The dream was like no other I'd ever had.

It is perhaps, in all reality, an understatement to say that my dreams had never been the most pleasant, but maybe that's to be expected. After all, how many good dreams can you have, really, after having your parents murdered, your way of life taken away, and being thrown into some frightening, cold world within the span of a day at most? I can attest that really, you can't have that many. The dream I'd had only maybe a half hour before this very dream was a good one, and that was strange. Perhaps it only served to be a cruel juxtaposition to the string of dreams that would come now, to leave me only feeling colder. Because if I am being honest with myself, I can say that since their deaths, I have not dreamed about my parents in such a harmless, light way, and that's the truth. Their dreams had been shrouded by blood, by funerals and by guns, until now—until this very strange night in this very strange place. There was a significance to it that I couldn't place upon waking, but one that even in that state of frazzled terror in the dream's wake, I knew it held something, something lasting, something I would never forget.

The really strange thing is, when I think back on it, is not even really the fact that that night had been the time, the only time, to have that good dream about my parents. It's strange, yes, but what really strikes me, even now, knowing, is that my parents had even entered my dreams at all—something that, when I look back on it, I can easily see they hadn't done since the oath I took to become my heroic, good-guy self, since my partner, everything else. What is also strange is that memories of my parents were scarce, and, in all honesty, the type of thing I tried to push out of mind so it wouldn't just bring back more pain when I realized and remembered what had happened, what I didn't have, not anymore—and so suddenly, I was indulging in this memory out of the blue, for really no good reason other than…other than something, something to make me remember, not even because I wanted to remember, because maybe in some ways I didn't, as in coming out of that ignorant haze did I realize again what I had lost. No, I hadn't wanted to remember, but what I realize now is that I don't think I really had any choice in the matter because in all truthfulness, something was making me remember, making me indulge, trying to give me that happiness, maybe, I might have thought only a little afterwards, maybe a sign from my parents from heaven—but what I realize now, is that whatever was making me remember wasn't so much trying to bring me happiness of brief ignorance in reminding me but instead alert me to something, tell me that something was wrong with something that should have stood out to me like flashing red lights in total darkness. I never dreamed about my parents, and yet, here, in this strange time, with my best friend acting odd, having just stormed out—having had the experience earlier still, and the following hallucinations, I should have connected some dots.

But I didn't.

Now, I didn't have good dreams all that often—but I'll say that most of the time, besides a few extreme cases, I don't even really dream that much at all. At least, unless there's something very pressing on my mind, but a good dream is one that is not something I get to experience often. Bad dreams though, yes. Dreams of enemies hurting and destroying me or my friends were totally and completely common, especially after a bad day of fighting, a loss or a bruise that I felt stinging as I retreated into bed, or a late night researching like madman for anything I could find on "former" enemies like Slade, as had happened the night before he tried to make me his apprentice and I had spent nearly seven hours straight brooding simply on what little I had until I nodded off at my desk—and that happened one to many times, to say the least, especially with him. But then, searing nightmares, horrifying instances when I woke sweating, were rare in themselves just as were happy dreams. I rarely woke with a start, and found almost consistently that even in having a worse dream than one of neutrally nothing, really the worst that would happen for me is I'd wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep, retreat to the living room and spend the rest of the night watching stupid old movies—or, if it was a really serious dream, a really calling dream, back to research it was. But again, those instances were rare, and often classified with the worst my dreamscapes had to offer.

Neutral dreams were also something that were almost non-sensical in their purpose, leaving me really unaffected in any manner and being quickly forgotten when I woke up, but that was about ninety percent of my dreaming at all times, if I wasn't dreaming anything at all. I'd have weird dreams of places I'd been clashing together in some strange hybrid I always wanted to explore but could never get past what I didn't already know, obviously. The dreams were meritless and because of their really pointless nature, it made the restlessness it sometimes caused not worth it whatsoever. I often simply wished for a dreamless night where I could be completely restful, completely quiet, and wake up the next morning completely recharged. Suffice to say, that didn't happen—really ever. Because even if I was sleeping soundly, an enemy's attack would wake me up at duty's call, and then that was ruined, but that was how it was. I assumed that was also the case with the other Titans, though I thought through Raven's meditation, sleep probably would have been an easier, more practiced thing for her, but I didn't know.

