The masked man sat in his little carbine cell, muted and tethered. He was a trophy, the perfect symbol of Zoom's power.

I remembered first finding him. He'd rapped frantically on the walls, a message I didn't understand.

I had at first assumed it was morse code, which I didn't know. And besides. I was too scared of Zoom to stay for long. I left the room to huddle on my bed, frightened and disoriented.

But I found myself coming back. At first, I only peered in for seconds at a time. Then I began to linger, yearning for the company, however incoherent. After a time, I realized that morse code would be pointless; you couldn't do a long knock. There was no difference in any of the knock's volume or placement.

I thought that perhaps he was counting out the number of each letter in it's placement in the alphabet. But none of his sequences went past five.

Eventually I broke his code, of course. I didn't dare keep the table then. I don't even dare now. I had to do it mentally, and became quite quick with it.

"JAY," he would knock. "GARRIK."

Over and over.

"I KANT KONTAKT HIM," I dared to rap back after nearly a week.

"I AM JAY."

I thought it was impossible. Jay Garrick, no longer saving the people from Zoom? Locked away in his lair, useless as myself.

Oh, Zoom. Zoom was so terrifying in those days. He still terrifies a part of me, but I often mistake it for excitement.

His long fingers, the black eyes... I hated those eyes. There was nothing human left in them. That's why I was so shocked when I saw Hunter's face.

I had been there two weeks. I had never been hurt, only fed and watched by those inky eyes. Sometimes he came close enough that I could feel the blue sparks zapping next to my skin, an impeccable analogy for how my nerves fared.

But then he took off his mask and I understood. I understood everything.

Well, almost everything.

"Jay?" I cried. Jay had come to rescue me! But why dress as Zoom to do so? Did he have metas that Jay had to sneak past?

Jay's face went from a handsome, deadly seriousness to a smile. The sort with a secret that shows the lines in your eyes and the patronizing angle on your features.

"No, Katrine," he said in the voice that had once inspired so much hope. "I am not Jay Garrick."

I froze, still sitting on the bed in the middle of the warehouse-like cave.

"Zoom is..." Jay's twin. Jay's clone. Anything but Jay Garrick himself.

"Jay Garrick is an invention. A lie, a trick for the public. But it's so tiresome playing hero." As the evil words came from his mouth, he kept smiling. Why did he keep smiling?

"Why?" It was broken-sounding.

"Because to truly tear something down," said Ja-Zoom? "And for that to mean something, it must be a beacon first. People have to see hope before it can be crushed."

There was a passion in that voice. A broiling, burning passion that lit up his features. This man was insane. Our last hope was insane.

Something in me felt like his blue sparks. That face was familiar. I had seen it before. Those features, that look, but... different.

"Why am I here?" I asked, fighting the tears out of my voice.

"I... was lonely." The insane look fell away, leaving his face unfamiliar. This wasn't the faked hero. It wasn't the almost-Zoom that was maddeningly familiar. This seemed to be affectionate. Something in me sparked again.