Chapter One - Tick
Harleen Quinzel had finally done it. It felt so surreal. She sprinted up the stairs of her dirty apartment building, knowing the first thing to do when she got home. Opening her door faster than she ever thought possible, Harleen sprinted inside, throwing her bag and keys carelessly on the floor and running straight for her bedroom. She flung her wardrobe doors open, ignoring the shoes and clothes spilling out onto the ground, rummaging around them for her object of desire. Triumphantly, she pulled out the sneakers box. To anyone else this would look like an old, dirty shoebox that most wouldn't dare open for the fear of being suffocated by a stench so bad they would pass out. But this shoe box contained Harleen's most prized possessions.
Finding what she was looking for in the box, she walked into her living room and sat on worn out dirty sofa that groaned under her weight, reminding herself to buy a new one when she finally got her first pay check. The folded, tear stained paper she had taken from the box contained information that was very important to her. Six years ago, when she started this list, she would have never expected to have achieved over half of it by the age of 22, let alone today be ticking off the main thing she had been aiming for her whole life. 1. Train every day until you become amazing at gymnastics, tick. 2. Use this to get a scholarship into a university, tick. 3. Study psychology, tick. 4. Graduate with top marks, tick. And now she could finally tick off number 5, Get a job at Arkham Asylum… and tick. A huge smile spread across Harleen's face, but this was soon replaced with a frown when her eyes cast down to the picture of her parents taped to the bottom of the page. She missed them terribly, but she was doing all of this for them. To fulfil her promise to make them proud in hopes they would forgive her. She shook her head to stop herself remembering or thinking about it anymore, there was not point in continuing to torture herself. She read her list over again. All she had left to do now was to fall in love, marry and have the perfect life.
She folded the paper, carefully placed it back in the box and decided to celebrate her new employment. And what better way to do that than with a bottle of wine and a Chinese takeaway. After changing from her formal interview attire into sweatpants and a vest and eating her Chinese, she snuggled down onto the sofa and fell asleep.
Harleen awoke with a jolt, deliberately springing up and walking into the kitchen to stop the memories of the dream from remaining in her head. A sleepless night dreaming about her parents before her first day was not what she had in mind, but she would take the tiredness over having to remember. Placing the kettle on and putting coffee in her cup, she lazily leant against the counter, not quite believing how light it was for the middle of the night, or for Gotham in general, the greyest city ever, yet to Harleen, the most exciting. The kettle whistled to Harleen, announcing it had finished boiling when something caught her eye… "What does that say on the microwave time?" she thought, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes to get a better look. "CRAP!" Harleen sprinted into her bedroom, how could she not realise it was bright because it was the day! God she really wasn't a morning person. And now she had 30 minutes to dress and get to work for her first day. Brilliant.
She didn't have time for standing in front of her wardrobe panicking about what to wear, but she couldn't help it, she wanted to look professional. She was sick of having men throughout her life more interested in her body than what she was saying or what she could do. Harleen knew that she wasn't bad looking, her cheeks were a little chubby but overall, she wasn't bad. Her years of gymnastics training had given her a naturally small waist, toned stomach and legs and a flexibility she has never lost, but this has only caused her more problems. Throughout university her male lecturers had all taken a shine to her for this very reason, causing the rumour to spark about her sleeping with them to get the best grades in the year. Well she would show all of those who doubted her. Sighing because she had wasted yet more time lost in thought, she grabbed her black midi pencil skirt and paired it with a pale pink long sleeved blouse that only accentuated her waist more, but looking at the time she couldn't care less anymore. She threw on some make up, brushed her hair and placed it into a low ponytail and added her fake prescription glasses to complete the look. "No one will notice they aren't real" she thought. Giving herself a final once over after placing on her patent black heels and spraying herself with an enormous amount of perfume, she grabbed her back and keys off the floor (still there from last night) slammed the door shut and ran to her car.
She must have broken a thousand driving laws to get to the asylum on time, but she didn't care. She was here, in reception, at 8:59 for her first day in her dream job. "Dr. Qunizel?". Harleen's head snapped to the right. "Oh god".