Now, any dream fell into those categories—either good, bad or horrifying, or just whatever. There really wasn't anything else for them to be, was there? Sometimes they'd mix and clash together strangely, two dreams colliding for the brain's total attention, but that was just two dreams, two mindsets, and I don't think until that night I believed there could be anything else, anything different. I knew there could be a middle ground but—this dream was nothing like that. It's actually extremely hard for me to describe, even to this very day because it wasn't anything like that. It wasn't a good dream, a bad dream, a neutral dream, a mashup of genres of these, a random jumble of whatever my brain seemed to want to throw in there—it was nothing like that. In fact, the dream really wasn't like a dream at all. No, I don't mean it was so realistic that it didn't feel like a dream, instead of just a façade of the mind; because even though it did feel real, it was not a real life experience, something I'd mistake for wakeful hours, and that was apparent. I think, the best way I can put it, is that it was a state of being in which whatever logistical system we worked on, my mind alone maybe, was completely removed and moved to a different plane, a plane of higher thinking, of higher speculation—of something elevated, but I don't know because again, even to this day, I fail to understand what really went down that night. But this dream was not just my dream—it was not just a passive, private, and uncontrolled thing, not just something I went along with as I slept, but something I seemed to interact with. And it wasn't as if I was questioning whether or not it was real because that was not the question, because it was neither real or imagined, but rather it was just something that was, something I took part in without much thought to the moment. In that moment, whatever happened was not part of the confines of reality because—we were not in this world when we spoke—

When I spoke with Slade.

I will say this though—the dream started out as a dream, and it made me think it was going to be the typical neutral or maybe even bad one, but it was obvious the minute it began that it was not going to be of the rare appreciated type, the good dream, I had had prior to it, though maybe I hadn't even expected that in the first place. The way the dream wound up, revving in my mind, made it seem in its initial moments as if it was going to be some strangely random and indecisive dream until it bled into an undesirable one, which I might have guessed at the strange hues of the dream, the abandoned nature it had immediately, making me feel alone. And what I can tell you now is that—there was not just one me in the total span of this dream, and what I mean by this is not that there were two of me, but that in the space of the dream I had two different mindsets from the start of the dream to the end, changed in between. That is, when the dream began, I feel that it was a dream because it began with the removed dream me who was just along for the ride and didn't influence anything at all, just watched, felt but didn't interact, as was true with every other dream I'd ever had, where I was just a bystander.

I had been gently walking around in a place I knew—a place so very familiar to me it stings me with its cold nostalgia, but to be honest, when the dream began, being so removed in my sleeping dream-self, I thought very little about the location or connections to the location, and I was just in a place. What was heard with muted clarity at first was the sound of cogs and gears gently rotating and turning against one another, grinding softly, anonymously. Not an overly terrifying sound, though in wakefulness, one that had an uncanny, horrible ability in its cold and terrifying nostalgia to chill me to my core, to bring me to my knees, to scare me—but now, in this place in this time, in this span of my sleep, I thought little of it, maybe a little too little. I trotted to the sound of it in the background, going wherever the thoughts of my dreams deviated, in total darkness, nothing seen, just black around me and the sound of my own footsteps clashing with the gears, the cold mechanics. And again it's strange to think how much more terrifying this would have been in real life, darkness with that sound, but what I realize is all that much stranger is the fact that, in any normal dream, I still might have felt dread in some form, because it wasn't as if dreams were emotionless. But now, it almost felt that the dream self I seemed to maybe be simply observing was totally comatose, a blank expression, easy stepping. Even if dreams weren't always linear with what was generally accepted, there should have been some emotion, but it was void of that—everything but the cogs, the footsteps, and me. And that is very unsettling to remember—but then, in nothingness, it hadn't even mattered.

But then there was something else, and that's where things got really strange in that dream, really deviating from everything else to make me know with a striking certainty the extent of significance of that place, that time. It matched the sounds with an undeniable certainty, memories in my mind evoking, perhaps, the person that matched that place. With gears, with cogs, there he was, and that was maybe at this point almost commonly known to me, a standard even within the dreams I might have, strange as they often could be—but almost certainly, never like this. My dreams, even horrible ones, were never so acute—but again, this was almost real. Not real, not in this never ending darkness, not in this stillness and emotionlessness of my character, but too akin to real life, and discomforting to think about even now. The problem was, the fact that if in real life I had heard those gears turning and saw what I saw now, I would have screamed, sprung into action, fought, already considered—in any dream these two factors were so rarely matched so perfectly together, the presence and the sound. Not even the dream before my apprenticeship could match this. And so it was real, but far from it in that sense.

