Ivy had been escorted down to solitary confinement which didn't surprise her considering what she had done. Dr. Leland hadn't spoken to her directly before she was sent down and this troubled her. She had been locked up by Batman himself who shook his head at her with a rare instance of emotion on his face: disappointment. Ivy tried to say something to him, but this just resulted in him turning towards the guards and speaking to them before he left. This was probably the first time she actually wanted to speak to her psychiatrist. She brought her knees to her chest and cried; it wasn't like anyone could see her and she made sure to keep silent so nobody could hear her.
But as quickly as the tears came, they faded away faster; she rationalized in her mind Rosie would come around and she'd come for her visitations just like last time. Ivy nodded to herself in agreement. There was no way Rosie was actually done with her. She was just a confused teenager going through a weird time in her life. That was all.
Ivy's cell door was opened by Dr. Leland who walked in and shut it to keep the conversation as private as possible. "Isn't this solitary?" Ivy quipped.
"Was it worth it?"
"Was what worth it?"
"Stop it with the act, Pamela. You really hurt the most important person in your life," she pointed out. "I recently spoke with Barbara tonight and she honestly isn't sure if Rosie is going to come back and visit you."
"Rosie's just confused. Once she thinks about it, she'll understand," Ivy replied confidently.
"She'll understand what exactly?"
"I'm her biological mother," Ivy stated proudly. "I saw Woodrue and he confirmed it."
"First of all, you shouldn't be speaking to that man period. And second, is he really a reliable source?" Dr. Leland asked her gently. Ivy frowned.
"Who else could be her mother? Besides, I kept him alive for a reason. I want more information. I deserve to see his documentation of what he did to me and to Rosie. Nobody ever got ahold of his studies," Ivy explained her reasoning. "Rosie will understand."
"This is exactly what Roselyn understands, Pamela. She understands her mother was brutally murdering people-"
"Population control," she corrected.
"Whatever, Pamela," Dr. Leland snapped. "I'm exhausted from tonight and quite frankly, I don't want to deal with you tonight. I'll see you for therapy. But just think about this: would you like to see Roselyn kill any human being? I want you to think about it while you're down here and re-evaluate what you're saying to me. You made amazing progress and just threw it all away to search for a monster you had no business talking to." Dr. Leland shut the door after she left, locking it behind her. Ivy huffed. Dr. Leland didn't know what she was talking about. She would go back to trying to recover once she got everything she wanted from Woodrue. Then, she'd kill him and she'd be okay and Rosie would thank her. Ivy smiled to herself and fell asleep.
"Mommy!" Ivy heard a child's voice and found herself turning towards it. The child, a younger Roselyn, ran up to her and hugged her. She was that eleven year old girl she first met, but she seemed to be much happier. They stood in the center of a field filled with beautiful poppies and lush green grass. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining down on them, heating up their small portion of the Earth perfectly. She felt a set of male arms wrap around her and she looked up, disgusted at who she saw: Jason Woodrue. "What's the matter, mommy?" Rosie looked up at her with her lip jutting out in a pout. "You looked sad when Daddy hugged you."
"Daddy?" Ivy murmured. Her mind was screaming to get away from him, but her body wouldn't and for some reason relaxed.
"Yeah!" Rosie smiled up at her. Her brown hair was in pigtails (but not as high as Harley wore them) and she bounced happily. She wore a cute dress which came down past her ankles, something she would have seen in a movie taking place in the 1800s. The color of Rosie's dress was faded and it looked like she was wearing multiple skirts. Ivy noticed she herself was wearing a similar styled dress except hers was green and not yellow.
"You okay, Pam?" Woodrue asked with a concerned look.
"I'm fine," Ivy smiled up at him despite how sick to her stomach it made her. She hoped she wouldn't vomit. He was wearing a typical brown suit.
"Today's the perfect day to enjoy nature." Ivy found herself agreeing with him.
