On one hand I was slightly angry at the fact that Joker had broken into my apartment, but then on the other hand I was thankful to be wearing my own clean, comfortable clothes. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy, possibly just misunderstood and judged by the scars on his cheeks and the clothes that he wears. But now wasn't the time to be conducting a psychiatric report, apparently I was needed for a part of the clown's plan and it had something to do with Jonathan Crane.
I knew he was conducting research almost all the time down in that basement, but I didn't know what it was that he was trying to create. The most I knew was that it was based on the psychology of fear, a topic that Crane had tried to include in almost every one of his lessons back at university whether it was a small fact or a huge speech on how humans react to spiders and insects, nevertheless I had always thought it to be a strange subject to become obsessed with.
That was when I mentally started facepalming over and over again. I was meant to be having dinner with Jonathan on Friday and here I was, the Joker's little prisoner. Surely, people had noticed that I was missing by now? Although with all the chaos at the Asylum I was beginning to doubt that they had even suspected that I was missing. Then again, I've only been gone for about a day and half. But the longer I was here, at least someone would suspect that something isn't right, right?
I was brought back into the harsh world of reality by the sound of someone calling my name from the other side of the door. Whilst floating around amongst my dizzy thoughts, I had totally forgotten that this place was actually real and that I was in fact lying down on Joker's fucking bed. It always felt like a dream, and that when I woke up, I'd be back in my own bed. However this was in fact real, and the knocking on the door was beginning to give me a headache.
"What!" I called out, the knocking finally stopped.
"Joker wants to see you!" My legs swung off the side of the bed, and I hopped off quickly. The longer I was in this room, the more tempting jumping out of the window on the other side of the room began to feel. Yet, I think Joker would be extremely pissed if I wasn't dead other by his hand. My legs reluctantly led me to the door, and out into the corridor. I could hear voices down the very end of the hallway and so guessed that was where I needed to go.
Peeking my head around the doorframe, I could see a bunch of Joker's henchmen gathered around on the dirty cream carpet, only a few actually sat on chairs and of course Joker himself had the entire couch to himself. He could clearly see me, and called me over.
"April, sit!" He gestured towards the sofa that he was sat on, and I silently grimaced at the fact that I had to be close to him once again. I sat myself on the end, furthest away from the clown. He just sat there and smiled, god he was always fucking smiling. It began to annoy me slightly.
"Well dollface, it's time for your big break." He said it loud and clear, yet I was still confused. I had to do something already? This man sure didn't waste any time.
"What do you mean?"
"It's time for you to execute your little part of my plan." All I could do was roll my eyes.
"What do I have to do?" There was no point trying to back out or run away, Joker would just kill me in an instant, and as tempting as death increasingly sounded, I still wanted to remain alive at this moment. Anyway what's the worst I'll have to do.
"You're going back to work." Joker giggled quietly to himself.
"That's it?" Seemed simple enough.
"Yep, oh but there is one little thing you're gonna do for me."
"Which is?"
"I need you to steal Crane's research."
"How the fuck am I going to do that without being spotted? He spends almost all of his time working on it?!" Of course Joker was going to make it complicated.
"That's up to you to figure out, doll." I crossed my arms, and slouched back into the couch like a stubborn child. "Now, my guys are gonna take you there and then, they're gonna wait out the back until you come back with Craney's work." It felt like an ultimate act of betrayal to do this to Jonathan. He was a good friend, and I was fully aware of his strong feelings towards me, and I honestly thought there could be something between us but this would surely destroy everything. But at the same time, I wanted to stay on the relatively good side of Joker.
"Fine, I'll do it." Joker immediately stood up and so did his henchmen, clearly they were more informed about the plan than I was.
"Great! Now go get in the van, Jones." Joker's cackles echoed throughout the corridor as I followed his henchmen towards the black van that was parked outside. My mother had always told me to avoid strangers in vans, if only she could see me now, she would utterly kill me.
We pulled up outside the Asylum and my stomach began to perform somersaults, I felt like I was about to throw up. Being sat in the back of the van with a bunch of other guys and no seatbelts didn't help the sickness either. The doors opened, and I was greeted by a flash of blinding light, it felt good to be outside again. If I had been in that room any longer I felt I would've gone crazy. One of the goons pushed me out, and I stumbled slightly whilst trying to keep my composure calm.
I walked at a slow pace toward the large metal doors that granted me access the to Asylum; my workplace. There seemed to be a lot less security at the doors than usual, just one guy just stood there, he seemed pretty beat up. He saw me and gave a huge smile.
"Doctor Jones! Thank God you're here. Where have you been?" I wasn't mentally prepared for questions, just another thing I hadn't really thought about.
"Oh um, well after the incident yesterday, I decided to go home and rest."
