Chapter 19: His Fault
Autumn's POV
The guards push me into the dark cell, and I fall on my knees as they lock the heavy door behind me.
I crawl up in a ball and stare at the empty floor. I can escape any time I want, but I don't wanna escape Arkham. I'm gonna stay here, maybe until the day I die...okay maybe I'm exaggerating a bit...just until I can fix Jason.
I turned myself in, and made my way up the insanity level just to be brought to Arkham. Why? Because I'm not leaving my brother...ever. No matter what, because he's my brother, and he's all I've got. I'll try to fix him. But if I can't at all...then I'll have to stay here until the day I die...but I know that my big brother's in there somewhere...he just needs to break out.
But until then, I'm staying here….and not moving my ass out of the asylum.
But being alone in this cell…it's driving me more insane. The cell is empty, with a small bed with a hard pillow and a small blanket. There's a tiny washroom, but that's it. There's nothing I can do to kill my boredom. I really hate being alone...I've come to begging someone out there just to make something interesting happen.
But nothing happens...I just sit here, staring at the wall. Thinking about life, trying to keep the bit of sanity I have left and not end up like that psychopath that's just down the long hallway full of freaks, to the left, locked up real tight.
He'll get out of here one day, and he'll kill everyone.
I still remember how weak I felt, when I looked at my dad's face when he died. How angry I was when I found out that Nico died because The Joker was playing with some guns with some other guy, who's still unknown to me, up till now.
The Joker ruined everything. If he didn't kill my dad, I would have never been alone. If he didn't kill my little brother, my mom wouldn't have committed suicide. If he didn't kill my big brother, Jason would never have to be here at all!
The people I hate the most...The Joker's easily number one...obviously.
Batman's next.
Ryan Cross is last. Even if he is dead. As time passed by, I've learned to hate my own dad. If he could have seen the future then why did he not warn me!? I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HATE RYAN! HE DIDN'T CARE! THAT'S WHY HE LET HIMSELF DIE! SO THAT HE COULD TORTURE ME AND LEAVE ME ALONE! TRAINING, AND THE WAR, WAS JUST A STUPID EXCUSE FOR HIM TO LEAVE ME ALONE!
I punch the ground with my hands over and over again.
But...why did he train me? If the war was just an excuse, why did he train me? If he didn't care, then why didn't he just let me join the war and let me die?
Maybe...he did care?
No, I don't think so. He was just using me because he knew that I was going to end the war...but that was all he needed me for. If he did care, then he would have stopped all this and fight the war with me. If he did care, then he wouldn't have left me all alone to train in the All Caste. If he did care…THEN HE WOULDN'T HAVE LEFT!
I HATE HIM! HE DIDN'T WANT ME? THEN I DON'T WANT HIM EITHER! IF HE HATED ME SO MUCH, THAT HE WANTED TO TORTURE ME LIKE THIS, THEN WHY DIDN'T HE JUST KILL ME AND END IT!
I think...I know why...because of the war, maybe. But I'm still angry at him.
I blind myself with thinking that he did love me because he saved me from The Joker, and sacrificed his life for mine...but my dad didn't love me. He only saved me because he knew that I was the only one who was going to end the war. He saw the future...that's why he trained me. He didn't care about me. He only used me so that we could win the war...but that wasn't it.
Dad, didn't care...he didn't want me at all, but he needed me to win the stupid war! That's why he kept me and trained me all my life! He left because he didn't want to be there to help me face The Unknown...because he didn't wanna help me! Because he hated me!
He always told me to be perfect, with my studies and my training. Hell, he taught me how to speak when I was two! I learned the basics when I was only beginning to walk!
When he told me that he needed me to be strong...when he said that he also didn't like that one rule of attaching myself to nobody and to nothing...HE WAS LYING! Just to make me agree with him and let him take me all around the world!
IT'S HIS FAULT! ALL FROM THE BEGINNING! HE PLANNED IT ALL! HE PLANNED MY LIFE! HE KNEW WHAT I WAS GOING TO GO THROUGH BUT HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! I HATE HIM SO MUCH!
I let the tiny tears fall as I sob softly and punch the ground.
"I HATE YOU DAD." He hated me, so I hate him.
I continue to sob like that for some time until I get tired and crawl back into a ball and start to hiccup.
I calm down and lay on the ground, even if the bed is only a foot away. I stare at the dark ceiling.
"I...I hate you...all of you…"
I roll, not caring how dirty I am, just by lying on the floor. "Why can't I just die!?" People think that they are living the hard life, but they've got it wrong. When they say that, they don't know how the real world really is. They haven't really opened their eyes to the horror of life. They haven't lived through poverty...they didn't fight in a war, or go through hell and back... they weren't marked as insane…
Other kids my age out there...they have families, friends, a school, great food, a warm home...
While other kids have no home, no food, no parents, nothing...they're forced to walk alone as the rain pours. But none of them have gone through what I have. Most of them just die out of hunger, or maybe they got lucky and got shot by a druggie...they're not forced to fight in a war. They're not insane. They don't stay in an asylum like this one.
Carter, she's lucky...she has all she needs, and all that she wants...she has everything. Okay, maybe she doesn't have everything...that she lives like some kind of princess in some magical castle far far away from here. I mean that...compared to me...she has it all.
I wanna see how it's like to live her life...how great her life is compared to mine. That means switching lives...I don't wanna switch lives with her...no. Sure, we'll exchange lives, and I'll get what she has...but that would mean she'll get what I have: nothing. I don't want anyone, not even her, to feel the pain I felt, the pain I'm feeling. It's wrong.
