Her laughter died a long time ago; she's alone with her own dread silence now.
Michelle still has no idea how long she's been down here. It's kind of driving her crazy, actually; she wants to ask the masked goons about it, but they always ignore her when she does. Assholes. She hasn't seen neither hide nor hair of the Joker either; he's probably busy, which is perfectly fine with Michelle. She's happy to have him forget about her; maybe she can just die of starvation instead of being gutted with a knife or something. She'd actually probably die of dehydration a lot faster, now that she thinks about it…no, she's got a bathroom sink to drink from, so it's starvation that's coming first…
She's calmed down again, at least. It took a little while, but she calmed down again. It always goes like that; she's sad, then terrified, then cries herself hoarse and falls asleep. Or, in whenever ago's case, laughs herself into muteness for a couple hours and then passes out from so much exhaustion.
"I'm so bored, I'm starting to narrate my life to myself." She finally states aloud, almost startled at the sound of a voice in the room dominated so very much by thick silence. She's definitely going mad from the silence. At least the power hasn't gone out again, because she probably couldn't handle that again.
And then, after hours and hours and hours of maddening silence and boredom, something happens again. Like a bolt from the blue, the door opens and someone actually walks in. It's a masked goon, their clown mask formed into a grotesquely overdone grin, and she stares blankly at the intruder into her boring little world.
"Hey, come on," The goon, a man by the sound of it, barks at her, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her. She's too stunned to fight back for a moment, and when she does try to pull out of his hold, he tightens his grip and drags her along. "Quit fightin' already; we got enough problems tryin' to set up in time." He sounded terribly hurried, nervous, and Michelle just stared at him for a moment.
"Set up? For what?" She's never been good with intelligent questions. And she can almost hear the goon roll his eyes at her, as his grip on her wrist tightens again and he continues to drag her down the alien hallways, a stark, concrete jungle now and then interrupted by a large red stain that makes her stomach sink.
"God, shut the hell up already," The man leading her snaps, and Michelle raises an eyebrow at him. Sure, she's not anything special at all, but there's still an ego in her, and for some ungodly reason, she thought that she'd be getting special treatment or something.
It sounds incredibly stupid when she actually thinks about it, but eh, what can she do?
It doesn't really matter where they're going, because soon after she asks and is rebuked, the goon shoves her into a room and pushes past her, slamming the flimsy wooden door behind them. There are other henchmen in this room, all wearing masks, all seeming to be preparing for something big. They all look up at her and then begin to ignore her, continuing their preparations. The area is a dim concrete room (like every other room in this building), with a large table in the center of the room. This table has many expensive looking guns on it, and is that a bazooka? Anyway, it doesn't matter what it is; there are weapons on the table, and there are people moving in and out of the room at a quick clip, moving the weapons out of the room towards somewhere else.
After five minutes of just plain staring at everything, no idea of what to do, Michelle is noticed by one of the thugs. He groans in frustration of her not doing anything, not moving like the well-oiled machine the group should've been, before tossing something at her. She fumbles it and then picks it up off the floor, taking a look at what he's thrown her.
"Slap that on and get your ass in gear. Joker's orders."
Michelle stares down at the ugly rubber clown mask and blinks, then begins to pale even further, standing in the corner of the concrete room and staring blankly at the ugly mask. When she speaks, her voice is extremely hoarse in terror.
"You're shitting me."
She looks up at them, almost hoping that they're joking and that she can go back to her room and rot there, alone, but they don't look up from her and continue their preparations. The door flies open suddenly and Michelle is standing right behind it as it does; the flimsy wooden door smashes into her left shoulder painfully, bouncing off of her and coming back towards the one who threw it. She whimpers in pain (it's not agony, just moderately painful, and by now she's realized that making a lot of noise usually pisses somebody off) and watches the Joker walk in without noting her being there, already looming over the shoulders of the henchman making their preparations. The men in the masks automatically became tenser; on-edge, and it doesn't help that mood when the Joker does little more than just stare at them and what they're doing, before heading back towards the door. He spots her, and she realizes that he's in a good mood today; his eyes glimmer in an odd sort of way, maybe with excitement, maybe with madness. It's hard to tell.
