*Season One, Episode One*

*Tomorrow by Daughter*

On Fear

It is a shot that screams into the blackest night of the longest day. A shot that disrupts the eerie silence created by the one known as FEAR. The sound of its fire causing FEAR to react, to jump in the skin draped bone and body of the living it chooses to sit inside. So perfectly nestled into a tiny corner in the husk of a soul, giving them symptoms of sweat and heavy breathing with an elevated heart rate. Racking against the major, most important organ with its fists so violent, banging on the heart in rapid tempo, slamming it against the rib cage causing bits to flake off into the stomach. FEAR making someone become so weak in the knees they could easily fall over into helplessness-feeling paralyzed and trapped in a particular situation where FEAR would then grow.

Attacking those old and young FEAR seizes the body all its own, twisting the whole brain into exaggerated yet sometimes realistic hallucinations. And while some remain tall and seemingly unphased by its presence, it is still there, and it lingers in the shadows, like the shadow of a body. Smiling a wicked grin for nothing is more helpless than a man who believes he is unafraid.

A man, in fact, is where it began. The shot that ran out of its hiding place and screamed into a sky where no one could hear and no one was listening. A singular man created by FEAR unknowingly among other people who were far lesser in the single moment where FEAR took a life. Stole two under the dead of night when all the calm and quiet after its deadly accomplice cut through the air like a knife and sliced the skin and body through. A clean shot under a canvas so starless.

FEAR stepped inside the heavy boots of the man, crushing gravel under the bottom of his shoes and causing the unseen, little mice and insects to run away in terror. FEAR who raised the hand with a gun and FEAR who spoke out into the emptiness of the four of them. But the Waynes stood TALL. Yes, it was Martha who eyes sprang first with the terror in her sight as she cradled her son close to protect him. And it was the son who was almost equal to his mother, staring in direct focus of FEAR; but it was Thomas who stood poised as always-trying to be the good husband and father to resolve the problem that would soon find its way to crumbling the alley beneath them and sending the entire life of his son spinning out of control. In that exact moment of single stillness right before the sound of shock-FEAR reached out with a cold hand and dipped into the body of each of them, reaching down deep until he got to the chest cavity where he wrapped numb fingers around their hearts and squeezed. Scared, yes, the fear had made them afraid. Terrified even. Yet they stood, and they faced the fear with their eyes, never quaking under the pressure while having no trouble in the effort to speak. To reason with FEAR.

However, FEAR could not be reasoned with. And it was in that split second before the sound that would end their life, the Waynes knew it was over. They could see it in the eyes belonging to FEAR, and the barrel of the gun into the deep black where the bullet lay hiding. Sleeping, and waiting for the moment to strike. The could see it, the end of that gun, the end of their lives and the one who stood to side like a shadow So much like an apparition, hiding dark like a shadow, but with skin as pale as the moon herself. She stood there tall and smiling, waiting for Thomas and Martha to join her in their final seconds; waiting as they looked at her, as they looked at the man, as they were looking into the eyes of FEAR. Just knowing that there was no way out, but hoping there was a way to spare their son. It was not his time yet, and the man in the hood had not come for him.

After that seemingly slow, but quick second, the bullet sounded, screaming against the peace and tearing against the wind right into the one who stood the most brave. Thomas felt the bullet chew through his system before residing in his heart, felt the wet street on his back as he fell backwards and the wet, dampening of his clothes where his heart was. FEAR has stolen his breath but kept him alive enough to hear the sound of his dying wife when she faced the twin bullet hiding in the barrel of the gun just for her. She too slipped from her son as their eyes carried her to the bottom of a dark place where she fell away and was gone instantly. Not having a moment to take a final breath or feel the damping of her own clothes from the chest.

