(Praise the lord for random name generator.)


Day 1/29/58, New Gotham asylum institute.


Will had little to no idea why he stuck around for this job, other than for the pay.

His job as a janitor may not seem like much, but when you're a janitor in an asylum full of Gotham's most craziest assholes, you'd probably start to wonder if cleaning up an elementary school would be an easier job.

At this point, he could swear up and down that he knew how to get blood and vomit and anything out, stain-free. This was a bit sad, because, hey, when is he ever going to clean blood off the walls when he decides to quit? A useless skill, for him.

That wasn't to say that he wasn't grateful for this job, oh no, he was quite happy with it, aside from all the crazies that gave him a mini heart attack whenever he even stepped a foot in front of their cells.

He, along with several other of the employees here, were hand-picked by the big man, Wayne, himself. Will had no idea how Wayne even knew him, or why he was even considered a good janitor, but he could roll with this. Cleaning up after freaks was so, so much easier than working on the road.

The pay was much better, too.

The true downside here was that sometimes the various therapists around here would coax any passing employee to talk to some nutjob to prove a point, or as an example of normal interaction.

Those days were the worst. He's so glad he managed to trade cell block S with John last week. That was the most craziest block he'd been to, and he'd seen all kinds of crazy this past month.

He glances to his watch once more today.

Oh, man, he couldn't wait for lunch time. The little bakery down the road had the best apple pies. He could practically drool just thinking about them. Plus, there was that one amazing woman behind the counter. He wouldn't mind coming up and asking her -

"Will?"

He snaps out of his thoughts, looking up from where he'd been mopping the floor.

Looking up, there stands one of the other janitors. The janitor from cell block Y, Jeff.

He was quite muscular, in a way that, even with his baggy work shirt, you could easily tell. His scraggly beard was in desperate need of a comb through, and his skin was darker than chocolate. Jeff had been here for about a month longer than Will, having accepted the job offer quickly, instead of dawdling around thinking about it.

"What d'you want?" Will asks, leaning against the mop.

Jeff threw his thumb over his shoulder, "laces said we have to clean the basement. Bat's been dragging in too many people for us to handle."

Bat. Batman. Ugh. Will really wished the 'hero' would just go sleep in a cave for the next five years.

He liked the guy, yes, but honestly? - Gotham is filled with lunatics. The world was filled with them. But no, oh no, batman needed to try and cram as many of them as he could into these facilities. Sometimes he left criminals with barely any evidence of what they'd done.

It just seemed like the most useless system. Who witnessed a drug deal? - Not the criminals, from what they say. Who saw some man abusing his wife? Not the man doing it, and most times, certainly not the wife.

Batman's system was flawed in that. He never stuck around except for the 'villains', and those guys had all kinds of witnesses and victims all trying to keep them locked up for good.

The little guys, though? The little, tiny criminals that he brings in without any evidence for? They go free. Some of them don't, but many of them do, and once they do, they go right back to the same old thing.

Will knows this by heart. He'd been in a gang of those kinds of criminals.

Of course, he went 'clean' from gangs and such after parole, but that still didn't stop him from checking on his buddies from time to time.

And they told him lots of things about batman. Lots.

Call him naive to believe what they say, but that's what he believes so far, and he's not going to change his mind until the 'hero' straightens his act.

"Ick. Why down there?" he asks, putting the mop into the bucket and leaning it against the wall; he'd bring them, but the basement is going to need way more than a little mopping done.

Jeff shrugs, "it's better for some of the more...advanced guys."

"You can just call them what they are; Lunatics." Will scoffs, rolling his eyes.

Jeff was such a pancake. He seemed like the kind of guy who had his life handed to him on a silver platter. His namesake, Geary, meant that he was part of one of the richest families in Gotham. Ranging in third place, with Wayne being first.

It led to the question of why the heck the guy was even a janitor, let alone one who worked here of all places, but Will couldn't give a shit about that if he tried. He was here for the money, nothing else.

They both turn down a hallway, walking side-by-side. Jeff frowns, "hey, now, some of these people aren't so bad. You should lighten up a little."

