The Return of the Abhorrence
Nightbreak
"Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich
hinein."
--Friedrich Nietzsche
Raven sat at her vanity, brushing her fluffy violet locks into place on either side of her face. Clipped to specification, their respective lengths varied gently as a function of angle relative to her ear. The resulting curve formed by the arc of domain 5pi/4 to 7pi/4, mirrored on the other side, framed her face beautifully. She turned her head one way and the other to observe her own profile, and then, satisfied with the results, set the brush down.
Three weeks had passed since the Titans' epic battle with the transdimensional embodiment of evil, Trigon, and the peaks and vales of that ordeal had utterly wrung the team. The subsequent celebrations quickly gave way to the overhanging malaise of complete emotional expenditure. Even as they replenished their emotional energies while the days passed, there was the creeping notion of self-envy, of having crested in a way that could not be matched or surpassed. They had been pushed to the brink, and only by the narrowest of margins had been able to turn back. It was deeply unsettling. And the new beginnings were a bore.
For her part Raven was, above all, relieved. She was filled with the lucidity and indulgence of having woken from a long and terrible dream. To all outward appearances she had resumed her life and persona as they were, though she now kept a glaring white cloak hanging amongst her others as a reminder and a symbol of her liberation. She continued her monotone delivery and studious seclusions as was her wont, and for once not for fear of what her emotions might bring. Three weeks had passed, and she had finally begun to realize and acknowledge that the struggle was over.
As she wandered between her own thoughts, sounds from the tower drifted into her room: Starfire's giggle, Robin's stern and curt voice, and the cacophony of Cyborg and Beast Boy's endless roughhousing. They were the sounds of friendship. The latter two seemed to be wrestling, likely over the remote for the enormous television. There was a series of thumps and exclamations of "dude!" Cyborg must have been winning.
A sudden and unexpectedly loud thud reverberated through the walls of the tower, forceful enough to knock several books and artifacts from her shelves. She walked across the room with a sigh and began reorganizing the mess. The books were reshelved in the proper order, and the artifacts were reseated in their necessary configurations. No sooner had she finished then another clattered to the floor at her feet, perhaps knocked off balance with the previous force and finally succumbing to the collective growth of its own inertia. With a furrowed brow she bent down to pick it up.
It was a small pine box about the size of her hand, and several times again in thickness. With one hand on the shelf for balance she lifted the box with her other. The lid of the box fell open, and it was at that moment that a dark wispy claw spilled out and relieved Raven of half her face.
The accompanying shriek rent the air and banished the day's atmosphere. All time stopped for just a moment. The team had never quite heard a scream like that before, and certainly not from Raven. "Titans, go!" Robin cried reflexively, but the others had already begun their charge. In one fluid motion Beast Boy leapt at the door, morphed into a ram to plow through it, and morphed back again before the slab of metal had landed.
"Raven, what--" Beast Boy was interrupted as a warm, wet mass slammed into his chest. He hobbled back several stops before regaining his balance and grasp on the object. He looked down to see the familiar blue hood. Raven weakly gripped his arms as she raised her gaze to reveal a horrific visage of blood and raw flesh. The fluids had flowed down to saturate the collar and shoulders of her cloak, and now began to soak his own clothing. He felt a pang in his head as reality fractured and spun away; he nearly dropped her and passed out before his senses returned a moment later. Starfire recoiled, and raised her hand to her mouth with a sharp gasp, clutching her other hand to her chest as if in fear of catching whatever now afflicted her dear friend.
Robin and Cyborg had immediately leapt forward with weapons drawn to face the opposite corners of the room and what enemies may lie therein. Starfire hovered to join them a moment later, her fists enclosed in a bright green glow. Without warning there was a sudden sense of motion in the room, though none could place it or see anything moving. Three deep gashes appeared in Cyborg's plating. He staggered back as Robin retrieved his bo, extended it, and swung wildly in the general area from which the attack came.
In response, he was flung back into Cyborg's still reeling body, and before the two could topple to the ground the shadow lanced through the two of them. Cyborg's pierced power cell discharged with a mighty zap; the resulting current immediately incinerated every major circuit board in his body. The force tore his shoulder seams open, and the white dielectric of dozens of burst capacitors began leaking through. The voltage arced onward to Robin's body, seeking out its most efficient path through his utility belt. Devices were simultaneously activated and destroyed, adding their acrid scent to the air. The heat ignited the remaining explosives, and fired scores of shards of shrapnel into the surrounding air and his own body. They burrowed into his stomach and lungs. Cyborg's inactive body collapsed to the floor, and, choking, he crumpled on top of it.
