"When the world is against you, where's the safest place to hide? If I were you-"

"You'd know that the safest place to hide is in sanity." -Joker(Azarello)-

Chapter 1: Test Subject

There is a beauty in madness.

A simplicity and comfort in knowing that your actions don't have to be motivated by reason. They don't have to be motivated by anything at all, or even makes sensefor that matter. It's freeing.

I lost my mind the day I killed my mother and brother, but I think I was crazy long before that. I still don't remember why I did it. My memories of that day have long since twisted and all but disappeared, save the flashes. I remember that I hated her, that the feeling was mutual, and I remember vividly taking the cross off the wall and bashing it against her skull again and again until it was nothing but a sticky mess on our expensive, wooden floor. I remember my brother rushing in to protect her, finding he was too late, and trying to subdue me. I remember the weight of the gun and coldness of the metal against my palm and the sudden pain as it bucked back once I'd fired. I don't know where or why he'd gotten it, only that when I finally managed to get it from his hands he'd gotten one shot in the gut, and I'd been fascinated by the blood the leaked out between his fingers when he held it.

He'd begged me that day, told me I didn't really want to do this. I told him to look at the bitch lying beside him and reevaluate the situation. And then he'd apologized, but no matter how hard I try to remember, I don't know what for. Only that it had made me angry, furious, and I'd put two more bullets into his head, mingling his blood and brain matter with my mother's.

They'd thrown me in Arkham then. Locked me away with the rest of the madmen and rapists and psychopaths. I hadn't liked it there. Not the terrible, spongy food, or the heartless, insipid doctors they'd given me after. The drugs however, had been a godsend. They floated me away from all the fear and pain and uncertainty. Peeled back the layers of my mind and reached inside with long spindly fingers to strip away the girl that was Elle Gollicand replace her with somethingstronger. Something cold.

After two months in that terrible prison, where the staff was just as twisted as it's patients, I'd started to truly unravel. I'd see things, hear voices and scratching at the walls of my cell in isolation. I watched as one particular beast would drag itself across the floor and pull itself over me. Its breath smelled of decay and sickness, its eyes were black and empty. Soulless. But when I opened my mouth to scream, it had taken my voice. The beast was stronger than me, it always had been.

Soon after that I'd stopped talking, lost in my thoughts, in fears that the beast would return and have me again, pressing me down into the cold floor and holding me there, where no one could help me. And it did, almost every night. They'd panicked when I'd stopped eating, but I didn't care. In my mind the beast couldn't find me, so that's where I stayed. No more panic, no more pain, just silence and beautiful dreams.

I remained catatonic for the better part of two years, until one day, the dream had ended and the monster had forgotten me, though I knew eventually it would return. That however, is when I met Doctor Jonathan Crane. He was cold, hollowed inside by this wretched world, though he'd learned to hide it well. His charm hadn't fooled me though. I was broken. I'd peeled back the skin of this reality and found the true rotting flesh beneath. Without this veil, I had seen him too, and he me.

He was strong, my Jonathan, so much stronger than me. It's why I clingedto him, though he didn't really want me. He'd been my psychiatrist once, before the monster that calls himself Hero had stripped away everything and locked him away in his own institution. But my boy had been far too great to be caged. He'd broken out, many times, and after much pleading and coercion, I'd convinced him to take me with him. Away from the Hell house he'd loved so, and back to the world I'd hated. Though with him, I could stand it.

With the Scarecrow, I could do anything.

xXx

The room we entered was obviously designed to impress. Expensive art, collected weapons displayed across the walls, and a huge cherry wooddesk. The man sitting behind it was Edward Warren, crime boss, drug runner, and glorified thug, though not the top dog in Gotham's Narrows. I assumed he wanted to change that.

Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

Crane had chosen to take the seat offered him, placing his briefcase beside the carved wood chair, and folding his hands in his lap. I remained by the door, eyeing the pictures Edwad had displayed and running my fingers across the glass. From the corner of my eyes, I caught Edward watching me, I think I might have made him nervous, but that was my job.