Bruce looked straight into the man with a frozen expressing as his breath was becoming squeezed in his throat. As FEAR looked deep back into his eyes he raised the gun for a final time and contemplated ending such a short, twelve-year-old life. The man whose body FEAR had taken prisoner retaliated, for he could see something in the boy's eyes that FEAR was blind to. Something good… pure and innocent. Something needed. Hope. And when he knew, FEAR knew too and together they lowered the gun in still, shaking terror and ran out into the street…

He waited until the numbness of his body had subsisted. Using everything within him fast to shake both his parents in the hopes he could wake them. In the hopes they were somehow still there with him. Their bodies shook from his hands, and their blood soaked onto his palms as he smeared the red deeper into their clothes, not realizing he was almost bathing himself in the tragedy that had just defined him and taken him prisoner. Wanting to speak for just a second when his body ruptured at the sight of his father's fading eyes meeting his. Unknowing that his father had been watching the cat from the scaffolding, still in shock, still shaking ever so little but falling away so quickly. He was able to reach the eyes of his son that where overfull of sadness and desperation, but he was not able to say a final goodbye as he fell away into the darkness of death, and into the guiding arms of the pale woman and his wife. Martha sobbed and Thomas asked their guidance if Bruce was going to be alright. She said yes before leading them away.

Bruce found strength inside of himself to stand-gazing down in the endless paint of red on the palms of his hands and the truth that was laid out before him. Sprawled at his feet over the back streets of Gotham city wearing nothing but the bodies of a man and his wife, appearing with the faces of his mother and father, though nothing more now but an empty husk of skeleton bones and skin.

Knowing the complete terror that he was alone his legs gave out because FEAR, dressed in the body of a man with no face, a couple of bullets, the sound of gunshots, and the long retreaded ghosts of his family. A scream escaped his throat that he would not remember but would always hear in his dreams when the lights when out. A scream he had no control over that was loud and angry, shaking his whole body ragged. Loud enough that the ravens abandoned their posts in their own terror. Yet somehow, there was not a single soul walking the streets that night who could hear him. And even if they had, they would not come to his aid because they did not care. Nothing more than a child's cry being drowned away by the sounds of city sirens and noisey cars with mindless, dumb chatter taken on by the people.

He cried like a baby that only a mother and father could sooth… the tears dripping down his cheeks in fat, wet globs that his parents would not reach up and wipe away. Nor would they reach up with corpse fingers growing cold to get the snot dribbling down his nose, over his lips and to his chin. He wanted to scream again, but the cry was in his head only and no longer happening.

However, it was that scream she could still hear all the way through the streets, that sent her running. The scream of someone in complete pain beyond any kind of repair. The kind that can break glass and rip houses apart, making even people with the best hearing turn deaf. Never before had she heard something so devastating in her life. Never before had she been dispensed with so much responsibility in a short period of time in the course of an overwhelming moment. Still in a shock she could not shake she ran into people wondering why they could not hear the boy scream; crashing in each and every one of them with such force she was sure to knock them both over but finding her feet quick enough to collide into the next one. Not even being bothered to tell them to "move it" since she had no more voice because FEAR too had stolen it away so sneakily. Leaving her huffing and puffing her way through the streets, pumping her feet as fast as they would take her and then pushing them to do more.

She did not want to leave him, yet Selina could not stay with him either because something terrible had happened and she was the only one reacting fast enough to do anything about it, so she ran. Her heart was pounding in her chest begging for her to stop but the determination of her mind overpowered, begging her to go faster even though she felt her lungs were going to collapse and she would soon join Thomas, Martha and Death. She was unknown to how far she ran, eyes scanning her blurry vision fast until she found a glowing sign that read "PAYPHONE." She stopped immediately, crashing into the closed door with such force she felt she might break it. The man on the inside jumped, scared almost to the point of urinating himself as the small girl burst into his private conversation of beginning phone sex with his mistress.

Selina screamed at him to get out like a crazy person, grabbing his coat with her dirty hands and shoving him out into the cold-cursing but too afraid to fight back. She slammed her thumb on the receiver, balancing the phone in one hand-thankful for her gloves-and then shoving her other hand deep into the corners of her jacket pocket for the last bit of change she had. Her hands felt something cold and round so she yanked the money free with such hurriedness that the coins jumped from her fingers onto the floor of the phonebooth. She bent down and scrambled for a least one quarter. Snatching it up as fast as possible she slipped it into the coin slot, punching the simple three numbers in as fast as she could.

There was a voice on the first ring.

"911, what is your emergency?"

Her breath was hot, swelling inside her throat to make her choke on words that were most important. Tears found there way into her eyes and she wiped them away trying to find air so she could breath.

"Hello?"

"The Wayans…" she choked, coughing back air. "Someone shot the Wayne's in the alley by the movie theater." She tried to be as exact as she could. Then she hung up and ran away again.