The Origins Trilogy

Chapter 1

I hate memory fragmented dreaming, I thought to myself as I sat up groggily from my bed. I hated dreaming about my childhood, it always makes my day start out horrible. I tried the several coping methods that I learned about while studying psychiatry, but they don't always work, not on mornings like these.

At least this one was different, I knew what the cause of my memory recall was, Sam. Today was my first session with him and I was so nervous to see him after all these years.

He and I were best friends since we were kids, we did everything together, played games, hangout, the works. We were inseparable, even when my father made it his mission to make sure we couldn't see each other again, we always found a way. We even tried dating for a while, but we realized it just wasn't going to work between the two of us. He and I just clicked and I think it was mostly due to the fact that we both had parents that weren't exactly keeping up with the Joneses.

We were more like the Addams Family, except minus the values and the love. He had it almost as bad as I did, where my dad couldn't get enough of beating on me and my mom, his parents couldn't care less if he lived or died. They gave him the bare essentials to survive, but other than that he was on his own from the age of ten upward.

His parents would leave him for weeks at a time and leave him with nothing but one loaf of bread and a package of meat that would be gone in a few days' time. Sam was beyond neglected, he was forgotten and that's why we got along so well, I knew what it was like to feel alone and afraid, but he actually was. It was no wonder he'd gotten so obsessed with plants, they were the only things that he could trust other than me.

He didn't really have a choice, there was only but so many times I could sneak him food from my house before my dad would notice and beat me for sharing. Gardening was the only way Sam could stay alive, he had to grow everything he ate so he wouldn't starve. He'd grown so close to plants I would sometimes hear him talking to them as if they could talk back.

It wasn't until after I left for college to pursue my psychiatry degree did his obsession become his entire life. We tried to stay in contact, but with the distance, the coursework, and the long hours we just couldn't keep in contact. It wasn't until two years ago that I heard about his accident, the one that changed him forever.

No one could ever explain to me what happened or clear answer as to how it was possible, but for some reason, it transformed him and gave him abilities that allowed him to manipulate the plant life around him psychically. He was terrorizing the city he lived in, killing people, destroying factories, and becoming an all-around eco-terrorist. He was finally apprehended by some vigilante they called The Bat and transferred to a special prison called Arkham Asylum.

That's the whole reason I moved to Gotham in the first place, I had no idea that my friend was suffering like this. It broke my heart that the one person who understood me, the one person who actually cared about me, I completely disregarded when he needed me the most. I knew it wasn't my fault that he became what he is now, but my heart tells a completely different story.

I had just finished my doctorate in psychiatry and as luck would have it Arkham was in dire need of a psychiatrist to help with their growing criminally insane population. I was hired within a few days of applying, they didn't care about my experience or that I was a fresh college graduate, they just wanted me to start as soon as possible.

I was so relieved when one of my first assignment was to complete a psych evaluation on Sam. Today was the day and I was so ready to see my friend again and help him through his mental struggle. I got up from my twin sized bed and immediately started stretching and warming up, all those years of gymnastics really does condition your body to keep up a certain routine.

That was the only good memory I had from my childhood. Even though my dad still beat me senseless every time I got home from what he deemed "sissy games" I was allowed to do it all four years of high school.

It conditioned my body, made me flexible, and lean and gave me those small moments of peace in my otherwise destructive home life. Also, it helped me pay for my tuition for college, could've gotten a full ride had I gone to Gotham City University, but I had to be picky and choose a school that my scholarship only covered half of. I won a few medals for being one of the most skilled gymnasts in multiple competitions. I didn't go pro though, I may have loved it, but it wasn't my passion.

That wasn't the only thing that gymnastics taught me either. Having to be nearly naked all the time, I learned to get very creative with stage makeup. I had to figure out some way to hide the bruises that I was receiving at home so I had to find any way I could to cover them up. I was too afraid of my father to let anyone know what he was doing to my mom and me for fear we would have to deal with the repercussions of his anger.

My mom was always so talented at hiding what he did to us in public, and even he would put on the face of the model father smiling with his seldom sober grin. It baffled me at how my parents could just turn it on whenever it was necessary, but that was just how we lived, by lying. It wasn't until college that I was finally able to get away from them and know what it was like to be normal.

I had become so accustomed to lying, making excuses and being silenced that going to a place where I was finally accepted, was an entirely new step in the right direction. However, no matter how hard I tried, how much I repressed I couldn't escape the darkness that loomed in my mind, the darkness my father put there.

That very darkness kept me from making friends, having boyfriends, and living life. The only friend I had lived hundreds of miles away, so all I had were my studies and my coursework. That's why I needed to get Sam back, I know he might never be the same as he was, but I needed somebody, anybody to take away the loneliness. He was and still is my one and only friend, and having him my life again, even under supervised visits in a cell specially designed for him is enough to get me through. I finished my stretching and started getting cleaned up.

I walked into the bathroom brushed my teeth, showered and started getting dressed. Finally finished, I looked at myself in the mirror, my simple red colored button down, tucked in my khaki pants, with my brown dress shoes freshly polished. I never thought of myself as much to look at, I was average height, for a white man in his early twenties, I had a somewhat rugged appearance with my stubbly beard, green eyes, and my somewhat wild dark medium brown hair with a few light freckles sprinkled on my tan face.

I had the same stern jaw structure that always made me look angry. That was one of the things I hated the most about myself. I looked so much like my father it would make me physically sick to look at myself in the mirror. I hated him with every fiber of my being, I hated that I looked like him, I hated that he outlived my mother, and I hate that he's still alive and kicking.

My mother died being abused, and it wasn't like she was going to win a mother of the year award anytime soon, but she was the only person who besides Sam, who knew firsthand what my father was really like.

For him to outlive her and still be in his right mind at his age, is the biggest fuck you from the universe to little old me. I stood there for a second staring at my revolting reflection and decided to just shake it off clean up my apartment, and get my bag and supplies so I can be off to work.

My apartment wasn't exactly the four seasons, hell it wasn't even a closet at the four seasons, but for a student who was fresh out of college, with those fresh student loans knocking at my door, this apartment was the best that I could do on the budget I had. It was small, very small, smelly, and dirty, but it was mine and that's more than I can say about a lot of the people who lived in Gotham City.

I straightened up a bit, dumped the last of the takeout I ate last night, and killed a few roaches along the way. I was finally ready to be on my way, I locked up and headed down the road to Arkham, both excited and terrified to see my friend for the first time in years.