Chapter 1

Wavering

Water streamed down the sides of the old crumbling building, rain pattered loudly upon the cracked pavement. Clara ducked into a low lit side-street and crouched below an overhanging balcony, the cloudy sky above hiding much of the icy moon's light. She tugged at her mud-soaked uniform, the red was dark brown under all the dirt, a small circle of blue with a white cross was just barely visible upon her shoulder.

Shivering, she listened. The rain was a constant buzz and drowned out sounds that would have normally been much more apparent, it cloaked the possible sound of approaching footsteps; Clara hated this. She tightened her arms around herself, curling inwards for warmth.

She had been stuck in Arkham City for over two weeks now, and during that time she had danced with death repetitively, little access to food or water and with the constant danger of being caught and killed by the others imprisoned within the compound.

Clara only dealt with problems when she had no other choice, within her mind she liked to live elsewhere, but what could she do when there was no way to deal with the problem? Escape was the only answer, but she was yet to figure out how.

Only mere hours ago the place she had been sleeping in, her only shelter from the elements and cold of the oncoming winter, a ruin of a house missing much of its wall, had been found by others. And so she had ran, with no other choice she sought a new home, no matter how hard to find.

For a while she rested, and time seemed to slow down for what could have been minutes but may have been hours, all Clara knew was that when she next looked up, drawn to reality by the harsh shouts of approaching voices, was that the rain had stopped falling.

'Hey! A bit far off ya patch, aren't ya, ladies?' shouted one voice, much closer than comfortable.

Hunkering down further against the wall, Clara peeked out from the shadows, fighting to keep her breathing quiet.

They were not shouting at her though, Clara could see from where she was, that two patrols from rivalling gangs had just crossed paths and were now sizing each other up. She recognised the insignias, white face paint and colour for one group, warped rubber masks for the other; the Joker's and Two-Face's people.

'Screw you! We own this town!' shouted back a man with a twisted smile painted upon his face, and immediately he was backed up by a chorus of yells from his group. There were more people in the Joker's patrol than Two-Face's, and they knew it.

'Oh yeah? Well word is that your boss isn't going to be around much longer, guess we'll just have to help ourselves to his town.'

'Tough talk coming from a newcomer! Joker has been here since the beginning, ain't no way Two-Face has got anything on us!'

It seemed imminent that a fight was about to break out. Clara watched, her nervous thoughts darting between the idea of waiting until the fight was over or fleeing while they were distracted.

But the fight never broke out, for at that moment a series of shots rang out. One of Two-Face's men had somehow got his hands on a handgun, a weapon not readily assessable in the compound due to regulation - steel pipes, chains and crowbars were much more common.

Joker's patrol party was now fleeing, though two lay sprawled upon the ground unmoving. Two-Face's patrol gave chase and ran after them. The two groups quickly disappeared from sight but she could hear them both long after they were gone, Clara listened to them over her own pulse beating loudly in her ears.

Then her gaze fell upon the sprawled bodies.

'You better be quick,' said a voice to her left.

Clara looked over her shoulder and saw her brother, Dereck, was standing nearby. He smiled at her and crossed his arms. She frowned at him uncomfortably.

'If you don't hurry up, the other's will be back and then there won't be anything left for you,' he continued. 'Come on, I mean it isn't like you're starving and own nothing but that tatty uniform you've still got on from Mercy's.'

'It is not an opportunity I can afford to ignore,' she agreed. 'Warn me if you hear anyone coming back.'

She listened out once more for anyone nearby, then she darted out from her cover and ran to the unmoving men.

Part of her mind cringed as she crouched down to rummage through their pockets for spoils, telling her it was wrong to steal from anyone let alone disrespect the dead in this way, but she was desperately hungry, unarmed and without any useful possessions other than the uniform she still wore from her psychiatric unit.

Blanking out any empathy she might have held for the two dead people, she tried to tell herself to think of the situation as a shopping opportunity rather than a theft. She grabbed a black beanie off of one of them, placing it over her cold head. Her hair was only just beginning to grow back, the orderlies had thought it best she had it shaved off before she was placed within this 'correctional facility', they had said it was so she would draw less attention to herself.

Clara had naively thought the place she was being sent to was safe, but Clara knew the truth now, and she recalled the last words she had shared with her nurse only too bitterly:

'And the more dangerous patients, and the prisoners from Blackgate. They will be segregated, right?'

