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Story One: Identity – Batman's identity is uncovered before a young boy's eyes. (This will be a two chapter story).
Chapter 1
Jeremy Sinclair got the chance to walk the girl of his dreams tonight: Alexandra Ross. He stared at the hazel eyed girl with the brown chin length hair and felt his cheeks get hot. He immediately looked down the moment she smiled at him. He was one lucky boy.
"Thanks for walking me home Jeremy," Alexandra said, turning the knob on the door in front of her. "Someone coulda kidnapped me or something."
He kept his eyes glued to the floor and tried to breathe slowly. "Y-yeah, well, you know…I'm always around, so if you ever need anyone to walk you home just ask me, alright?" He looked back up and stared at Alexandra's pretty freckled face. A nervous smile that trembled crept onto his lips. He felt his cheeks get hotter. They felt like that chili his cousin had tricked him into eating a few years back.
"I will. See you at school," she said with a smile. A click was heard and a shuffle of footsteps when she turned the knob. Then, she was gone—leaving him all alone.
Jeremy stood there for a couple of seconds and took a deep breath. The hotness that he had felt emanating from his cheeks disappeared. Thoughts raced through his head. He wondered when he would walk her home again. He wondered if she had the same feelings for him as he did for her. He wondered…
Nah, he thought, what am I thinking?
It was a cool night. Wisps of air found themselves exploring the holes of Jeremy's old sweater. The smell of alcohol, urine and lit up cigarettes filled his nostrils and the night air around him. Black snow stained by oil and dirt was heaped up against the poles of street signs and the corners of a few buildings; a couple of bums were hanging out by a nice warm fire coming from a grime covered trashcan. A group of men stood on the corner of the street with their hands in their pockets, muttering words like "drugs" and "stealing." Prostitutes dressed in tiny skirts and shoed in colorful high heels leaned against the cold and rough walls of the city's buildings. He was used to walking through the dark and suspicious blanketed streets of the Hollows late at night. He knew what alleyways to take, what streets to turn and what people to ignore all thanks to his friends and his father, Allan Sinclair, who thought Batman was a masked lunatic.
Batman.
Ever since the masked vigilante emerged out of nowhere and onto the screens of people's televisions and the goggle-eyed headlines of newspapers, Jeremy could not help but to be intrigued by, as he liked to call him, the "human bat." Everything about the Batman lured Jeremy into a trail of curiosity. Millions of questions raced through his head whenever when ever the name "Batman" was mentioned or a photograph of this "human bat" in action was shown to him. Why does he do it? What's his suit made of? Can he really fly?
Most importantly, who is he underneath that black leather mask? Is he human or is he just some mutated freak that escaped from a secret lab not so far away from the edges of Gotham City? And if he is human, then who, in Gotham City, is the man who has the guts to put on a leather suit, masking and free-flowing cape in order to kick the behinds of crazed and greedy criminals?
He caught the scarecrow.
He also caught the Joker.
And now, he was being hunted.
Jeremy wanted answers, but he knew he would never get them. He could only guess and let information from the newspaper headlines and television seep into his adolescent little head.
As Jeremy turned the corner, he heard the light tapping of someone's footsteps steadily lurking behind him. His heart leaped and his breath became hollow and fast—he was being followed. He quickened his pace, feeling the cold sweat that gently kissed his forehead as it streamed down. Run, he thought, and you'll be dead in seconds. Walk fast and you'll die slow or if you're lucky, you'll get the chance to run for it.
There was no way in hell that he would turn his head to get a glimpse of his unknown stalker. It would only make things worse for Jeremy, the kid who fainted at the sight of a baby rattlesnake on a class field trip when told to stop putting his hand over his eyes.
Jeremy froze, feeling a light tap on his shoulder. His eyes widened. "Chill, kid," he heard a gruff voice say behind him, "I'm not gonna do anything to you." He stood there—eyes still wide—and watched as a broad and tall man dressed in a brown trench coat walked passed him. The man chuckled and it was not just any chuckle: It was the kind of chuckle that could really make a man land on his knees in surrender. It sent a shiver snaking down Jeremy's spine. It scared him. The chuckle was drenched in something sinister.
Jeremy stood and watched as the man's silhouette got smaller and smaller as he walked down the dimly lit street, until finally he disappeared from sight. He took the sleeve of his sweater and wiped it across his forehead, absorbing the sweat that was beginning to stick to his crackly skin.
Thank God he was almost home.