Disclaimer-goodness: I do not own Batman, or anything in the DC universe.
If I made money on this I wouldn't put it where it could get me in trouble,
so worry not, corporate executive types! I am gaining nothing from this but
spent time, a sense of accomplishment, and a little admiration!
Part One : Madhouse
Sharona Hernandez liked to write in bed. She yawned a bit, tucking her ballpoint pen into the spine of her notebook. She was working on her latest fanfic, another story showcasing the exploits of her created character, Sora "The Fabulous K" Kissinger. This particular character was written solely for the use of one comic book universe, DCU. Sora was a resident of Gotham's Arkham Asylum, and Sharona prided herself on how insane and potentially dangerous this laid-back, cute individual could be written without straying out of character. Having also been blessed with artistic talent as well as prowess with the written word, Sharona even when so far as to draw and color sketches of the more important or symbolic artworks that her character was famous for. Smiling sleepily, Sharona let herself doze a bit, her head rested on the half-filled page before her.
She woke up to a harsh buzzer, terribly unlike her own gently beeping alarm clock. Blinking with confusion, the girl sat up, looking around the small, brightly painted room that she found herself in. A look of astonishment etched on her face, she jumped out of bed, which was a small, hospital-like cot, and turned around to get a good look at the paintings on the wall. Sharona's eyes widened as she recognized each detail.
"Oh, hell, NO," she breathed out, looking down at herself in dismay. She wasn't sure whether she should laugh or cry as she found the star-shaped scar on the palm of her right hand, remembering how hard it had been for her to write out the flashback sequence that had revealed how Sora had gotten it. She definitely started to feel more like crying when she realized that in place of her bright pink pajamas she was wearing the drab garb of an Arkham Asylum inmate. She turned, the pane of bulletproof glass that composed the fourth wall of her tiny room confirming the impossible.
Sharona was in Arkham. And, apparently, in the body of Sora as well.
This was a most troubling concept for the fangirl.
She couldn't help but look around with a slight shiver of disgust as she noted the famous criminals and madmen in the cafeteria as she stood in line to receive her breakfast, a nice bowlful of lukewarm oatmeal. Her gaze passed over the filling tables to one that was quite empty, and she sighed with relief. Sharona walked over as quickly as possible, avoiding the eyes of many curious and criminally insane as she sat down at the uninhabited corner of the table. She busied herself with digging trenches into the suspiciously slop-like oatmeal with her spoon, tensing slightly when she heard someone sit down next to her.
"Hey, K," the ribald voice of Harley chirped. Sharona glanced over, a blankly annoyed expression on her face. She blinked, remembering that Sora and Harley were good friends, and smiled weakly.
"Oh, uh, hiya, Harl," she said nervously, inwardly sighing. "What up?" The blond girl grinned cheerfully, seeming not to notice any change in the appearance or behavior of her mentally unbalanced friend. The Joker's moll poked the brunette in the chest, one sandy eyebrow raised.
"You seem a lil down, K-baby. When'd ya get back inta Arkham?" Harley chatted, spooning some of Sharona's oatmeal into her mouth. Sharona narrowed her eyes, then shrugged, sighing.
"I don't remember, Harley. I don't really remember anything today. If I knew how I got here, I'd be one step closer to getting myself out," she mused, sucking lightly on the end of the spoon. "I remember. I was writing, and I fell asleep because I had writer's block. And I was in my own home and stuff." She pauses, looking a little sick. "And now I'm here. Did Sora- I mean, did I do something to warrant being thrown into Arkham, Harley?" The blond shrugged, stretching a bit.
"I dunno. You wanna hang out this afternoon?" After a moment, Sharona nodded.
"Sure thing, girl. I'll talk to you later, okay? I'm going to my room to think." She stood, ruffling Harley's hair a little. "Take care, Quinzel."
She strolled down the halls of the insane asylum, shivers running down her spine. This place had a pretty bad history, and it gave her the creeps to think about all the crazy men and woman who'd lived there. Were. currently living there.
"You're one of them."
"Hm?" Sharona asked, turning around to look at the person who had spoken to her. She blinked slowly, faced with a long stretch of empty hallway. She shook her head, rubbing her eyes. "Weird."
She turned again to walk forward, and found herself face-to-face with a young man. He didn't seem to be a resident of Arkham, but his clothes were the same faded grey-beige as hers. She squinted, finding it hard to focus on more than one of his features at once.
