Falling || Scarecrow

Ch.2

Eight years later...

Maria took a deep breath as she prepared herself for her new job. Heart thudding faster than usual. But she ignored it as she walked up the old steps of Arkham Asylum, taking some deep breaths. She had applied a week ago, and was finally accepted in.

She was also receiving the same looks then and now. Looks of amusement and confusion, as she walked to her office.

Maria wasn't a ordinary women. She had a small frame, and a pale complexion that far exceeded normal color. Her hair was blond and her eyes blue. She also had a heart condition and suffered memory loss, unable to remember anything before age fourteen. The only memories she remembered, was when she lived in her first orphanage.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and opened the door that led to her office. Like everything else in this ancient gothic structure, shadows clung to the corners of her office. The artificial light barely even lit the back wall, where a bookcase stood empty. A desk sat in the middle of the room, with a simple chair behind it, and a chair with restraints in front.

She inwardly shuddered as she placed her files on the desk, and pulled out a pill container. She took it twice a day, once in the morning, one in the evening. And this was her first dose of the day as it was eight in the morning.

Her first patient would arrive in twenty minutes.

So she passed the time by unpacking a box of books at the foot of the bookshelf, and turned around when a knock sounded on the door.

"Your first patient is here Dr. Gardner."

Maria subconsciously cringed at her name. She had forgotten she was using her last foster families name until she had hers legally changed.

"Come in." She called as she sat in her seat. Straighting her white lab coat's sleeves.

A guard entered with a man in handcuffs. The guard roughly pushed the man in the chair and did the leather restraints. The guard then left with a nod, and she was left with the man who watched her curiously with an intelligent gaze.

"You are new here, ain't you?" Ha asked after a moment.

"Yes. My name is Dr. Gardner. And you are?"

"Haven't you already read my file?"

Maria shook her head. "No. I wanted to start with my own observations."

The man smiled. His blue eyes stared deeply into her own. "Then tell me doctor, what can you observe about me?"

She leaned forward. "I can tell you are intelligent and observant yourself. That you are not a psychopath or insane."

He looked surprised for a moment. "That was actually quite accurate. But let me show you an example of my intelligence." He said slowly while studying her reaction. "I can tell you've had a hard life and are strong in mind. Unlike people who would deny it just by looking at you, just seeing you as a China doll. But your eyes speak the truth. And I can also spectualate you applied for this job to prove those folks wrong while proving to yourself that you can in fact succeed in something others call dangerous."

Maria surprised herself by smiling at the end. "That was also quite accurate."

He smirked and leaned back in his chair.

"But the way you mentioned the mind..." She said thoughtfully. "We're you once a person that specialised in psychology?"

"As a matter of fact I did. I even worked here."

Maria looked puzzled then shook her head. "Why?" She said. "Why did you become a patient in Arkham then."

"The mind is an interesting thing." He said calmly. "And fear is the greatest discovery in the human mind. So I studied psychology, became a doctor even. But it wasn't enough to stop there, so I tested on people to see their reactions on fear and how they react. That's when my career as a villain started, and I took the name Scarecrow."

Maria should've been greatly disturbed, but she listened with rapt interest. "So should I call you Scarecrow then?" She asked.

He shook his head slightly as he shifted in his seat. "You can call me Jonathan."

She ducked her head. "Maria." She said suddenly. "My name is Maria."

"Interesting." He murmured quietly. "Very familiar in fact."

She looked up in confusion. But before he could say anything else. The guard announced the session over, and took Jonathan back to his cell.

Leaving Maria alone to ponder about what had occurred. What she couldn't wrap her head around was how he said he knew her from somewhere, yet she had never met him. But the name Scarecrow... That meant something.

...

It was later in the evening when she finished up her last session and paper. Once her report was on the Wardens desk, she left. Catching a boat to the mainland with five other colleagues who ignored her completely. She wished the boat would move faster than a constipated snail through the murky water, but the speed stayed the same.

When they finally reached the mainland, the docks were veiled in fog. Pulling her coat around her tighter, she exited the boat and walked quickly to the main road and flagged down a taxi.

The ride was brief, same old buildings flying by. Drunks loitering outside bars, eyes flashing in alleyways. Everything came to a stop as she paid the driver and got out.

Maria hated living in the darker side of Gotham, yet she didn't have enough money to move and she felt somehow tied to where she lived. Maybe because it was her first actual home from orphanages and foster homes.

The structure was made of red brick and crumbling in certain spots. But the inside was stable and comfortable. It was only her, and yet she didn't mind so much. Solitude fit her in a weird way, but now and then she yearned for something more.

True love? A dream, nothing more. She had decided that years ago.

She had never been loved, or at least can't remember what it felt like. Warm like a summer day? Gentle as a brush of wind? Just some dreams that came up now and then.

She sighed lightly as she went in, hung her coat up, and closed the door soundly behind her. Just a slab of wood between her and the mysteries of Gotham. Also keeping the dangerous people out and the sanity inside. At least she hoped she was sane.

Maria wearly went through the main room and through the small hallway that connected the bedroom and bathroom. The main room was a sitting room combined with a kitchen that ran along one wall.

She collapsed on her bed, and ran her hands up and down the comforter, the fabric feeling smooth against her fingertips.

Maria stared at the white ceiling in thought as the sky started to cry. Raindrops tapped on her bedroom window and she got up to make sure it was locked, when a flash of lightning lit up the sky.

Illuminating her small backyard that was fenced off from another small house. And there in the middle of the yard, feathers glistening from the rain, sat a crow. It ruffled its feathers and arched its neck as it cawed.

Her breath caught and it turned its head towards her in a blink of an eye. It's beady black eyes watched her as it tilted its ugly head, smiling with its cruel black beak.

This all happened in a split second, and then darkness settled again. And when another streak of lightning lit up the sky...

The yard sat desolate. Swamped in shadows and wet from rain. Free from people and dark things with night feathers.