"The end days were upon us, Allen..."

I saw my father die.

Can you imagine? You run up the steps and you see him there and you think-

Well. Lots of things.

More precisely, I sat there, his head in my arms, looking at his corpse. In my memory, he clung to life a bit longer, his eyes hung open for a second before he went. So he got a good look at me. Even though I'm sure it didn't happen that way.

I didn't even get to watch him die. That would've been something else. Watching him run out. Watching time run out. For him. For me. For all of us.

All the clichés.

I just. Ran up the stairs and there he was.

Already gone.

And I guess I could be pretty angry about what happened to him. You know, some no-account kills your dad with a boomerang, it kind of kills your spirit.

I had spent some time prior to his death wondering how much longer I could keep this going. How much longer I could keep living the life I had. There were so many transitory things in those days. In my life. As it turned out, life floated on a dime. Things changed. And in a very short time I found myself living a different life. Like an out of body experience: who was this skinny kid in the Robin suit, and why was he so unhappy at his lot?

As it turned out, I'm not sure it was ever my life to begin with.

And I am writing this to figure out why.

I had this friend once. Maybe you know him. Brilliant kid. A journalist by heart and now by occupation. He would say he didn't understand people, but I disagree. He knew damn well. Knew his way in and out of people, except for one. Knew what he wanted. And how to get it. He was an investigator. You know. A digger. We met on a whim, a cosmic anomaly of crossroads. Years ago at a Knights game, his seat a row ahead of mine, our dads comparing stats in their programmes, he and I sneaking around the park at Seventh Inning to experience the grass and the box seats, the high and the low.

Later, back in reality, we stayed in touch. He was in Metropolis, I was in Gotham. We were a couple of over-intellectual teenagers. Inflated egos and diminishing returns guiding our lives. But. You know. That was then. Allen and I grew apart, the way people do. As it turns out we both found our way to sterner shores and authority figures. But. Oh those Knights games. Oh those days. The golden days, the good old days-

I've been reading these articles Olsen puts in the Living section of the Daily Planet. Depressive and imaginative, they talk about those old days.

The good old days. So he says. The good old days.

Not so long ago.

We used to have heroes.

My name is Tim Drake.

If you're reading this it means I succeeded in sending it. And it means I am also most definitely dead. And Gotham with me. Don't worry, I'll tell you how.

I'll give it to you in three sentences or less.

One. I was thirteen when I saw John and Mary Grayson die. Two. I spent a year tracking down their only living son, so I could become like him and in so doing save the Batman from himself. Three.

Three.

Three is I failed.

Miserably.

So if you're reading this, Allen, you have to know why. You deserve to know why. Who. What. Where. When.

How.

All your Journalism questions.

One thing.

Wherever we go from here, Allen, we go together. I was not the best friend a man could ask for. As it turns out I was pretty piss poor. I should've helped you when you asked for it. I cannot apologize enough for that. I can't turn back time. But I can offer you a chance, and I hope you take it.

A chance to learn or maybe just see why that age of heroes started dying in Gotham City. Why we couldn't save it. Or ourselves.

Allen.

I'm so sorry for this. But. If we're being honest, then the masks are off. Effective immediately.

First one is the easiest. My real name is Timothy Jackson Drake. But I'm actually called Robin. The Teen Wonder. You knew this years ago at the LexTower. And since you knew it then you've probably pieced the rest together too. Including this:

Batman.

I knew what you thought. I knew where your feelings were on the subject. I knew where you stood. But it was my choice. And his.

Even becoming Batman was a choice. His choice. Even if it was the only one he could make at the time he made it. Even if you get to a point, far out there, where reality is unreal and the rules aren't rules anymore, they're shackles, and the only choice anyone has is no choice at all.

He didn't have a choice. I don't know why I'm defending him but I am.

I am. Because. He's my father. The father I never had.

First difficult truth out of the way. The next one.

Batman is Bruce Wayne.

And. You know. Given your relationship to a certain Metropolis Mogul, I think you might already know.

One more thing. The fact that you're reading this also means I am truly desperate to have sent it to you, Allen. The fact that I did means-

Well.

That they're probably all dead too. People I'd trust with my life, before I'd trust you, any day of the week. Dick Grayson. Barbara Gordon. Even Harvey Bullock. Yeah figure that one out, you met Bullock once, remember?

Anyway.

I remember Olsen.

Not so long ago.

We had heroes.

And if you want to know why we don't? Keep going, Allen. And if not, then. Then.

Then in five minutes if you don't type in your full name, the command line in this program will wipe this document and all data on this computer till there's nothing left but a blue screen of death. It's not quite MS-DOS, but it's very nearly the Stone Age. Getting up there, getting up there.

I can't say I trust you to do the right thing, Allen, because that doesn't exist anymore. And because I needed to put this out there. I need to write this. Before they come for me. Or I disappear and one day you try looking for me and-

Never mind. The only thing I could ask, and it would speak only from my heart, would be this:

Once you're done with this, do something with it. Make it something. Make yourself something. Change the world. Change our world. Earn this, Allen. Earn it. I'm begging you.

Life is a gift.

So here it is.

The end days were upon us, Allen. We didn't know it. No one ever does.

You know. People are unknowable.

And because of that, there are a few variations on when it all started. Bart disagrees with me but here's what we came up with. The proverbial Here's How. It happened when:

When Harvey Dent sent Gotham's last crime boss to the Schreck, in the process becoming the city's final boss.

When Thomas Elliot returned with a rotting face, determined more than ever to erase Bruce from history.

When the Demon's Head beheld Algol in the East and wiped Bialya from the face of this earth.

When Edward Nigma got his second terminal cancer diagnosis, and on his deathbed would only speak to Bruce.

Personally? I think it started when a sick man named Jervis Tetch killed Barbara Gordon.

But.

You know.

I could be wrong.

Continued...