"Coming along for the ride? You'll have a blast," He says, making odd hand motions as he talks (he seems very excited, agitated almost), and she stares, deadpan.
"What?"
Michelle is, of course, as eloquent as ever. The Joker just seems to stare, as if she's stupid for not getting it and being as excited as he is, and he claps a gloved hand on her shoulder and drags her around to look at all the weapons on the table.
"Tonight, we're saying hello to our dear Harvey Dent on-route to county, and you're coming with us."
He reeks of gasoline and sweat, and the woman in his grip tries her damndest not to let her discomfort show. "No, no. I can't do this, Joker," She argues, before the grip on her shoulder increases so tightly that she grits her teeth in pain.
"Now you see, there's the thing. I don't care if you think you can do this or not," He still sounds slightly giddy, though there's a dangerous undertone to his voice, one that's quietly threatening I can always fix that, you know. All the goons are watching while trying not to be too obvious about it. "We can't always get what we want, Michelle. Don't be so selfish." He pops the last word, and it sounds more like selfish-ah. Oh, so now she's the selfish one? She's almost angry enough to snap at him, but thinks better of it. He shoves her a step forward to get her out of his way and heads out the open doorway, the henchman already following him out. One grabs the mask from Michelle's hands and slaps it onto her face.
"Just do what he says, alright? Less of a goddamn headache for us if you just roll with it and stop being such a bitch about it," He snaps, before walking out the door himself. Michelle rights the mask on her face, and tries to think of any other way to get out of this. She can run back to her room, but he'll find her there. She can try and run out of the building, find an escape, but there are probably men (armed men) at every escape route.
Or, she can…well, roll with it and survive a bit longer.
It's not an easy choice. But after a moment longer of waiting, thinking, hoping some Deus ex Machina is going to save her somehow, she slowly follows a straggler goon out towards wherever they're going. It's horrible agony to willingly go towards some fresh sort of hell, and she wants to stop so damn bad, but she forces herself to go on, the beat of survival the only thing keeping her going.
Live, live, live, it pulses. Survive, survive, survive.
By the time she walks out into the cool night air, Michelle is almost numb to everything happening around her. She's pretty much unidentifiable from the other masked thugs; her clothes were obviously meant for a man, and with her face obscured, there's no way to tell her gender unless one was to look close or if she were to talk. There are a couple trucks, and one happens to be covered in graffiti. It originally seems to have said 'Laughter', but an S is sprayed before it to make it 'Slaughter', and a large HA HA HA sprayed on it as well. She's not sure where she's supposed to go, really, but someone grabs her and shoves her towards the Slaughter truck. She climbs in the back, seeing if she can distance herself from what's happening ('YOU'RE AN ACCOMPLICE NOW, YOU'RE HELPING HIM' her mind screams at her from some small corner of herself, but she tries to ignore it), and gets ammunition for some gun shoved into her arms. She looks at who's giving her these, and it's the Joker, a couple henchmen helping him prepare his side of the truck.
"Hold those," He tells her, and she nods accordingly, leaning against the wall of the truck dully. It's about ten, fifteen minutes before the truck rumbles to life beneath her, everyone shouting to one another and preparing to leave. Someone grabs her by the sleeve of her jacket and drags her over to sit next to themselves, and it doesn't surprise her that it's the Joker.
"Don't look so depressed," He tells her, and she's suspicious of how he knows that she's frowning behind her mask. He then smiles at her, and the scars at the corners of his mouth add to the effect of making his smile seem inhumanely large in the dim light, and it terrifies her. "You should smile."
She stares for a moment, horrified, before he pulls up her mask to see if she's smiling or not. From the moment his fingers touch her rubber mask, she's pulling a horrendous grin, a very fake, very ugly smile. He pushes her mask back down again as they start moving forward, a gentle push that makes them sway slightly.
"You're learning, aren't you?" He sounds pleased with this, and she just nods her head tiredly.
