It all ended with… a dead body.
A nasty, pale, and not-so-decomposed corpse.
Corpses were fairly common in Gotham City, considering it had a dangerously high crime record, but this corpse was special, as the Police Commissioner was sensible enough to acknowledge.
All corpses have a story behind them. A story of the dead person's life, the events which led up to the person's death and the way death was brought on to the unfortunate soul. Most stories are fairly upsetting, and should never, ever be discussed over the dinner table.
This person, just like a few others, had an unhappy ending, which was why the person expired so early in life. As is predicted, this person was female, for females occasionally die earlier than is expected, due to their instability, as well as the mongoose instinct for finding out things, which is not as prominent in males. Then they find out too much and get silenced.
Bluntly put, females are nosier than males.
The deceased was most unfortunate to know too much, and for that, her life was put to an end quite early. It was, arguably, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which led to her knowledge of such things.
Then again, as mentioned before, females are fairly unstable at times.
He stiffened and then quickly relaxed as an insane grin lit up his face. His mutilated, disfigured visage was unsettling, but with the twisted expression, it was simply terrifying.
So, she was here. Was it really her? Probably. He would have recognised said person anywhere, but it had been such a long, long time, and he just wanted to make sure.
He wondered if she still recognized him, after all these years. Maybe she had forgotten who he was, he thought.
But if she didn't remember him, he would help jog her memory. And as he found, he could be very persuasive.
A gap appeared in the crowd, and her head swiveled in his direction, perhaps drawn by coincidence, luck, or just cruel Fate. Their eyes met, and hers widened in utter shock. Recognition together with fear, apprehension, and sheer terror flashed across her face, and it visibly whitened under the bright afternoon sun.
She froze, stopping dead in her tracks in the middle of the crowded street. Another young woman stopped too and looked around in a puzzled manner, ignorant to the source of her friend's discomfort.
Her eyes were locked onto his, forging a bond of long-forgotten memories, pain, suffering, and hate. No one else seemed to notice the lone man, wearing a long trench coat with a cap tipped low over his face, leaving only two malevolent eyes peering underneath it.
No one paid any attention to the frozen woman, who was decidedly normal.
And no one noticed the silent staring match going on.
He felt her fear, and savoured it. Ah… it had been so long since he had last seen that expression on her face. The terror was coming out of her in waves, giving him a sadistic satisfaction which little else could create.
Since she looked far from happy at seeing him, he decided to—lighten her mood. He lifted his head higher and let a wide smile curl his lips, emphasizing the bumpy scars on either side of his mouth.
That seemed to jar her. She looked away at her concerned friend, embarrassment apparent on her face. She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak. Through the chatter, the noise, the growling of car engines, he heard her voice.
"It was nothing," she said, her voice entirely normal, "Nothing at all. I thought I saw… never mind. I must be hallucinating. Side effects of medicine and whatnot, you know."
Hmm. Hallucination, was he? No, no, he was certain she knew the truth. For as the two women walked away, he saw her shoot a furtive glance over her shoulder, apprehension etched onto every line of her face.
This was going to be extraordinarily interesting.
Lisa shivered, not from cold, but from shock and fear. As she sat in the bright, unthreatening café, she drowned out her friend's chatter as her mind reverted back to that fatal moment in which she had seen someone whom she never wanted to see ever again.
It had been highly unfortunate. She had been feeling uneasy, with a tingling at the back of her neck, and she had just looked around to check no one was eyeing her purse.
Then their eyes had met.
It was him. There was absolutely no doubt about it, those scars were memorable.
And owing to the human trait of never noticing their surroundings, other people had completely failed to notice the odd figure with the scars on his face.
But she had noticed him. And she sincerely regretted ever looking around. His malevolent eyes had burned right through her, reminding her of things she never wanted to remember, making her see things she didn't want to see.
This generally made her very uncomfortable.
She had noticed his twisted enjoyment of her fear and surprise too. The smile on his face was one of feral glee making the bumps beside his lips painfully obvious, and she, like an idiot deer caught in blinding headlights, had just stopped and stared.
In those few moments, she had seen how much he had changed; the outward appearance was still the same, but there were obvious differences. There hadn't been such deep laugh lines etched onto his face, but maybe that had to do with age. The eyes were still the same colour, black, but there was a mad glint in them that hadn't been there before.
The most significant though, was his posture. If her memory served her true, he never stood hunched in such a noticeable manner. He had definitely changed. The mocking, crazy boy from those times was gone and in his place, stood a different, possibly even loonier nutcase.
