In actuality, she never needed to scream that loud. Starfire had fallen asleep, but she had been ready to wake up at any sign of life from Raven's room. She instantly pounded on Raven's door insistently.
"Raven! You are unharmed?" Starfire called.
There was no reply. Starfire frowned, then pounded on the door again with her fist. "Raven! You cried out! Are you harmed?"
At about that moment, Cyborg whirled around the corner and was speedily making his way down the hall. "I heard a scream, is everything OK?"
Starfire looked at him, worried. "Raven will not come to the door."
Cyborg knocked on the door. "Raven? Is everything cool in there?"
They heard a faint groan. Cyborg and Starfire looked at each other.
"That was a negative." The two Titans jumped and looked down at Beast Boy, who seemed to materialize out of nowhere. "Open the door, Cyborg."
Cyborg nodded and keyed in the code. He frowned.
"Access denied?!" He read in bafflement. "It's never said that to me before!"
"Perhaps you mistyped the override code?" Starfire suggested, her voice anxious.
"This is taking too long," Beast Boy said. When Cyborg turned to snap at him, he noticed Beast Boy was gone. He looked at Starfire.
"Where'd the little worm go?" he asked.
Starfire pointed at the crack under the door. "I do not know much about his animals, but I believe that was… well, not a worm."
Cyborg sighed. "The grimy little roach!"
"Yes!" Starfire exclaimed. "That was the creature."
The door swiftly opened, but Beast Boy wasn't there to greet them. He was kneeling in a pool of blood, hunched over a dark figure. Cyborg joined him there.
"She's…" Beast Boy couldn't say it. "She stabbed herself!"
"Not possible," said Cyborg, checking her position, pulse and breathing. "Where's the knife?"
"Is she well?" Starfire asked anxiously from the doorway. Upon seeing the blood, she couldn't go further.
"She looks…" Beast Boy began.
"She's fine," Cyborg said, firmly. "Well… except for the bleeding gut part." He looked up at Starfire. "She's alive… but she won't for long, help me get her to the infirmary."
Robin found himself waking up with his friends around him. He felt an odd sense of déjà vu.
"Rob, man? You OK?"
Robin's hand slid over his belly to feel his right side. It was sore. He was still wearing his wedding tux.
"Not this again…" Robin muttered.
"You passed out," came Cyborg's voice from the blurriness. "Again."
"It seems that I tend to do that a lot," Robin moaned. "What is this time? Are you going to steal my teeth to sell on eBay?"
"Um… as tempting as that sounds…" came Beast Boy's voice, "I don't think we'd get very many bids."
"I think you're underestimating Robin's fan base."
The dark voice made Robin shiver. His mask hid his bloodshot eyes. "Raven, I'm so sorry…"
"You should be."
"Raven!"
"Well it's true. Am I the only one who sees it? He left us in the middle of the night with nothing but a note, what other conclusion is there?"
"He did not leave with bad intentions…"
"Oh don't be naïve, Starfire, he left because he wanted to kill himself!"
"Raven!" This time Cyborg's voice had a silencing power that the girl obeyed.
Beast Boy, on the other hand, did not. "Well… I hate to mention it, Cy, but didn't you just—"
"Robin?" Cyborg wouldn't listen to Beast Boy. "Robin, open your eyes."
"They are open," said Robin. At least, by now they were. Cyborg was looking very grave in deed.
"I have your CT results. They're not good."
"What do they say?" Robin asked.
"That you're a psycho," Raven blurted.
"Raven!" Cyborg reprimanded. She retreated. He turned back to Robin. "Don't listen to her, she's upset." Raven opened her mouth to deny it, but Cyborg shot her a warning look and she begrudgingly closed her mouth. Cyborg looked at Robin again. "You have unusual activity in your brain."
"You don't have to tell me that," Robin groaned. "Someone's been messing with my head."
Cyborg bit his lip. "Actually… No. Someone hasn't been."
Robin frowned. "I don't understand. I saw it."
"No, you didn't," Cyborg explained. "Robin… I sent in your results to the Jump City Psychiatric Institute. They said that your kind of activity, in regions we barely see active in… other people… is normally present in paranoid schizophrenics. Which would explain your behavior recently."
Robin sat up. His side screamed at him. "No," he said. Then, he laughed. "Right. Never mind. You're right, it makes perfect sense." His friends looked surprised by his reaction. He told them not to be. "No, I mean, I get it now. This is the part where I'm supposed to say, 'Oh thank God, I'm just crazy,' while some parasite eats out my brain with a spoon, is that it?"
Cyborg frowned at him. "Robin, why don't you believe me?"
"Why should I? You're not real."
Starfire cast Cyborg a worried look.
"I don't get it," said Beast Boy. "You were ready and willing to believe we were real the last time you woke up."
"That's because you were the first logical thing that happened to me," Robin explained, very matter-of-factly.
"And we've changed somehow now?" Cyborg said.