"Yessir," She answers obediently, and a crackle of his laughter snaps through the back of the truck, as her head droops slightly. There's no doubt that she's going to burn for this one. The Joker's laughter quiets down, and he shoves her back a few feet, next to a pile of weaponry.
"When I tell you, toss me what I ask for. That's all you're doing. Don't mess it up." He doesn't trust her. It's a good idea not to. She nods her head, and falls into silence. There's a tension in the air, highly tangible, and it's powerful. Those in the truck are all fidgeting, somewhat, including Michelle. Everyone is nervous, with one glaring exception, that being the Joker himself, still in a rather good mood.
Michelle has no idea how long they drive, but eventually, they come to a stop. The Joker crouches, moving slowly towards the driver's window, holding a gloved hand out towards her, waiting for something. Since he hasn't specified anything in particular, she carefully lays a shotgun in his open palm. A moment later, he fires and blood mists the driver's left half, and Michelle turns as pale as a sheet. They start moving forward right as she crawls to the corner of the truck, heaving. The Joker grabs her by the ankle and pulls her back, before getting a hold on the back of her shirt and pulling her into a sitting position, as her back thumps against the truck's side.
"You're so delicate, you know that? It's not a good trait to have in this line of work, Missy."
And now she has a pet name. It's disgusting. Michelle's too busy dry heaving to argue with him (apparently, not being fed in a while was planned so that she didn't vomit in the truck with them). She pulls her head between her knees and hides it there, and hears him tsk next to her.
"You're going to miss all the fun if you hide your face. Besides, that cop was pretty lucky. At least he went out with a bang." There's nervous, forced laughter at the bad pun, and Michelle just quivers and remains in that position. And, out of completely nowhere, they slam into something and she goes flying like a ragdoll. He snatches her by the front of her shirt and shoves her next to the weapons, moving from a sitting position to a crouching position.
"Be useful, Missy," He chimes to her, as she grabs a gun and throws it to him while the cargo doors slide open. Instantly, machine gun fire rattles off deafeningly, and Michelle claps her hands over her ears. Damn it all, she wasn't meant for this sort of hell! She gets a hard shove on the shoulder, and he's pointing towards a gun lying beside her left thigh. She snatches it up and hands it to him, and as she does, begins to see something whizzing towards them. The second truck she saw earlier on is smashed into by the black vehicle of some sort (it's alien to Michelle) and disintegrates while the black vehicle zooms on ahead. She gapes at it, while another thug says something to the Joker. The truck bounces slightly and she nearly topples out of the open cargo door. The Joker saves her with a smash to the face with the RPG in his hands, and she goes rolling backwards with a hand to her face. Her mouth is agonizing; he's broken a tooth off at the gum line with that. Joker himself doesn't notice; he's aiming at the armored car they've been pounding on. When he fires it hits another car instead, and he turns towards the thugs (including herself) in the truck with him.
"Do me up," He orders, and she's not sure how to actually reload an RPG, so she just watches them reload it, before he turns back and aims the gun again. But when he fires, there's an explosion pretty close to them and the blast knocks Michelle back again against the wall, then down to the bottom of the truck. Her hair is plastered to her skin by sweat and she's panting like a dog; this truck is a living Hell, and she wants out. But the Joker, he's cackling like a madman as he gets knocked around the trailer as well. More than anything else in the entire truck, in the entire scenario, in the entire goddamn city of Gotham, she's afraid of the Joker. He's completely at home in this hell; he even enjoys it, it seems. He's a monster.
It's about then that she notices the truck's stopped. Maybe, she thinks, maybe it's all over. Maybe we can't go on anymore. Maybe we're just giving up. She'd like to think that. But after a moment, and some muffled noise from a voice that she can't quite discern at the moment (there's a deafening ringing in her ears from all the noise), the truck starts up again and starts on its hellish rampage again.