Ridiculous, she didn't even know him well. And she was surprised he even recognized her anyway…
It had been, after all, so many years since The Incident…
-:-
Her grandmother had been in the hospital again, adding to the steadily growing list of worries her family had to deal with. The hospital bills were ballooning, making them all panic, for to pay them all back would be next to impossible.
It was not unusual for one who lived in the Narrows to face financial problems. She wished her grandmother would not fall ill so often, not so much because of the ridiculous hospital bill, but rather… it was her grandmother. Grandmothers weren't supposed to suffer so much.
She kissed her frail, sleeping grandmother before leaving, closing the room door gently as she left. Despite her attempts to leave quietly, the door had an annoying habit of slamming rather loudly. It slammed against the door frame, making a resounding crash and making her start.
Staring apprehensively at the door, she hurriedly walked away.
It was fortunate that her home was within walking distance of the hospital, and she trudged home, feeling incredibly depressed. Her knife was with her just in case, because after all it was night-time, and it wouldn't hurt to take precautions.
When she got home her mother was there, slumped on a chair with a crumpled look on her face.
"Evening, Mother." she said quietly.
Her mother lifted her head and attempted a smile which came out looking like a grimace. "Good evening."
"What's wrong now?" she asked.
"No, nothing's ha- I mean, just nothing."
She surveyed her mother appraisingly, taking in the sunken eyes, the slightly dishevelled hair, and the posture which signified weariness… sorrow… perhaps defeat.
"Are you having trouble with the hospital bills, mom?" she asked gently.
Her mother looked, if possible, even more defeated. She took that as an affirmative.
"You know," she said, "I could always drop the part time job and work full time-"
She was interrupted by a fierce outburst from her mother. "No!" the older woman snapped. "You're already working underage. I won't allow it, no. It would disrupt your studies."
"But-"
"No buts. You're doing no such thing."
"All right then," she said, her lips thinning. "No full time job."
She went to her bedroom and dumped her bag on the ground. "No full time job," she repeated softly, looking mutinous.
An hour later, her mother went out to work the night shift.
She frowned as she heard her mother close the front door. It was an especially difficult time, and she was absolutely certain that her mother had no idea how to pay the hospital bills. But then again, neither did she.
She saw a pile of clothes in the corner and went over to check if they were clean. Deciding that they had been washed, she began to fold them, all the time waiting for the routine shouting to start.
It didn't take long.
"You filthy bitch! Look at you… useless… cowering in the corner." A gruff male voice bellowed.
She winced. The walls were thin. In a week, there were at least three nights in which her next door neighbour decided to go off drinking. He was, from her observations, a horrible person. A downright unpleasant man to live next to, she couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be married to him. She always felt a pang of sympathy for his wife and son, but wasn't about to go banging on his door demanding that he shut up and leave them alone.
He was, after all, a very big man.
"And that useless boy. Look at him, quaking in the corner. Aren't you a coward, boy?" the gruff voice continued.
Sometimes, that man would beat up his wife. Occasionally, he would unleash his fury on his son too, but he hit his son less for reasons unknown. Maybe he liked his son more than his wife.
She suspected that it was because his son was more adept at running away.
On several occasions, the wife would scream for him to stop. Sometimes, she would scream at him calling him a lousy bastard but most of the time it was a combination of both.
Today, it was only calling him a lousy bastard.
"You're a drunk!" a female voice shrieked. "A lazy, good for nothing bastard! All you know to do is spend our money on useless drinks!"
Cue the breaking glass.
That happened on most occasions, but today, there was no sound of breaking glass. Instead, the female voice continued screaming:
"Look at you, a lazy, useless bum! You're wasted. Always wasted! I don't know how I put up with a pig like you and can't you at least be nice to our son?"
The listener winced - perhaps the woman should run, and not provoke a guy twice her size. Willing the woman to shut up, she continued to fold the clothes, still listening in spite of herself.
The wife was still shrieking. "I'm warning you, you crazy son of a bitch," she shouted, "I'm armed! I won't have you coming near me. I won't let you hit me or my son!"
To which the husband slurred contemptuously, "Your son? That wimpy little boy? That's rich. The last time I looked, he belonged to both of us, no matter how soppy he is!"
Then the voices stopped. The sound of crashing could be heard. Then… silence.
The listener felt a bit worried. She hoped the wife was all right and hoped that the husband had shut himself in his room or something.