"Are you visiting someone?" she asked after a moment, fidgeting a bit. He nodded, looking behind his shoulder towards the way she was going.
"I mean to, yes. I come here when I remember too much," he said, stepping over to stand next to her. "Do you want to walk with me?"
"Um, sure, okay," Sharona said with a nod, looking him over. "What's your name?"
"Jason," he said, starting down the hallway with her. She nodded, looking at her slippers as she walks with him.
"Oh, really? I used to know a guy named Jason. He moved to Boston or something," she yawns, shivering a bit. "Are you cold? I'm kinda chilly myself."
"I don't get cold anymore," he replied, staring ahead. "Why are you talking to me?"
"Huh?" she asked, surprised. "I dunno, you seemed nice enough. God knows I need to interact with SOMEone who isn't going to flat-out try to kill me or something, you know? Why? Doesn't anyone talk to you when you come here?"
"No," Jason said, shaking his head with a sort of sad smile. "Usually no one even notices me."
"Oh," Sharona replied awkwardly, looking down. "That's too bad. Unless you like it like that. Who're you here to visit?"
"Someone I used to know," he murmured, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. It was nice talking to you though."
"Wait," she pressed, an eyebrow raised. "You're going to come all the way out here to visit someone, and then you're just gonna go home without even seeing them?"
He gave her an odd look, seeming a little confused. Finally he smiled, shrugging lightly.
"You're right. I might as well see him, right? It couldn't hurt." They walked on for a few more minutes, stopping in front of a cell. Sharona peered in, raising an eyebrow.
"Joker? Hey, Joker-facey!" she called, knocking on the glass door with the heel of her palm. She turned to look up at Jason. "How do you know the Joker, Jason?"
"What's that, K?" Joker asked, green eyebrows raised. "You talkin' to me, kid? Heheheheh."
"No," Sharona frowned, gesturing to the young man beside her. "I meant Jason, he came to visit you, Jokey. He's right here." She turned, blinking. Jason was gone. "Where's he at? I was just- he was just here, I was just talking to him. Jaaaaasoooon! Did you run off?"
"Knock it off, K," the Joker snapped bad-temperedly. She blinked, noticing that he was nursing a nasty bruise on his forehead.
"Where'd you get that, Joker-poker? Bat-flavored Vigilante-man?" she asked with a slight smirk, knowing that it was probably the case. Gotta love the Batman, she thought to herself, shaking her head with an amused smile on her face. "Maybe you should go ask Doctor Frieze to sit on your face."
"Maybe," he giggled, the annoyed expression on his face dissolving into his usually gleeful smile. She turned and strode towards her own cell, figuring that the mysterious Jason boy must have run off like a pansy girl. She frowned, realizing that she was thinking like Sora there for a moment, and closed her cell door behind her.
"I'm not Sora. I'm not Sora! I'm Sharona. I'm still Sharona," she said aloud to herself, staring at the demented sillouette of Batman painted on the wall. "My name is not Sora. I'm not a nineteen year old psychic artist. My name is Sharona. I'm a sixteen-year old. I'm not crazy, I don't even believe in psychics, and I DON'T BELONG HERE!" She flopped down on the bed, jumping slightly as she heard a male chuckle from the hallway. She turned, glaring a bit at the evil balding psychiatrist who worked with Sora.
"I suppose you had to hit denial sometime," he grinned, and she nearly growled. Yes, he had done and was sure to do some horrible, evil things, but she only knew that because she'd written him that way. She frowned, feeling sort of guilty, and turned away.
"I'm not talking to you now, Richard," she says with another glare, pulling her sheets around her tightly. "I don't feel like listening to a crazy sadistic flaming homo right now."
"Really? Weren't you just talking to the Joker a few minutes ago?"
"Leave me alone, you pedophilic stack of back hair."
"Creative, that. You know what will happen if you don't come to our session today?"
"Something infinitely more enjoyable than spending an hour wanting to leap across the room and kill you, I imagine." She sulked, sucking on the corners of her sheet. After a few minutes with no response, she finally turned to look at him, but he was gone. Frowning, she turned and stood at the closed door to her cell, peering down the hallway looking for him. "Hey, Miss Pam? Wherefor did the evil demon-ish freaky man go?"
