It's exactly twelve-twenty-three a.m. at Arkham Asylum, and all that I get to do is repeatedly hit the back of my head against the wall of my ultra-white cell for days. Gods, could this straitjacket be any more uncomfortable? The wall I sit against is always icy cold; my cell is next to Mr. Freeze's and all you can hear through the wall is "Nora, my sweet Nora." and, "One day I will get out of here and bring you back, my dear, beautiful, lovely Nora." I swear, if you aren't insane before Arkham, you will be after. (That should be their slogan.)
"...Good night, William..." a slightly sadistic voice called to me through the opposite wall. Anarky, another teen-gone-wrong, lives on the other side of my cell, and I have the sneaky suspicion that he wants me. I gag at the thought. He is crazy. (Way to be a hypocrite, Will.) I'm serious, the kid paid one of the security guards to take a picture of me for him. I so do not want to know what he does with it.
I thought I would stop ending up here, in this place. But, what can I say? Life is full of trix, and you never know when you're going to be wrongfully accused of a crime and shoved into a straitjacket... again. Luckily, it was just a little thing this time, mild assault and petty theft and whatnot. Psh'yeah, like I would give up my brand new life of good for mild assault and petty theft. (Now, if it was a one of those shiny yellow porches...) I'll be out in a day or two. Good behavior and what not... Plus, the world needs me to be back out on the streets to keep an eye on the ex-cons that frequented the dirty little bar I worked at.
The Broken Bottle, ah, now there is a fine example of what Gotham has to offer the world. Cons, gangsters, mobs, (all of who are alcoholics) you even get an real villain every once in a while, all coming in for a drink and a place to whine about life, then proceed to pass out on the floor.
In fact, that's exactly where I was about twenty-five hours ago. Taking out the trash, that's it. Then a couple of thugs ran into me. One of them pointed a knife right at me. (If you had a nickel for every time that happened... Well, Raven would owe you big time.) He started screaming at me, saying something about how "all we need is a body" and blah, blah, blah.
To be honest, I did what any (in)sane person would have done. I mean, swiping the knife right from the guys thick, ugly hands and kind of threatening him to carve him up in a Red Raven like fashion... The point is, he threatened me first, and it's only because I'm a past offender that I'm back here.
Anyway... It's too bad I'm alone. It's much harder to resist sleep if you're not bored to death. (You wish, you slippery-handed insomniac.) I don't hate sleep. I fact, I love sleep... It's the dreams I have the problems with. The twisted memories... Those I hate.
If they weren't so vivid maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe if I didn't have to see my best friend dying, drowning in her own blood, with me standing there, not able to do anything every time I close my eyes, I could live with the nightmares. It was times like those were I thank the Gods for this straitjacket. (Otherwise, you would claw out your eyeballs!)
That was it, the (second) horrible life changing experience that made you reexamine your pitiful life. From then on it's a life of good-deed-doing for me... Even if I'm all alone, even if I've lost my best friend in the process, it's one more bad guy off the streets. And the more of these drunken, haywire madmen I can convince to turn over a new leaf is all for the better, right?... (Wrong.)
The door to my cell opened. "William Ethan Snyder: you're free to go."