But sometimes...when I think of other people...the scumbags...I feel like I wanna drag them all down with me and just crush them all under my boot, just so all the innocent can run free. Just so no one else can feel the pain I felt, the coldness of being alone.
I stare at the ceiling, as my own harsh voice whispers in my ear.
KILL THEM…KILL THEM ALL. MAKE THEM FEEL THE PAIN YOU FELT! TAKE THEM ALL DOWN WITH ME!
But my soft, younger voice whispers back. "No, it's wrong." The younger voice says simply.
Then more whispers add to the two voices. The whispers seem to scream in my ears. They're all over my head, scattered around the place...turning my mind into some kind of maze or pool for thoughts.
The whispers become louder and louder, millions of voices in my ears...as if ghosts are standing right beside me, yelling at me. I can't even understand the thoughts anymore. The thoughts are just a bunch of messed up words.
My eyes become wider as the ceiling gets higher and farther, and the world starts to spin.
I lift my hand, trying to touch the swirly thing in the ceiling. It looks so real...I can feel the world around me spin.
Is this a dream? Or is this for real? It's hard to tell, ever since I was locked up here. I can no longer tell the difference between reality and a nightmare. The boundaries between the two disappeared. So, the events that happen in this place are sometimes real to me, and sometimes a nightmare.
That talk with Carter earlier, I thought it was real, but that little kiss I put on Damian's cheek and the conversation that we shared felt like a nightmare. Or was it real?
I can no longer tell the difference between a nightmare and reality...I don't think it matters anymore...they're both the same to me anyways. There's no need to find out the difference between the two.
****Break****
Bruce's POV
It's only been two days since the visit. The way Jason looked at me with wide eyes, the way he screamed in my face telling me that he hated me, the way my own son looked at me with eyes full of hatred.
I miss the old Jason. The fifteen year old kid that liked to disobey every order I gave him, the reckless and arrogant kid, the teen that tried so hard to live up to the mantle and tried so hard in his studies just to make me proud.
He was arrogant, brash, fearless, but he was my son…and he was alive. Now he's...dead. That Jason, under the hood, the Jason that was screaming at me in the asylum…that's not him.
But he's there. My son's there somewhere...I just need to bring him out and take him home and fix him. I won't give up.
I'll bring him home…
But now there's this. Whatever has happened to him, to his mind...I need to fix him, he's even more broken…
When I visited him in Arkham...he just kept yelling at me, I tried to get him to talk to me, but he didn't listen. He just kept telling me that he hated me. What set him off? Why did he suddenly, fall apart?
What happened to him? Was it because of reliving his past experience of dying and coming back? That traumatizing moment of his? Is that his greatest fear?
I get off my bed and walk to my desk, where an old letter in an envelope lays. I only stare at the letter.
****Break****
Jason's POV
I'm still stuck in this damn cell.
With that memory replaying over and over again in my head.
The crowbar, the blood, the explosion, the laughs, everything! I remember it all! I remember dying and waking up in a coffin six feet underground and digging myself out. I remember being thrown in a pit of green, then finally opening my eyes to the truth.
BATMAN DIDN'T AVENGE ME! HE DIDN'T CARE! HE DIDN'T CARE AT ALL!
"BATMAN!" I yell.
Bruce was my dad, he cared about me, and took me in. I did anything I could just to make him proud!
I thought that before I died...at first, I was really hoping that he would come and bring me back home and everything would go back to normal...then I started to wonder if he really was coming...until I knew he wasn't coming and I was going to die with that bomb with my own birth mother sitting by the door with every inch of my body broken...but I thought…I thought that he would've avenged me.
That I would have been a good enough son to actually be avenged. But I wasn't! I was just a damn failure! A stupid mistake! I was just Bruce's greatest failure, and that's all I ever will be to him...a failure!
You know I thought...I thought...I'd be the last one you'd ever let him hurt…
I still remember saying that...how he just stood there staring at me, and did nothing!
Just like when I died! He didn't save me, he didn't avenge me! HE DID NOTHING!
But...he tried to save me...heart and soul.
I know I failed you Jason, but I tried to save you...I...I'm trying to save you now…
I know he's trying to help me...BUT I DON'T NEED HIS DAMN HELP! NOT ANYMORE!
I don't want his help! I don't need it!
HE DOESN'T CARE! HE DIDN'T CARE! HE'S ONLY PRETENDING TO CARE BECAUSE OF ALL THE THINGS I'VE DONE! ALL THE DEATHS I'VE CAUSED!
He never cared! I'm not his son! He made that decision when he didn't kill that mad man! When he threw me here in Arkham! When he let me die in the first place!
IT'S ALL HIS FAULT! I HATE HIM! I'M NEVER GOING HOME! NO MATTER WHAT HE SAYS!
I punch the wall as I scream.
I'm not talking about killing Penguin, or Scarecrow, or Dent! I'm talking about him! Just him! And doing it because...because he took me away from you…
When I said that, I remember just wanting for him to pull the damn trigger and take me back home…
I can't, I'm sorry, I just can't.
When he told me that...my world just broke apart. He'd just chose his code, over his son.
I remember...one night while patrolling on the East Side, I saw Batman...someone was standing beside him, a figure...I took a closer look and found out that it was Robin...a new kid. A replacement.
I remember, wanting to go home.
But now...I don't care anymore.
I should just move on with life. Bruce didn't kill Joker. I'm angry, hurt, betrayed, but I need to move on and forget about it, and stop caring about it. But...for some reason, I can't get over the thought that I'm forgetting something…
Something's missing…
Something's lost…