"I wasn't watching, Sora dear," the redheaded plant chick replied casually. "What did you do?"
"I said I'm not gonna talk to him. And I won't. I'll petition for a psychiatrist who DOESN'T molest little kids and stuff," she answers huffily, tossing her short auburn hair over her shoulder. "Or something. Why are you here?"
"One of my venus flytraps was hungry."
".and?"
"Well, she ate a jogger. I don't blame her, he wasn't even on the sidewalk, you know, just traipsing around on the grass. Serves him right, I say."
"You would," Sharona sighed, leaning against the glass. "Pammikins, do you think the Batman guy will show up today? I wanna talk to him."
"I don't imagine he would. Then again," she said with a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Better, actually," Sharona mumbled, flopping down on her bed with a yawn. "I should get outta here, don't you think? I'm out of paints."
A trio of figures darkened the doorway, and she heard the smug voice of her psychiatrist once more.
"Boys, she's been uncooperative to the point of violence and insults. I'm afraid she'll have to spend time in isolation," he said with a grin, earning a dark glare from Poison Ivy across the hall and a worried meep from Sharona. She turned, frowning at him.
"Yeah, 'cause I've been so terribly known for violent acts," she sneers, mostly to hold in her own fear and apprehension. She sighed, standing up. "Well, let's go, I just can't wait to spend an hour or two in the blankety- blank room of beigeness."
"Take her," the man said with a smile, opening the door. The two rather burly guards at his sides rushed in, lifting her forcibly by the armpits and dragging the bemused girl out of her cell. She blinked, looking up at Richard Fenton with an eyebrow raised.
"I didn't know I was that dangerous, Dicky," she calls out as they take her away. She giggles, giving a tiny, awkward wave to Pamela as she passes her. "Tell Harley I had to cancel, okay?"
She looked around, confused, as they stopped near an older section of the asylum, and her psychiatrist unlocked a small door that led down to a dark, ancient-looking basement. He gestured to the two men, and they shoved her in, causing her to stumble slightly and grab onto the rotting wooden handrail.
"This isn't the isolation thingie," she said softly, her eyes narrowed up at Richard. He shrugged.
"I had to lock you into the isolated area closest to me, you know. You were acting dangerously violent." His face broke into a grin at the shocked and outraged look on her face.
"We passed the iso cells back there, you freak! Oh my God, you can NOT lock me up down here!" She took a step forward on the awkwardly crumbling stairs, but he slammed the door in her face and locked it. She pounded furiously on the door, but there was no response. Sighing, she turned, looking down at the crumbling staircase that descended down to some dark basement or another. "Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back," she said out loud, mostly to calm herself down as she took a few slow steps down, unable to see in the pitch darkness. Her foot slipped a little and she squeaked, grabbing onto the handrail to steady herself.
"This is nuts. okay, Sharona, think positive. Sunflowers, Samurai Jack. Batman, monkeys, the Powerpuff Girls," she chanted to herself, one hand on the rail, the other on the slightly slimy wall opposite. She shuddered, but continued on, hoping desperately for some sort of tunnel or passage out at the bottom of the stairs. "Candy canes, Johnny Depp, pirates, doughnuts. Lemon candy, Ben and Jerry's, Mary Cassat, crayola markers," she whispered, her voice trembling. She blinked, unsure if the tiny dancing light ahead was in fact a trick of her eyes, or if it was real. "Toothpaste, marching band, Harry Potter, photoshop. Flashlights, stickers, Justice League, Dragon Half. Mommy!" she yelped as the handrail cracked and fell under the weight of her hand.
Thrown off balance, she slipped, breaking through the remains of the rickety rail and fell. Apparently, there hadn't been much more staircase to go down anyway, because she landed quite suddenly in a bit of cold water. Wincing, she stood, discovering that the water was a little less than knee deep. Shivering as her wet clothes stick to her skin, she felt around for the stairs, her hands coming across something hard in the water. A tiny light above her shone down, and the voice of her psychiatrist echoed down towards her.
"How are you down there?" he asked pleasantly, sounding very much like a smug bastard. Sharona blinked, her eyes narrowed.
"I'm soaking wet, you ass! What the hell are you trying to accomplish, want to see if I'll catch cold or something?"
