhere to be seen. Raven felt a feeling of dread creeping upon her. 'Okay, where the hell did they go?' she thought. She began to search the corridors of 'B' Deck.
"Can't leave these guys along for a second!" she said aloud in frustration.
She decided to begin her search at 'D' deck, as she that was the first change they made in switching staircases. She made her way aft to the Second Class staircase. From there, she made her way forward on 'D' Deck.
"Do you have any clue where we are at?" Terra asked Robin.
"Not really." he replied. "All I know is we got to get the hell out of here!"
They were on 'C' Deck, amongst the corridors where the cabins were. They went past the Grand Staircase. In the corridors forward of the staircase, they noticed the doors lying on the deck.
"I guess this is Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy's handiwork." he said. "Let's try to find them."
They went back to the staircase and went down to 'D' Deck, walking forward to the cabins. They saw more doors laying on the deck, though fewer in numbers.
"I wonder if they were interrupted." Terra said.
"Let's look elsewhere." Robin suggested, making his way aft.
They searched the Reception Room and the Dining Room.
"So much for this place." Terra said.
"Keep going." Robin snapped.
They went through a room with ovens and shelves and then the pantry.
"This is ridiculous!" Terra said. "Not only do we have to find Raven, but the other three Titans as well!" She sat down, rubbing her temples. "I got a headache from all this." she muttered. Robin put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't let it get to you." Robin said. "With all that we've been through over the past year, we can handle this."
Terra glared at him. "Easy for you to say. I wasn't there."
Robin sighed. "In that case, you just have to trust the ones that do have experience."
She smiled at him. "Alright. Lead the way!" She stood up.
Robin smiled at her and was about to go through the door, when it seemingly opened on its own and smacked him in the face! "Ow!" he yelped, falling on the floor. "Now I got a headache!"
Terra knelt beside him. She looked at Robin's assailant; it was Raven!
"Oops! Sorry Robin!" said the mystic.
She also knelt next to him. The two girls helped him to his feet. 'Beast Boy would be in heaven if this was happening to him.' thought Robin.
The girls helped him to the dining saloon, were he sat down. Raven looked at his face; he had a large bruise on his forehead and his nose was bleeding.
"Hang on Robin, I can help." she said. She used her healing powers on his wounds.
The bleeding stopped and the bruise went away. Robin still had residual pain, but it was manageable.
"Okay guys," he said. "Let's see if we can find Cyborg and his team."
He was able to walk on his own. "I say we finish searching this deck." Raven suggested, heading aft.
Cyborg managed to find his way to the 'D' Deck landing of the stairs, with Starfire and Beast Boy not far behind him.
"Why don't we give the stairs a break and go forward?" the changeling said.
Cyborg nodded. His knee joints were feeling strained.
After a few minutes rest, the three Titans made their way forward. Cyborg was about to enter the Second Class Dining Saloon when he hit something with the doors.
"Uh oh!" he said as he peaked through the door. It was Raven! She was on the deck, nursing the blow to her head.
"Guess we've all had headaches now, huh Robin?" Terra said, laughing.
"Terra!" Beast Boy cried, hugging her, while Starfire rushed to hug Robin. Cyborg helped Raven to her feet.
"Um, sorry?" he said, walking her to a table.
"No problem." she said, healing her bruises with her powers. "By the way, what time is it?"
Cyborg checked his clock and gasped. "It's two oh-five!" the half-robot said. "We don't have much time!"
Robin stood up. "Where's the quickest way out?" he asked.
Raven looked around in panic. "The Grand Staircase! Let's go there!"
They ran through various doors, unknowingly running past a stairwell on their way forward.
When the Titans arrived at the 'D' Deck landing, they saw the base of the stairwell was surrounded in water.
"Any other great ideas?" said Beast Boy. "Keep going!" yelled Raven. She ran up the stairs, the others following close behind, while the water continued to rise at an alarming rate.
When they reached the Boat Deck, the final plunge had begun. The Titans nearly lost their footing as the Titanic lurched forward. They saw the bow was already underwater and that the bridge was even with the crow's nest on the forward mast.
"Head for the stern!" Raven yelled, leading the way. They intermixed with the swarm of passengers left on board, all scrambling for the stern. On the way, they heard a crashing sound.
"Look!" yelled Starfire.
The dome of the Grand Staircase shattered as the five story structure broke away from its mountings. What more, is that the afterstays for the first funnel were severed. The funnel began to topple over. Raven held up her hands and used her powers to stop the fall, giving swimmers in the water a change to get out of the way.
"Way to go, Raven!" Beast Boy said.
Suddenly, the mystic lost her footing and fell on her rear. She lost her concentration and the funnel toppled over on the starboard side.
"Damn!" she said, getting up.
"You did well." Robin told her. "Let's go!"
She stood up, and the Titans made their way further toward the stern.
"The mast! Get to the mast!" Cyborg said.
They scrambled over the railing, making their way to aft mast. There, they clung to it as the stern rose higher and higher.
"Now what do we do?" Beast Boy cried.
Cyborg checked his clock. "Two seventeen." he muttered.
Suddenly, the lights went out, leaving the ship in absolute darkness! Following the power outage, a loud, dreadful noise of tearing metal filled the night air. The Titans shielded their ears against the deafening noise. Beast Boy noticed small showers of sparks from the tearing metal. The stern fell faster and faster, violently smacking the water. The Titans fell onto the railing, but were mostly uninjured.
"Holy shit!" said Starfire. Robin stared at her. "Is that not the correct phrase?" she asked. He nodded.
The bow had now disappeared, leaving the stern section bobbing on the water. Amidst the wreckage of tangled machinery, the door that Starfire had jammed open earlier allowed water to gush in, flooding it rapidly. What more, the fireplace in one of the smoking rooms had spilled its coals during the breakaway; now, what was left of the Titanic was sinking and burning.
Beast Boy was able to catch the smell of the burning room.
"Is someone holding a cook out on board? I smell fire." His question was left unanswered as the stern rolled over on its port side and corkscrewed "nose down".
The stern bobbed slightly as it stood vertically, spinning slowly on its axis. The Titans, along with the hundreds of other passengers along with them, hung on for dear life. 'Least my fire's out.' Beast Boy thought, no longer detecting the smell of burning. Then, the stern slowly sank down, like a giant elevator.
"Okay, Titans, get ready to drop in the water!" Robin said.
Raven found herself loosing her grip on the railing.
"Oh shit!" she said, a feeling of fatigue overcoming her.
"Hand on just a little longer, Raven!" Terra said.
The mystic gritted her teeth as she strained to hang on. The stern swayed as it sank faster, finally causing Raven to loose her grip.
"Raven!" Cyborg yelled as she fell into the water. She disappeared from view with a splash.
"Hang on!" Robin yelled.
A few seconds later, the mast was about to go under water. The Titans let go and swam away from the sinking remains of the ship. Robin did a backstroke, watching the silhouette of the Titanic against the stars.
He watched it until it vanished, disappearing with a slight "gulp" sound. There were a few muffled thuds as air pockets in the submerged stern ruptured. Then, the sound of over a thousand, struggling and screaming people filled the night air, leaving him in shock.
"My god!" he muttered. "My god..."