I saw him standing there, and similarly, there was absolutely no reaction produced from me, though even if I had shown emotions in that time I doubt surprise would have been one of them. Considering the gears turning in the background, it couldn't be too far off that he'd be around, and in a dream, who knew what was real and what wasn't—so why not expect what's to be expected? At the same time, in looking back at this dream, I realize with a seriousness that chills me that I think maybe, somewhere within me, somehow I had been expecting to see him in my dreams that night—maybe before I fell asleep, maybe in the dream itself, but somewhere. I don't know how or why, but even going past the emotionlessness that might have suggested this, I swear there had been something, in some context, somehow, to tell me, warn me, that he'd be here. Still unsure about anything really, I can't tell you what, but what I do know is that that thing I'd been sensing, that sureness—that was very real, and very important, but as was often the case with the events of the last year or so, the most important things seemed to slip past me until it was too late before I could grab them back.

He stood there, his one eye gleaming gray in the darkness, and again, with hindsight, remembering this terrifies me. Maybe just off the light thrown by the eye itself, seeming to glow like a cat's, could I see just the contours of that side of his face, a little of his shoulders and…wait, wasn't he wearing a mask? It was pretty hard to tell in the darkness but I realized almost instantly that I could see by that minimal illumination the jagged, spikey contours of hair, a beard, maybe, on that side of his face. But—how was that possible in any context, whatsoever? I had never seen Slade without his mask on, so how was it possible that I could dream up a face like this—place it on him and have it feel so right, so real, when I look back on it? Is that even a remote possibility? Was I seeing my dreams wrong?, because—over the course of time I had known the man, even when I knocked his mask off, I had never seen his face. But no, I wasn't seeing wrong—not in the least. Clearly, there was the eye illuminating what, from what I could tell, was perhaps, really Slade's face. Because even if I hadn't seen his face, I had seen the hair. I'd seen the outline of something, just the vaguest indication of a jawline. But there was something I hadn't seen that was really serving to disturb me when I reflected on what I saw that night, in that strange white glow of the eye—the indication now of a mouth and a nose, which I saw was small and pointy, the type of someone richer than everyone else, and someone who knew that, too. And I realized when I looked why the light was so bright—there was this horrible reflective quality, this sparkle, to the set of teeth he bared in a grin that, even shaded in half, was clear, and I was instantly reminded of the grin he'd sported as the old man one of the first times I ever met him, how it complimented the eye and only seemed to make it wilder as it intensified the expression that much.

But how? How was I seeing a face I didn't even know? And how was I seeing it with such undying clarity? Even in the darkness, the face was all I knew, all I understood, and it was a face I didn't either, shouldn't. But there it was; Slade, brandishing a grin that would rival Mad Mod's in smarminess, that upturned nose so typical of those rich "good guys" my old partner rubbed elbows with, and as I stared at it, remembered it, I would wonder—so is this his face? No, how could I have been able to see it without knowing it?—it must not be! It's the face I wanted to see on him, I thought. I made it, taking what I already knew and adding onto it how I thought it should be subconsciously as I dreamed; after all, it was something I frequently thought about, who he was, could be. I had even tried to match up possible villains I had encountered in my earlier days based on their eye color or voice, going through database upon database similarly like madman. I was just calling back to that, compensating for what I couldn't find. I had perhaps also remembered the disguise he had used and was also piecing things together from that. That was all.

But why did it look—feel—so real, so…

Why was I so certain it was his face?

Did I know then what I know now?—is it possible to say that maybe, all along, I'd had some idea—at least, since the incident with Raven? Wasn't that when this all started, this fine-tuned nature, this higher level of understanding—all connected to Raven?

But then, I just stared at him, quietly, emotionless, thinking nothing, only recognizing that he stood in front of me, illuminated only by the eye and the grin. And only recognizing when he spoke, hearing the words as blankly as anything else.

