THE DARK ARC (HIS WORLD ARC)
Part 11: Laughter
Well, hello there, lovely readers! Welcome to THE DARK ARC! It's not as terrible (or literal) as it sounds. Let me know if you like what I did with this chapter-I've got a few more planned that are written in this same style!
To those who reviewed the last chapter ...
Squeegee: Ahh, thank you! When I saw this first review, it was love at first sight. It's so nice to read your reviews again!
SarahFelix: Here it is, madam! I hope you enjoy and thank you for commenting! I'm sorry it's been such a long wait but I appreciate you coming back to read!
Harley: Hi! It was great reading your reviews for both parts! You're so kind! T_T There's going to be a lot more of our favorite Quinzel in this arc. She's a great character to write for!
Guest: Ta-daaaa! :D I love you for saying you love this story! It's one of the only fanfics I've ever taken this far online so I'm putting my heart into it :)
Anna10473: ^*^*Thank you!*^*^! :D
You guys ... Your comments mean so much to me! My favorite thing about writing (besides, um ... writing) is sharing it with other fans and seeing the response. SO! Thank you all for providing me with feedback :) You're all appreciated and I hope you're leading great lives!
*climbs down from fanfic pedestal*
Ahem! Now, on to the story!
There is laughter. It's something that he hasn't heard much of in his sad and angry life, but it's something he always wants to hear more of. However, this laughter is wild, deranged, out of place, like nails to chalkboard. He hates the sound of it. But it's the only sound he can hear.
Blake opens his eyes to find the world flipped upside down. There's a bed on the ceiling. The sheets are missing and there's a flattened, dirty mattress clinging to a metal frame. A woman sits on the bloodstained ceiling, legs folded beneath her like a child might sit. She's laughing, laughing at Blake. Blood drips down her cheeks, like teardrops.
She lets out a breathy gasp and slides her eyes over to him.
"Finally awake, are we, Detective Blake?"
Blake becomes aware of the fact that he can barely focus on one thing. Blood is rushing to his head and has been for quite some time. He can't move his legs; there's something binding them. What in the world happened to him?
He mumbles out a curse word.
The woman claps her hands with glee and begins crawling along the ceiling towards him. He squints his eyes to try and see the woman better, but can only make out fuzzy blocks and shapes. The back of his head is throbbing.
"I've been waiting for this day, Detective. You were supposed to have resigned from the GCPD, weren't you?" the woman asks. Her clipped, cheery accent is familiar.
Blake slowly blinks at her. "I couldn't," he responds in a sluggish voice. "Not when I heard about what they were going to do with Bane."
"The 'rehabilitation program'?" The woman scoffs at the name. "Even you thought it was going to flop?"
He doesn't want to talk to this lady, but finds his mouth moving anyway. "Everyone did. But the higher-ups thought executing someone like Bane would be a loss. They wanted him to be on our side. We were going to use his mercenary skills in the military. Those idiots weren't thinking about the threat he posed to everyone around him."
"And they let someone as dangerous and volatile as him go in that little girl's home," the woman coos. "It's a wonder he didn't kill the poor thing!"
Blake feels himself growing angry at the thought. "They were going to send him in there without any kind of surveillance or anything," he whispers. "They weren't even going to give her a way to defend herself against him. I was the one who thought to put in the cameras and gave her a shock inducer. And I told Bane if he did hurt her, he was going under the prison. He's already hurt enough people in this city."
"That he has," the woman says, while fanning herself and giggling. Blake recoils at her adulation, but she inches closer, close enough so that he can tell she has bundles of blonde hair and blue eyes. "Wanna know a little secret, Detective?"
She leans closer and whispers in his ear, "None of you ever had any of the prisoners here under your control. You've been under theirs. Don't you see? Gotham belongs to them. They've earned it. They've taken enough crap from this city and now they're gonna do with it as they please. You're just one little orphan with a badge and a gun and no balls. You can't take it back from them."
The woman starts laughing again as Blake struggles to reach out and grab her. She stands up and starts walking backwards to the door that's on the ceiling.
"I gotta hand it to you-you really slowed down our plans for a while there! Luckily, we got it all worked out in the end." She twiddles her fingers at him. "Nice 'hanging' out with you, Detective-sweetie! Enjoy your stay in Arkham!"
She exits the room and slams the door behind her, still laughing.
Blake listens to the echoing silence for a while and then begins struggling against whatever is binding his feet together. He tilts his chin towards his chest and looks down. His ankles are bound tightly together by a torn piece of sheet. He's dangling from what looks to be a metal shower rod.
