Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, I do not own the Riddler, but I do own the narrator of this chapter :) Oh and I forgot to say this in the last chapter, but the title for the story is a title of a song by Pretty Lights. I did not come up with it.

Warning: this chapter has dark themes.


She awoke several hours later, not having any idea where she was. All she could remember was getting out of work and then going to her car in the elevator … and then it hit her. A man had entered and asked her if she liked riddles. She had replied no and then his hands had flown to her neck. She remembered the feeling of not breathing as she felt her fingers trace the bruises forming on the sides of her neck and then realized that everything had gone black very quickly. She could not account for anything that happened afterwards, including how she got here. The initial fear of not knowing her whereabouts subsided. She knew that if she was going to make it out alive, she had to be smart and use her prior knowledge. It was the stupid hostages who died.

As she slowly sat up, she took in her surroundings. The man with the Ray-Bans and vicious grin had put her in a dark room only filled with one object: a large wooden table that was in the center. A lone light blub was lit above it, swinging ominously. Her right ankle had a shackle placed around it and she followed the chain links to the wall behind her.

She was his captive.

She desperately wanted to scream for help but cautiously kept quiet. If she screamed, he might muzzle her or even worse, hit her. He wouldn't kill her though. Somehow she knew that the man was not going to dispose of her right away. The chain links seemed to tell her that she was meant to stay here for a very long time. Was she to witness him murdering other people? Was that what the table was for? Was that the sick pleasure he wanted? Would he then turn on her after he had his fill? Would her body ever be on his table?

Suddenly, large beams of light burst from the right side of the room and she shielded her face so they wouldn't blind her. The light vanished as the sound of a door shutting filled the room, followed by the sound of footsteps coming nearer. She hugged her knees to her chest after closing her eyes and assumed the worst. However, the footsteps stopped and she opened her eyes slowly as she heard a large thump!

The man had brought something or someone with him.

"Good morning sunshine," he crooned as she watched him place a large white bag on the centered table. "So nice of you to join me." She didn't want to watch as he began to unzip his prize and instead focused on his features. He was dressed differently then when she had first seen him. Instead of the previous suit, he donned black dress pants, shiny black shoes and a black bowler hat with a green stripe around the brim that matched his dark green dinner jacket. He still had his cane, which he had leaned against the table. After closer inspection, she realized that the handle was shaped like the top of a question mark. Instead of the Ray-Bans, he wore a slim, black mask that covered his eyes but let her see his maniacal smile. She knew she would never be able to get that dapper, cunning smile out of her head for as long as she lived. Who was this man? She didn't dare to ask.

Once he finished unzipping the bag, he quickly discarded it and to her horror, she saw a young girl lying naked on the table. However, after closer inspection she realized that the girl on the table looked exactly like her and gasped audibly. She couldn't help herself. They both shared the same short stature and dark hair, full breasts, narrow waist and large hips. She had heard about this sort of thing happening before in the news. She quickly came to understand that he was now beginning to target women that resembled her. He was some sort of sick serial killer and she was to be his muse.

"You don't like her?" he asked, not caring for her response as he circled around the body on the table. "I like her. I don't even know her name and I like her. In fact, I don't even know your name." He stopped what he was doing and then harnessed his cold stare towards her.

She didn't dare to respond as he crept closer.

"But more importantly, you don't know my name. You don't know anything about me," he said, keeping that maniacal grin on his face as he knelt down in front of her. A moment of silence passed as they both looked at each other. From the close angle, she would have thought he was attractive if he didn't have her chained to the wall with another girl lying dead on the nearby table. Suddenly, his hand reached out and grabbed her by the chin. She had to look at his face as he spoke. "You may not know my name. You will only know me as The Riddler because I have many riddles for you and the rest of Gotham. Are you ready? Here it goes. This is your first test. The maker makes it but does not use it. The buyer buys it but does not need it. The one who needs it will never know it. What is it?"

Another moment of silence passed as she tried to rack her brain for the answer so she could give him a response and stay alive. She had to be smart, she kept telling herself. Maybe then he would leave her alone. The maker makes it but does not use it … could this be some sort of tradesmen? What could he make? And the buyer buys it but does not need it … why would someone buy something if they did not need it? Who would need this obje-

"A coffin! The object is a coffin, you're right!" he exclaimed as he removed his hand from her face and began to clap to himself. "The maker makes one but doesn't need to use it until he's dead. The buyer buys – well you already know the rest. That one was easy. Here's another one for you. I know a word of letters three, add two and fewer there will be." She was about to protest and exclaim that she didn't know the answer to the first riddle, he had only supplied it for her, but kept silent. It seemed that not speaking was the best thing to do as he sat in front of her, humming the theme song to the popular game show Jeopardy. Once he got to the end of the song, he laughed. Time was running out.