"No," said Robin, "I have. I've figured it out. She said so herself."
"Who said so?" said Raven. "Some nonentity that's telling you of some non-conspiracy to eat your non-brain?"
Robin swung his legs off the table. "I don't know why I'm reasoning with you," he said. "I'm just going to get out of here and wait to be whisked away to somewhere else." He began to limp over to the door.
"Why are you limping?" Cyborg asked.
Robin rolled his eyes and turned to face him. He pointed at Raven. "Because she stabbed me!"
As Cyborg approached him, he asked him where.
Robin pointed to his right side. Cyborg lifted the white shirt to reveal Robin's right side. It was completely unscathed. Robin looked down and shrugged. "I've also been poisoned and electrocuted, but that got better."
"Were you turned into a newt too?" Cyborg asked, sarcastically. Beast Boy snickered.
Robin pushed Cyborg away from him. "I admit it. I'm schizophrenic. In this reality, at any rate."
"That's just it, this is the only reality!" Cyborg said.
Robin shook his head. "That's subjective."
Cyborg frowned at him. "I don't understand."
Robin nodded and explained. "When you're asleep, you're totally immersed in a different world. And until you wake up, you take everything at face value, as fact, whether you're defying the laws of physics, or dancing with elves."
"That's not real, Robin, it's just—"
"Then define reality," Robin interjected. "What you see, hear, feel, taste and smell. Am I right?"
"This isn't a philosophy lecture!" Raven exclaimed. "Robin… listen to him. You're sick."
"And you're dead," Robin replied. "But you don't see me treating you any different." He turned to Starfire. "You and I? We're engaged. Or married. I don't know, I lost track." He looked at Beast Boy. "You haven't played Super Sharp Ninja Nine in over a week, and you," he said, turning to Cyborg, "find humor in some disgusting jokes."
They were quiet a moment until Cyborg finally spoke. "What do you know about… your other realities?"
"I'm somewhere else. I mean, physically, somewhere else," Robin explained. "Something is killing me. You guys are looking for me. I somehow killed Raven and…"
"And Beast Boy hasn't played Super Sharp Ninja Nine in a week," Cyborg finished. "Robin, if you haven't been with us for a week… how do you know this?"
Robin was ready to give a completely logical explanation for that when he stopped. "Because… you said so…" he said, his eyes glazed.
"And when did I say this?" Cyborg asked.
Robin couldn't believe what he was saying. "When you and Starfire were arguing about… Oh God…" He fell into a nearby chair. How did he know all this? How did he know what happened in the Tower when he was supposedly somewhere else, fighting some parasite that had trapped him in his own nightmares. He tasted something vile in his throat. Suddenly, his side didn't hurt anymore. He'd imagined it? All of it?
From his chair, he looked around the room. It was identical down to the very last detail to how it always looked. Even the vent was missing a screw from the far left hand corner, one Cyborg was supposed to have replaced weeks ago.
The problem was that it was just as real as everything else he'd been experiencing lately. Frustrated, he raked his hands through his hair. His hair was oily, with stiff remnants of gel clinging to his scalp. He needed to shower, and then he needed to buy more gel.
More milk.
That's right. He'd gotten up because he'd remembered he needed more gel. He was checking what else they needed. Milk. The note had been to remind himself to go to the grocery store. But why did he leave?
Because there was a funeral. He had to go to Raven's funeral. And then he was going to the store to buy some hair gel. When he ran into Terra at the reception, he'd forgotten all about the milk and gel.
Without warning, Robin opened his mouth and let lose a slew of swear words Cyborg never even knew existed. Raven covered Beast Boy's ears. He batted her hands away. Robin ended his profane speech with a frustrated "son-of-a-ARRRGH!" as he looked up at the ceiling, pulling out his hair.
He began to take deep breaths. This was really pissing him off. He raked his hands through his hair again and rested his elbows on his knees.
"Just to clarify," he said, staring at the floor. "Terra isn't around is she?" Robin was vaguely aware of the Titans shifting. They were probably exchanging looks too. He sighed. "Yeah, I didn't think so."
His friends were silent. Robin had a feeling that none of them, not even the sharp-tongued Raven, could think of anything to say. He shook his head. "You guys have no idea how annoying this is."
What was worse, Robin didn't know if or when he was being tricked. Now, he was a little confused as to who was doing the tricking, but the only thing he was sure of was that there was some sort of trickery going on. He didn't know if Cyborg was really Cyborg, telling him he was just crazy, or if the Red Dress Raven and her Terra counterpart were really messing with his head. At that moment, just in case Cyborg was real, he decided to go with the schizophrenia plan.
"OK, so I'm a schizophrenic," Robin said. "You guys exist, and everything else is wrong. You guys are the real you." He paused. "Do you promise me that?"
They looked at each other. Beast Boy reached over and pinched Raven.
"Hey," she said, hitting him in the arm. He looked pensive a moment, then nodded.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can guarantee we're real," he said.
