The Dark Knight

[boo radley]

I didn't know that, either. "Something. Anything."
She just stared at me.
That was too vague, wasn't it? My headache was getting worse. I rested my elbows on my knees and placed my hands on my head.
My stomach growled again. Then-

-Another memory.

My mommy set the Turkey on the table. It was nice, hot, smelled delicious. I couldn't wait to eat. But mommy had very big values. "Let's wait until daddy comes home."
I was scared of daddy. Daddy used to beat mommy right in front of me. I sat, shivering a bit. "Please, please, mommy, can we just eat now? I want to eat now. We don't have to have Daddy here!"
Mommy looked worried. "We don't want him to be angry that we left him."
I understood. I nodded. One hour... two hours... so went the time. Then, it was twelve. I was asleep at the table, when the door burst open. Daddy swaggered in, drunk, as usual. Mommy woke me up. "Daddy's home!"
Daddy looked around, saw me sitting there, table set and all. "Look, daddy, we have turkey!"
Daddy's bloodshot eyes looked at me gravely. He began yelling, crazy. He pulled out a gun. Mommy pulled out a knife from the drawer, trying to protect herself. He cornered her, then heard me crying. He pulled the knife from her hand and came to me.
I wish we ate dinner without him.

"Anything but Turkey," I said, gulping down air.

[Nikki]

The look in his eyes made me want to weep. I was glad for the break from him as I let the guard know where I was going.
There wasn't a soul in the hallway to the cafeteria, nor anywhere else in the building. Everyone had cleared out after the hype.
Good. It gave me a chance to sort through my thoughts.
Why the hell do you care so much about this patient? I asked myself, methodically questioning myself, testing the waters for insanity.
He was so intriguing. And so. . .scarred. Inside and out.
I also puzzlingly got the picture that he wasn't really insane. Just a little lost.
Aren't we all, my conscience grumbled as I grabbed two ham sandwiches and some bottled water out of the stainless steel refrigerator.
When I returned to him, I inwardly flinched a little as he took the food from me. Being so close to his touch made me uncomfortable. I took a seat a good distance from him on the bench.

[boo radley]

The food turned to dust in my mouth.
At least, that's what it felt like. I looked at Quinzel. Why did she get me food? Why does she even care?
Step one was to learn her name... Step two is to establish some sort of trust. She'll earn trust. I'll have to square with trusting myself. But first: I needed some memory.
"So what exactly is Jonathon Crane doing with a burlap sack on his face?" I watched as Crane sprayed some gas on a man's face, then watched the man scream in terror about how Crane looked like a scarecrow with worms coming out of his mouth. I snorted. "Imitating a scarecrow?"
I got up. Or, at least, I tried. Walking hurt. My right arm was broken, and my knees were pathetically weak. I couldn't walk very well. It hurt like hell. I touched the bars that kept me locked in. I shut my eyes, trying to squeeze out a memory.
None came.
I sighed. I know these things don't come all the time – it's not like I have the power of premonition or something.
But I wanted to know. Why was I here, sitting here, with clown makeup on my face, some fragments of my past, and no knowledge of my present whatsoever?
I never remembered wearing the makeup.
Maybe it was someone else's doing. Probably. Probably that Crane fellow. Ha, ha. Did he think I was funny?
I probably looked funny to him. Confusion tore my chest open, pretty much on a daily basis. Or so I assumed, since I wasn't sure how long I'd been there. I'd figure a week, considering the clock's hit "twelve" fourteen times. But it's felt like a month.
Observation kills most people, but I'm already dead. Kind of. So what's there to kill?
I looked over at Harleen. Trust... "Can I call you Harley?"

[Nikki]

"I prefer Harleen, but if you're comfortable with that, yes, you may."
Technically, work is over today. So why am I still being professional?
Distance helps me deny what I'm feeling.
I haven't touched my food. I know it would be stupid to try.
A long moment of silence passes, and I make a fruitless effort not to study his lean frame resting against the bars.
"Look. . .I know I'm a psychiatrist and all, and I'm supposed to be asking questions like this, but. . .on a level of serious concern for you. . .is there anything you wanna talk about?"
It felt both better and worse dropping the callous routine. Better because it took less effort. Worse because I now felt somehow exposed to him
"I don't care what you say. I don't care if it makes any sense at all."

[boo radley]

For the first time in a while, I found myself seriously grinning. A big smile between my scars. "There's a lot I wanna talk about," I found myself saying. I couldn't stop myself from talking. I didn't feel the need to. "But I dunno where to begin. Like... where did I come from? Not one person would know that, except maybe the person who trapped me here. Whoever that was. I'll try and find out."
"Hello, Dr. Quinzel," said a man's voice from behind. Crane looked at her with a fake smile plastered on his face. "I'm taking off for tonight. You leaving this?" He pointed at me. I shrugged. Then I noticed – a little bit of the compound was still spraying – leaking, like – out of his spray gun. Harley nodded. He shrugged.
As he walked away from my cell, the compound wafted into it and of course it hit me.