Will has to fight against rolling his eyes as they make their way into one of the main lobbies; down the left-most hallway, there should be a room with all the stuff they'd need, carts for said stuff included.

"Wise words from mister T?" Will finally says, just as they enter said room of supplies.

"Wise words from mister Jeff." Jeff smiles, taking a cart of his own, and turning it to the door, "you should chill. The world's not out to get you."

Will, taking a cart, grumbles less than happy words about Jeff's advice. He follows the man along toward the elevator.

Surprisingly, even though this building can hold a good three hundred or so patients, there was only one elevator leading to the basement floor.

Will wasn't so sure about why, though, but maybe it was for safety reasons. Like if asylum patients in the basement ever got loose. All Barney Fife had to do was sit in front of said elevator and wait the looney out.

But then again, the asylum was probably going to shove the creepiest of fucks in the basement, so perhaps instead of the boys in blue, it'd be batman, sitting all nice and snug.

Did batman sit on the ceiling, like a bat? Probably. Who knows, who cares.

The elevator was pretty old styled compared to the other ones the asylum had gone to replace, this one had the old button system, whereas the new ones all had a sweet new voice-activated system, with all kinds of security measures. Elevator drops too fast? You can make it slower. Have a slightly larger than average guy jumping into it? There's a command to make the elevator larger.

Ah, yes, new technology was really the best.

But, really, Will would rather have an elevator that made him a nice cup of the darkest coffee possible.

Maybe he could complain about it anonymously to Wayne enterprises. Wayne was funding this asylum, after all. Maybe if he included the idea with some more 'better' ideas Wayne would take them all seriously.

Hah. Yeah, right.

The elevator is so slow. The facility had many, many floors, yes, but from what he'd heard, the basement was far, far underground, separated from the main building by a ton of dirt and an elevator.

It surely must have been a security procedure or something. Maybe if the Jerkwads put down there have bombs or something.

"-So, uh, come here often?" Jeff starts, breaking Will from his thoughts once again today.

Will, despite having a rather bad day, cracks a smile, "That is the most lamest line in history."

Jeff laughs, "Yeah, but it works, doesn't it?"

Just then, before Will can reply, the doors to the elevator open up, revealing a very, very dark hallway.

Will whistles low, taking a step forward, pushing the cart into the hallway, "It's like some sort of ghost adventure shit."

"Yeah," Jeff agrees, voice lowered in awe. The place is dark, but you can still see enough that you can tell it's going to need a lot more than a scrub down.

Will abandons his cart, moving through the dark, running his hand against the wall as he went, "Where's the cursed light switch? What the heck?"

Jeff has to look hard to see the other man clearly, it being so dark, "This floor seems older. There might be some main room to dim the lights in."

"And where, pray tell, would that be?"

"Probably at the end of the hallway, or in the main security room." Jeff answers, before pushing his cart forward slowly, "some old facilities have several control rooms for security reasons. Just in case one guard was knocked out, the other guards would know about it."

Will hums to that, "like the computer setup?"

Jeff nods, despite it being too dark to really see the action, "except with people. Back then, they were still looking at flip-phones and watching tapes on their VHS."

"Shit," Will drawls out, "that was back in my parent's childhood."

"I'm not sure if it's that old, but it may as well be," Jeff says, pulling out his cellphone for a means of light, "look at the walls of these cells, man. The padding is old."

The walls of the cells were, in fact, covered by old padding - these cells were most likely used as crazy rooms. Will couldn't be sure what else someone would use them for.

Though some of the tears on the padding looked much, much worse. Like some kind of animal was kept down here.

It certainly left some creepy vibes.

Will takes up Jeff's idea and tugs his own phone out - his was older, one of those smaller touchscreens without the holographic mumbo jumbo. Still, it did its job as a flashlight, lighting up instantly.

They make their way down the hall, leaving their supplies behind.

If something came at them, Will was very, very sure Jeff could outrun him any day. If that happened, Will planned on tripping the man to use as bait. No goolie creeps were going to scare him today, no siree.

Luckily, or unluckily, all the cells they passed were left open, bars rusted over by age and only a few broken off completely.