The silent little henchmen in her ragged, loosely stitched costume. Crane cleared his throat and Edward turned back to him, with a wide forced smile.

"It's good that you could take time out of your busy schedule to talk with me." I rolled my eyes and continued to walk the line of the wall, absorbed in the task of being generally creepy. Crane adjusted his glasses, not returning the smile. He never really smiled, not him anyway. The other did, and it always seemed to mean he was planning to do something terrible.

"Yes, well, I do have plans of my own, Mr. Warren, so why don't we skip this and cut strait to what you want from me."

The thug chuckled, straitening the lapels of his suit. "On to business then." he replied, "There is a man, one of the many politics in this town that respects a good side-profit. Lately he's seemed a bit...twitchy. I don't think he wants to work with me anymore, and of course that could cause problems for me."

"What are you asking?" Crane sat strait in his chair, always with the good posture, like he'd been raised by a socialite. Like me.

"I want him gone, Crane." Edward said slowly.

"You can hire men for that, Mr. Warren. I am not a hitman."

Edward laughed, "No, but you have an interesting way of taking care of people, Crane. A way that gets noticed. I want this man to be made an example of. I want his friends to realize just how serious I am when it comes to my business."

"Yes." I murmured, "All thugs must keep their image."

Both men glanced my way and Crane's eyes narrowed in warning. I wasn't allowed to insult the clients, no matter how easy it was to do. To cover my slip, Crane pushed on.

"What would you like me to do?"

Edward watched me a moment more, then smiled at Crane. "That isn't my concern. It's your gift I'm buying, your mind. I want the Scarecrow to do what he does best." With that, he slid a thick envelope across the desk to Crane. "Everything you'll need is there, along with a price I'm sure you'll be interested in."

"You assume I can be bought like your muscle?"

Edward held up his hands in a placating manor. "No. But money does makes things convenient, doesn't it?"

Crane stood then, taking the envelope and handing it to me without looking inside. He grabbed his briefcase and nodded to the crime boss with a tight almost-smile. The best one could expect from him.

"Yes." he agreed, "Yes it does."

xXx

Max could hear things in the walls, see the floor movingbeneath him as he ran. The world was made of bugs, he realized. God, he hated bugs! He didn't know what had happened, sitting in his study, pouring over building propositions and the expected earnings of next quarter. Somethinghad come in through the vents below him. A cloud of white that had burned down his throat and made his eyes water. When he'd opened them again, everything had changed.

The staff was gone for the night, his wife and daughter staying with his bitch of an inlaw, but purhaps it was a blessing. Now the insects couldn't get to them.

He tripped as he was dashing down the hall, trying to escape the swamp of skittering, twitchy little demons. He could hear them scrapeing across the floor, the tick of pinchers and soft squelching of their thousand tiny legs as they followed him. They would eat him if he didn't move. Climb down his throat and eat through his eyes. Would he be able to scream once they were inside, tearing at his organs? Feasting on his carcass?

"No!" he cried and scrambled back up, grabbing blindly at a door and rushing inside. It slammed behind him and he turned to watch the creatures gather around the door, blotting out the light that seeped in beneath. This wouldn't keep them out long. Oh, god, they would get in eventually. He backed away, trembling, and blinking back tears, utterly terrified.

And then there was a giggle.

He spun around, peering into the darkness. His daughter's room, he realized. Between the toys and clothing scattered across the floor, he could see the insects moving. How had they gotten inside? But they seemed to be waiting, watching him.

"Who's there?" he asked, his voice no more than a hoarse whisper. The giggle came again, too low to be his little girl, but still soft and tinkling, like a child's. But there was no one in the room. There couldn't be. All he saw were toys. Dolls. He stepped forward, eyeing one in particular. He couldn't recall having ever seen it before.

And the thing was large, easily the size of a person. Its tattered dress had been stitched with scraps of dark material. Burlap and linen and other things he couldn't identify. It was slumped against the wall, head hanging forward, but then he heard the giggle again, and knew it had come from the doll.