"Hello sweetheart," he purred. Watching the mouth move in accordance to his words was, too, similarly very unnerving, even now. Even though it wasn't as if I hadn't seen some indication of a mouth on him before, when I had watched him speak, because even if I know it hadn't really belonged to him it was still as much as I could grab onto, I still was so off put by the whole thing because like with looking at the face itself, I was all too certain that I was seeing him talk, watching his lips move, seeing their expression and taking from that what I could. Like other things, a person's mouth could be very expressive, and it was not lost on me the gentle gleam, the shine of slight wetness they had about them, as if he'd just licked them. And, being that aside from the eye, they were the most clearly seen, I immediately recognized the soft, typical upward slant of the mouth, those lips pulled up gently into this unmistakable smile, and it was obvious he was laughing softly. His tongue was just barely seen pressed lightly against the bottom of his shockingly white teeth, looking a bit brighter and redder than I thought it should. His laugh and voice, as if similarly like his eye seemed to be affected by the visibility of the mouth, were much brighter, more lively, cheekier, even, as if by simply revealing his mouth he'd regained or undug some buried personality within him. It almost didn't sound like his voice, but I knew it was, and at once I also seemed to understand that not only was it his voice, but it was also a more real voice than he'd ever had before, not changed or altered at all—which I realized immediately when I looked back on it was probably why I'd never recognized it in anyone else. I was hearing his real voice, and I'm certain of that now; a voice considerably more pleasant than the voice I had heard since the day he first took interest in me and I him, in being more real definitely seeming more approachable and inviting, but also simultaneously edgier, and that was apparent, because even if the tone was only slightly different, since when had he ever called me "sweetheart?" It was almost like ripping off the mask had given him some confidence, too—a little push to maybe express himself more, and maybe that was where that had come from, that slight flamboyance that I thought was never about him until that day.

"I see you found your way here—good," he said very softly. "I was afraid those drugs she put in you would make you too far out my reach, but you're here—very good. Almost as good as if I could hold you now."

And he reached out a hand to my unmoving frame as I stood there, watching him with still uncaring, cold, vacant eyes. And his hand was bare—no glove, no metal band to compliment it. I remember in the dream I had looked at it blankly, but feel dazed even in remembering that moment, how my eyes had slid down and found it as it gently made its way out of the darkness before me and began to slowly come closer, inching, creeping. I remember that was a very strange hand too, and in that moment, as it slowly crept out at me, the bizarre horror of that memory can only be intensified for me. It was an obviously calloused hand, one that was large and rough and with twisted knuckles. Like his lips, it seemed shiny, maybe sweaty, as the fingers crooked gently towards me, as if reaching to grab. I noticed several bruises and scars marring the flesh, a seared in IV prick in the center of the hand's back, purplish and intensifying the veins it had once connected to some needle, making it look strangely old, strangely tired. It was all completed by rough, almost chewed down fingernails, caked beneath them with dirt, the skin around them red as if he had just clipped them. And that hand—one which I would have shied away from in an instant—came towards me.

I did not move.

The eye was still gleaming, and the mouth had a more gentle smile to it as he continued to reach out, as I simply stood there and watched the hand crawl closer, feeling nothing at all but a vacant emptiness. What's strange is that I realize how much easier this dream was for me to handle as I look back on it now simply because I could not feel, and I almost feel guilt to admit my thankfulness for this, that when this ensued I did not want to be in a mindset enough to recognize whatever emotion my mind could conjure up for the situation. At the same time, I can't help but wonder if maybe if I had been able to feel, the outcome of this, of something, at least, might have been different. If that was for better or for worse I wouldn't know, if I should have wanted a different outcome, something better, perhaps, but what I do know now is that I can confirm, ultimately—this was no dream, and Slade's control here was something I can't help but wonder about, but only can indefinitely understand that control, how real that was in that moment. If I had been able to protest, would I be here now? Is it maybe better that I did not protest, and that I am?

And—who picked that? I could only wonder very vaguely, even after I initially woke up, if he had wanted it that, orchestrated it like that. I don't think I'd know the extent to that power in its completion until much later, though I barely understand it now, to be honest. And even knowing what I know, it's strange to say that I still can't place this moment as determining of where I am either way, though I still can't help but wonder, sometimes distantly, sometimes with greater fire—if I hadn't been so comatose, would he have been able to do that? There was always the question of control with him, but ultimately, even still, what I realize is that the power-struggle that went on in these days of my almost pointless wandering is also something I barely understand—but there was a power-struggle, all right. And like my realization about Raven, that if I thought Starfire was my only problem, I was dim—if I thought Slade had all the power, I was perhaps even more dim. Because he didn't, to say the least. The depths of what was really going on was enough to drown me cruelly in ignorance, trying to understand. And I suppose though wondering is relatively pointless, it's something I often find I can't help but do, as if to again preserve the old Robin, not that, after this dream's results, I'd care much;

It didn't change, at least, anything that went on now if I did.