As her sense of urgency had grown, Starfire's light had grown brighter, and now emanated from her eyes as well. Before her mind had even registered the fate that was visited upon her two friends, she charged forward in preparation for releasing a barrage of starbolts. In the instant before she struck, the green tint revealed an amorphous, shifting form before her. She flung two starbolts towards the form. The first sailed past as the form twisted itself around the trajectory; the second impacted on this tightly knotted portion and snapped the structure back towards the floor. The form appeared to fold into itself briefly before lashing out with one thin, rigid tendril, which tore through Starfire's skin as her momentum carried her overhead. The shadowy blade ripped flesh and severed arteries in a red arc from her face, down across her neck and chest, and spanning the brief gap in space before her lower arm. Her heightened pulse sprayed blood out of the open wounds in a spectacular display as she lost control and spiraled through the air, finally slamming face first into the far wall. Her limp body slid down the surface in a smear before coming to rest in a sopping heap.
Beast Boy had in the interim managed to prop Raven's shivering, bleeding form gently against the wall, carefully avoiding the open wounds. He returned his attention to the battle just in time to see Starfire slump to the floor with a wet smack. His attention fell next to Robin, who lay gurgling on Cyborg's still body. His better judgment won out and he turned to bolt through the ruined door to seek help, leaving his friends and teammates to their respective destinies.
It caught him then by the ankle as he rounded the corner and dragged him back into the room. He morphed frantically between tiger, elephant, bear, anything with weight or claws to slow him down. He found himself lifted into the air, a patch of carpeting still attached to his claw, before being thrown across the room where he connected with the mirror. The shock of the impact shook him into his normal form, and he was dimly aware of countless pinpricks of pain where the mirror shards still stuck into his back and head. He tumbled forward off the vanity but was caught before the final impact. After that there was only the sensation of random motion and collision as a relentless pressure increased on his neck. The shadow, having again molded itself into a hand, swung Beast Boy around the room like a doll; his joints hyperextended and snapped as they collided with walls and edges.
With a sudden burst of lucidity it occurred to Beast Boy to morph into a small insect to escape the grip. He did so with his last reserves of strength, only to be brutally smashed into the floor like the real article. The segmented body fractured and fell apart even as the component parts were mashed downward together while leaking internal fluids. Thus defeated, his body regained its original form in no better condition.
Raven regained her senses. Though the damage itself was localized, she felt everything from her shoulders up as a single burning, stinging mass. It was irritated further by her own motions and the contact made with stray locks of her hair. Unsure how to reach anywhere near the area without causing further damage or pain, she allowed the strands to lie where they were.
Suddenly, she whipped her arm outward. Her bookcase was enveloped in a black aura, was ripped from its bracings, and sailed upright through the area above and surrounding Beast Boy so as to maximize the targeted volume where the form even now waited. She winced as it continued on unimpeded and shattered against the opposite wall. There had been no effect, and now no means to know where the shadow was. She focused her mind on the remaining free objects in the room, preparing to fling them in any direction in an instant.
As the adrenaline pumped through her time seemed to slow down. Her eyes darted back and forth, up and down, attempting to see all attack vectors at once. A moment passed, then another, and more until it seemed that even in real time a substantial period must have passed. She cautiously pulled herself up the wall to her feet, her mind still partially focused on what would be her weapons. The room was deathly still, without sound, motion, or light of any kind save that spilling in from the hallway. Even the dying gasps of her friends had ceased. Perhaps the darkness had passed. She wondered briefly if she should even bother checking for pulses.
Starfire and Beast Boy lay on the other side of what suddenly seemed a terrifying distance across her room. Yet Cyborg and Robin were nearly at her feet, so she gingerly crept a few steps forward while still retaining the minor psychological comfort of having her back towards the wall. Cyborg appeared merely to be asleep, his gaping chest wound concealed by Robin, whose blotched face seemed an unnatural color. Not two feet away she noticed a single, undamaged explosive device, no doubt dropped by Robin at the moment of the attack.
"Robin..." She picked it up and looked at it sadly. "Is this my fate? Just to witness everyone taken from me?"
No, that was not her fate at all. Black talons pierced her back; every muscle in her body clenched as she was pulled off the floor and driven through the air past the bodies of her friends and through the plexiglass window into the open air. Heavy curtains clung to her momentarily before being ripped away by the fierce wind. The spasms of her hand activated the final incendiary charge. A simple 555 timer circuit iterated through the final cycles of her life. The burst of flame engulfed her body completely, though she had no strength left to scream. Her mind dumbly registered through vision blurred by blood how deep a blue the sky was that day. Moments later she broke the surface of the bay surrounding the tower and slowly sank to the bleak depths below.
Its purpose fulfilled, the shadow compressed itself into the plane of the floor, gradually becoming indistinguishable from the room's natural darkness and disappearing from sight entirely. A nameless, mindless, timeless hatred born in the blackest pit of the worm-mother, it existed solely to work its wicked malice upon all in its path, in endless repetition forevermore.
Sunlight and a warm afternoon breeze swept through the room.