The cold steel dragged across her frail skin. A beaded line of blood appeared. She sighed out. The air was stale with her regret, her uselessness. The silence banged against her ears as she watched the alleviation stretch over her body, a woman would die every day, and be reborn every evening into power, into revenge.
Her heart beat wildly beneath her ribs as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror across the room. Her black hair paired with the blond underneath gave way to her 'take no prisoners' eyes, and then flirted with her mouth, luscious lips, deadly at best. Her sick skin, torn again and again over the reckless years. This body was naked and cold in the middle of a small dark room, making her look ghostly, almost not human at all.
She turned back to her craft, gently brushing the knife over her dead skin, drawing blood, and feeling the tickle of shearing. She began to smile as the sun went down over lowly Gotham, knowing that by the end of this night another poor soul will have endured what she had endured.
She rose from the floor where she sat and strolled over to the large window on the opposite side of the room. As she walked the blood ran down her legs, dripping onto the floor below. Just ten years ago she was happy…just ten years ago she had a purpose…
But why think of that now? Ten years ago she was the eight year old daughter of Gotham's most famous and wealthy plastic surgeon, Adam Sturge, and the miracle model Kathy Sturge. It had been a well known fact that Adam Sturge had chosen Kathy as his wife to prefect his plastic surgery, successfully changing his wife from a matronly woman to a blonde bombshell that any man in Gotham would give their right hand for. But when she, at the time Vivian, came along…well every thing shifted slightly. The weight of perfection was even heavier on her mother's shoulders after giving birth. She had gained weight and was starting to look her age like every other woman, but her father's lust for the perfect woman made him, no, drove him to do more.
His obsession became a death sentence, and soon his mind was far to clouded with obsession. Slowly he dwindled into insanity. Vivian noticed the signs early on in her childhood, he was constantly in his office drawing up the next big plans for her mother. Oh and her poor mother…well Kathy was constantly in bed, allowing the incisions to heal, barely having the strength to hold her daughter, or make her breakfast in the morning. But as stated before, Vivian was happy ten years ago, only because ever single day before Vivian went to school her mother would look at her and say,
"You are the most beautiful girl in this world, and you always will be Viv, you're so beautiful, never forget that…"
Vivian heard her mother's words ring out in her hears, and sliced into her thigh. The blood drizzled down her leg, and felt the hot liquid seer against icy flesh
But on Vivian's eighth birthday her father went completely insane, chasing after her mother wielding a sharp kitchen knife feeling as though he needed to fix her further. He finally chased her into the family room, and there began to cut into her chest, and her face, and her abdomen, leaving Vivian's mother dead on the floor in a puddle of blood. After realizing what he had done he took the same knife and cut himself as well. Finally falling to the floor the knife lodged in his skull Vivian walked in on the blood bath, not completely realizing the situation, walked over to her mother and sat, drenched her in blood. She traced over her mothers gashed features. Soon the police arrived finding little Vivian crying over her mothers dead body.
Now ten years later Vivian stands above Gotham City, in the apartment her parent's tainted wealth bought. She surveyed the city, soon to be taken and made a beauty in its own blood.
She relished in the thought holding her naked form in front of the window. Her eyes hungered for the evening to be upon her. She could feel herself crying out for the blood of the innocent,she could feel her addiction growing. She walked back to her bedroom and jumped into the shower. The hot water scorched over her body. She shivered in pain and pleasure.
She stepped out of the bathroom, and made her way to her closet. By now the bleeding had stopped. She searched the racks of her closet, and then found her costume. Her heart swelled with excitement. Her eyes cut into the fabric, and the costume was ripped from the hanger.