It didn't change the fact that, when he tried to touch me, there was a brief spark of fire against what seemed like an invisible wall separating us, and I watched the bare hand recoil.

It didn't change that. He couldn't touch me.

And I watched the eye dim very gently, the smile receding in its own retreating light until his lips were pulled back into a soft line. I saw the eye close gently, his head inclining softly as it tilted, maybe in defeat, and we were left in complete darkness now, the light gone, with only the sound of the cogs and gears turning and gently to accompany his breathing, heavy, not mine, which seemed to neither exist or be loud enough to be heard, whichever, it didn't matter. The hand's contours, which I could just barely see in some strange, non-existent light (that is, there was nothing that should have allowed me to see it and yet, there was, just barely), gently fisted as the fingers flexed again, but then opened submissively as I watched the hand gently sink back into the darkness from which it had come.

And then, in the darkness, red light illuminated us. Clearly seen, I stood there silently as the mark that had haunted me for weeks was suddenly displayed on his forehead, branded—the S…no, not the S, the Mark of Scath drawn out against the soft skin of his temples, illuminating again only the left side of his face, which of course in reflection should have been impossible in relation to the glow that burning symbol gave off proudly. But once again I could see the face; the eye, the nose, and mouth, now stricken, and that was obvious. I could now see an eyebrow I had not before, downturned gently against his eye, glowing red now, pushing premature wrinkles into his skin as he regarded me. His mouth was only slightly opened, the teeth clenched together, looking apprehensive at the most, all the features of his face seeming to dim in simultaneous realization as I stood there and watched, unchanging, waiting.

And then, he closed the eye, almost in a rough motion as he bowed his head and thrust his eye shut, and once again we were consumed in darkness. Now, with the hand gone, there was nothing but the sound of the gears and the cogs, and his breathing, sounding as if he were trying to either calm himself, regain control, or catch his breath—very practiced, very even, but very thrown off in its sound, which echoed and seemed to be expelled in time with the sounds of the cogs as the moved, the switches and shifts they made periodically, and I listened in the darkness. Now, this is strange to say, but in a very bizarre moment in that dream, which I somehow feel is perhaps the strangest of all, I finally moved. And it's even stranger to say that when I felt myself move, it was almost eliciting of the same terror as if a doll that's been sitting on your shelf for years should finally turn its head, or wink. I almost felt disconnected from my body, though similarly trapped within it like it didn't fit either way. Almost like I had donned a mask, a clunky suit, and was trying to see out of it. I didn't feel right in my skin, didn't feel like I belonged to the body I resided in. Like the ghost occupying the doll, my movements at first were so strange, so different, because they were not mine—and they weren't. Or really, it wasn't, not at all.

And to understand the depths of horror this brings in looking back on it, it wasn't as if I'd done something extremely involved—not as if I'd interacted with the man before me directly, not as if I'd moved enough so that he could see. Not as if I'd even made a sound. All I did, in fact, was shift my eyes downward and slowly bring up my own hand to about the level of my belt, in I think an effort to test to see if I could see anything, though in total honesty if I know any real motivation for that dream Robin, I can again likely guess that I might have been in a much different position. For the sake of trying to understand, I suppose, I decided I was trying to see something in the darkness when for an extended period of time, I could not see him, could not see the only other person, thing, of that room, that time, that life. But suffice to say, almost unnecessarily, I did not see the hand, but the feeling of moving alone had been enough to chill me, and maybe so could be said for the absence of that presence, which had seemed strangely to ground me in this odd world, at least, on some level. It was as if, without emotion, I was still looking for something, silently, quietly, uncaringly, but still searching, like a robot trying to complete its tasks automatically.

And then there was light again, and instantly, again detached, I now was able to watch my hand lower back down to my side. This moment also does perhaps too much to chill me—just how quickly and without thought I had put my hand back down, so mechanically, so distantly from where I was, where I could not think, it seemed so creepy. That dream had taken me from my own body, and I think that's where there was truthfully a fear to be had about it—not about Slade, but simply about the distant nature, the disconnect, the unvoiced and unfelt fear of being left alone without even knowing it, the possibility of just shutting down and forever lapsing into nothingness, which might translate into real life, wakefulness, too. And to this day, I really don't even understand, even knowing all I do know, why I felt like this, why I could not talk, why I felt so distant, but what I do know is that like everything else from that horrible dream, that moment, it's likely not a feeling I'll be able to forget soon.

