She was glancing at the papers in the manila folder as she walked through the horribly lit hallways of Arkham Asylum. Not horribly lit in a dim way, but in the way that the fluorescent lights hummed and were so bright you found yourself squinting as you went. It also made the white papers in her folder almost reflective as she attempted to read the words on the page in front of her.
Jonathan Crane, ex-doctor at Arkham Asylum. Criminally insane, goes by the alias of Scarecrow, his specialty is with a special type of chemical gas he calls fear toxin that causes victims to see their worst fears. Though, Dr. Crane was also known for other types of torture, including leaving messages with the mangled corpses of dead crows. He was currently a patient at Arkham Asylum, and she was on his way to go give him a routine physical. Not a glamorous job, but one she was currently being assigned.
As she walked through the hall of the asylum, heels clicking in a loud rhythm on the linoleum floors, she heard something. Something very small and very quiet, but a noise that a nurse at Arkham Asylum must be trained to hear. The sound of a door clicking open. Turning towards the noise, she noticed that the stairwell door was open. Strange, she was on the ground floor. The doors lead down to the boiler room in the basement. Well… There must have been a change in air pressure, pushing the door open. Nothing to worry about, she walked to the door and went to close it.
That was when the pale spindly fingers shot out and grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her into darkness. Her screams were choked as the wind was knocked out of her, falling down a flight of stairs in pure darkness would do that to you. Coughing and pushing herself onto her knees, she wondered if she had broken anything in the fall or was bleeding. She was not given enough time to react though, and felt herself suddenly lifted off the ground and onto a hospital bed. The kind that strapped you in.
She did her best to struggle, she really did, but the poor nurse was not one for fight or flight. She was very small, very weak, and a perfect target for the spider that had caught her in his web. Once her attacked had her firmly secured on the hospital bed, she finally heard a voice break through the darkness.
"Once upon a time there was a little old woman and a little old man. They lived in a little old house near a river. They had no children and felt rather lonely, so one day the little old woman said to her husband…"
The poor nurse was silent, fear consuming her as the voice chilled her bones. Suddenly, a light flicked on and she shut her eyes, completely blinded. As she blinked, eyes adjusting to the sudden light, she saw none other than Jonathan Crane, wearing the green scrub pants of a patient and a broken straight jacket. "My dear, if you do not say your part of the story, I will be forced to say your part as well as mine." The nurse stayed silent, dark eyes wide with the fear of a trapped animal. "Very well," Scarecrow groaned, "I seem to have picked a poor test subject. Live and learn I suppose, perhaps you will be of use to me after all."
Walking up to her side, he stared down at her, face bored and unamused. "I'm going to make my own little girl out of gingerbread." His face slowly grew into a large grin. "Two little legs… Two little legs… She will be a gingerbread man…" Scarecrow's pale fingers slid down the exposed leg of the nurse, her body shuddering under his touch, goosebumps bubbling up below the spindly digits. She continued to writhe under his, not understanding what he was doing as his hand traveled from her ankle to the hem of her skirt as he spoke. Suddenly, Scarecrow swung a large sledge hammer high above his head and sent it crashing down on her left kneecap.
The nurse screamed loudly, the sound reverberating off the walls of the basement. Scarecrow giggled softly. "Oh, what a wonderful plan! Two little legs…" He swung again, smashing down on the opposite knee. The nurse's scream merely intensified to a higher pitch and a louder volume.
Scarecrows free hand moved to the nurses shoulder, gently caressing her exposed arm from shoulder to wrist as he continued to speak to her in a soothing, storytellers voice. "Two little arms, two little arms, she will be a gingerbread man." Just as before, Scarecrow swung the hammer, this time landing on her forearm with a shatter and a fresh scream from the nurse, tears streaming down her red face. "Oh, what a wonderful plan! Two little arms."
Scarecrow dropped the sledge hammer to the floor with a clatter, grinning at her from above as her screams dissolved into painful sobs. Her skin was blossoming with bruises and blood, splintered bones stabbing through the damaged flesh. "Currants for her eyes… Currants for her eyes…"
Fear truly blossomed within her as Scarecrow spoke. After what he had just done to her arms and legs, she had no idea what he could possibly have in mind for her eyes. A surprising sense of relief spread through her as he simply pulled out a folded up bandana in the sea foam green color of the scrubs the patients at Arkham wore.
"She will be a gingerbread man…" Scarecrow chanted, tying the bandana around her eyes. "Oh, what a wonderful plan, currants for her eyes. A cherry for her nose, a cherry for her nose, she will be a gingerbread man." The nurse was attempting to come up with coherent thought as she felt something pinch down on her nose. Whatever was clamping her nose, she could no longer breathe out of it, and was now breathing heavily out her mouth. "Oh, what a wonderful plan, a cherry for her nose."
The only sound in the room was now the nurses breathing through her nose and Scarecrow digging through some sort of box. She could feel her tears get soaked up by the bandana as Scarecrow spoke yet again. "Peel for her mouth, peel for her mouth…" The nurse suddenly felt her jaw get gripped tightly by his cold hands. "She will be a gingerbread man…" his hand moved pinching her lips together and pressing them out. That was when he shoved the needle through her lip and the nurse let out the most blood curdling scream of them all.
Scarecrow leapt upon the hospital bed, straddling her and holding her jaw shut as he began to sew her lips together with the needle and thread as tightly as possible as he continued to speak through gritted teeth. "Oh, what a wonderful plan… A peel for her mouth…" Scarecrow continued to sew until her mouth was completely sewed shut, and he stuck the needle through her cheek to hold it in place. He had sewn so tightly she couldn't spread her lips to scream, and was barely able to breathe any air in. Her lips and cheek were now flowing freely with blood, and the blood began to flood within her mouth.
"When the gingerbread man was ready… The little old man went to put her in the oven." The nurse began to writhe even more, trying to spit the blood out of her mouth through her restrained lips, trying to scream, trying to do anything she could to get away from this mad man. She felt the bed began to move on its wheels, not stopping to wonder where he could possibly be taking her. Then she felt the heat against the bottoms of her feet. They were in the basement, the boiler room, where a large fire burned.
The woman screamed and screamed as she felt her restraints be removed. She screamed so hard and so loud that finally, her lips tore through the stitches as she was shoved inside the fireplace. "Let me out! Let me out!" She screamed, as the flames began to lick up her already damaged skin. "Stop! Stop!" She continued to scream as she the flames eat through her flesh, and smoke replace the precious air in her lungs.
Once the screamed ended, Scarecrow pulled the burnt carcass out of the fire and back onto the bed with a frown. "And they could not catch him. The little gingerbread man ran off down the lane. He kept on running until…" Scarecrow turned around, staring blankly at the security guard on top of the stairs into the basement. "He met a fox." The security guard wasted no time racing down the stairs and apprehending Scarecrow, who did not fight back in the slightest. On the contrary, he seemed to be contemplating something.
Jonathan Crane was quickly escorted to his personal psychiatrist as the body of the nurse he had destroyed was taken care of. He was asked why he had done it, and Dr. Crane had, but one response.
"I assure you, I had no intentions of killing her. I had simply grown lonely here in Arkham, and I wished to create a companion for myself. I wanted to create my very own gingerbread man. I had no idea that the methods of creating a gingerbread man would fail so miserably on her. She was too weak, obviously the wrong type of person I require for a test subject. Though, I am not disappointed. That is the point of an experiment, trial and error. I will simply have to try another approach next time."
The psychiatrist looked up at Dr. Crane from his notes with an expression of alarm. "Next time?" He was met with a maniacal grin from the good doctor. "Yes, good sir, next time."