Jerome traces the lines with gentle fingers. Lines cover the crumbled paper in his hands. They are ever so slightly crooked and wobbly, though not a result of carelessness and lack of precision. The lines hold purpose. Every slight curve is merely the fault of the lack of a ruler and a proper pencil. Every one of the lines meet another at some point, creating an almost perfect ninety degree angle. A corner. Some lines share direction, though not path, and create hallways. The hallways of a big, elaborate maze. Every line is a part of this puzzle, though only some lead the way to the middle.
What is in the middle, Jerome doesn't know.
Jerome has memorised it all. Every corner. Every line. Every path. It's all in his mind. If he closes his eyes the lines will spread out before him, line after line, like the roads of a city. He can see it all, down to the faint mistakes of lines behind them, not properly erased before remade. He can see every slight curve of them, where they start trailing off their path and where they desperately attempt to get back on it. He can envision every hallway. Grey, brightly lit and plain. Like the hallways of Arkham. Until they reach the middle. He can practically see himself walk down them, hear his shoes hit the floor and the whistling leave his lips. Closer and closer he gets, until he reaches the middle.
Jerome is always left wondering what's in there. What does it look like? Is there art on the walls, drawings or nothing at all? What fills the room, or perhaps rooms? Is Jeremiah in there? All he can do is imagine. Imagine his brother, what he must look like now, what he wears, what he smells like, if he looks anything like himself anymore. Imagine drawing upon drawing, made with proper tools on proper paper, lines perfectly straight. Imagine the smell of coffee, his brother's expensive cologne and papers. He can't imagine Jeremiah ever stopping drawing. He'd been obsessed as a child, clinging onto a drawing every waking hour, always looking out for clean pieces of paper in newspapers and magazines and pencils on the ground. The drawings were more than just a hobby.
Jerome had sometimes found himself looking out for drawing supplies as well. One pen taken from one of the booths, a pencil pulled right out of their unsuspecting mother's hand, a small notebook slipped into his pocket by the checkout at the grocery store. Jeremiah had accepted them with hesitant hands and an unsure look on his face, knowing full well where he'd gotten it all from, or rather stolen it from. Jeremiah still accepted it all. Watching him using it the next day, sitting outside by himself, Jerome felt oddly warm inside, like a fever, but just in his chest.
"Draw me something," he'd say. "As payment." And Jeremiah did. Jeremiah never drew anything but mazes, but he'd make exceptions. Jerome can still remember the little animals he drew. Cats, elephants, snakes. The circus tents with clowns and trapeze artists. The crowds. Booths with popcorn and stuffed toys. Jerome. Though there had been something - someone - missing. Perhaps it'd been a sign, or in the words of Jeremiah - what he assumes he'd said like the scholar he is - foreshadowing.
The drawing in his hands is special. It's finished. Unlike the other ones, the ones that didn't get discarded and thrown away, it's untouched. Jeremiah had finished, spending several days, perhaps weeks, on it, and hidden it. Normally he put them under his bed, having no other place to put them in in their small closet of a bedroom, though not before doing some finishing touches, changing some lines, adding and erasing some lines. By the time Jeremiah left - or should he say ran away - a big stack of paper almost too tall to fit under the bed stood there. He'd brought it all with him when he ran away like the coward he was. This one he stored somewhere else. It'd been tricky to find, but right under Jerome's own springy mattress it had been.
There was something special about this one. So Jerome kept it.
Jerome keeps it under the mattress in his cell in Arkham when he doesn't lie here on his bed like this and look at it. It's all he has of Jeremiah. It's all he has to find him with, for now at least. It's almost like a treasure map, only there is no chest of gold buried anywhere - that would be his brother's bank account presumably. The treasure in the end is much greater than gold.
The satisfaction of setting his brother free. He'll show him just who he is. He'll show him the world from an entirely different perspective. He'll show him his world, Jerome's world. Then, he'll take it all away.
Footsteps much like the ones he imagines in his own head approach his cell. They're faint, but he hears them, knows exactly who it is. Folding the paper and tucking it away, he stands. Strolling over to the door, a smile spreads across his face like the lines of Jeremiah's drawing. It's only a matter of time before he stands in those very halls of Jeremiah's maze. It's been almost fifteen years. It's about time Jeremiah got to show his true colours.