The last sight was of the black figure of Slade growing smaller and smaller as she came closer and closer to the threatening waves. Not a scream or choke escaped her frozen, blue lips. Falling like demons fell- she crashed into jagged rocks and icebergs below.
The crack of her body breaking against stone was heard but not felt. Life evaded, turning obsidian and then diamond. Color ceased to exist and then was reborn as her bedroom.
A girl, a weak young woman sat sweating and panting upon her thick comforter. Her fingers clutched the blankets in a tight grip, the knuckles pale and red all in the same, her skin quivering and quaking until it seemed her entire body was just a vibration of his laughter.
It rang, sung, and sprung all around her, bounding off the walls of her skull and memories.
"Happy trails" it screamed to her, deafening ear drums, snapping the skin of the base in half, breaking the ties that bind, until all she was left with was a pair of broken sticks and no instrument to beat.
It was at that point that her voice was granted back, and she unleashed the screech of sirens and roars of dying animals- a banshee wail that howled like no wolf or human in existence.
Her vision blocked by extreme emotion, her room began exploding and tearing itself apart as the box of horrors creaked open for the first time in two decades. Candles evaporated, churned into dust were her beloved spell books, and any mirror was shattered at the weight of sound.
Levitating, as if possessed and being exorcised all in one, her friends ran into the room seconds later, staring in amazement at their once-controlled friend. Eyes blaring light unequal to any star or celestial object in the universe, she was supernaturally beautiful and terrifying, sublime.
Yet, this sorceress of despair was taken down by a simple injection into her thigh, supplied by the concerned hand of Cyborg. Her constant cry began to slow and devolve into rumblings until not even a whisper escaped her bleeding lips.
Beast Boy, who had been covering his sensitive ears and eyes, cautiously released the palms of his hands from the sides of his face, and peered in confusion at the pale girl who sat in the wreckage of her own power. Sometimes he forgot how truly magnificent she was, but he always remembered her incredible danger.
"Dudes, what's with her?" he questioned gently, peering over Cyborg and Robin's shoulders as they knelt down around the blue cloaked girl.
"I have no idea…" Robin mumbled out, his jade gloves wiped away any stray hairs from her face with great tenderness and care.
Cyborg, on the other hand put a round of needles into her skin and took the data he needed while she was in a calm state.
The robot teen then picked the slumbering Empath up in his muscular, mechanical arms and walked out the door, clearly they would have to find answers later, after she was more secured.
Starfire let out little gasps of awe and terror at the destruction of the room. Glass and paper corpses still fell in a magical breeze like victims of plane crashes. Robin snatched an ember in his fingers and peered more closely, trying to find an unimaginable answer in rubble.
His glare was so concentrated and filled with such worry that Starfire was not sure whether to inform him she was leaving and that the others had long since passed. Yet, on cue, he swiftly turned and strode out, the drive to find a solution already branded into his psyche.
Opening with a flutter of long, black lashes, the pale girl awoke in a strange place, memories avoiding her. A heart monitor hummed softly in the background and as she began shifting and groaning from stiffness, an IV was stubbornly hooked into her vein, keeping her tethered.
Glancing at it and then letting her head fall deep into the hard pillow, she decided answers would come to her, eventually.
Sleep came once more; this stressed awakening had already tired her weary mind and body out.
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary…"
Echoing black and red, sparkling bridges of which ravens hang over protectively, she stumbled into dream world, a bleak and rushed atmosphere. Perhaps she had been wishing to contact her inner emotions, and the mirror had let her in.
"Go back," the birds crowed aggressively.
"But it's my mind!" she argued.
"Go back. Go back."
Ravenously, they swished down and snapped at her heels with razor sharp teeth and talons. Feet drowned in cement, they ate her alive until her entire world was shadow.
The darkness was consumed by another swirl of color. Until the vision of her nightmare was split, half and half.
At this, she sat up in bed and began screaming.
"Raven! Raven!"
Birds of a feather, Robin snatched her hand in his and rubbed it with his thumb in concern.
Awareness was a painful poke, but her thoughts cleared at the sensation of a familiar touch, and she peered slowly at the covered fingers of her friend.
Throat dry, dehydrated, she closed it and quieted.
"Robin?" she asked in a daze, not looking exactly at the boy.
"I'm here, Raven, you're ok."