My gaze slowly found his face again, and once again, it had changed. No longer was that mark, that horrible mark there, and the light had changed back to its now seemingly relatively benign glow. His mouth was still pressed into a line, the eye dimmed and drooped, but now back to its normal gray din, a distant sparkle. His appearance seemed suddenly shadowed, and suddenly very distant and mysterious. It was fair to say I had seen the face shift expressions almost every other time I had looked at it, but—it was the same face, still, and there was no denying that. However, the strangeness of this was not lost on me, the almost mechanics too that his own face seemed to possess, and it was similarly pretty creepy to watching my own hand move about. It was as if the lights had to dim or change for his face to similarly change, and it unnerved me, as I wonder still what he had been doing in the darkness, strange imaginations now of him having to press some button to change the expression, swap out masks for the different faces, or something strange and creepy like the dream itself. I guess I'd never know, but all I did know was—there he was, there was the gears, and there was the breath. They were the only three constants.

"She won't let me touch you—and she's trying to silence me. She's already kept you from talking—she's keeping you silent. You couldn't speak if you knew how," he spoke with the same softness he had before, but now his voice was dimmer, and I thought that perhaps, as his face seemed to change with the lights, so did his voice, manipulated by the very smile that held it back. "She's trying to keep me from saving you, sweetheart. She's going to kill you."

And in the dream, another small instance of moving on my part. I tried to open my mouth to formulate the word, the one word, I wanted to say—and this, on its own, was another strange instance I can't ignore. I not only knew what I did want to say, but I knew what he was going to say, and knew, with all seriousness, perhaps completely, again with the same akin connection, the name in its relevance to everything else. It was not a random word, and it was not a random movement—if I was thinking, it was thoughtful, but it was as automatic as anything else, and as fitting. What amazed me was the fact that rather than be some disconnected thing, it almost felt that, if I could have talked, as he had said, we would have been having a real conversation, and not some stupid, spacy exchange that is often so typical in dreams. Because what was more was the fact that, I did understand what he was talking about—not just now, but then, in that moment as well. And it was almost like I had programmed these responses into me, this knowledge to mimic and interact with his own, though I could do nothing, conceivably, with it as he was right—I could not speak. And it was that moment that made me realize now what was really going on—I was trapped. I was there, and there was a part of me within that shell. But there was something that was keeping that part down. There were these functions left, this understanding, but nothing that could be placed anywhere, applied to anything. I seemed incapable of that at that moment. It was as if, I was still there, but didn't know it—only knew where I was, who I talked to, what that entailed.

But he was right—something was keeping me from speaking, though even though I knew what in that moment, I don't think I could even recall it or explain it now. Luckily, he seemed to sense what I was saying and completed my sentence—barely a pause sustained, as if he had already known that I knew. "Your friend Raven," he said, and brandished the too-white teeth in a grimace, the hand now coming up to about the level of his neck, two fingers pushed together coming down in the typical sarcastic gesture, one side to a pair of air-quotes, as he said the word friend, before lowering with almost the same mechanics to rival the retreat of my own hand. "Since you cannot talk, listen to me now before she takes away this power completely. I see that you are managing some movement—I see that. Some understanding. Not enough to protect yourself, but enough for now. That's good. But now you must do as I say, sweetheart, or you will die." At saying this, clearly seen could be the eye's contours sharpening, a deadly gleam becoming them as it seemed in that very moment an urgency, a seriousness about him, a contrast to the earlier laugh, a prelude to my theory of the switches in the darkness. His jaw was taut, but not grinding his teeth, simply alarmed, uneasy, and I noticed barely a paling of the skin and a darkening of not only the eye itself, but the space around the eye, making it look hollow and unnecessarily deep.

"Now let me explain this to you," he continued, his eye dimming a bit suddenly in its fierceness, seemingly with no cue at all, no reason but whatever dictated this dream world, the teeth disappearing, the light drawing further into darkness to what was almost on the verge of the red, I think I feared even then would come back. "She's got a vendetta against me—she hates me, and she knows that you'll come to me soon enough. The connection to her that you sustain allows her that." He pressed his lips together more tightly, paling further, and seemed almost physically sick in that moment, strangely, as best I can place it in my memory, as if he were watching some horrid display and was trying not to throw up with everything he had. "She has already taken control of your body on Earth. What she told you were blood thinners were probes—she's going to control you like I controlled her, and then she's going to kill me. Eventually, you too, when she doesn't need you anymore—because if you think she's still your friend after you've shown affection to her enemy, you're dead wrong."

