A Looking Glass in Ernest Shattered

by GantuShmantu

The first chapter in the Invictus trilogy! Set in a very different Gotham then most may have envisioned, a very troubled young man is still recuperating after the tragic events that robbed him of his sanity and sent him to Arkham for nearly a year. Now, the names and rules have changed, but one thing is clear: Gotham needs a savior. (The story continues in A Moonlight Façade.)

4. A Minds A Terrible Thing To Waste

"Go ahead...take the money, it's what you've always done, isn't it? The lowest hanging fruit has always been the sweetest, and the most fattening. Quick to suffocate you in the pool of ease you created of your own design, you slowly suckle on the nectar, and as you surely depreciate you stay exactly where you are. And what you are. A product of what others are willing to give, not what you are willing to create. "

Have you ever even tasted the luscious and supple nectar of insanity? The kind that makes you run through the pouring rain in a thousand dollar suit, screaming incoherently into the darkness of night, as your hands shake and waiver from the cold, but yet you do not stop. Why would you? This feeling will pass, it all shall pass, and in the wake of it all is a perfect numbness, and whether they choose to believe it or not...it is true bliss. Have you ever just left the rules at the door and danced under the cover of the stars, they are the purest blankets...the brightest friends, and they do not break, they do not betray, they do not bleed.

I can't tell the difference between what's mine or theirs anymore, to tell you the truth. It's all just a blur, like Vaseline on the lens of the camera because of an overindulgent first-year film student trying painfully to get a leg up on the competition. I hear voices, see things, but in this place I wouldn't put it past anyone to be the culprit; with an alligator in the basement the size of a Prius, riots breaking out every other day, and those infernal screams tearing through the pathetically thin walls. Something very wrong is happening here, but this isn't for the world to see or hear, almost everyone know what goes on in the deepest depths of the asylum. Amadeus is long since dead, and with it has gone his goals, his patience, and most importantly his conscience.

I'm so sorry Jess...if only things had gone differently maybe I could have built the future I once promised you, but at times I swear I can hear you calling out to me in that some silky smooth tone. So soft, so insatiably longing for life itself, just like before, you whisper, you knock on the outer doors, but yet I don't have the strength to release my bonds. There just might be hope. Some of the medical staff mumbled that I will be getting a roommate as part of their new form of rehabilitation. I hope he's nice.