'Pff, I can't think why they wouldn't be, sweetheart. It's not like they plan to lock you all up together in the hopes that you'll all kill each other.'

A nearby groan brought her abruptly out of her musings, prompting her to drop the empty mint and cigarette packets she had found in her rummaging. Her eyes darted downward and to the next man along, whom she still hadn't investigated yet.

To both her horror and surprise he was still breathing, still moving, and even as she looked he choked and shuddered.

'Well it's your time to shine now, Clara,' said Dereck, walking into view. 'You going to help him?'

Clara ignored him, frozen on the spot, conflict tearing at her mind to the point she did not know what to do next.

'He is practically a dead man,' she said eventually, trying to reason her immorality, gaze turning to Dereck. 'Joker's patrol are not going to come back to rescue him and when Two-Face's gang find him again they'll kill him.'

'He's not dead at the moment.' Dereck pointed out, shrugging his shoulders.

Clara frowned again, her hands twitching. She eyed the still living man's puffer jacket, it had no arms so she could easily see the deep pockets by the man's hip; would it really be so bad to steal something if someone else was bound to steal it otherwise anyway?

Her stalling cost her precious time though, and quite suddenly she was aware of the sound of approaching voices.

'You should probably get out of here,' Dereck suggested.

Without thinking, Clara grabbed the injured man under his arms and dragged him out of view to where she had been hiding before, she then hunkered down and hid as well. She held the sleeves of her shirt over his mouth so that his choking would not give them away.

It was Two-Face's patrol returning, they took one look at the remaining dead man, kicked him over, then moved on. Clara released her hold on the injured man's jaw, and turned to look down at him pitifully. The injured man began choking again, this time she saw blood staining his teeth.

'Do you know what to do?' her brother asked, peering down at the dying man.

Memories and experiences of a lifetime that seemed so distant as to be figments of a dream came streaming back, and with little thought Clara found herself acting accordingly. She took off the man's jacket and used it to prop up his head, being careful not to twist his neck. She held a hand to his neck, and felt his pulse. His heart was beating too slowly, bradycardia. She looked to his face and saw that his eyes were open and looking at her, he then shuddered and his fingers make a weak attempt to curl in upon themselves.

'It's going to be alright,' she found herself reassuring him automatically as she pulled back his shirt to look at his injuries. Only to find that she couldn't, the injury was too messy. .

Clara knew immediately that the bullet had struck a major artery, and possibly more with the weakness the man was demonstrating. This would not necessarily have been fatal in the modern world they lived in, but she already knew there was nothing she could do. She pulled a sock from her pocket, which she had previously used as a cloth, and pressed down over the injury nonetheless. But she knew a simple bandage or compression wouldn't do, the internal injuries were too great.

The man was passing away before her own eyes, skin turning ashen while his choking became feebler.

'I think we're losing him, doc,' joked Dereck.

Clara swatted at her brother and turned to snarl at him: 'I am not a doctor!'

Then she turned away from him and pressed down upon the dying man's wound again.

'But you could have been,' Dereck chided. 'If, you know, you hadn't gone completely crazy.'

Clara shivered, but it was not from the cold, she refused to give her brother further bait.

'I have other priorities now,' she bit out in a toneless voice. 'Even if it means acting some sort of foul vulture, or rat, taking whatever advantages I can just to stay alive, no matter what the cost to anyone else, I must survive.'

And she returned to her original mission.

She took the dying man's jacket for herself. Her thoughts turned bitter at her own self pity, she helped herself to the man's belt, shoes and even his bloodstained shirt.

The man was still twitching some minutes after she had abandoned trying to help him, but Clara believed he was no longer consciously aware of his surroundings, thus mercifully not aware of the cold or pain from being shot.

'Are you going to take anything for yourself?' she asked her brother after a while, pointing out to the remaining dead man in the street.

'Of course not. You know I can't,' scoffed Dereck, then gestured to the perfectly clean and ironed brown and white work suit he wore. 'Besides, I've already got perfectly adequate clothing.'

Clara blinked at him astonished.

'How did you...' she began, but then she remembered. 'I'm sorry. I forgot; you're not really here.'

And she turned away from him, and gathered the items she had stolen, counting to ten in her head.

When she looked back, Dereck was gone.

Clara pulled the shoelace through a hole she had driven through her old uniform shirt with a pen knife. With new clothes stolen and collected from around the compound, she had began to convert her old shirt into a bag of sorts, so as to make it easier for her to carry items from place to place while she scavenged. And now her work was complete.

