Are You Afraid of the Dark?

The Darkest Knight Gotham has Ever Seen

This part is dedicated to @MissGotham for being the first to comment.

I was moved after that ordeal. I don't know where Jonathan or Edward went, but the next thing I knew, I was being rolled around the Asylum like Hannibal Lecter.

That's what I'm assuming I looked like.

I was brought into my old cell, the repairs evident on the floor from when I'd last escaped. The guards left after anchoring my upright gurney.

Yup. I was back on Crazy's Lane. What an oddly good feeling that was.

"Hello again, Hannibal, fine day isn't it?" Joker laughed from my left.

"Hello, Clairese." I answered as a male guard walked by.

Almost everyone else around me laughed hysterically. The guard told them to shut up and their laugher died down slowly. Well, all of them except Joker.

"Ms. Kyle," I started when the Joker had stopped laughing, my voice still muffled by the mask I wore. "I have a kvestion for you."

"Shoot, kitten." Selina replied, lounging on her allotted bed across the way from my cell.

I frowned when she'd called me kitten, but continued nonetheless. "Vhy do zey call sis place Crazy's Lane? I never got se whole story."

"Well, Kitten, it's named after the Joker over there." Selina explained. "After he was brought into, what this area of the Asylum is properly called Intensive Care, it got the nickname Crazy's Lane, because people as bad as him get put here."

I nodded and thanked her, resuming my soft focus view of my surroundings. My ears perked up at the sound of a conversation a few cells down.

"I hear Crane likes her."

"What? Don't be an idiot."

"He's head over heels for her, I saw it with my own two eyes when he brought her to me."

"You're a schizo, how do you know what you saw was real?"

A laugh. "Oh, I know."

"Well, when you put it that way..."

"Do you think she likes him?"

"Maybe. How should I know?"

"Should we ask her?"

"I'm not gonna, you do it."

"Fine," The person's voice then spoke up to carry itself over to me. "Ms. Shadow Knight!"

I pulled myself out of soft focus and looked down the row of glass cells to find two people looking at me. "Jervis," I smiled, noticing the second person staring at me to be Two-Face, an inmate I haven't yet met formally. "It's just Shadow or The Darkest Knight. But anyvays, was wuitz, yeah vat?"

"Do y-you...like Jonathan Crane?" Jervis asked as his voice shook, genuinely curious.

I suddenly feel multiple eyes on me, the pressure weighing down on my shoulders. "Vhy do you vant to know?" I snipped harshly.

"I-I'm just curious..." Jervis looked away from me.

Two-Face gave me a look like Come on. Indulge the poor bastard.

I sighed and thought about Jervis' question. "I'm not sure how to answer sat, Jervis. He's torturing me vis his Fear Toxin since it doesn't have any effect on me, he's been very rude to me, lying to me-But mein Gott. His eyes...wow. And his voice..." I sighed then snapped my head up and went serious. "Forget I said anysing." I closed my eyes, frustrated.

A few moments go by then-

"Oh, she likes him back alright." Jervis giggled.

I gritted my teeth in anger. I'm going to kill Jervis. A very painful death he'll have. Yes. Very. Painful. I thought darkly.

Just then the lights cut, the emergency lights clicking on a few seconds after.

I stood outside of my cell, the door shattered, feet bloodied, straightjacket hanging off me like a dead body. My head was bowed, hair covering my face.

A row of guards piled into the hallway and pointed their guns at me.

"Stay right there, Patient!" A guard ordered.

I laughed quietly. "Patient?" I laughed louder. "Patient?! Sat's rude! I have a name, you know..." My head tilting oddly as I straightened up, my shoulders uneven. I turned to the men, smiling widely. "And I'll burn it into your pasetic brains, sear it onto your eyelids. Trust me boys," I swayed maniacally. "You von't forget it." I laughed once more and went silent, shadows pouring out of my hands, my mouth, my ears, all into the hallway. The guards started shooting and I fell to the ground to protect myself. I crawled under their gunfire, standing behind a guard and twisting his neck. Dead. Hah! I killed the rest of them off in various ways, some very very bloody. Leaving the guard that called me patient to be the last alive.

I let the shadows fall and come back into me. The guard looking around at the mess I'd made and pointing his gun at me. "You'll pay for that, Freak!"

I tutted at him. "Honey, ve're oll freaks. Some of us," I gestured around at the inmates around me. "are just tired of hiding it."

The guard repositioned his hands on his gun, aiming it at me. I rolled my eyes, putting solid shadows on my arms and shooting them out at him, digging the hooked ends into his arms. I pulled my shadows and the guard closer to me for me to whisper into his ear. "I am Valencia Noir. The Darkest Knight Gosam has ever seen." I dropped him and knocked him out so he'd be able to remember who gave him the wounds in his shoulders and mind.

I unlocked all the cells in Crazy's Lane and let myself out of the area, heading off to find the fearsome Dr. Crane.

*Revised 21 Jan 2016*