"You doubt our sincerity?" said Starfire. "You think we are deceiving you?"
"Well something is!" Robin said, "I think we can all agree on that."
At that moment, the alarm started flashing. Cyborg looked over his shoulder, then to Robin, who was already on his feet.
"What's going on?" he asked. Cyborg checked the monitor on his arm and looked up at Robin.
"Listen," he said. "You're gonna stay here."
"You're kidding me," Robin said, flatly.
"If you're crazy, we need to sort that out before you hit the crime-fighting scene," Beast Boy said.
Raven nodded and shrugged. "And if you're not, well… Then I guess there's no crime to fight right now is there?" She was being dry. It only made Robin more annoyed.
"Go," he muttered. "My head has a little explaining to do."
They left him there alone in the room. He did not make the same mistake as last time. His eyes remained wide open.
"Alright, I have a question," he said loudly, to no one in particular. "What's with the mind games, huh? If you're really some brain-eating parasite, and I don't know why I think you are, then why mess with me first? And if you're just a bunch of chemicals in my head, well then…"
In truth, he had no question in that instance. The only one that didn't make sense was the former. With the latter, everything fell neatly into place. His paranoia, his absent-mindedness, his dreams, hell, even his imagined illnesses could be the result of a chemical imbalance.
Nonetheless, he clung viciously to the chair he sat on with both hands. If he was going to disappear again into another dream world, he damn well was taking that chair with him.
So he waited.
And he waited.
And nothing happened. He looked up at the ceiling and cocked an eyebrow. "So what, this is it?" There was no reply. "Come on. The scene is over. Everyone is gone. It's just me now. Isn't it time for a little change of pace?" Nothing. Not even the quiver of a wall that might not really be there. "Terra? Mental Illness?"
Robin slacked his grip on the chair and slumped over. Whatever was tricking him seemed to be on its lunch break. He wondered what would happen when it returned. But more importantly, he tried to figure out if he was just stuck in another illusion, or if the faces he had woken up to were truly the faces of his friends.
He looked up at the ceiling again. "I don't suppose you're going to be any help?"
Silence answered him.
Time passed. He might have fallen asleep. He didn't know. All he knew was that he was awoken by a voice.
"There's still one scenario you're not taking into account."
There was no one in the infirmary. Robin rolled his eyes. "Goodbye reality, hello Mental Illness."
"Hello." She still carried Terra's voice.
Robin sighed. "What scenario am I missing, then?"
The scene before him dissolved. He was used to this by now. "This one."
He was watching himself, in a sense. The other him laid on a real hospital bed, hooked up to machines that were too complicated to be maintained by Cyborg in their small medical wing. There was an EKG which steadily beeped away.
The conscious Robin shrugged. "What is this, an out of body experience?"
"Just a possibility," Terra's voice told him. "I told you that you were going to die. You can be sure I'm not lying about that. You can choose how you believe it will happen."
"What are you talking about?" said Robin.
"I am giving you a choice," Terra said, her voice colder. "Which death would you prefer?"
"Isn't there an option where I survive?" Robin asked.
"I can't allow that," said Terra.
"Then it seems we're at an impasse." Robin remained calm. He turned on his heal and exited the hospital room.
The disease had not had time to create a world outside of the white room. Robin stepped into blackness and kept walking.
There was no sound. No light. No scent, not the tiniest hint of lavender or mango. But he kept walking.
He wondered vaguely if he'd walked straight into death's face. If reality was defined by what we could see, hear, smell, taste and feel, then he experienced none of that. For the first time in days, there was nothing that told him where he was, what he was doing, if he was even doing anything at all.
He kept walking. At least, he thought he was walking. He wasn't so sure.
He kind of hated metaphysics. He had always liked what was right in front of him. The mind, existence, dimensions, it made his head hurt.
But the man who liked to have everything right in front of him was now faced with a whole lot of nothing. Ironically, the metaphysics he preferred to ignore as the background noise of life cranked up the volume until he had to recognize it. It literally laid gift wrapped at his feet in a neat little package.
Robin stopped walking. He wondered if his mind would catch up with him. He thought he looked over his shoulder to where he'd come from. But there was no sign of the hospital. Maybe he hadn't moved at all.
Liquid cold rushed through his veins as he realize his situation.
So he was going to die. Somehow. Maybe knowing what was going on wasn't so important. Hell, maybe he already was dead and didn't know it.
Yes, Robin hated metaphysics with a passion. He hated philosophical quandaries. He hated riddles. He was stuck in the middle of one. There was absolutely nothing he could do. He couldn't even sit down. He didn't even have a chair to clutch to anymore. Damn him and his habit of tempting fate.
Indeed, Robin was out of ideas, and apparently so was his overactive imagination. There was no way out of the loop. All he could do was wait to die.
Or to be whisked away by another delusion.
Robin was in a dream that he could neither control nor wake up from. His mind kept telling him that there had to be something he could do. But rationality got the better of him.
He knew he was doomed.