"Up and at 'em, Missy; the night's still young! Didn't I tell you that you'd have a blast?" She hears him cackle, and rolls onto her stomach. Her eyes close for a moment before she forces herself to her knees, her ugly clown mask on crooked now. Her ears are still ringing, and she wants to vomit, if not just to relieve the horrible nausea she's feeling from being tossed around so much. Not to mention that blood is still running down her chin from where Joker clocked her with the RPG to keep her from hurtling to her death, which, in all seriousness, would probably have been too easy a way out for her.
"Tee 'em up," She hears someone say, and the sound of chopper blades hums from somewhere outside the truck. Someone else is talking into the radio and after a minute of trying to steady her nerves, Michelle actually looks up outside the moving truck, placing both hands on the cargo door and leaning out into the whipping breeze, staring in awe. She also happens to look in time to see a chopper catch something invisible and go down in a fireball, which makes her almost lose her grip on the steel door with the terror of it. One of the thugs grabs her by her hair and jerks her back into the truck, screaming something at her about being a suicidal moron, as she simply closes her eyes and lies in the back of the truck, trying to block it all out.
She's not brave. She's not a strong woman, or an exceedingly clever woman, or very good with words. She's not a hero. She's just an average citizen caught up in something way beyond her capacity to handle, and it terrifies her.
She hears them talking about something else, and her curiosity happens to get the best of her. She crawls over to where the Joker stands, kneeling at his feet, and watches in awe of the little black motorcycle looking machine zooming towards them. It fires something at them, and it goes too low and misses them. She lets out a sigh of utmost relief at seeing it miss; for a second there, things looked like they were going to get bad or something. The little black vehicle zooms out of sight, and Michelle actually lets herself relax for a minute, a moment, god forbid even a second. It's all over. She's still alive.
And there's an odd metallic pinging sort of noise. Not too long after that, she's not sitting anymore, because they're not on four wheels anymore. She shrieks in terror as the truck flips, slamming her against the walls of the truck like a pinball. She smacks her head hard and blacks out for a moment, unable to do anything but lay there and try to regain her hearing, her sight, her anything; there's a sharp pain in her shoulder for some reason, a stabbing pain, and she's laying on whatever's causing the pain, making it worse. Someone kicks her out of their way- she's guessing that it's the Joker-and moves to her left, before she hears a faint buzzing noise. Slowly, her vision begins to return, fuzzy at first before it clears up and her hearing returns as well. She groans in pain, rolling onto her back and hissing at the pain from the action. She opens one eye and looks at the shoulder with the stabbing pain in it; there's a knife lodged deep in her shoulder. Probably one of the Joker's. She probably rolled onto it in the crash. After a minute longer, she moves to her knees slowly and crawls for the one visible way out, and once she reaches the concrete, figures out that there's glass there and that she's crawling right across it. The stabbing pains in her bare hands are ignored, as she moves forward a bit and then sits back against the wreckage, watching the scene playing out in front of her.
"Fuck you God," Michelle breathes blasphemy, her voice dry and cracking. Something hot and thick and sticky rolls down from her forehead and into her eye, and she clenches the eye shut as it does. With shaking, cut-up fingers, she brushes the blood away with the back of her hand, and opens her good eye just in time to see the Joker leaning over Batman, switchblade in hand. And somebody is there, pointing a gun at him. After a moment, he drops the knife and sits down, and people are already moving to arrest him. They then look at her, the clown mask hanging sideways off of her face, before she reaches up and rips it off, that is, a bloody mess against the Joker's truck. People are already walking towards her, guns drawn, ordering her to the concrete.
She had already been expecting that sort of reaction, really. And so she lays down as best she can, her hands behind her back, they're very rough with her as they handcuff her and force her to walk. Michelle is wheezing as they walk her towards the cop car, blood running down her chin and down her face, her shoulder soaked with blood (she ripped the knife out by accident when she was crawling out of the wrecked car), and she looks as miserable as she feels. A moment later, they roughly shove her into the back seat of a cop car, and she just sits there limply, her hands cuffed behind her back.
"Fancy seeing you here. Small world, ain't it?" She hears the Joker murmur next to her, and she glares at the seat ahead of her (the policeman that caught the Joker is driving, and she's staring at the back of his seat) as the squad car begins to move.
"Oh fuck you."