Ash to Dust

2_: Reborn

A/n: Hello!

I hope you're enjoy this, it ain't easy task and I really hope it lives up to your expectation. Most likely this will be my last note, save for actually having something to say, so you can enjoy the story without having to read me.

The biggest 'thank you' to WildWestWind for sticking with me, helping and editing!

Please vote if you like... It really means a lot to me! ;)

Thanks, and enjoy all you guys!

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Raven opened her eyes and discovered she couldn't move. Her body was stiff, her muscles were clenched and throbbing. She was locked in an unresponsive body and if she could, she would have screamed.

It's ok, I'm safe. I came out of it in time, I did it. I'm back in my body before midnight. She tried to calm down, repeating those words to herself over and over, waiting for her body to resume its functions.

Raven shuddered as one last image of the lightless chasm flashed in her mind.

I don't even know what time it is. Fuck! I need to move! Unluckily, cursing in her mind didn't seem to have much of an effect on her body's recovery.

And just then she felt it. She had never felt it before, but she knew.

It was midnight after her birthday.

No, no, no, NO! Not now, not like this! Shit! I can't even scream! Let me go. Damn it! FATE!!!

There it was again. That sensation was climbing her spine, slowly, from the ground up toward her skull.

So, I'm not Human. My whole body is already aching and I'll change in god knows what. It's just so fucking awesome!

Raven was going nuts. It wasn't the fact she wasn't Human, she already guessed that much. It wasn't even the fact she was already in pain, pain that will surely add up to the one coming. No, it was being completely stripped of any kind of control that was driving her insane. Even her eyes where fixed and she couldn't move them.

If I get to survive this night, I'll leave this room totally insane. The tingling in her spine was worsening, making it difficult for her to focus. Her mind was rapidly setting up a riot to her willpower. It was working too, as thoughts flashed in her mind like a rain of shooting stars in a reddened sky.

The tingling was starting to spread along her nerves, slowly. Making Raven want to skin herself alive and pull out every single nerve. That was until her heart, which until now has been beating at a nice, peaceful normal rate, started to speed up. If it still wasn't enough, and it really was, the blood pumped out of her heart was getting hotter, painfully hotter. As the burning heat spread through her veins, her whole body started to pulse in discord with the now furious beat of her heart.

Raven was losing contact with reality. Time had already lost any meaning whatsoever. The suffering and pain was all. Her body had dropped in a world of red searing agony. Her mind was overloaded, unable to process anything. And she felt her very soul being shredded by the talons of a gelid hand.

Time has gone by and things had only gotten worse and worse, spiralling down, and were still going down. The screams in her mind were the only things giving her a false sense of time.

Minutes ticked by.

Hours flowed.

Days went by.

Years elapsed.

After what was ages in Raven's painful world something shifted. Slowly. Through the agony she felt a stirring. Something was moving in her, maybe, just maybe, she could get out of it. Still she couldn't bring herself to hope, the Something that was stirring inside her was power, she was not able to think, so she could neither understand nor use that power yet. But she could feel it, and it was a lot of power.