"Tag, you're it, mommy!" Rosie said when she tapped her arm. "You gotta catch me now!" Rosie ran away, her legs carrying her towards the forest.
"Rosie, don't go in there!" Ivy yelled. "Jason, don't let her go in there. Tell her to stop!" Ivy panicked, but Jason only laughed and she had no choice but to go after Rosie in the forest. As she entered the forest, Woodrue's laughter faded and it suddenly became dark. She could still hear Rosie's laughter as she chased her. "Rosie, stop! Roselyn!" she shouted.
"You gotta catch me fair and square, mommy!" she giggled. Ivy's dress was getting snagged on branches and it had been torn in multiple places, but it made it easier to run after Rosie. This was odd, she thought, because Roselyn had always listened to her but apparently she decided to disobey her. She noticed Rosie's dress was getting severely ripped and tattered whenever she caught glimpses of her.
When Ivy lost sight of her, she stopped in the dark forest. It was too silent for her liking. No matter how hard she tried to communicate with the plants, she couldn't and this annoyed her because she was truly worried about Rosie. Which way had she gone? "Roselyn, where are you?" she panicked.
"Right here!" a slightly older version of her appeared from behind a tree down the left path.
"Rosie, come on, we have to get back." She wasn't sure where she wanted to go back to, but the bright field of poppies was better than this forest which was too dark for her liking.
"We can't go back," Rosie walked towards her and took her hands. "We can never go back because that's in the past. We can only go forward."
"But which way?" Ivy found herself asking.
"I chose the left one," Rosie pointed. The left path looked a lot more difficult. The bridge in the distance looked unstable. "But once I go that way, I can't come back here. If you choose the right one, I don't know if we'll end up in the same place." The right path looked a lot safer and less difficult.
"The right path looks like less of a challenge," Ivy said to her. "We should take the right path.
"But the left path looks fun," Rosie replied.
"I think we should take this path."
"Fine," Rosie grumbled. "But if things turn out wrong, then it's your fault." Rosie sprinted down the right path and Ivy noted she didn't have any shoes on and her feet were all dirty. When had that happened? Shaking her head, Ivy went down towards the right path herself. She didn't chase after Rosie this time as the forest narrowed to the point where she felt claustrophobic and Ivy had never been claustrophobic before. Well, except for when she had been experimented on in that lab where…things happened.
"Rosie! Roselyn!" Ivy shouted. The trees had become sparse and she was shocked when she found her shoes were now gone, too, and she stepped on something cold. She looked down and saw she was on a cement floor. Confused, she looked behind her, but she no longer saw the forest. Instead, she saw a large wall so she really couldn't go back.
The new place she was in had an ominous glow. There was also insane shrieking and laughter and moaning; Ivy knew she was in an asylum. However, this asylum was apparently more ominous than Arkham and this place creeped her out a little. Perhaps it was due to the outdated architecture and seemed like it was one of the ones where people had been tortured. Despite her hatred towards humanity, she shivered.
It was strange how there didn't seem to be anyone behind the old bars of the asylum as she traveled down the hallway. She didn't question it, but it kind of freaked her out when she looked towards a cell and there weren't any people making these noises.
"Ring a ring a roses, a pocket full of posies; ashes ashes, we all fall down!" Ivy heard down the long corridor. It sounded like Rosie so she decided to follow the voice.
"Ring a-round a rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down." That was definitely her voice and Ivy quickened her pace.
"Ring a-round a Rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down." She was getting closer now. The children's nursery rhyme continued to repeat as Ivy got closer and closer and the voice got louder and louder. "Hush, hush, hush, hush, we've all tumbled down," Rosie whispered and Ivy knew she was right around the corner. When she made the turn, she looked down in horror at what she found. Locked up in a cell was Roselyn and she was humming that nursery rhyme as she mutilated the corpse in front of her.