"Did you walk? Only 'cause your cars still parked in the staff carpark." Fuck, I didn't know if I could do this. I bet I had that guilty look slapped all across my face.
"A-um, a friend picked me up." There, that would work...hopefully.
"Oh alright then. Have you seen the mess inside?" I shook my head. Surely the breakout hadn't cause that much trouble, from what I gathered only a few inmates escaped; and one of them was keeping me hostage."Well, you best go find Doctor Crane or something, he's been looking for you." I nodded again, not wanting to waste time talking, I had to get this thing over and done with.
Walking inside, an overwhelming shock washed over me, as I surveyed the destruction before me. The white tiles walls had been smashed and were covered in dirt and what seemed to be dried blood. There was rubble scattered across the floor, and all the glass windows had been smashed in. There were pools of blood where people had presumably been killed and there was a faint smell of fire smoke in the air. The place was an utter wreck.
Everything seemed so quiet, and there were little to no people around. I made my way to the offices, remembering how those inmates had chased me through the door and into my office where that bastard clown smashed my head and kidnapped me. Pushing the door open, glass cracked beneath my shoes as I looked around the room. It was even worse than the entrance corridor. Desk were smashed, paper littered almost the entire floor, computers were beaten and broken and chairs had been overturned. There was one doctor whose name I didn't know, sat at his desk rubbing his forehead and looking at the casefiles that were strewn across the floor. I made my way to my office which didn't look as bad as the others; the door was a little scratched but the glass wasn't damaged.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, I walked around my office, taking in the familiar smell and wishing that this was just a normal day. Some of the case files had been opened and I noticed a small dent in the middle of the desk, where Joker had smashed my head against. There was a small amount of blood surrounding the indented area. But I wasn't here to sit around my desk all day, although I wished I was.
Leaving the office, I made my way out of the door and into the corridor, headed towards the basement. I knew what I was looking for, it was the strange canister that had caused me to hallucinate the other week. Maybe, if I gave it to Joker he'd be able to figure out what it was, because Jonathan sure wouldn't tell me. I just had to make sure I didn't spray myself in the face with it again, I did not want to experience those nightmares ever again.
This time I remembered my way to the basement and found the door labelled 'Crane'. Gently pushing the door open, I scanned the room in case Jonathan was still there working on the research. As always the room was near pitch black darkness, how did he work in such light? Tiptoeing around the work tables, I saw a canister carefully placed in the same spot as where I had found it last time. I carefully picked it up and shook it, making sure that there was liquid inside of it. I put the canister inside my labcoat pocket and proceeded to walk back towards the door when something hit me in the face.
The blow knocked me to my feet and I felt disorientated. Another sharp pain knocked the breath out of me as something kicked me in the side causing me to fully lie down on the floor. What the fuck was doing this? But that was when I saw it.
It was a person, if it was a person, with a head wrapped in a stitched material and a widely sewn mouth that resembled one of those scarecrows you see in corn fields. I wanted to scream yet I could barely speak. The build of the body made the person seem familiar. Using my arms, I tried to pull my body away from the stranger, he took two steps towards me and wrapped his slender hands around my throat. Everything began to feel tight, and my legs began to thrash underneath the heavy body suffocating me. My own hands tried to pry away his, but the grip grew tighter, my head began to feel tighter and smaller and I knew that I was gonna die here unless I did something.
I kicked the guy between the legs and immediately he threw himself backwards and released his grip on my throat, I stood up, gasping for air and trying to regain myself. The masked guy seemed similar.
"Jonathan Crane?!" I croaked.
"There is no Crane...only Scarecrow!" The voice was eery and scratchy and the sound made me shiver all over. Patting my coat pocket, I felt the small canister safely in it's perch. I decided to run now whilst this guy still tried to recover from my fatal hit. Turning towards the door, I felt a sharp prick in my hip, my head quickly looked back and saw that this Scarecrow guy was injecting me with something. I pushed him back and ran towards the door, pushing it open, entering the corridor and leaned against the brick wall, trying to catch my breath. What the fuck was that? Was it Jonathan?
Before I could make sense of everything, the world before me grew darker. Fuck. It was happening again. I started to walk towards the emergency exit door at the end of the corridor but felt myself begin to struggle. Shapes and shadows began to dance across the walls, and the crawling bug sensation washed over my skin again. My body just wanted to fall down and give up, but I had to reach the exit. I was almost there. Images of Scarecrow flashed before me, causing my heart to race and for me to scream each time he appeared. The images were distorted and disturbing, and wanted to consume me. The door was within arms distance. The shadows tried to keep me away. It took all my strength to open the door. to which I flopped out onto the concrete ground where the van was waiting. That was it. The shapes and shadows became bigger, and the images of Scarecrow began to laugh. The darkness began to consume me once again.