Denial: A coping mechanism the mind creates to protect itself from the pain. The length of the stage varies on the person. Sometimes it could last for hours, days, weeks, or in a few cases... years.
Robin denied her loss and insisted that this was all a nightmare for two hours. That Vecna cursed her and placed her into one of his trances. She urged herself to believe it and for 120 minutes, she did, but seeing Daphne's body get taken to the morgue shifted her denial into anger.
Anger: Once denial disappears, the pain becomes consumed with fury. This anger was the hardest emotion to move on from. It would always be the stage that would be eternal. No matter the time, it would still linger like a thorn grazing the thumb. It would become smaller over the years, but it would always exist.
Robin never considered herself capable of holding resentment. Sure, she did get angry, but never to the point where she wanted to destroy and inflict the same pain, but upon seeing the Squawk's van arrive half an hour after Daphne left brought the improbable to occur. She despised the group for not having arrived on time and for not thinking about the consequences a careless plan could bring.
She hated them.
She hated them.
She hated them.
Robin refused to listen to their explanations. She couldn't imagine a scenario in which she wouldn't have done the impossible to get to them if the circumstances had been the other way around. The distance wouldn't have mattered, because she would have arrived on time.
Bargaining: A desperate attempt at trying to avoid the pain by thinking of various ways on how to negotiate a change. If things had been done differently, perhaps the universe wouldn't have handed a cruel fate.
Ever since she was a child, she only stepped into a church when attending mass on Sunday. Prayers were never whispered, but in a hopeless effort to fix everything, she visited the hospital's chapel and prayed for the first time. She talked to God, asking Him to bring Daphne back. Endless promises were made, but only absolute silence was her response.
And that silence brought her to the next stage.
Depression: When reality strikes like a knife to the heart, the devastation shatters everything within. It silences, isolates, wounds, and numbs as the sorrow begins to corrupt the soul until leaving it in misery.
Robin couldn't find the will to care for anything anymore. She went quiet, not answering to anyone. In spite of being surrounded by friends, who were also grieving, all she could think of was all the plans she and Daphne made. They were going to escape this mundane town and head to the east coast, live freely with no care for the judgement they'd receive, but having believed in reaching the stars had been their mistake.