On saying "dead," the eye brightened just a bit, wildly, in that very moment—there for perhaps no longer than a second before it quickly receded again into its looming quiet, its horrible drone into the progressing red. The moment the eye fluctuated so quickly and strangely, horrible shadows, which too, I don't think I can forget, were cast about that place in a detached, non-understood fashion—shadows that were non-existent to any real movement, but still encompassing that moment, that energy, their strange odd forms seeming to feed off of that one moment, take it, and then scamper away, as they did like rats beneath the walls, as quickly as the eye's going into and then progression out of that liveliness. I don't know what the shadows were, but in my horror, remember the creatures had three eyes each, jagged, crooked, glowing. He seemed unaffected, perhaps growing comatose like me—perhaps too, that being the only way he could be. He seemed to briefly regard the area in the darkness where too, I had clearly heard one of the creatures seemingly move away. The pupil of his eye slid there in a fluid, similarly horrible motion, lingered unchangingly, and then simply slid back. He hadn't even moved his head—and neither had I.

I was listening to him—intently. No—not intently, listening because it was all I could do.

And he continued, with the same tone, the same sickness as he regarded me warily, and when I remember that expression I also remember the eye as it had looked at me oh so long ago, the tiredness, the only thing he seemed to exude, when I had still been with him, when he could still touch me. If I had any reservations that this was not him, they were quickly removed when I remembered the eye, the glance, the touch, and in so many ways, I'm beginning to realize how much more terrible this knowledge, this connection truthfully is, in being put into context, making me wish for ignorance again as it became too much. And what is strange is, even in that dreamscape, that moment of detached emotionlessness, of not caring, not thinking, nothing—I think even then I remembered the eye before and matched it now. I have an odd certainty of that.

"So here is what you must do," he said as I must have remembered the eye, the way it had looked when I refused to remove my mask, the strangeness of those two moments clashing and perhaps chilling me even then, "when eventually I am unable to speak to you any longer, you are to get out of that tower and come back to me. She'll be content to keep you strapped up, but if you can convince the little Tamaranian that you're better, then she may come in useful for now. But don't be fooled by her façade, sweetheart. Remember why you came to me in the first place. Your going back there has only gained you an enemy, and you must remember that. You must also remember me, and I will try to help you, but she is going to dilute you as best she can. Do not let her inject you with anything else, and if you are overcome with memories or visions of your past or parents, do not let them distract you. She is manipulating your mind to weaken you."

The eye shined then, and it seemed to remain longer, to hold its splendor against some unknown, unseen force with greater strength. I remember he had suddenly seemed powered, taken by his own words, perhaps—invigorated by something. A memory, an idea—me, I didn't know what, but if the three eyed shadow rats were there to try and steal that away from him in that moment, unseen, they couldn't have fared so well. I realize in looking back on it, it seemed suddenly his confidence coming back, as if he was just driven by his words when placed in this context, the eye maybe finding me and suddenly realizing who it was when the words came in that context and then being instilled with something—hope. I'd like to have denied it now, but in that moment, as I realize, as is clear, he was imagining something brighter and that was clear—and none of the shadows could touch him in that.

And even though what he said was serious, I had an understanding of that—that there was something much lighter eating at his voice, a more delicate purpose, its connotations brighter: "You have a day to get out before I will come there myself and kill them all. Unless you want that to happen, then I suggest you heed my warning and make your exit yourself, which may help you to avoid that violence. But I will do what I must, for my own safety and for yours, and so should you." And then, all of a sudden, as if by his own accord, the eye dimmed again—ideas of the future pushed back. There was seemingly no reason for it, nothing to take it from him, and yet—yet it was just gone, and he seemed not to care. I remember that more than anything, how strange that moment was—how it was not by choice, but it was not uncalculated either, stuck in a limbo of that place just as I, and I know that now. And I watched the lips move again, in their quiet, unchanging drone now, barely regarding the red glow that began to encircle his eye, creeping up upon him as he continued, "Remember, Robin, they are not your friends anymore. That girl has betrayed you, the two others are out spending time with the Tamaranian's new love like he's a replacement of you to them, and that witch is going to end you the minute after she's gotten rid of me. I will say that it was a mistake letting you leave, and when I get you back I'm not going to make that mistake again, I promise you. Perhaps I shouldn't be making this mistake now, but I'm not here to force violence if I don't have to, at least not for you—so I'm giving you this chance. Do not fail me. All you have to do is get out, and we'll deal with that Raven together. She was never meant to be on that Earth—remember that. She is an abomination, and we must destroy her before she destroys us. Then, perhaps, the others can be spared."

