What is Arkham Asylum?
(POV from a therapist with a Tape Recorder)
This place is rotting, it's disgusting, and I swear I heard the walls talking to me at lunch earlier today. That was enough to ruin my appetite. And I'm hearing laughter echo throughout the Asylum, laughing at the silence. It happens every. Single. Night. Every. Passing. Second. Laughter. Like this place is a joke to him. It's a hellhole where criminals of the worst caliber end up. Where the unforgiving, ruthless, mentally instable, greedy criminals go. Haunting this specter of a prison. It's like one big grave, and the criminals are just sent here to die. Excluded from society. Falling apart. Dead to the world. And a lost cause. And no one can talk them out of it.
There's criminals like Two Face, who's split personality depicts the epitome of an indecisive mind. Doing anything to satisfy his compulsion with the number two. Even if it could mean splitting someone in two. Harley Quinn. A former therapist here at Arkham corrupted by Joker's sick mind. Now as crazy as he is. Killer Croc. A human crocodile with a cannibalistic and unending appetite for human flesh.
Then there's the big bad himself. The Joker. Laughing throughout the night because this prison is, like I've said before, a big joke to him. He doesn't care if the fear quality of his place makes you lose your godforsaken mind, driving you to a point where you think the walls are going to close in on you. Where everyone's out to get you. The walls peeling. The structure rotting. The prison bars rusting, growing weaker, weaker, weaker by the years. And soon enough, allowing everyone the chance to break loose and give Gotham City a taste of what insanity really is. The ground unstable. No one is safe here. There's a reason why this place is the Worst Place in the World. Why even Batman isn't enough to make anyone forget this place, no matter how much he scares the crap out of you. No matter how many bones he breaks. Or no matter how many times he drops you off a building and asks for answers. Never mind the fact that when a criminal closes his eyes, they're afraid of the dark because of the Batman. The Batman doesn't measure up to Arkham Asylum. Scarecrow uses fear to his advantage with his Fear Toxin, and enjoys Fear. So this place is just heaven for him. A home. The Batman can scare the living hell out of these super villains, and it still wouldn't add up to Arkham. There's no therapy in the world that can make you forget this place. Once you even step foot into it, you're a part of it. You're a part of the dying, hellish, haunted prison. And wherever you go, you'll begin to become Arkham Asylum. Here, we all embody Arkham in some way.
No one is safe. You're most likely to die here than in Gotham alone. And in here, you're surrounded by people that just scream their heads off when someone threatens to cut up a fellow inmate or even a sane criminal. Or no one at all. Jeremiah Arkham is sealed away in the walls, becoming a voice for insanity. Maybe he's what I heard at lunch today. And I can still hear him. Whispering intently. Softly. Gently. Tenderly. Arkham is life. Arkham is hope. Arkham is your place of refuge. I've been here for almost a week, and I've felt my mind snapping ever since then. I feel like I haven't slept in years. Let alone eat or drink. My eyes fixated on the rotting horror of the madness around me. The torture,. The screams. The shouts. The laughter. The demented but tender voice that whispers at me every passing second. Has it really been a week? I can't tell because I've been fighting to try and stay sane foe what seems like a decade. My stomach is eating me alive from the inside out. My eyes stuck open. My teeth chattering from the chill of fear. My hair is a mess. My body spazzing. My steps uncoordinated. My brain unable to function properly. My nose has become used to the stench of death apparently years and years old. My lips dry. My skin pale. My hands rapidly tapping on something as my way of staying in touch with the real world. Some criminals mugged me and attacked me a couple of days ago and discarded me of my belongings. I have had to deal with a therapist coat and spare underwear…
Arkham is life. Arkham is hope. Arkham is your place of refuge. My body bent at an uncomfortable angle whenever I do try to sleep, writhing in my bed. Screaming like everyone else. There is no peace and quiet here. There is no peace at all. No one can breathe or whisper or think "safe" without someone murdering or abusing them in some way. Arkham is not life. Arkham is not hope. Arkham is not a place of refuge. I feel as if my senses are warped and I'm losing my grip on the world. I feel like-*Five average built criminals break through the ill-constructed door and the therapist screams at them. All of them shouting at her, pursuing her as if she was the only thing they've seen in a millennia. The therapist screams for them to get off of her, and they resist her cries for help. As the criminals make an attempt to murder her, Jeremiah can be heard whispering his phrase again in the therapist's ear as the life fades out of her lifeless, pale eyes.* Arkham is life. Arkham is hope. Arkham is your place of refuge…