"Maybe you'll be a bit better-behaved in a few hours," he shrugged, turning away. As the tiny amount of light shrank away, Sharona caught a glimpse of the object her hand had bumped.
Bones. A skeleton. Human.
"Oh God," she whimpered, backing away from it as the chamber she was in became pitch black once more. "Oh God. Oh God, oh my God." She scrambled toward the staircase, sloshing clumsily through the water, and the skeletal hand of the submerged corpse touched her ankle, and grabbed it. She shrieked, feeling the bony figure pull itself up using her as a ladder. "Let go! Let go! Oh Jesus, oh please, don't touch meeeeee!"
"You don't need to scream like that," the quiet voice of a subdued man said quietly. The fleshless fingers gently released her, and in the hurried rush to get away from him she tripped and fell into the water again. She pulled herself onto the stairs, and started to crawl up them.
"Wait," the voice said, sounding a little unhappy. "Please wait. I haven't spoken to anyone in so long."
"P-please d-don't touch me," Sharona whimpered, clinging to the wet brick stairs. "Wh-why are you t-talking to me? What. what are you doing in here?"
"I fell," he said simply, the clicking of his bones and the wet slushing sound warning her that he was coming near her. "I was just coming down to see how badly the basement had flooded, you see, and I slipped. I hit my head." She cried as the skeleton hand grabbed hers, forcing her to touch a cracked, gaping hole in its skull. "My brains dripped out, and everything rotted away. I've been dead for ages, now."
"I. I. please. please let go." she gasped, pulling her hand away. "I'm. I'm sorry. please let me go."
"Oh, alright. You're going to die down here too, I think," the skeleton replied, petting her hair a little. She squirmed, tears rolling down her face. "When you're dead, I'll get to talk to you as much as I want."
"No," she whispered, pulling herself up the stairs. She closed her eyes, whispering rabidly to herself. "Sunlight, apple trees, babies. rock climbing. buttercups."
"I'm partial to daisies myself," the skeleton said pleasantly beneath her. Screaming, Sharona raced up the stairs, tripping into the shut door. Pounding her hands against it, she flew into a panic, her voice shrill.
"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" she shrieked, trying to drown out the cold sound of the dead man laughing. The pitch blackness of the staircase was a bright relief compared to the darkness that enveloped her as she passed out, still weakly pushing her fists against the door.
Part One : Madhouse
Sharona Hernandez liked to write in bed. She yawned a bit, tucking her ballpoint pen into the spine of her notebook. She was working on her latest fanfic, another story showcasing the exploits of her created character, Sora "The Fabulous K" Kissinger. This particular character was written solely for the use of one comic book universe, DCU. Sora was a resident of Gotham's Arkham Asylum, and Sharona prided herself on how insane and potentially dangerous this laid-back, cute individual could be written without straying out of character. Having also been blessed with artistic talent as well as prowess with the written word, Sharona even when so far as to draw and color sketches of the more important or symbolic artworks that her character was famous for. Smiling sleepily, Sharona let herself doze a bit, her head rested on the half-filled page before her.
She woke up to a harsh buzzer, terribly unlike her own gently beeping alarm clock. Blinking with confusion, the girl sat up, looking around the small, brightly painted room that she found herself in. A look of astonishment etched on her face, she jumped out of bed, which was a small, hospital-like cot, and turned around to get a good look at the paintings on the wall. Sharona's eyes widened as she recognized each detail.
"Oh, hell, NO," she breathed out, looking down at herself in dismay. She wasn't sure whether she should laugh or cry as she found the star-shaped scar on the palm of her right hand, remembering how hard it had been for her to write out the flashback sequence that had revealed how Sora had gotten it. She definitely started to feel more like crying when she realized that in place of her bright pink pajamas she was wearing the drab garb of an Arkham Asylum inmate. She turned, the pane of bulletproof glass that composed the fourth wall of her tiny room confirming the impossible.
Sharona was in Arkham. And, apparently, in the body of Sora as well.
This was a most troubling concept for the fangirl.
She couldn't help but look around with a slight shiver of disgust as she noted the famous criminals and madmen in the cafeteria as she stood in line to receive her breakfast, a nice bowlful of lukewarm oatmeal. Her gaze passed over the filling tables to one that was quite empty, and she sighed with relief. Sharona walked over as quickly as possible, avoiding the eyes of many curious and criminally insane as she sat down at the uninhabited corner of the table. She busied herself with digging trenches into the suspiciously slop-like oatmeal with her spoon, tensing slightly when she heard someone sit down next to her.
