I had a dream last night.

I dreamt that the end of everything snuck up on me like a big black hole in the bed. I was awoken by something much deeper and more obsidian than sleep. It pulled at the corners of my temples and froze the edges of my brain till all I had was a tunnel vision of oblivion.

And the hole opened up like a giant celestial esophagus and swallowed me. And I clawed and I clawed and I clawed at the silk gossamer slime of the walls but I kept on slipping down into the darkness. I screamed my head off. I shouted and cursed in fury. I smashed my head against the mirror and punched holes in the walls and tore the floor up with my teeth as I slipped and I slipped and I slipped.

No matter what I can do, death is coming to consume me. It is coming to consume all of us. It is the black, opaque wall through which all of us are dragged by ropes of fate. Some of us screaming. Some of us crying. Most of us….like me….sleeping….sleeping….sleeping…..

I was born with a dark talent. I could feel death. I could see into it. My very blood hosts the seeds of the agents of destruction, thanks to the touch of my father. And what do I see in death nowadays that everyone—my fellow Titans, the citizens of this City, even Slade—can't possibly see?

I see nothing. A huge wall of helpless, endless nothing.

The one thing that freezes me over in horror more than the inevitability of my eventual, utter end is the idea that I may very well be the end of those closest to me. And maybe that is my true gift. I was born with the ability to extend my horror to others. Not so much to make the nightmare a reality to them far sooner than they deserve, but I could have ample warning to….

Distance myself……

But…

Deep inside of me, there is that ever weeping hope. A piece of faith I once held onto before the teachings of Azar ironed my head in meditation and the death of my people and mother buried it.

I hope that—if I am with my friends as long as possible—something in the black, endless plummet won't be quite as painful. And I won't be thinking of my self so much when all that inhabits my fleshly shell of a being evaporates into the obsidian….but I will be thinking of those warm bodies I shared my bleak existence on this celestial dot with and maybe there will be a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Of course, I know that such thinking is pointless. There isn't much to a thought when all function in the brain snaps off to refuse the 'network' its transfer.

But….at least….

It is a happy delusion. A happy delusion for now. It will lull me to sleep and maybe even warm my freezing skull in the face of sheer, endless terror.

I would rather be asleep when death carries me away, then alive and screaming.