"Joker! Are you there? What do you want?"
His voice cackled through the phone speaker like a blade. "Well hello big boy! How's it hanging?"
"Don't waste my time, Joker. Just tell me what it is you want." His breathing was ragged, heavy, labored, as if he'd just woken from the first five minutes of sleep he'd gotten in months. And that very well may have been the case.
"Oh, I think you can guess... We want you. In here. With us. In the madhouse. Where you belong."
His silence was all too telling. "And... and what if I say no?"
"Well... We have so many friends here, sweetheart. Say hello to Pearl. Such a cry baby, isn't she? Pearl is nineteen years old. She just started work in the kitchens here to earn some extra money. Pearl wants to be an artist, don't you, Pearl, darling? She just drew me a beautiful house. She drew it with this pencil. The one I've just sharpened. Open your eyes wide, Pearl. Beautiful... Blue... Oh..."
"Jesus, no!" the batman screamed, slamming his fists down, making the dock of the phone jump nearly off the table.
"You have half an hour."
With a flood of cackling, the bat heard the receiver give ea sickening click. With the noise came the reality, and with the reality, the screams of frustration.
Step after step brought the bat to the arms of hell, its very heart and gates. With slow, cautious movements, he made his way to the door, where he stood, without knocking, and simply observed. The building was probably one of the oldest in Gotham, and certainly the most magnificent and beautiful. But only the building's looming sense of doom hung around the batman's mind as he knelt to rub and crush the white powder he found on the asylum's doorstep between his fingers.
"It's salt," a voice cackled through the cracks in the heavy oak door. "Why don't you sprinkle some on me, honey? Aren't I just good enough to eat?"
Even through the thick, fortress-like door, the Joker could hear his adversary's quick, frightened breaths sucked in and out. This elicited another fit of cackles and bellowing laughter from the villain, but no response from the hero.
"I'm here, Joker. Release the hostages," the hero's melancholy, determined voice announced.
"You heard him, folks! Hit the trail!" At that point, the Joker simply let go of the young girl he had been holding tightly in his arms . "Bye Pearl. Let's do it again sometime!"
"But what about her eyes? You said..." the bat protested, gaping at the girl who scrambled quickly away and out of the front door of the asylum.
"APRIL FOOL," interrupted the Joker with an explosion of triumphant laughter.
Batman said nothing, instead choosing to silently watch. He had no confident boasts or threats that day. He was only somber and quiet - waiting. Waiting, waiting...
"Batman?" the Joker questioned, grabbing his backside with a smirk. "Lighten up, tight ass!"
"Get your nasty hands off me," the hero hissed. But he didn't lash out. He didn't hit or curse or even step away. He simply resigned himself to lowering his head into a position of submission.
"I want you to come with me, Batman. There are things you need to see."
Somehow, the Joker knew he didn't need to look behind him to check and make sure that his prisoner was following him. The light, stealthy footsteps of the bat fell in time with the villain's, a melancholy metronome of misfortune, as they slipped down a lifeless, metal hallway. They passed numerous rooms of inmates, many of whom were still locked up.
Bruce was tempted to ask the Joker why, if the inmates had taken over Arkham, so many of them were still locked up, but he stayed quiet, as he had most of the evening, until they reached the very end of the hall where they stopped at a heavy, solid metal door with no windows. When the Joker reached out for the handle, the young but weary Master Wayne felt his heart give a jolt of fear.
When he managed, "What's behind there?" it came out more like a whimper than anything else, and his captor gave a jolly laugh, patting him on the shoulder.
"You'll see, my dear Prince... You'll see."
The door creaked open, revealing a small girl - skinny and bleeding - who was kneeling on the floor. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, but she was emaciated from top to bottom, seeming as though she hadn't eaten in at least a week. When the light poured into the room, she screamed and covered her eyes, howling with pain.
"You see, Batman?"
"No... I don't understand. What's wrong with her?"
"Oh, everything, Batty! Everything. She cuts. And she had a friend here she got too attached to. The first was enough to get her in, and the second was enough to put her in solitary for two months. You and I are the first people she's seen in two months. They give her food through the door and don't speak or evaluate her. Unfortunately... that leads to desperation and more cutting!" He cackled through a pause in his speech, but it sounded oddly as if he were covering up heavy sobs.
"Because she chose to injure herself, she was denied food until her wounds closed. The hunger and solitude ate away at her, Batman, until she could stand it no longer. She ripped her wounds open again and has been doing it since - slowly dying - of misery, loneliness, and starvation. She would need hospital care to bring her back to a point where she could survive and live normally, but no one would take her in, because at this point, she would be a runaway inmate from the asylum."
Batman stared but said nothing, still, as the Joker pulled him out of the room, locking the girl back into the room on his way out. The next room they reached was poor old Two-Face. Harvey Dent! The very same. Bruce stared and stared and stared through the window, not believing what he saw. "What did they do to him?" he asked unknowingly grabbing the Joker's maroon jacket.
The contact caught the villain quite off guard - Batman had been calm and subdued since he'd entered the asylum, so he obviously wasn't trying to start a fight. With a few slow breaths to stead himself, he shrugged his shoulders. "They made him even crazier!" he cackled in response. "Can you imagine? Electroshock therapy! The poor chap! Completely off his rocker, now... All he does is hold that coin and moan all day. Really a sad sight."
"Why are you showing me this? Why do you want me here?" the hero finally begged, staring into the Joker's piercing eyes.
"Because, Batman!" he cackled back. "This is where you belong. And besides... you're the only one who seems to be incorruptible. You're the only one with real eyes, to really see... to know."
"To know what?" Bruce pressed, stepping towards him - dangerously close.
"That this place is a hell hole. That this place... this place is all backwards. And not because of the inmates. Because of the administration! Who we have kindly taken care of."
"You didn't!" the bat cut through the laughter. "You didn't..."
"We did. They're gone, Bruce! Arkham has no one to lead it now! It'll have to be closed! Brilliant, isn't it, Batsy?"
"Yes," Bruce breathed - head falling, heart heaving, and tears falling onto the old creaky floor.
Joker's eyes widened like ripe cherries as he moved in towards his prey, circling him and grabbing his wrists in a gesture of authoritative power. "What did you just say?"
"I said yes," he choked back, making his enemy freeze and stare, just as he had stared before at Harvey Dent in his cell. "How do we get them all out of here?"
There was a pause - long and awkward, like ice cracking - until the Joker finally jumped back into character, "Does Batsy want to help me?"
"I want to save you."