"Roselyn," Ivy found her voice. "What are you…"
"We went down the right path," Rosie stood up, her bloody hands wrapping around the iron bars.
"What?"
"I wanted to be just like you, mommy," the fourteen year old gave her a demented smile. "Don't worry, I took care of daddy for you," she pointed at the mutilated corpse of Jason Woodrue. In any other place, Ivy would have been relieved that he was dead. In this circumstance knowing that Rosie had ended a life made her sick to her stomach.
"You're better than this," Ivy said to her. "Why would you brutally kill someone like this?" Vines had exploded from his stomach, his eyes had been gouged out, and thorns had stabbed into him multiple times on his limbs. Ivy noted his death must have been slow and painful.
"We went down the right path. Just like you wanted. I understand you, mommy. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"Yes, but…" she trailed.
"But what? Mommy, if I went down the left path, we wouldn't be together." The bloody hand grasped Ivy's forearm tightly. "Daddy hurt us so it's okay."
"No…no this isn't okay, Roselyn," Ivy tore her arm away from her grasp and noticed the blood was fresh as it left a mess on her arm.
"Why not?" she frowned. "It's okay when you did it."
"That's different…this is…"
"This is what, mommy? Did I disappoint you? Don't worry. I'll make sure to help you with your cause more. I'll get rid of more meat sacks to make you happy."
"Rosie, I do not want you killing anymore people. That's a command."
"You're confusing me," Rosie grasped the iron bars and rattled them in frustration. Her head tilted far back and shrieked. "I went down the right path. What more do you want?"
"You should have went down the other path!" Ivy cried.
"But you told me the left path was wrong because it was harder."
"Sometimes it's okay to challenge yourself," Ivy said. "Go down the left path."
"Mommy, you're silly," Rosie threw her head back and laughed before making eye contact. "I already went down the right path. I can't go back. That was in the past. This is now and we're here. We're together. Besides, if I went down the left path, we wouldn't be together."
"No, no, I'll go down the left path with you, okay? It'll be a lot of work, but we can do it."
"I didn't get it when you told me the right path looked easier," Rosie shook her head. "It was a really really hard path, mommy, and I got hurt a lot. The left path looked a lot nicer and it didn't look like it would hurt me."
"Rosie, what are you talking about? The right path looked a lot easier than the left."
"To you it looked easier," Rosie said. "To me, it looked a lot harder."
"But you went down the right path with me even though it was harder for you?"
"Of course, mommy. Why wouldn't I? I just wanted to be with you," she wailed. "It was the only way we would be together because you didn't like the left path."
"I am so sorry," Ivy said. "I am so, so sorry for choosing the right path," Ivy teared up and ran her thumb over Rosie's knuckles.
"It's too late to be sorry, mommy, because you hurt me," the teen said. Her dress was torn even worse than before and it had blood stains all over it. The dress was more of a dark brown than yellow at this point. Suddenly, vines began to grow from Rosie's wrists and they began to creep up Ivy's arms and then spread out to the rest of her body. She couldn't speak because the vines began to squeeze her throat and the thorns on them were cutting deep into her skin. She tried to control the plant life, but she was unable to as she was slowly being crushed. "You hurt me, mommy," Rosie cried.
"Stop," Ivy tried to say.
"The first time I killed on the path, it was really hard. But after you do it for a while, it isn't hard anymore," Rosie's tears dried. "In fact, you start not to feel anything when a life is taken. Life begins not to matter anymore. Because it's all in the name of Mother Nature, right, mommy? It's what you wanted. But Mother Nature's time is over because she did her job. It's time for her daughter to take over and end Mother Nature's reign." Ivy could no longer breath and she couldn't fight back verbally or physically. She started to lose consciousness as she got closer and closer to death…
"Ring a-round the Rosie…we've all tumbled down!"
This was my attempt at a kind of horror scene. Hopefully it's okay! Please tell me what you thought since I never really wrote anything like this before :)
