There was a mirror.
It was the same reflective surface that drowned Jack Napier in a scarlet sea of misery. Drowned him in gore, in hatred, in silence. Smothered all humanity from his jowls, and in its place rose a monster, a harelquin with an omnipresent grin.
It would become an icon, a symbol of fear. Bedlam reigned where this particular Chelsea grin could be found, a blood red warning to all those who did not have the wits to play his game. Some ran, some stayed to fight the onslaught of fire raining down from the Heavens, the devils' tears himself. A deep violet hem snapped in the wind, resigned to its purpose. A flash of purple, and suffering settled over the city, a black, unfurling cloud of smoke and repungant notes of gasoline choked the air.
The last time Jack Napier stared into that mirror was a mystery to the monster. His mind, cloaked in genius, was always whirring, always configuring masterful plans of destruction, never stopping, always turning and twisting and gnawing at his soul. There were always voices, soft, pleading voices, others piercing and maniacal, an asylum for a man who'd dreamed beneath the beaming moonlight. But memories were hard to chase, amongst the chaotic bustle that rustled around tirelessly in his head.
He figured it was after he'd first encountered the vigilante rodent that inquiries as to the whereabouts of Jack Napier's memories rested. Perhaps they were buried, disintegrated, left to the maggots, a corpse of worthless thought, a memoir of flesh and bone. Jack Napier was flesh and bone. He'd breathed. The monster never breathed. Only thought, only schemed, only admired the marred, irreparable flesh of his permanent smile. It was his trophy, his love...he donned it with an arrogance that was undeniably misplaced. Sometimes, that arrogance would boil, rip at the smile's seams, snap viciously at the threads that strung that slipshod grin together.
But what lay somnolent beneath the smile?
Nothing. There was nothing.
He was staring into it again, that plaguing mirror. The tendons beneath his fingers stretched and curled until they were taut beneath the leather purple gloves, and the fabric clenched uncomfortably, groaning and crinkling where his hands bent, protracting over the ashen knuckles. He wanted to crush it, strangle all ounces of life that cleverly ensconced itself beneath the smooth, glassy surface. Except in one place. There, in the corner. If one outstreched his arm, he could reach it. There was a gaping wound there, and it had bled glassy shards, spurting out and drenching the monster in its shimmering vulnerability. He had it, and the foundations of a curling leer began to crinkle at the edges of his ravaged mouth. It was a smile as old and feared as demonology. He saw the mirror tremble, and knew he had latched onto its fear, as a leech sinks its greedy jaws into its prey.
The gloved hand lifted, detached, like the stitched arm of a limp ragdoll. He wagged one reprimanding finger, and his leer deepened, so that his predatory mouth was exposed, and a glimpse of an abyss as deep as purgatory revealed itself to the stoic face of the miror. "I've got you, you know. You can't fool me with that poker face of yours. I've got one too. We've all got poker faces. That's why they're so easy to read...they're common."
His other hand reached surreptitiously into his black silk-lined pocket, sinking deeper into its depths as quietly as he were evading the vigilant watch of a poised cobra. In a flash of quicksilver, his fingers unveiled a switchblade, and he pressed the tip of the blade close to the epicenter of the mirror. A dull thud resounded, where his opposite arm had collided with the motionless glass.
"I'll go for the throat this time," he threatened, tracing just below the centerfold of the mirror, and his torpid breath sprawled across the surface in heated plumes. "I've got no qualms about tearing you into little tiny pieces. Now, Jackie-o liked you. He told me himself. He told me a lot of things. But there's something he told you that I need to know...somethin' that is rather eh - vital to my plans. Tell me."
A silence traced the edges of the rusted bathroom, the old paperthin walls that began to wither and surrender its peeling skin in patterened streaks. It even skirted easily across the porcelain bathtub, concealed beneath a heavy coat of soot and grime. The monster was perfectly still, and only his lungs seemed to retain their purpose, thudding against his ribcage, and he waited on bated breath.
"Aw, come now, old pal," the monster wailed, peeling the fingers of his gloves from his hands and flinging them from his person. "I thought we were accomplices. Partners in crime. I tell you all my escapades and share with you my winnings, and yet I earn nothing in return. It was always Jack, wasn't it? He always got payback. He always got to see himself all purdy in the mirror, spic and span, like a regular trophy boy. A regular yuppie. All shiny and new. So, I killed him. I was jealous. I want that too, ya know?"
He raked his dusty fingers through greasy hair, the flaxen roots beginning to peek impishly from beneath its faded green guise. And his skin dipped in gasoline and rubble and gunpowder left little remnants of his raids in his scalp, where they seeped into his brain, attached themselves to the racing, amusing little thoughts that catapulted against one another behind the ghostly white face, beneath eye sockets as hollow as the yawning mouth of his abysmal, black thoughts.
Then he whirled about, facing the culprit once more, his nails scraping mercilessly across the ragged trophy scars. "See these beauties? They ain't so grand when you're trying to scare the bats out of someone, and all they can do is stare at your mees-for-tun-ate deformities! And to think I wrote such a purdy monologue for them, something that would haunt them and....scar them for life."
A terrible grin captured his face, a jack-o-lantern's glowing smile. But it did not touch his eyes; not a flicker of soul resonated there, beneath the infallible darkness there.
He lurched forward, and sprung into the mirror, hands contorted into careless fists. A shatter. Teardrops of glistening rain scattered across the entire room, a swan song echoing across the tiles, bouncing off hallowed walls. Death was here. It would always be sacred. Always be remembered. And if not by the monster, than the ghost of the mirror...the ghost of a man, the soul that was harbored beneath the reflective glass.
The monster's hands dripped with agony, gashes as wide and grinning as the scars upon his face simpering up at him through punctured veins, through the thick surge of burgundy that flooded his pale arms, tarnished the symbolic fear, soaked into the malicious purple of his overcoat. But he was grinning as wide as ever, so wide that the scars were pulled tightly across an overwrought expression, threatening to tear, to rip like shredded paper.
His vacant eyes caught a glance of a shard lying a few steps away from where he huddled against his bleeding hands. The face of a man was in that shard. He was laughing, smile crinkling, and a light ignited within the deep russet of his eyes. But no sooner did he dare blink, the vision was gone. All that was left was the soiled ashes of a mirror that had long since burned into the spidery veins beneath the solid ground. Too tangible. And he swept his serpent's tongue across his precious scars.
"And you know what it is they say?"He asked, pausing for a response. "Beauty is only skin deep."
Author's Notes: This is the last thing I'm posting before I go. A one shot! Enjoy. And if you are a fan of SAHS (saviors and hellion smiles) and have not yet realized there's a new sequel that I posted, it's up! So you can go check it out. :D Also, a Joker origin piece I'm attempting. A little different maybe from what I usually write...somewhat darker but...I'll try and do my very best on it.
This is a taste of what's to come in Jack the Ripper. Jack and the Monster, whom he will later deem the Joker as we all know.
Well, I'm leaving for a holiday. Brief though...I'll be back on Friday. I'll reply to everything when I get back! I promise! Thanks so much for the support. It's appreciated and taken to heart! :D