Max stumbled and fell backwards when it moved. Raising its head and opening its eyes with a smile made of razor blades. He watched, too frightened to scream, as it slowly rose to its feet, the threads that held its arms together hung loose, the material frayed. Its hair tumbled down around its face and from it he saw tiny spiders weaving in and out of the dirty redish mane, slowly twisting down on thin lines of web to land on its shoulders and scurry out of sight.

"No." he shook his head as the doll approached him. "Get away."

The insects had gotten beneath the door. They were swarming him now, crawling into his clothes and when he tried to scream they caught in his throat, choking him. He gagged, spitting on the floor and finding blood on the carpet. They were eating him! Sweet god they would tear him apart!

The soft, tinkling voice of the doll swelled across the room as it crouched onto the floor, crawling ever closer, its eyes burning red, black oozing from between the blades in its mouth.

"A tis-ket a tas-ket."it sang, and he tried to crawl away, but the doll's hand shot out and grabbed his ankle, dragging itself across the floor toward him. "The Scarecrow's out his cas-ket."

His heart was thundering in his ears, and he could feel the insects inside him eating at his stomach, burrowing up beneath his skin. Again he tried to scream, but the sound was strangled. The doll giggled, finally above him and holding him down.

"Turn out the lights, and lock the door."

"NO!"

"Pray-ing that he pass-es."

"GET AWAY FROM ME!!!" He bellowed, shoving back at the doll, though it only giggled more. He clawed at his skin, trying to rip out the bugs that had settled there. The room was twisting in on itself, the carpet had been filled with ants. Thousands of them, and roaches. They covered his pants, moving ever closer to his face and he scrambled to bat them away, but more came. They were everywhere.

"Oh, come now, Max." a dark, distorted voice drifted down from above him as the doll pushed itself back up, grinning madly. The figure was tall, so big and dark. His eyes widened as he gazed up at it. It's face, oh god its face! Ragged and stitched like the doll. It's eyes were black and when it opened its mouth maggots squirmed and tumbled down across its lips. A scarecrow. It was a living scarecrow!

"She only wants to play with you."

Max watched, frozen in horror as the demon raised its arm and white flames shot out from its palm, burning his throat. Burning him alive. The bugs went into a frenzy, they swelled within his stomach, trying to burst out through the skin. He screamed, tearing at his shirt to watch his belly distort as they pushed at it.

"No!" He grabbed a handful of his flesh and tried to pull. Out, he had to get them out! Before they ate him alive! He clawed at the shifting flesh, bashing it when the roaches tried to stop him.

"No." he sobbed, "no no no no no..."

xx

I ran a hand through my tangled hair with a heavy sigh. I was feeling a bit sick right now. Crane had been right though, the man had hated bugs, and though there had been none present, we'd watched him tear out his own stomach to get at them. Crane might be able to handle such things, but I was still relatively new to this sort of thing.

"Did you leave anything in the room?" Crane asked, pulled his burlap mask from his head. His hair fell in damp tendrils around his clear blue eyes, distracting me for a moment. Seeing this, he stood strait, "Elle."

"N..no." I shook my head, "I didn't. We can leave."

He nodded.

Author's Note:

It took me too long to finally type this up. I've been playing with a Crane fic for a couple months now, but never liked the opening chapters I'd had writen. (There were MANY variations of this scene)

It wasn't until I got my hands on a copy of Scarecrow: Year One, and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth(which I SERIOUSLY recommend you read. The artwork is beautiful and twisted, as is the storyline) that it all clicked together.

This story might be a bit disjointed at times, switching from past to present as Elle (or Ragdoll, as she will come to be called) sees it. I wanted to tell a Crane story with a version of Scarecrow I could really have fun with. I want it dark, and hopefull as I get farther into the story that will come across.

For those of you that have read my Joker fic, you know I fancy violence, and I'm going to keep to that here as much as Crane will allow. There will also be a Cameo from my favorite clown and my Harley (perhaps even Alec, his character is just fun to write) in later chapters.

Anyway, send me a bit of feedback. I'm still trying to get used to writing Crane, and it would help to know what works and what doesn't from all of you.

Until next time, Love and Entrails,

Calamity