Her newest home, of many since arriving here, was underneath a rotten wooden porch, which she could just about squeeze under and was so dark that no one was likely to see her if they looked in without the aid of a torch. She wasn't having much luck with food though, and hunger was always on her mind, as was fatigue.

For a moment she rested her head, as always she faced away from the wall to keep a look out, she could faintly see the street beyond illuminated by the moonlight. Her thoughts drifted to food, she thought of junk food, of sugar sweet soda and vinegar coated chips. For a moment she smiled at the thought, then she began to move closer to sleep.

Abruptly she was falling, the sky above her was a sharp blood red and the only surface she could grab onto to stop her fall were sharp and jagged rocks that jutted out of the cliff face, battering and bruising her hands whenever she tried to reach for them. The air around her feverishly hot, choking her whenever she tried to breath.

Clara jolted awake and sat up the best she could in the cramped space, hyperventilating. She looked around at her surroundings, reassuring herself that she was still in the increasing cold of Arkham City and not elsewhere. Subconsciously one hand drifted to the left side of her face where a jagged scar stretched down from the top of her cheek reaching nearly to her lip.

She shook her head fiercely, trying to clear her head. Hunger gnawed at her stomach and she knew that if she didn't eat soon she risked running too low on energy to be able to gather any more in the future. She could run fast now but she would run exhausted, it would be worse if she was slow and exhausted. She would die.

It was time to face the music again. She slipped out from her hiding spot cautiously, all the while listening out for possible danger. And then, with her make-shift bag upon her back, she set off into the night.

She was not an idiot. Clara repeated this to herself as she hid, soaked to the bone, back pressed up against the slippery green wall of an old bridge. Wide eyed she listened for the tell-tale sound of running feet. She did not want to be caught, she knew what would happen if she was. This was a new level of danger really, Clara had never dared venture this close to the heart of Two-Face's territory before, but she needed the food, and she knew this gang would likely have a lot of it.

Perhaps it had been idiotic to venture here, but it was all about survival. Everything now was about weighing the odds out, what was worth what? What was worth the risk? For the example, the stolen goods she carried with her now in her makeshift bag, said goods consisting of several tins of food and a pair of scissors – were they worth the risk she had just taken? A wager that given her life did not end that night that she would have something to eat later, just so that she could repeat the whole process again when she ran out of food once more.

She froze and held her breath as two thugs stormed past her hiding place, the rubber masks upon their faces eerily warped.

There were reasons other than distance that had made her target Two-Face's territory, as far as she knew from what she had overheard so far was that his gang was no particularly stable yet, apparently it was 'still finding it feet', though she was not so naïve as to think that this meant this 'heist' was safe. She had a keen fear of Joker's territory, having had most of her previous shelters found out by his patrols, she was more than eager to stay away from that area of the city. She knew little of the third major gang run by the Penguin, she understood it was in a relatively small area but also highly fortified – not that she had ever dared wander close enough to see if this was really the case.

She waited for a few moments more before she dashed from her hiding space, making for the shadows in an alcove just a few meters up ahead, just as another one of the thugs dropped down from the balcony above to follow after the others. She scrambled to a halt and immediately gave herself away.

'What the-' the thug barely had time to notice her before she was running away in the opposite direction. Adrenaline had bitten in sharply and she wished to put as much room between her and the gang as possible.

'Over here! The little shit is over here!' she heard them shout, the pounding of her feet on the ground and the pulse of her life in her head drowned out much else.

She couldn't hear how far behind her they there, she couldn't tell if there were any more up ahead, but given that she was smack down right near the middle of Two-Face's territory, it would be very unlikely that they weren't.

Sure enough she spotted more nonchalantly standing around up ahead, not yet aware of her intrusion. She darted into a side alley, and hid behind a dumpster. Up ahead of her was a dead end, a three story wall with nothing to grip onto. She hoped they would pass by, she really hoped!

'Down there!'

But they were getting closer.

Clara looked up and around herself frantically, wondering whether or not climbing on top of the dumpster would help her reach anything that would allow her to scale the wall. She felt cold metal below her hands and realised that she was crouched directly over a drainage cover, she pulled it up immediately and scrambled down. She could only just fit, the tunnel around her was not forgiving, and without much room to move it was hard to scramble very fast along it.

