Prologue
The stars were clear. All was well. Ann was finally becoming happy. The key was in the exercise. In less than a week she reduced her fatty figure of 130 pounds to a mere 105. Exercise was fine by her. She didn't mind the itch any more…she was no longer gelatinous. The only time she could get a date before seemed to be in a bar, but once she revealed her new self to the world everything would be okay.
One would say her love life would be more successful than an average girl her age, but she knew them to be wrong. She'd been lucky enough to have been proposed to, and of course she took her opportunity, but she hadn't thought about it then how her husband wouldn't be that for long if she kept her form. She had to be risky, and it looked liked it worked.
She already hadn't been continuing like doctors said others would. She just tried to keep herself at her desired weight. It didn't seem to be enough for her husband. They just fought, although it didn't seem to be big, but he used excuses other than her size. She knew what it was though. She knew. So, on second thought, maybe she should run more. Work off stress and make everyone happy. She just knew she needed to be happy, and this was the only way.
She stopped for a small break (she didn't have the intention of killing herself, after all) in order to catch her breath, and take a sip of the water bottle she grabbed on her way out of her fiancé's department, a Poland Springs liter sized container.
As she sipped the water, she thought it to be lukewarm- in an odd sort of way. The water itself, of course, was icy, satisfying, and obviously straight form the fridge, yet it was as if that, or something else, was making her feel putrid and weak, causing her head to blaze on fire. The pain would only continue and progress, refusing to relent. It didn't stop-Wouldn't stop. She used a technique learned in Tae Kwon Do classes many years ago to ease the burning, yet the rusty skill refused to work.
She soon dropped the bottle with the dramatic thuddish type effect seen in films as her eyes stretched down to the darkness that lie below, despite her veins practically bursting out from all locations. She was turning white. Dead White. Her entire arm was pale, and chalky; drained, and weak. Could she be pregnant somehow?-Was this the price paid for her new "stratagem"?-Was she dying of a random, unknown disease that could suddenly, without symptoms or reasons, strike a perfectly-fit 25 year-old women?
No, it wasn't until she looked down unto the puddle of red mud and turned over to see Gotham's newest demon, that she realized precisely what was happening to her, and that it was too bad for Antonio Beretta- or herself as well- that Ann hadn't been content with the way she was.
The night suddenly became darker. Large and overpowering waves of clouds downed the night sky in its being. All was no longer well.