Wasteland • Gotham Fanfiction •

XXXI: Runaway

"We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged." - Heinrich Heine

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Bird's nose wrinkled in disgust as she walked into the mansion that had belonged to Elijah Van Dahl.

The scent of decay was so strong in the air that by the time she reached the dining room she nearly expected Grace's body to still be there.

Flies were buzzing all over the room and the food on the table was covered in maggots; left from the last night she'd been there; the night he'd killed Grace.

Quickly darting out of the dining room, she slammed the sliding wooden doors together in an attempt to keep the stench and bugs in the room she'd fled.

"Hello, Bird."

Turning around she faced Oswald, who had a very pungent odor coming from him.

He was still in the same clothes she'd last seen him in, his hair was greasy and flattened down to his scalp.

"Oswald, I..." Her voice trailed off and her eyes moved to what he was holding in his arms.

"Is that..." Bird's eyebrows lowered.

"Yes." He hummed with a laugh, holding the new decoration out for display as he proudly smiled, putting his stained teeth on display.

In his arms was none other than Grace's severed head, now mounted on a wooden stand for display.

"Oswald!" Bird's voice hurt her own ears and made the throbbing in her head even worse.

Pulling in a breath and trying to get a handle on herself, she said, "What have you been doing this entire time? Just sitting here with her body decaying around you and -and rancid food? You haven't showered or changed clothes even."

With a sniffle, he rubbed his nose with the back of his free hand and then made an attempt at straightening out his suit jacket, "I'm aware I'm a bit disheveled. I've been rather lost since you left." He explained, "Aimless, if you will. Until tonight when I saw the news."

"Then you know?" Bird asked.

"That Theo Galavan walks among us once again?" Oswald smiled, "I do."

Strangely enough, it had been the sight of his former adversary's face that had given him the strength to pick up and get moving with his life again.

It had very much felt like he'd been stuck in place after Bird had left last.

Grace and her children were all dead, Bird had talked of starting a job in her family's company and seemed rather off-put at his idea to cook up Charles and Sasha to feed them to their mother.

He'd been comfortable in the house after she left.

No one to impress, no one around at all.

He'd gotten used to the smell of death and decay to the point that he would sometimes even forget about the rotting body in the dining room.

There was plenty of food in the kitchen to last him and being so shut off from everything and everyone, he hadn't felt the need to shower or change clothes.

One day had been blurring into the next with no end in sight.

That was until he'd turned on the TV and was met by the sight of Theo Galavan's face.

Finally, the loop had been broken and there was a reason to see tomorrow; to kill Galavan all over again.

In the hours since, he'd called in someone to get rid of Grace's body.