'Quick! Get down there!' She heard them pulling drainage cover back further, the shuffling of many agitated feet echoed in the tunnel.

'Man, I can't see shit! Has anyone got a light?'

She continued scrambling along, not bothering about how much noise she made now, it was too late anyway, she pushed her precious loot ahead of her, but it was greatly slowing her down and worse now was that she didn't even have the option to get rid of it, there simply wasn't enough room in the tunnel to move the bag behind her.

'There is someone down there! Aw, hell, they are way back! How are we supposed to reach them now?'

The simple answer was that they couldn't.

She continued scrambling for what felt like hours. She feared she would suffocate, there was little air in the tunnel to begin with, but then the tunnel opened up into a much larger area, an abrupt drop ahead of her.

Her fingers closed upon the tunnel edge, she pulled herself forward so she could look around.

It must have been an old sewer system she decided, though it obviously hadn't been running in a long time. The only water draining into here now was rainwater from the narrow drainage tunnels, such as the one she had just crawled down. Clara had already long since learned that none of the taps in Arkham City worked, the facility was not provided with water on a regular basis. In fact she didn't know where the others here even got water from, she had initially stolen it from them but soon realised that water was very heavy and running helter-skelter down a slippery street would be fatal if said prize was not quickly relinquished.

She tossed her bag of tins onto a nearby walkway, then shimmied over herself after it. She quickly checked on the goods to make certain that they were all there, making sure that she hadn't accidentally dropped any into the water, then she looked around for a way out. By logic's sense there had to be an exit somewhere nearby because of all the access walkways that she could see. All she needed to do was look around for a metal ladder soldered to the wall and sure enough she would find a drainage cover at the top.

Clara did a double take when she caught sight of her reflection in the water below, thinking for a moment that someone was already down there with her. Her face was grubby with dirt, the scar on her cheek accentuated by the filth. She looked nothing like she remembered, she didn't look like Clara. But quite frankly she didn't want to be Clara right now.

Then Dereck's reflection showed up beside hers.

'How about you be someone else?' he suggested. 'You don't have to be Clara anymore if you don't want to. No one here is going to stop you, no one here knows any better.'

'I don't want to be anyone else.' Clara replied brokenly. 'I liked who I am.'

'Liked. See? Try being someone else while you don't like you.'

'I just want to get out of here,' she ignored him, but then gave his suggestion some thought. 'I need a plan, though I guess being someone else might help in the meantime.'

It was all part of her plan, she told herself, not that her plan was very intricate. She wanted to escape the confines of Arkham City, that was her main goal other than survival. A change of character was necessary, she had told herself many times, she needed to be someone else. She could not be vulnerable, though she was, so she had to tell herself that she wasn't. It was all fairly familiar territory with her, she had told herself stories before, told herself false truths, she did not find it hard to make them up.

'I'll be Kelly.' she replied.

The face that looked back at her – a desperate exhausted face with tired eyes and sunken cheeks - so different than what she remembered, but that suited her just fine, she could just pretend that it wasn't her. It went with her new tale, her new persona - perhaps Kelly - wasn't doing so well, but Clara was just fine.

'No you won't, doesn't sound tough enough.' scoffed Dereck, sitting down to polish his shoes with one sleeve. 'I've got a much better idea, you can be called Dereck!'

'But that's your name,' she replied, exasperated. 'What's wrong with Kelly?'

'Absolutely nothing,' he said, putting his hands in his pockets and then grinned. 'But, Dereck is a very good name, who wouldn't want to be named after me?'

'I am not Dereck,' she replied and set about opening one of the tins of baked beans she had, covering the tin with a piece of cloth to muffle the noise as she struck repeatedly at the metal with a rock until it warped. She then stabbed the stretched metal with her pocketknife and ripped it open.

'Why not Dereck?' her brother continued, dusting off the shoulders of his suit.

'Because if I was then you wouldn't exist,' she replied, wolfing down the contents of the tin.

'On the contrary, if you didn't exist, I still would,' Dereck said, walking away from her.

Clara bit her tongue, immediately regretting her words.

'...a tin opener would be useful,' Clara said abruptly, trying to ignore what had just been said. 'I haven't seen any lying around though, probably worth more than their weight in gold in this prison compound, right? Dereck?'

But her mind had now caught up with reality again, and Dereck had vanished.