Without thinking, he begins trying to sway his body back and forth. His head immediately crashes back against something solid and extremely hard. His already throbbing skull explodes with pain.
He hisses against the agony and stops swaying his body. He looks around the room for other options. He has to get his hands on something that can cut him down from here.
Unfortunately, he sees nothing. He curses again.
It's then that Blake remembers Rose and Bane. Were they safe? He struggles to remember what occurred to put him in his current position. He was standing outside of Bane's room, waiting for Rose to finish talking to him. Then, there had been a scream. It came from the room that guide went into. He remembered peeking inside the small, eye-level window that allowed him to view inside of the room. The patient in there was stuffing the woman's face in his toilet. He was holding her head inside the bowl, drowning her. Blake tried so hard to open the door but it must have automatically locked behind her. He turned away and pulled a red switch on the wall. It read "emergency". He doesn't remember if a siren started blaring or not. He just felt a pain in the back of his head. Everything went black after that.
Then, "someone" dragged him in here and tied him up. Now, patients were running wild and an orderly might be dead. Something had surely gone awry. This trip to Arkham was a mistake. For Rose, it might have been a fatal one.
Blake curses himself and his failure to protect yet another Gotham citizen. He allowed this to happen, damn it! She wanted to come here, but he could have told her "no". He could have went himself and let her stay safe in her apartment. If she's hurt, it's on him.
Unable to keep thinking about Rose being hurt and it being his fault, Blake starts to find other means of escaping. "Hey!" he shouts towards the door. "Anyone out there! Someone, I need a hand!"
When no one passes by the little window on his door, he tries again.
"Hey! Please, I need some help!"
A hand slams against the small window. The hand is covered in blood. Next to it, a blood-drenched face peers through the window. The owner of the face, a small man in stark white patient's clothing, grins happily at the detective.
"Never mind!" Blake calls out to the man. "I think I'm good after all!"
The bloody man mouths something that Blake can't hear. A second later, Blake sees the door knob twist.
Blake thanks all that is good when the door doesn't open. It's locked. The man makes an enraged face and starts throwing himself against the door. With every shove, the door bounces inwards. For a miniature guy, he packs a lot of energy.
Blake sucks in a deep breath and recalls the exercise routines he's had to master since joining the GCPD. He rolls his shoulders, straightens his spine, and reaches as far above his head as he can. Then, he curls inwards. His fingers are just able to graze against the linen binding his ankles together. He starts loosening it up as much as he can before his back starts to hurt and he's forced to flop backwards. His eyes train on the door. The man is becoming more desperate. He's using more force against the door now.
What a pain.
Blake curls his upper body inwards again and finishes untying himself. The binding finally slips away and he crashes to the floor in a cluttered heap. Finally, the world is righted and what was the ceiling becomes the floor. All the blood that filled his head starts to disperse back into the rest of his body as he sits up. A dizzy spell settles over him then, and his vision grows dark, scattered, hazy.
He hears the door finally burst open. The man makes an excited squealing noise. Heavy, wet, and plodding footsteps start drawing nearer to where Blake still sits on the floor.
He hurriedly checks his police duty belt for his guns, but he's been stripped of his weapons and even his radio. Suddenly, the man is right beside him. Blake makes a hasty decision and decides to tackle the man's legs out from beneath him. The patient and Blake go crashing to the floor together. Blake quickly positions himself on top of the man and tries to wrestle his arms together so he can bind his wrists. The blood-drenched patient laughs and continues trying to scratch at Blake's face. He finally succeeds in clawing Blake's left cheek.
"Ah, hell," Blake snaps as he sees his blood mingling with whoever else's blood was already on the man's hand. He draws his fist back and punches the raving man in the face. One hit and he's out cold.
Breathing sporadically, Blake rolls away from the unconscious man and heaves at the ceiling. Finally, his vision is beginning to clear up and he no longer feels dizzy.
He should find Rose and Bane. He can focus on the concussion he might have and his bleeding (maybe infected) face later. The detective climbs to his feet and rushes over to the opened door. From here, he can hear the chaos that's taken over the asylum. He sees patients fighting against poorly-equipped orderlies and slaughtering them, one by one. All the cell doors have been opened and patients are spilling into the hallways like a bloody tidal wave.
Blake leans against the doorway and presses his hand against his throbbing forehead. He feels like he's on the verge of passing out, but he won't. He can't. Not until he's helped these people.
He can't believe that he brought Rose to this place, to the heart of where everything that's evil about Gotham lurked. It's becoming clearer and clearer to him that all of this was a plan and he led Rose right into it.
But … whose plan was it?
Whose indeed...?
More of the Arkham visit aftermath will be revealed in the next chapter!