AN: Trypanophobia-the fear of needles-is very common. Some of you may even have it…how unfortunate. For you.

SwordStitcher-I explained that she'd had a rather violent psychotic episode-carefully blaming the night nurse for not minding her better, of course-and that was the end of the matter. She never did get over her delusions...I treated her myself for another month before she died of a heart attack. Tsk, tsk.

APieceOfThePuzzle-Oh, she's dead now. A real tragedy, it was...but no matter. Nobody really wants to clean up the tongue-they slip and slide and there's something about another person's saliva that's just so...makes your skin crawl, is what it does. And it really is for the best that you don't suffer from trypanophobia...

There was a reason he'd gone to the effort to make that glove. First of all it was a great deterrent to physical attackers-what if they ran into it by mistake? Even the Batman was a little more cautious. Not that it mattered, the big lummox.

The other reason was that trypanophobes were everywhere. He didn't know why-it was just a little prick. If it was done well, they wouldn't even feel it.

He didn't really care if they felt it or not. For most people, the sight of thing was enough to cause an accelerated pulse. Besides, they were all going to die or go insane anyway. A little poke was the least of their worries.

Like this one. He'd taken one look at his masterpiece, clamped his eyes shut, and started muttering, "This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening…"

"Oh, but it is." He tapped the man's nose and relished at the hissing of his breath through his teeth. "It really is. Now, there's no reason to be frightened of needles."

"This isn't real…"

"It's just a little prick." He moved the needle downwards, towards the jugular. "Nothing to worry about."

All right, maybe he could have been a little gentler, but what was the fun in that?

At the jab, his little lab rat gasped and jerked away-snapping off the tip. Fantastic. Just fantastic. All the work he'd put into this…although he did have three other fingers.

Hm.

He moved to the man's other side and slid another needle in. Sure enough, there was a panicked wail and he jerked again.

Snap!

Maybe this was why people bought those silly voodoo dolls…

"See? Nothing to be afraid of."

The man began to scream in earnest, rough, strangled shrieks that sounded like they hurt to produce.

Where to put the next one? Oh, how about…how about the left arm? Then he could put the last one in the right arm and everything would be nice and symmetrical.

Snap!

Snap!

There. Wasn't that just as pretty as a picture? And those screams! He hadn't had someone with that kind of volume in far too long.

Now, did he have any spare needles in his case…?

THE END