She shook her head furiously and tried to focus on her breathing. She counted to 10 again, then looked back down at what tonight's excursion had been all about; food. She considered opening a second tin, but then contemplated how gluttony was not something she could afford, when something thudded dully nearby.

She froze.

It was a quiet sound, she would not have even heard if she had still been eating. The water nearby lapped lazily against the wall opposite her, but that made no sense - this place was disused.

Abruptly the waters in front of her exploded.

Waves cascading in every direction and splashing loudly in the tunnels. Something huge and dark had lurched out of the water and onto the walkway she had been sitting on only moments before, but Clara didn't get a clear look because she was already running.

Like a dog with its tail between its legs, Clara fled screeching in terror down a rusted metal walkway, the metal chains clinking and screeching warningly with each step she took.

She heard the monster try to pursue her, the whip like crack of metal when the chains holding up the walkway behind her broke; whatever her pursuer was, falling back into the water again with an almighty splash.

Clara glanced back over her shoulder and saw that her thing had disappeared, completely vanished from sight. She didn't stop running though, frantically she scanned for an exit of any kind, a ladder, another drainage tunnel leading to the surface! It was then she became aware of the lack of weight upon her back or the chafing of cloth around her neck.

Her backpack!

Her food!

She skidded to a halt and looked back, she could no longer see around the bend where she had been before but with no sign of her bag now she knew she had left it there.

She was presented with yet another decision, was the return worth it? Was the risk worth it?

'Clang!'

The answer came immediately as a resounding NO, when without warning huge clawed hands gripped either side of the walkway she was standing on, and dug in, there was a reptilian like hiss and the metal began to buckle like it was made out of cardboard.

Clara narrowly avoided being thrown into the water by leaping onto the next platform.

There was a growl and she heard the air whistle behind her as it swiped at her, then there was the popping and crumbling of the cement above as the chain rivets were ripped free from their holdings in the ceiling.

It was no safer on the walkway than it was in the water.

And then salvation, she spotted a tunnel like the one she had exited, just up ahead to her left. She scrambled up, clawing and kicking for all she was worth as scrambled inwards and away from the main tunnel. Terrified of being caught half in and defenceless, she had no idea how fast she was moving, no idea how far she was from the main tunnel she had just left.

There was a bestial roar behind her and something violently knocked one of her boots to one side. She heard the claws catch on the side of the tunnel and tear at the concrete. Immediately Clara pulled her feet up to her body, curling in on herself in the narrow tunnel, crushing herself but willing to sacrifice her comfort for her retention of her limbs.

She could now see back down the tunnel, and saw to her horror one of the same hands that had crushed the metal walkway reaching in after her, trying to catch hold of her and hook her back out.

Wryly she thought of the old rumours of alligators living in the sewers as she noted the dark green scales upon the clawed hand, it didn't look human, this didn't seem real and Clara wondered if perhaps if her mind had completely cracked and she was imaging everything.

Her memories then darted back to her general knowledge of Gotham before her incarceration and she remembered the terrifying tales of Killer Croc the cannibal. She tugged herself a little further along the tunnel using just her hands before she was certain enough that it was safe for her to use her feet and scramble away.

The beast roared at her down the tunnel, giving up on trying to pull her out. The tunnel seemed to shudder as there was a loud thud. The monster growled and then there was a loud splash. There was no further noise as Clara frantically scrambled further and further away.

A/N: Killer Croc doesn't make much of an appearance in this chapter, but he will become progressively more important as the story goes on.

Quick summary of this chapter:

Clara is a young woman who has been incarcerated in Arkham City, the reasons are not yet given but it's strongly implied to be mental illness including vivid hallucinations and post-traumatic stress.

Having been chased out of yet another of her temporary hideouts, Clara is on the run and in search of a new home. Tired and cold, she rests from the rain under shelter. Nearby a fight breaks out between Joker's and Two-Face's gangs. Two men are shot, and in the aftermath Clara goes out to steal what she can off the corpses. One of the men is still alive, and remembering some of her medical training, Clara tries to save him but fails. All the while imagining her brother is with her, only to then remember that that isn't possible as he is no longer around.

About a week later she tries to steal food from Two-Face's gang but fails, she only narrowly escapes into the sewer system where they can't follow her. Here she begins to imagine her brother is talking to her again, she delays finding a way out because of this. Killer Croc is in the vicinity and hears her, desperately hungry himself, he frantically tries to catch and eat her. Clara is lucky for a second time that night though, and manages to escape.