Which was when I began screaming. Pain, fear, it all passed through me. I remembered certain things – feelings and emotions, mainly. I got up and started rattling the bars with my left hand. Crane turned around and gave me a strange look. Then I realized.
He was the one who had trapped me here. He had to be. I must've had the compound, then passed out. I still remember: fear, then darkness, then this.
That compound gave me the same kind of fear.

I shut my eyes, I squeezed. Because every time I opened my eyes, I would see things: everywhere blood poured out – in the same spots I remember blood spattered from my wife's face. Then – nothing.

I opened my eyes. Harley was shaking a bit. "I'm sorry... I don't know what came over me." I didn't know. "I still don't..." remember. Not everything. Just bits and pieces of my horrors. Why was I cursed with this hell? I didn't know. But somehow... the fear, the pain, it felt so – relaxing. Strange.

However I didn't die... it began to change me. I began feeling happiness in torture. Some could say that whatever didn't kill me simply made me stranger. I looked Harley in the eyes. "I wanna talk about how I got here." I knew Harley wouldn't know too much. She only started showing up a couple of days ago. She was the newbie to this hell called Arkham Asylum.

(yup this is one long post haha)

[Nikki]

The poor thing doesn't know that the reason I'm shaking so violently is because I am trying to keep still.
Why do I want to touch his face? To trace my fingers over those gruesome scars, to make him mine? Feelings like this don't happen so soon between normal people.
I guess neither of us are that. Normal.
"Talk away," I said. "I'm here as long as you need me."

[boo radley]

(I love the Joker-ness of your avvie and sig haha)

--

I shrugged. "I guess this is therapy session number one, hm?" A wave of cold came over me. I shuddered. "You know, I'm formulating a theory on all this."

Harley's eyes got a little bigger as she raised her eyebrows.

"Well, I do. I remember bits and pieces, mostly..." I shut my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. "There."

I shook. "Okay, well... I just need to piece the puzzle together. I know there are blank spots. For things I don't want to - and things I can't - remember.

"I remember growing up in a bad home. My mother came from a rich family. My dad used all of her money to buy drinks, gamble, and do whatever else the hell he felt like. I used to see him beat her every night. I was scared. Mommy never spoke badly about him, in fact, she discouraged any bad thoughts against him. But I hated him.

"I also remember him going off crazy one night, then coming at me with a knife. I don't know if that's how I got these scars... because there are other stories."

I still didn't open my eyes: I didn't want to.

"I also remember having a pregnant wife. Beautiful. I just... I can't remember her name. That kills me. I know she was pregnant, before I got here. I remember that she had a gambling problem, too. I remember... I remember that one day, we're in a lotta debt, see. Very poor. And one day, she comes home, bleeding everywhere. They hurt her. I couldn't afford to fix anything.

"I remember taking a razor and wanting to hurt myself. Could that've been it?"

I scratched my dirty head.

"I know I went to go rob a bank, once. After that incident, I think. I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds right. We needed the money. I wanted to save my wife. But then someone... or something came out of the wall. Was it a knife, a blade, that they were carrying? And I was the first affected one. I don't know."

I buried my head in my hands.

"There are a lot of stories," I said. "But they all happen to end the same way. All I know is recent. I remember fear, a lot of fear, and some pain. Then darkness. Then... this Hell." Was I dead? Was I possibly in Hell? Probably, more like.

I flipped my eyes open. "Does this count as a 'therapy session,' hm?"

[Nikki]

Therapy? I'm the one that needs therapy. I'm half obsessed with an amnesic clown.
"Well. . ." I begin to answer, but the guard is leaning in the cell door. "Miss, to be frank, I'm tired. My shift was over three hours ago. Can't you continue sessions in your scheduled daylight hours?"
I sighed, fed up because he was bringing to light my unusual behavior. "Go home, then. I'll be fine here." Maybe. I got the notion that if he'd wanted to hurt me by now, he could have already.
"Are you insane?" he asked.
"Sir, it's my life. I'll bet on it when I want to. Good night."
His eyebrows disappeared beneath the hair that covered his forehead. "I'm about done dealing with these loonies," he grumbled, locking the cell behind him.
"As I was saying," I continued. "If you want this to be our first session, than you can think of it that way. If you'd rather it be on a strictly. . .personal level, I'm fine with that too. I can't heal you my way. It doesn't work like that. I have to help you do it your way."

[boo radley]

That last thing she said... Personal level?
Maybe that was what I needed. Some sort of personal acquaintance or something to get me out of here. It certainly couldn't hurt my chances in escape. "Yeah. This can be. I don't...yeah."
That's all that I could say. "But do me a favor and let me kill that guard." His fear made me want to strangle him. It attracted me in so many wrong ways...I just wanted to burn him.

[Nikki]

I knew he was serious; there was something to the way all of his muscles seemed to tighten. His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
I decided to divert his attention. "We never found anything on your wife. No medical records from any prenatal examinations, as you say she was pregnant. No. . .nothing, actually. According to these files, neither you or your wife ever existed."
I knew this wasn't going to put him in a better mood, but at least he wouldn't be starved for information that I couldn't give him.