Then the husband was shouting. "You dare raise a knife against you own husband?" There was some hysterical laughter. "You dare? You dare?"
More hysterical laughter.
"You know, my dear wife," he said more softly now, still slurring; the listener had to strain her ears to catch the words, "I've always thought that you frown way too much. That expression you gave me when you were holding that stupid knife—it was too serious for words!"
The listener shuddered, she had half a mind to yell for him to stop, but she didn't want to get in the way of a flying knife.
"Let me show you how I never frown. Let me put a smile on that face! Then you'll know the joy of being happy!"
There was a real scream this time, a scream of pure, unadulterated terror. A scream that was, oddly enough for this family, chilling.
Then an awful silence descended.
The listener had frozen now because this was different from most days. What had happened?
She didn't have time to think, because the man had started speaking again. "As for you, boy!" he had adopted a most disgusting sing song voice. "Put down those ridiculous cards of yours!"
There was a pause.
"I said, put 'em down!"
Another pause.
"Now that's better," the man shouted. "But don't look so shocked, son. It'll be all right. Don't be so serious…" the last few words had slurred especially badly, and the listener had to really strain her ears to catch them.
"WHY SO SERIOUS, BOY?" This time, the man had thundered the words perfectly clearly. The listener jumped. A bout of hysterical cackling ensued. "WHAT'S WITH THAT FROWN? COME ON, GIVE DADDY A NICE BIG SMILE."
"Let's put a SMILE on that face."
The man was still shouting, but there was a menacing edge to his voice now.
"A smile… a smile… YES, a nice big smile…"
The listener couldn't bear to eavesdrop it any longer. She dumped the clothes, which were halfway done, and scrambled as far away from that wall as possible. As she huddled in a corner, she felt extremely sorry for the wife and son (even though the son was an unusual boy). There was nothing she could do, since she couldn't prove anything.
There was no point in calling the police; they'd take an age and a half to arrive and even if they did, they wouldn't take it seriously.
It was after all, she thought bitterly, the Narrows. Home to the city's poor and scum. No cop would want anything to do with it, unless it was to get more money from the Mob.
-:-
"Hello? Are you listening to me?" a very annoyed Amanda snapped her fingers under her nose.
Lisa shook her head being brought out of her thoughts by her friend. She hadn't been listening to a single word that her friend, Amanda, was saying. Instead, she had been caught up in an old memory of hers, a memory which she had tried desperately to forget.
She would never succeed; the encounter this afternoon had proven that.
"Oh, sorry…" Lisa muttered. "Just tired, anyway, what were you saying?"
"Keith's taking me to Australia at the end of this month." Amanda said impatiently. "Are you going anywhere?"
"Me? Oh no," Lisa chuckled. "I'm too lazy to go anywhere."
"That I can tell," Amanda said grumpily, "What's gotten into you? First, you stop in the middle of a street for no reason at all, and now you're spacing out in the middle of a supposedly entertaining conversation. Are you sick or something?"
"Not at all," Lisa said sharply, humour forgotten. "I'm as fit as a fiddle."
"Fiddles are never fit," Amanda retorted.
"Fair enough."
"Anyway," Amanda continued. "After this, where do you want to go? Shopping? Dinner?"
"Yeah, dinner would be great."
"Okay then, shopping it is."
As Amanda skimmed through racks of clothing and tables of accessories, Lisa followed her, agreeing absentmindedly with most of what Amanda said.
"How's this dress?"
"It's nice."
"This necklace looks awful on me!"
"Yeah it does."
"Ooh, why don't you try that top?"
"Um… Okay."
Lisa trudged off to the dressing room. All the stalls were taken but one. Feeling strangely annoyed, she went in and changed into the blouse, barely taking any notice of her surroundings. As she turned to check herself in the mirror, she froze. Her brown eyes widened in shock.
A thick red line, curved to resemble a semi-circle, rested right above her head on the mirror.
Gaping, she reached up to trace the red line with her fingers, only to discover that it wasn't drawn on the mirror. Turning abruptly, she saw the red line inked onto the door and flinched.
Was it…? No, no, it couldn't be.
Who in the world was dumb enough to vandalize a dressing room door?
A/N: I don't know how that went... but please review:) Feedback is appreciated. No romance. After all, it is pretty difficult to fall for a guy like the Joker. Could practically smell him off the screen. And it was a bad smell.
Thanks to my beta Dr . Pepper . 19:) you're awesome.