Jeff sighs, "Man, if I knew we'd be in the dark, I woulda asked laces to turn on the lights."

Side-stepping a cell door that lay on the floor, most likely unhinged by age, Will snorts, "You afraid of ghosts?"

A moment of silence greets him, then, "Maybe."

Will doesn't bother making fun of the guy for it; to be perfectly honest, anyone would be afraid of ghosts. Still, though, it was quit hilarious to imagine a large guy like Jeff running away from something he thought was a ghost. Hah! Wouldn't that be something?

As they walk along, they're greeted with a long, continuous hiss. Will could make a guess and say there was a leak somewhere in the building. They might have to just go ahead and call some other guys in to clear up this place. It seemed way too dangerous for two janitors to clean up.

Still, as they continued down the hall, the hissing would sputter and spit, almost like an animal.

Jeff had subconsciously moved closer to the other man warily, "Cheeto fritz." He says.

"The heck does that mean?" Will asks, voice lowered to a whisper. If that noise was an animal, something told Will that it'd be a hungry animal. This place was secluded, after all. No dog could get out of here by itself.

Though how it'd get in here was another question.

"I don't like cursing." The man answers quietly.

"That's new, coming from a chocolate chip," Will says, putting as much emphasis on the 'new' as he could.

Jeff doesn't take the name too hard, though, merely elbowing him in the side, "Chocolate chip? That's one I haven't heard before -"

They both freeze as the noise rises up in volume. It sounded oddly muffled, like some kind of dog with a muzzle on it's face. It wouldn't be so alarming, and could easily be passed off as pipes, or a machine.

There seemed to be a growling noise now. It reminded Will of his old dogs, and how they'd loved to 'talk' that way for treats.

The first thing Will does is stop moving, keeping his stance a certain, hopefully un-intimidating way. Dogs weren't so bad, he knew how to handle them. Angry dogs? Not so much. He might have a chance, though.

Jeff, on the other hand, hunches into himself, wide-eyed, looking for the cause of the growling. It was clear by his stance that he was going to run at the first sign of trouble.

Not a good thing to do when faced with a dog. Not unless you could outrun one.

The growling hitches every so often, but it doesn't move around the room, merely staying in one place. Will is sure that it probably backed itself into a corner in an attempt to get away from the two men, and refused to move.

Jeff, the big idiot, takes a step forward, "Hello?"

Will takes a step back, "Seriously? You're saying hello to an animal?" He whispers harshly.

Jeff keeps taking small steps forward, "Maybe it's just scared."

Will had to resist the urge to groan aloud, "This isn't fucking 'snow dogs', man, this is reality."

Jeff ignores the other, instead keeping a slow pace forward. Will is reluctant to follow along, but really, who would protect this dingus if a dog decided to attack anyway? -Plus, if he ran back to the lobby, he might get fired for leaving the other janitor behind to get mauled to death by some rabid dog.

That wouldn't be nice for future employers to see, he thinks.

They both look around for the animal, hoping to find it - once they found it, they could confirm that it was a dog and get the heck out of there to call animal control.

Or, well, that's what Will planned, anyway. He didn't really care if animal control took the animal to the animal form of 'the chair'; as long as it was gone, has would be happy.

The growling, if possible, grows louder with each step forward. Will really wants to grab Jeff by the elbow and drag the man all the way back to the elevator, but something kept him from doing so. Perhaps some stupid human curiosity.

He's probably going to regret this later. He can practically feel his luck slowly dwindling away with each step forward. Like a giant sand hourglass, but with the bottom broken off, letting the sand drain out.

Jeff swings his makeshift flashlight to the right so quick Will jumps a good inch off the floor in fright.

"Holy heck, man, what are you trying to -"

Before he could finish, his words refuse to come out. There, where the flashlight pointed, was the 'animal' they'd been expecting.

Only that 'animal' was a child, who looked no older than thirteen, sitting inside of a cage far too small for him, bottom half of his face covered with a strange old-world lunatic muzzle.

They men are silent, staring at the anomaly.

Jeff dims his flashlight, perhaps subconsciously, to keep the child from being blinded.

"Damn..."