He looked at me with the eye, which I saw was dimming more and more, seeming to take about the vintage quality of an old photograph, in contrast to the shades of red, that hellish glow, as its creeping upon him seemed to intensify, to drive further into him, to make its presence more known, unable for him to ignore, taking him again as it encompassed his eye and burned his forehead, until in that picture, pale, weakened almost, the hellish glow was the only color to be seen, outstanding against the murmur of that sepia. His eyes drooped more, fading in whatever strength they'd almost completely; his lips pursed, growing paler with each moment he lingered there, the symbol only seeming to strengthen with the decrease in his stamina, as if feeding off of him, and it was obvious as he spoke very gently, trying to remain, fighting it within himself, and trying to take and keep what little strength he could as he said, "Do not let her kill you, my little one." His voice sounded far off, crackly, and as it progressed further, almost like he was speaking through a telephone. "Wait for me if you must. I will see you in a day at the construction site, one way or another. Remember this, sweetheart—you belong to me now, and it isn't a choice anymore. It's me or her, remember that, and remember where death lies. You are mine, Robin. Be careful."

And then, he closed his eye, the teeth coming together as the voice ended, and darkness once again reigned, only to be replaced by the glowing S a moment later, the Mark of Scath now encompassing the space, silencing immediately first the din of the cogs and gears, then the soft breathing that encompassed the space, leaving me in complete quiet as the symbol loomed above me in the darkness all in the span of a moment with the retreat of the man who had once been there, the only human presence in the room, that place—and that, I won't deny like anything, somehow in that moment terrifying me beyond words as there was an immediate feeling of total emptiness that embraced not only that place, but my inner spirit and—I was reacting again, suddenly in that very moment, without pause, that quality coming back to me in time with his retreat and the reigning of the S. If I had thought now, looking back upon it, that reacting would have saved me from anything else, that that was good and should have been strove for over my comatose state, I'd realize again and thank again the fact that I had only had this small moment, this small, horrible moment to react finally because when I did have this ability, I realized the sheer magnitude of everything that went on within the dream all at once—and that wasn't so good, because in that moment, suddenly overcome with all the emotions which had been locked away now flooding back into me in one sudden rush, I shrieked. It was a terrible, intensifying shriek that became the place, my very spirit, an overload of everything I was in that moment, pushing me into nothingness. That place, too, mimicked me as I retreated into myself; the darkness and the symbol shattered simultaneously around me and fell away with the sounds of its breaking non-existent, but rather the whisper of that place passing and leaving.

And I was still shrieking when I felt hands grab me and shake me roughly. My eyes opened instantly and I gasped, feeling air flood my lungs as if I had just risen from near-drowning in a tar-filled lake.

"Robin! Robin!"

Over me, Starfire stood, and I looked at her in that same moment of opening my eyes, mine finding her own, which I saw were large and horrified, sparkling in the low light. Her hair was plastered to her face and she was sweating profusely, something I hadn't seen her do in a very long time. Her bottom lip was quivering as if she were about to cry, and that was obvious—obvious too that she already had, as her eyes were red and her cheeks flushed.

"Robin, are you—"

And I should have cared. I should have cared. This was the girl I claimed to love, and she was crying. But now, in that moment upon waking, after only a second of looking at those eyes, my own found the star necklace around her neck she still wore and locked onto it, it reflecting off her eyes, drawing me there like Slade's grin in the darkness, only intensifying her expression—my gaze beginning to sear there hatefully, as it seemed in that moment when I stared at it it had become the very Mark of Scath, the burning S, the aftermath of my dream, the culmination of everything I'd experienced, and even in not knowing what that was exactly, I knew I didn't want it there. I hated it, in that moment. In one swift motion, I sat up, grabbed the necklace around her neck, and tore it off unfeelingly.

"Screw this thing!" I said, and broke it in my hand.

I was already untied.