"Hey, K," the ribald voice of Harley chirped. Sharona glanced over, a blankly annoyed expression on her face. She blinked, remembering that Sora and Harley were good friends, and smiled weakly.
"Oh, uh, hiya, Harl," she said nervously, inwardly sighing. "What up?" The blond girl grinned cheerfully, seeming not to notice any change in the appearance or behavior of her mentally unbalanced friend. The Joker's moll poked the brunette in the chest, one sandy eyebrow raised.
"You seem a lil down, K-baby. When'd ya get back inta Arkham?" Harley chatted, spooning some of Sharona's oatmeal into her mouth. Sharona narrowed her eyes, then shrugged, sighing.
"I don't remember, Harley. I don't really remember anything today. If I knew how I got here, I'd be one step closer to getting myself out," she mused, sucking lightly on the end of the spoon. "I remember. I was writing, and I fell asleep because I had writer's block. And I was in my own home and stuff." She pauses, looking a little sick. "And now I'm here. Did Sora- I mean, did I do something to warrant being thrown into Arkham, Harley?" The blond shrugged, stretching a bit.
"I dunno. You wanna hang out this afternoon?" After a moment, Sharona nodded.
"Sure thing, girl. I'll talk to you later, okay? I'm going to my room to think." She stood, ruffling Harley's hair a little. "Take care, Quinzel."
She strolled down the halls of the insane asylum, shivers running down her spine. This place had a pretty bad history, and it gave her the creeps to think about all the crazy men and woman who'd lived there. Were. currently living there.
"You're one of them."
"Hm?" Sharona asked, turning around to look at the person who had spoken to her. She blinked slowly, faced with a long stretch of empty hallway. She shook her head, rubbing her eyes. "Weird."
She turned again to walk forward, and found herself face-to-face with a young man. He didn't seem to be a resident of Arkham, but his clothes were the same faded grey-beige as hers. She squinted, finding it hard to focus on more than one of his features at once.
"Are you visiting someone?" she asked after a moment, fidgeting a bit. He nodded, looking behind his shoulder towards the way she was going.
"I mean to, yes. I come here when I remember too much," he said, stepping over to stand next to her. "Do you want to walk with me?"
"Um, sure, okay," Sharona said with a nod, looking him over. "What's your name?"
"Jason," he said, starting down the hallway with her. She nodded, looking at her slippers as she walks with him.
"Oh, really? I used to know a guy named Jason. He moved to Boston or something," she yawns, shivering a bit. "Are you cold? I'm kinda chilly myself."
"I don't get cold anymore," he replied, staring ahead. "Why are you talking to me?"
"Huh?" she asked, surprised. "I dunno, you seemed nice enough. God knows I need to interact with SOMEone who isn't going to flat-out try to kill me or something, you know? Why? Doesn't anyone talk to you when you come here?"
"No," Jason said, shaking his head with a sort of sad smile. "Usually no one even notices me."
"Oh," Sharona replied awkwardly, looking down. "That's too bad. Unless you like it like that. Who're you here to visit?"
"Someone I used to know," he murmured, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. It was nice talking to you though."
"Wait," she pressed, an eyebrow raised. "You're going to come all the way out here to visit someone, and then you're just gonna go home without even seeing them?"
He gave her an odd look, seeming a little confused. Finally he smiled, shrugging lightly.
"You're right. I might as well see him, right? It couldn't hurt." They walked on for a few more minutes, stopping in front of a cell. Sharona peered in, raising an eyebrow.
"Joker? Hey, Joker-facey!" she called, knocking on the glass door with the heel of her palm. She turned to look up at Jason. "How do you know the Joker, Jason?"
"What's that, K?" Joker asked, green eyebrows raised. "You talkin' to me, kid? Heheheheh."
"No," Sharona frowned, gesturing to the young man beside her. "I meant Jason, he came to visit you, Jokey. He's right here." She turned, blinking. Jason was gone. "Where's he at? I was just- he was just here, I was just talking to him. Jaaaaasoooon! Did you run off?"
"Knock it off, K," the Joker snapped bad-temperedly. She blinked, noticing that he was nursing a nasty bruise on his forehead.