Calming, beginning to realize this predicament, she whipped her hand out of his and glared her usual sarcastic one.
"Of course I am," she replied shortly.
Clarity granted its presence once more, and her vision now saw the teen in front of her. The usual jet black and spiky head, the domino mask, and encircled 'R' were now all too banal. His smile, though, was not.
"What are you smirking at?" she grumbled laying back down into the mattress with a thud.
He shook his head, relief stricken across his face.
"Anything I can get you?" he asked after a few moments, a new reason to worry.
"I can take care of myself, Robin."
He simply nodded, playing along.
"Well, if you need anything, I'm here."
"Some answers would be nice," she commented as he began to walk out.
Her eyes drilled into his face.
"I could almost ask the same from you."
She raised a brow, and grimaced.
"What do you mean?"
Sighing, he came back to her side and sat. The bed groaned to the new weight.
"Well, you kind of destroyed your room."
"I know," she admitted, swallowing.
"So you remember?"
It was her turn to exhale sourly, and she crossed her arms awkwardly, the IV still tugging at her wrist.
"Just because I had a…incident," she began, her expression becoming bitterer by the second. "Doesn't mean I'm a loony or have Alzheimer's, Robin."
"I only assumed…"
"That what?" she snapped. "That I lost it? I know you guys all think I'm destined for the asylum but, guess what? I'm still sane."
"Raven, I wasn't implying…"
"Of course you were," she huffed. "Why is it every time something happens to me all of you jump on the psycho-bandwagon?! But when Beast Boy…"
"Raven, enough."
Her arms high in the air out of grizzled protest, she lowered them at Robin's hard stare of authority. Their eyes held each other's gaze for a moment more, trying to win the superiority contest. Her anger was still on the rise, while his personality was cool and collected. In frustration, she lifted a finger, and a glass shattered instantly in response.
"Raven!" Robin finally broke. "What's gotten into you?"
"Nothing," she hissed. "I'm fine."
"Obviously not."
Her eyes widened and her expression softened to the point of guilty child or broken slave. The familiarity of that assertion was too tender of a wound to reopen, but it did, and began bleeding.
"What did you say?" she practically whispered.
Seeing as that her emotions were clearly not in control, Robin chose his words extremely carefully, lest she ruin the hospital ward, too.
"I just think you're a little stressed out. Maybe some tea or meditation…"
"No!" she yelled, and the objects of the clinic lifted an inch into the air.
"Easy, easy…" he soothed, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not an enemy, Rae."
A loose breath escaped, and the items returned to gravity. She took a few more cycles of inhalation and exhalation before finally facing Robin again.
"I know, I know…" she sighed.
"What's wrong?"
Giving a slight snarl, she retracted rage from her system and tried to remain monotone and stable.
"I just…" she started, a twisted knot forming in her stomach. "Haven't been getting much sleep."
The bond they shared spoke differently.
"It's more than that, and you know it," he said, worry still etched into his features. "Our link tells me you're holding out."
"Well, maybe you should stay out," she barked.
"Rae, this isn't the first time…"
"You don't think I know that?" she blazed. "Why do you keep assuming I don't keep a track record?"
Another stone stare let her know she was losing control again.
"Sorry," she muttered under her breath. "It's just that…God, I don't know. It's all really screwed up."
"Then tell me. Let me help you, Rae."
Biting her scabbed lips, she took a gander at perhaps her closest friend. He hadn't led her astray thus far, what if he could help?
"Ok…ok…" she started, breathing in and out; she took many more glances at his familiar face.
Remembering his issues with Slade, but also his incessant and suspicious worrying of her made her change her mind. Fortunately, or not so fortunately, a throbbing resonated from her spine, and her breath sucked sharply in.
"Rae? What's wrong?" Robin asked, his voice peaking with even more anxiety.
"My back…" she managed to spit out, her bones and muscles tightening with each wave of radiating pain.
Seeing the beads of sweat beginning to sprout, and the shaking of her limbs, Robin rushed to snatch a pair a scissors as well as call Cyborg.
The hospital gown was snipped open to expose her bare back. As the cloth fell away symmetrically, he gasped and dropped the steel cutters. Running, he went to the entrance of the ward and yelled to all the Titans, the panic in his voice escalating with each collapse of the lungs.
Etched perfectly, artistically, and massively into her white flesh was a shimmering, silver letter 'S'.