The sound ricocheted through the concrete hallways, barreling against the walls like a physical force. A moment's reprieve before the dreadful noise again tore from the room and ran down the hallways, as if in fear of itself. It was wretched; the sound of a soul being shredded and tormented. It could almost make one pity the woman making it.
The shrieks and screams were silent for another instance, though there was not silence. Replacing the screams were heaving sobs. Harley's body shuddered under the weight of them, her face contorted into the most basic mask of grief. Her eyes were wrenched shut, her mouth hung slackly open and her chin tilted down towards her chest. Her head drooped until she screamed again and it shot up and her closed eyes stared directly at the ceiling. She screamed until her neck felt like it would pop, until the tendons stood out on her neck and her breath ran out. She remained that way, frozen, for a few seconds afterward, before dropping her head back down and shaking with tears that seemed silent by comparison.
Her throat burned. She could vaguely taste blood at the back of her mouth. She licked her lips to wet them and tasted salty tears. Her shrieks were fading each time, coming out scratchy and popping and her breath aggravated the swollen inside of her throat. At first, when she'd first learned the unthinkable –the impossible- news, the noise she'd made was so full of raw emotion she scared herself realizing she could produce such a sound. The emotion was still there, though the vocal vessel was fading under its strain.
Harley hated the silent moments in between the sobs and the screams because her thoughts yelled. They were so loud in her head she marveled that they did not echo on the cold walls of her cell. Joker would never actually leave, could never actually leave. He always came back, he always took her back. Now that he'd been taken –ripped, rather- from her world and everyone else's by Batman, there was no way he could.
As soon as the story of the Joker's death ran on the news, the guards forced her into a straightjacket and chained her to the wall. She fought back bitterly, not understanding why it was happening. Maybe an hour later, maybe a day later (who could keep track of time?), Batman came and revealed the reason for her restraint. Harley laughed at the news, thinking Batman was trying to get into her head for information like he'd done before. Something in Batman's eyes made her laugh catch in her throat after a moment. This wasn't a joke. She was speechless. Her mouth opened and closed for a moment before she managed in a dark whisper, "You lie." Batman sadly shook his head and walked from her cell. She strained against the chains to watch him leave. "You lie!" she yelled furiously after him. The door closed. "YOU LIE!" she screamed at the door, at Batman, at everyone, at her thoughts that said Batman wouldn't lie about something like this. After that, it was just screaming, wordless and raw.
Two parts wrestled within Harley's mind and struggled for dominance. One side vehemently denied the mere thought of Joker's death as a possibility. The opposing side insisted that Joker was dead and that Batman must pay for it. That everyone must pay for it. A third party meekly sat on the sidelines, unnoticed by the other two, and calmly and logically stated that Joker was most likely dead and that Harley was merely experiences the various stages of grief. A fourth, even more transparent than the third, rejoiced in whispers that she was free of Joker's tyranny. Harley screamed again because she was scared, because she was angry, because she was grieving, because it was too loud in her head, because it was too quiet outside of it. Her voice gave out before her breath did and she fell silent.
Harley looked up as her door unlocked. She opened her eyes and winced at the light. Her door opened and two men came in, one with strong hands, the other with a needle. Sedative, she knew, because they were sick of her yells barraging their eardrums from down the hall. The one with strong hands held her steady, though she couldn't thrash much anyway, and the needle was injected into her neck. The door closed behind the two men, and Harley closed her eyes again.
A small noise bubble up from her throat. It sounded obscure after the hours of screaming. A tiny noise. A laugh. The obscurity of it made it larger. It blossomed about the room until she thought she would be deafened by the sound of her own laughter as it echoed around her. Her vision darkened at the edges as the sedatives began to take effect. Her final thought as her guffaws trickled down to occasional chuckles was how she'd join Joker soon, one way or another.