Okay WARNING! Graphic! But not too bad, just very creepy.

I'm in a room. It smells like sweat and blood.

Where am I?

There's a door.

There's a man.

No, not a man, a thing. A creature of shame and loneliness.

And it's smiling, smiling like the spider who lures a fly into it's web, like the kindly man who watches the children on the playground with hungry eyes.

He's the fox who has dinner with a rabbit.

He's the one who would kill children for injustice, to see if they screamed louder than men.

The Joker played idly with a knife, digging some grime from under his fingernails with the tip.

The knife had stains running down the hilt, brown stains, red stains, black stains.

My hands and bolted to the table, held by steel cuffs, I'm leaning forward to ease the cramps on them.

My back hurts.

He's not looking at me, he's engrossed in his hands, twirling the knife around in his fingers, a look of calm thoughtfulness on his ravaged face.

"You know, I really didn't expect you to cross the deal, Mickey."

It was unpleasant voice, slightly gruff but also nasal, unclean, grimy.

I said nothing, there was nothing to say. He was going to kill me anyway.

"We had business. And well, I've heard the stories people are spreading, and well, I don't know how they are being carried. I didn't leave any survivors..."

He looked at me, and I saw into his eyes for the first time since I've done business with him. And for the first time in six years I was scared.

They were a pleasant brown, easy to know, intelligent, calm, and somehow comforting.

But they were mad. You could see the games he was playing in his mind. The various little systems he could use to break you.

And he was going to break me.

"But You are the first person in... Well, a long time, who has dared to go against my instructions, kept... items from my possession. And when I heard about it, I laughed."

I was sweating, and he knew it, he put his feet onto the table and leaned his chair back, the mad look was coming back to his face, spreading from his eyes and eating up the flesh like a hungry fire, He has something planned for me.

"I laughed so hard, I bust a gut." He was smiling now, and his scars wrapped around his face splitting his head in two.

The door opened and a body was thrown in by two shadowy figures wearing clown masks.

The Joker got up and pulled the body up, no small feat, it was a hulking man, it was my best friend, Terry.

There was a trail of blood trickling out of his mouth and his shirt was pulled up, revealing bruises and angry red skin on his stomach, but my eyes were drawn to his chest. Terry's ribs were sticking out at funny angles, some poking almost out of the skin, others missing, no doubt pounded into his lungs. His torso was a shapeless lump, bent, wrong, sick.

"When I said, I bust a gut, I didn't say it was mine." He was looking at me carefully, but I ignored him, staring at my friend.

We had fought on the streets, loved the same woman, killed our first cop together, and we had run the same business, the business we had signed off to the Joker in order to live. The business that made money that the joker just burned, nobody was getting paid.

Which is why we both decided that we were going to take what was ours.

"You see, he didn't seem to see the joke. Poor Terry." He laughed, And it broke my concentration, He had this look on his face, the one that you get when you see your son take his first steps, the one that only comes when you are blindly obliviously happy.

I glared at him. My eyes burned with hatred, or was it tears? I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. If I just kept saying it, I wouldn't see Terry, I could concentrate on not showing fear, going to my death like a man, facing the terrors of whatever afterlife lay ahead of me.

All his bones...

"You know, he begged after a while, but it was too late." The Joker had stopped laughing, and instead was staring at the body he was holding up almost effortlessly.

"I was going to use my knives, but this..." He looked with pride at Terry's mutilated stomach. "this was...amazing to watch."

I'm going to be sick...

"You look a little pale, are you cold?"

You sick sonuvabitch.

He let Terry drop to the floor, I could hear the crack as his head met the slimy concrete.

I'm going to kill you.

"Did I mention that he told me where you hid the...items?"

I'll kill you

"Oh, he was very...eager to talk when I showed a little mercy."

I will kill you.

"You don't seem upset! I'm not big on the whole relationship business, but that's a little harsh. I mean, he's dead. Or at least I hope he is,"

He kicked Terry, a sneer making his scarred face look strange and disfigured in the flickering white light.

I wrenched at my hands, still bolted to the table. "Don't touch him!" I was screaming at him, my mouth too small for the scream that tore from my throat. My wrists were rubbed raw, bleeding from the touch of dry, cold metal.

He was looking at me, smiling again, infuriating me with that stupid grin. With a giggle he reached out his foot again, an inch away from the sack of meet that was my best friend.

He grinned at me once more and nudged Terry with a pointed shoe.

"YOU FUCKING CLOWN!!"

"At last we're getting somewhere Mickey. Does this make you angry?"

He grabbed Terry's hair and pulled him up.

I wrenched at my hands once more, not noticing the pain, I could feel warm blood trickling along my fingers.

"I don't think I will kill you after all, my dear mouse." The Joker said, eyeing me thoughtfully.

I'll kill you.

"No, you are much too useful at this point, I think I'll let you go."

"Kill me." I wanted to die. I wanted to go to hell, I wanted to wait for him, I wanted to meet him in the fiery pits and me and Terry, We'd take him on, it'd be just like old times, because hell had nothing on the streets of Gotham.

"Hehe, It's amazing, your friend here," He kicked Terry and I convulsed again. "Wouldn't stop pleading for his life, and you, you won't stop pleading for your death."

"If you don't kill me, I will kill you."

The Joker looked at me, really looked at me for a moment. "Oooohh, I'm scared."

He laughed again, and it sent shivers along my spine. It echoed around the walls, bringing the sound back again, and again, and again. Each sound louder than the last.

I cringed in the onslaught of insane noise.

"Very well, I'll kill you."

He was beside me in an instant and the laughs died away, leaving perfect quiet in the room. The stained knife pricked my side and my skin contracted, trying to escape that sharp freezing pain.

He put a hand on my shoulder, forcing me down. Gods he's strong. Nails pierced the fabric and beyond drawing blood, Those'll probably get infected with all the dried blood on his hands.

The knife traveled up my ribs, leaving a trail of fire in it's wake. I could feel The clown's breath on the back of my neck, making my skin crawl.

"Why so serious?" Came the hissing, whispered voice next to my ear.

I shut my eyes tightly, trying to find my peace, I should have gone to confession this week...

The knife was withdrawn and, I felt my eyes squeeze, waiting or the final blow, but instead, my wrists were suddenly free.

I opened my eyes.

I was free, the door was open, the Joker was gone. On the table next to me was the knife, my blood still fresh upon it.

And next to it was a message, scratched deeply into the metal.

It was fun. I want Gordon dead. The Commissioner or I'll kill your wife, either way I get a head. Choose.

I'll kill you.

I picked up the knife and walked to where Terry lay, I closed his staring eyes and muttered our oath, the one which we had taken as boys living on the streets of Gotham

"We'll meet in hell someday, and we'll give the devil Gotham."

I walked out of the room, and didn't look back.

Creepy huh? Tell me what you think.