A Teen Titans Story

Rachel Roth

Finally, it was all done. The surgery, the pain, my recovery. It was almost all back to normal. All I needed to do was go home. Dr. Welk said that I still wasn't ready to leave the hospital. But I felt like I was. I missed the Tower a lot. It drove me crazy to be away from my scrolls and books for so long. I haven't had anything to do while I was stuck in my bleached-clean room. I just had mental exercises that made any spellcaster grow weary after repeating them over and over. So I made a plan. Well, I made several plans, but I finally decided on one of them.

I was going to just walk out of there. People of normal status did it all of the time, so why couldn't I? I looked at the digital clock on the far wall. It read 11:34 pm.

I got up from the uncomfortable hospital bed, still dressed in the paper gown provided by Heroes Hospital. I stood uncertainly on the cold, tiled floor. My first priority was obviously retrieving my belongings. The nurses had removed my sensors and IV once I was moved to the recovery section of the hospital, so there would be no alarms or anything to go off.

Slowly, I walked to the door, trying to get feeling back to my legs. After not being allowed to walk for a long period of time, my legs had gone numb. Once they stopped tingling, I opened the door and poked my head out into the hallway. It was dark. Darker than usual, that is. I stepped out and silently shut the door behind me. Just as noiselessly, I made my way to the room that I saw the nurse take my belongings. I knew exactly what bin that they were in and quickly retrieved my belt and communicator. I couldn't find anything else of mine. I couldn't sense my own trace anywhere else in the building so I figured that they probably threw away my leotard and cape thanks to the intense burns. I borrowed a different cape from another bin. It was a solid yellow. Not the best, but it was the only cape in that section of bins. 

I tried having my paper gown on under the cape, but it was too loud for the sake of stealth, so I was forced to ditch the gown. The silence was much needed for when I had to pass several janitors and all of the night officers. It was after the fact that I realized that leaving the paper gown was good for inside a building, but was a big problem outside. With a cold wind from the shoreline. I decided to walk back to the shore to regain a tiny bit of strength in my legs, and to not flash people, like I would have done if I had flown.

The night may have been cold, but the atmosphere was anything but. The streets were lined with lights and the sound of different types of music came from the large variety of bars close to the hospital. When I walked by the alleys, I tried my hardest to try and sense the presence of anything down them. More than not, I found someone on the street when I could not sense them with my magic. It was increasingly frustrating every time my magic failed me.

When I finally got to the shore, I had given up trying to do extra recon. I was already slightly peeved at the magic dampener over the city and after tonight, I was extremely upset about it. 

I took off into the air since I wouldn't have been going over any people and landed on the roof of the Tower. I phased through the roof and into the building. The lights to the hallways were off and the alarms were set. The tower recognized my bio-signature and didn't raise any of the said alarms. It appeared as though everyone was asleep. Which wasn't unreasonable considering it was nearly one in the morning. I walked down the stairs and followed the invisible path to my room. 

To my delight, when I opened my bedroom door, there was a few boxes of my favorite herbal tea on my desk, which were illuminated by a single candle right on the corner. I smiled to myself and turned to my dresser to retrieve some fresh underthings. I removed the borrowed cape, exposing the pale flesh underneath. I examined the skin around my hips. There was just a light purple and green bruise left over from the procedure. I examined the rest of me in the mirror, looking for flaws or injuries that hadn't quite healed yet. I found a small laceration on my lower back and another bruise on my left butt cheek.