"Where'd you get that, Joker-poker? Bat-flavored Vigilante-man?" she asked with a slight smirk, knowing that it was probably the case. Gotta love the Batman, she thought to herself, shaking her head with an amused smile on her face. "Maybe you should go ask Doctor Frieze to sit on your face."
"Maybe," he giggled, the annoyed expression on his face dissolving into his usually gleeful smile. She turned and strode towards her own cell, figuring that the mysterious Jason boy must have run off like a pansy girl. She frowned, realizing that she was thinking like Sora there for a moment, and closed her cell door behind her.
"I'm not Sora. I'm not Sora! I'm Sharona. I'm still Sharona," she said aloud to herself, staring at the demented sillouette of Batman painted on the wall. "My name is not Sora. I'm not a nineteen year old psychic artist. My name is Sharona. I'm a sixteen-year old. I'm not crazy, I don't even believe in psychics, and I DON'T BELONG HERE!" She flopped down on the bed, jumping slightly as she heard a male chuckle from the hallway. She turned, glaring a bit at the evil balding psychiatrist who worked with Sora.
"I suppose you had to hit denial sometime," he grinned, and she nearly growled. Yes, he had done and was sure to do some horrible, evil things, but she only knew that because she'd written him that way. She frowned, feeling sort of guilty, and turned away.
"I'm not talking to you now, Richard," she says with another glare, pulling her sheets around her tightly. "I don't feel like listening to a crazy sadistic flaming homo right now."
"Really? Weren't you just talking to the Joker a few minutes ago?"
"Leave me alone, you pedophilic stack of back hair."
"Creative, that. You know what will happen if you don't come to our session today?"
"Something infinitely more enjoyable than spending an hour wanting to leap across the room and kill you, I imagine." She sulked, sucking on the corners of her sheet. After a few minutes with no response, she finally turned to look at him, but he was gone. Frowning, she turned and stood at the closed door to her cell, peering down the hallway looking for him. "Hey, Miss Pam? Wherefor did the evil demon-ish freaky man go?"
"I wasn't watching, Sora dear," the redheaded plant chick replied casually. "What did you do?"
"I said I'm not gonna talk to him. And I won't. I'll petition for a psychiatrist who DOESN'T molest little kids and stuff," she answers huffily, tossing her short auburn hair over her shoulder. "Or something. Why are you here?"
"One of my venus flytraps was hungry."
".and?"
"Well, she ate a jogger. I don't blame her, he wasn't even on the sidewalk, you know, just traipsing around on the grass. Serves him right, I say."
"You would," Sharona sighed, leaning against the glass. "Pammikins, do you think the Batman guy will show up today? I wanna talk to him."
"I don't imagine he would. Then again," she said with a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Better, actually," Sharona mumbled, flopping down on her bed with a yawn. "I should get outta here, don't you think? I'm out of paints."
A trio of figures darkened the doorway, and she heard the smug voice of her psychiatrist once more.
"Boys, she's been uncooperative to the point of violence and insults. I'm afraid she'll have to spend time in isolation," he said with a grin, earning a dark glare from Poison Ivy across the hall and a worried meep from Sharona. She turned, frowning at him.
"Yeah, 'cause I've been so terribly known for violent acts," she sneers, mostly to hold in her own fear and apprehension. She sighed, standing up. "Well, let's go, I just can't wait to spend an hour or two in the blankety- blank room of beigeness."
"Take her," the man said with a smile, opening the door. The two rather burly guards at his sides rushed in, lifting her forcibly by the armpits and dragging the bemused girl out of her cell. She blinked, looking up at Richard Fenton with an eyebrow raised.
"I didn't know I was that dangerous, Dicky," she calls out as they take her away. She giggles, giving a tiny, awkward wave to Pamela as she passes her. "Tell Harley I had to cancel, okay?"
She looked around, confused, as they stopped near an older section of the asylum, and her psychiatrist unlocked a small door that led down to a dark, ancient-looking basement. He gestured to the two men, and they shoved her in, causing her to stumble slightly and grab onto the rotting wooden handrail.
"This isn't the isolation thingie," she said softly, her eyes narrowed up at Richard. He shrugged.
"I had to lock you into the isolated area closest to me, you know. You were acting dangerously violent." His face broke into a grin at the shocked and outraged look on her face.