"You're absolutely right, the word 'few' is correct! I'm going to have to make these harder then. Hm hm hm, what to ask next. Oh I know! I am used to bat with, yet I never get a hit. I am near a ball but it is never thrown. What am I?" Her mind began to churn, thinking of why he was answering his own riddles instead of the answer to the question. Did he not trust her to make the right connection? Or did he just like the sound of his own voice?

"Right again! The answer is eyelashes just like you said! You're a good at these, I'm gonna keep you around longer than I planned. But speaking of plans," he said as he looked back to the girl on the table. She shuddered inwardly as he hopped up from the floor and strode over to his possession across the room. He whistled a little tune to himself as he pulled out a large black bag from under the table and took out 3 large cans of paint and a pair of gloves. After putting on the gloves, he opened the paint cans and dipped a finger inside. It came out green.

"You know, I really like the color green. I have since my childhood. I don't like plants, I just like green," he babbled as he began to draw on the body before him with the green paint. "I don't like yellow, yellow is too bright. Too cheery. But green, that's my color. Green, green, green. No one can take that away from me." After he seemed to be done drawing, he dipped his finger back into the paint and then pulled it out again. Instead of drawing on the girl, he drew a green question mark on his right lapel. His laughs echoed throughout the room as he danced around the table, waving his green finger about.

"You must find this as funny as I do!" he exclaimed after he stopped right in front of her, waving his painted index finger in front of her. "Well enjoy your little playmate, I'll be back when she's dried!" He emitted another short laugh and then plunged into the surrounding darkness. She heard his footsteps go up the stairs and shielded herself from the light as he exited the room. Once the door slammed shut, she heard the lock squeak and she was once against alone with her thoughts.

And a dead girl.

She couldn't bear looking at her and she hoped he hadn't killed her in order to please his captive. She shook her head as she remembered the news program she had watched long ago about a man who had gone on a killing spree in the 1970s. Serial killers like the Riddler didn't operate that way. After spending a couple minutes with him, she knew that everything he did was for his own benefit. He had killed this girl because he wanted to, not because he wanted to please her. Every motive he had was for self-pleasure. She shuddered at the thought. She hoped he hadn't done anything to her sexually.

Poor girl.

But why hadn't he painted the girl right away instead of telling her riddles and supplying the answers? There had to be a reason for his riddles. She thought back to the people who had told riddles to her before: her grandfather, her math teacher in 7th grade and the odd guy at work who no one liked. Those people had nothing in common as far as she knew and she couldn't apply past experiences to the Riddler when she knew nothing about him. It was time to try another tactic. She huddled her knees up to her chest again and began to think. What were the answers to the riddles he had given her? Maybe he was trying to tell her something with the answers. She racked her brain and remembered the order: a coffin, few and eyelashes. What could they mean? Was that the ultimate riddle that she was meant to solve on her own? Is that why he had given her the answers?

But what did a coffin, few and eyelashes have in common? Coffins are for the dead, few is just a word and eyelashes are a part of the body. Maybe they combined together to make a sentence, she mused. Few coffins have eyelashes. Eyelashes have few coffins. No, that wasn't it. She tried something else. What did they represent? The easy one was coffins for they represented death. But few could mean a lot of things. Few what? Numbers? People? And eyelashes could take the riddle into a couple different directions. Fed up, she sighed and glimpsed at the corpse on the table out of the corner of her eye. And just like that, it hit her. The coffins represented death, few represented a number and eyelashes represented girls.

There would be fewer girls like her because they would be in coffins.


Author's Note: I'm on a roll with these chapters, I swear! I may not update this quickly all the time but for now I'm going to post them as soon as I finish them. I know this not traditionally how the Riddler is portrayed, but hear me out. I'm a Dark Knight Nerd and I watched the special features on the extras disk. There was a little segment called the psychology of Batman (or something to that extent) and they went through the motivations for each character. When they got to the Riddler, they mentioned that he was egotistical and like Ted Bundy (yes, he's the one who went on a killing spree in the 70s) so I made him into an egotistical serial killer. I know this not canon with Batmanverse, but I wanted to try something new. If you keep reading the story, you will see that he will still have some of the traits of the canon Riddler, so not all hope is lost Riddler fans! And as for the OC in this chapter ... I intentionally made her smart because she wouldn't last long if she was dumb. And her smarts will help her when she's not with the Riddler as well ... whoops did I say that? ;)