"We passed the iso cells back there, you freak! Oh my God, you can NOT lock me up down here!" She took a step forward on the awkwardly crumbling stairs, but he slammed the door in her face and locked it. She pounded furiously on the door, but there was no response. Sighing, she turned, looking down at the crumbling staircase that descended down to some dark basement or another. "Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back," she said out loud, mostly to calm herself down as she took a few slow steps down, unable to see in the pitch darkness. Her foot slipped a little and she squeaked, grabbing onto the handrail to steady herself.
"This is nuts. okay, Sharona, think positive. Sunflowers, Samurai Jack. Batman, monkeys, the Powerpuff Girls," she chanted to herself, one hand on the rail, the other on the slightly slimy wall opposite. She shuddered, but continued on, hoping desperately for some sort of tunnel or passage out at the bottom of the stairs. "Candy canes, Johnny Depp, pirates, doughnuts. Lemon candy, Ben and Jerry's, Mary Cassat, crayola markers," she whispered, her voice trembling. She blinked, unsure if the tiny dancing light ahead was in fact a trick of her eyes, or if it was real. "Toothpaste, marching band, Harry Potter, photoshop. Flashlights, stickers, Justice League, Dragon Half. Mommy!" she yelped as the handrail cracked and fell under the weight of her hand.
Thrown off balance, she slipped, breaking through the remains of the rickety rail and fell. Apparently, there hadn't been much more staircase to go down anyway, because she landed quite suddenly in a bit of cold water. Wincing, she stood, discovering that the water was a little less than knee deep. Shivering as her wet clothes stick to her skin, she felt around for the stairs, her hands coming across something hard in the water. A tiny light above her shone down, and the voice of her psychiatrist echoed down towards her.
"How are you down there?" he asked pleasantly, sounding very much like a smug bastard. Sharona blinked, her eyes narrowed.
"I'm soaking wet, you ass! What the hell are you trying to accomplish, want to see if I'll catch cold or something?"
"Maybe you'll be a bit better-behaved in a few hours," he shrugged, turning away. As the tiny amount of light shrank away, Sharona caught a glimpse of the object her hand had bumped.
Bones. A skeleton. Human.
"Oh God," she whimpered, backing away from it as the chamber she was in became pitch black once more. "Oh God. Oh God, oh my God." She scrambled toward the staircase, sloshing clumsily through the water, and the skeletal hand of the submerged corpse touched her ankle, and grabbed it. She shrieked, feeling the bony figure pull itself up using her as a ladder. "Let go! Let go! Oh Jesus, oh please, don't touch meeeeee!"
"You don't need to scream like that," the quiet voice of a subdued man said quietly. The fleshless fingers gently released her, and in the hurried rush to get away from him she tripped and fell into the water again. She pulled herself onto the stairs, and started to crawl up them.
"Wait," the voice said, sounding a little unhappy. "Please wait. I haven't spoken to anyone in so long."
"P-please d-don't touch me," Sharona whimpered, clinging to the wet brick stairs. "Wh-why are you t-talking to me? What. what are you doing in here?"
"I fell," he said simply, the clicking of his bones and the wet slushing sound warning her that he was coming near her. "I was just coming down to see how badly the basement had flooded, you see, and I slipped. I hit my head." She cried as the skeleton hand grabbed hers, forcing her to touch a cracked, gaping hole in its skull. "My brains dripped out, and everything rotted away. I've been dead for ages, now."
"I. I. please. please let go." she gasped, pulling her hand away. "I'm. I'm sorry. please let me go."
"Oh, alright. You're going to die down here too, I think," the skeleton replied, petting her hair a little. She squirmed, tears rolling down her face. "When you're dead, I'll get to talk to you as much as I want."
"No," she whispered, pulling herself up the stairs. She closed her eyes, whispering rabidly to herself. "Sunlight, apple trees, babies. rock climbing. buttercups."
"I'm partial to daisies myself," the skeleton said pleasantly beneath her. Screaming, Sharona raced up the stairs, tripping into the shut door. Pounding her hands against it, she flew into a panic, her voice shrill.
"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" she shrieked, trying to drown out the cold sound of the dead man laughing. The pitch blackness of the staircase was a bright relief compared to the darkness that enveloped her as she passed out, still weakly pushing her fists against the door.